Harold Pinter
I’m watching Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, that he reads on film being too ill to travel to Sweden.
He’s painting a horrific picture of war.
He tells a story of a child of 4 years old asking “when do i get my arms back?”, having lost them along with his family to the Americans.
Some phrases stuck in my head:
“Low intensity offence” - slow invasion by political and social infiltatration.
“Full spectral dominance” - control of land, sea, air and space.
“If you’re not with us you’re against us” - surely that is a threat to the world, surely they are the terrorists?
Harold Pinter brought up many events I was not aware of, describing American activity in many countries including Indonesia, Nicuagua, Chile and Greece. All of which seem to follow similar patterns. Destroy the way of life and install democracy at all costs! Often resulting in loss of life and ability to function as a nation in the global community.
Harold asks a lot of questions, many that probably can not be answered even by the people that are responsible for the situations:
The US have military bases in 132 countries. How did they get there? Were they invited?
8000 nukes 2000 ready to go in 15 minutes. Who are they aimed at?
i’ll update with a link to the speech when it is published..
January 29th, 2007 at 2:48 am
You may care to read Pinter’s first full length play “The Birthday Party” and a later shorter play “Mountain Language”. Both deal with the nature of power and aggression, and dominance and subservience. Pinter has always been interested in naked aggression and why it occurs. He has become more openly politically active but has spoken his mind in his plays for 50 years. I directed The Birthday Party in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia in 1972 and have loved his work for 35 years or so.
Regards
Peter Rainey