[Cwgrad-announcements] FW: Writers for Truth

[cwgrad-announcements at lists.ucr.edu]

-----Original Message-----
From: Maurya Simon [mailto:maurya.simon at ucr.edu] 
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 12:35 PM
To: Amanda Labagnara
Cc: bhfairchil at aol.com; Naomi Falk :; pamalakarol at earthlink.net; Barbara
Goldberg
Subject: Fwd: Writers for Truth


Dear Amanda,

Please forward this article to everyone.  Thanks, Maurya


>Here's an article from the NY Times about Harold Pintar.  Writers for 
>truth!!
>
>December 8, 2005
>Playwright Takes a Prize and a Jab at U.S.
>By SARAH LYALL
>LONDON, Dec. 7 - The playwright Harold Pinter turned his Nobel Prize
>acceptance speech on Wednesday into a furious howl of outrage against 
>American foreign policy, saying that the United States had not only
lied 
>to justify waging war against Iraq but had also "supported and in many 
>cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship" in the last 50
years.
>
>"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, 
>vicious,
>remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," Mr. 
>Pinter said. "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite 
>clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force
for 
>universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of 
>hypnosis."
>
>Sitting in a wheelchair, his lap covered by a blanket, his voice hoarse
>but unwavering, Mr. Pinter, 75, delivered his speech via a video
recording 
>that was played on Wednesday at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.
Doctors 
>told him several years ago that he had cancer of the esophagus and 
>recently ordered him not to travel to Stockholm for the speech, his 
>publisher said.
>
>The playwright, known in recent years as much for his fiery
>anti-Americanism as for his spare prose style and haunting, elliptical 
>plays like "The Caretaker" and "The Homecoming," was awarded the $1.3 
>million Nobel literature prize in October. In its citation, the Swedish

>Academy made little mention of his political views, saying only that he
is 
>known as a "fighter for human rights" whose stands are often "seen as 
>controversial." It mostly focused on his work, saying that Mr. Pinter 
>"uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into 
>oppression's closed rooms."
>
>The literature prize has in recent years often gone to writers with
>left-wing ideologies. These include the European writers José Saramago
of 
>Portugal, Günter Grass of Germany and Dario Fo of Italy.
>
>When he won the award, Mr. Pinter said he did not know if the academy,
>whose deliberations and reasoning are kept secret, had taken his
politics 
>into account. He clearly welcomed the platform the award gave him to
bring 
>his views, long expressed in Britain, to a larger audience.
>
>Dressed in black, bristling with controlled fury, Mr. Pinter began by
>explaining the almost unconscious process he uses to write his plays.
They 
>start with an image, a word, a phrase, he said; the characters soon
become 
>"people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out
of 
>component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort."
>
>"So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction," he 
>continued,
>"a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under
you, 
>the author, at any time."
>
>But while drama represents "the search for truth," Mr. Pinter said,
>politics works against truth, surrounding citizens with "a vast
tapestry 
>of lies" spun by politicians eager to cling to power.
>
>Mr. Pinter attacked American foreign policy since World War II, saying
>that while the crimes of the Soviet Union had been well documented,
those 
>of the United States had not. "I put to you that the United States is 
>without doubt the greatest show on the road," he said. "Brutal, 
>indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very
clever. 
>As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is 
>self-love."
>
>He returned to the theme of language as an obscurer of reality, saying
>that American leaders use it to anesthetize the public. "It's a 
>scintillating stratagem," Mr. Pinter said. "Language is actually
employed 
>to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly

>voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie
back 
>on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and
your 
>critical faculties but it's very comfortable."
>
>Accusing the United States of torturing terrorist suspects in 
>Guantánamo
>Bay and Abu Ghraib, Mr. Pinter called the invasion of Iraq - for which
he 
>said Britain was also responsible - "a bandit act, an act of blatant
state 
>terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of 
>international law." He called for Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried

>before an international criminal court.
>
>Mr. Pinter said it was the duty of the writer to hold an image up to
>scrutiny, and the duty of citizens "to define the real truth of our
lives 
>and our societies."
>
>"If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we 
>have
>no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of
man," 
>he said.