１２月８日瑞典诺贝尔文学奖颁奖典礼上，因健康原因未能出席的本年度获奖者英国剧作家哈罗德·品特通过录影带做了获奖感言。
1、在戏剧中，真相永远是模糊的，你永远不能真正找到它。
１９５８年，我曾写道：
“在真实和不真实之间没有十分明确的界限，在真理和谬误之间也不存在这样的界限。一个事件不一定非得是正确的和谬误的，它可能两者兼而有之。我相信上述判断至今仍有意义，而且在艺术表现现实的时候仍然适用，因此作为一个作家我赞成以上观点。然而作为一个公民，我不能这样，我必须追问：‘什么是真理？什么是谬误？’”
在戏剧中，真相永远是模糊的，你永远不能真正找到它，可是寻找却生生不息，正是寻找引发了作家的所有努力。寻找是一个任务，你常常在黑暗中和真相偶遇、碰撞，或者仅仅是看到了和真相吻合的影像或形状，可惜的是你往往意识不到。但是彻底的真相是，你在戏剧艺术中永远找不到惟一的真相，而是多个真相。它们互相挑战、互相塑造、互相反映又互相忽略，互相吸引却又互相蒙蔽。有时候，你感觉霎那间握住了真相，但它随即从指尖溜走，消失无踪。
常有人问：“你的戏剧是怎么写出来的？”我说不出来，我也无法总结他们，我只能说：“这就是发生了的事，他们说了这些，他们做了这些。”
我的大部分戏剧从一句话、一个词或者一个影像开始，一个词后面紧跟着就是一个影像。现在我脑海里胡乱中冒出来两句台词，随后是影像，再接着是我。
《回乡》中的第一句台词是：“你把剪刀弄哪去了？”，《旧时代》的第一句是“黑”。第一句话明显是一个找剪刀的人对着被怀疑拿了剪刀的人说话，但我隐约知道被问的人根本不知道剪刀在哪，对质问他的人也不在乎。“黑”我用来描述某个人的头发，一个女人的头发，它回答了一个问题。在这两个例子中，我发现自己不得不去追寻在视觉上发生的事件，它从阴影移到光亮的过程中，慢慢消失了。
我常常在一出戏的开头把主人公称为Ａ、Ｂ或Ｃ。
“黑”。一扇大窗，夜晚的天空。一个男人Ａ（后来他的名字是迪利），一个女人Ｂ（凯特），坐着喝酒。“胖还是瘦？”男人问道。他们在说什么？随后我看到了，在窗户旁边站着另外一个女人Ｃ（安娜），通过另外的灯光效果，我看到她背对着他们，她头发是黑的。
这是一个奇怪的时刻，角色们在创作角色的那一刻才存在于世上，随后就是间歇性的、模糊的、幻觉的过程，有时候甚至是无法阻止的崩溃。作者的地位是奇异的。某种意义上来说他不受角色们的欢迎。戏剧角色拒绝作者，和他们一起相处不易，定义他们又不可能，当然你也不能命令他们。某种程度上说，你和他们玩着一个永无休止的游戏，猫和老鼠捉迷藏。可是最后作者发现手头有了有血有肉的、拥有意志和个人情感的人，组成他们的各部分不可改变、不可控制，也不可分裂。
因此语言在艺术中总是处于一种极度模糊的交换过程中，是流沙般的、跳跃的，或貌似冰封却随时可化开的湖水，作者任何时候都有可能猛然从中找到出路。
可是我要说的是，寻求真相是永远不能停止的，它不能被推延，我们必须面对它，就在那儿，就在现场。
然而，政治戏剧则展现的是完全不同的一套问题，它必须避免说教，力求客观。剧中角色一定要有自己的性格，作者不能按照自己的品味或者立场去控制角色，要给他们充分的自由。以我的作品为例说明我的创作风格。《尘归尘》这个剧的故事似乎发生在水底下，一名即将溺水的女子，她的手仍然挣扎在波涛之中，时而隐没不可见。她向他人求救，却看不见任何人，只看见影子和反射的影像在飘移。这是一个即将溺亡女性的故事，她的命运似乎注定了，原本这命运属于另外一些人。如果他们死了，她也必须死。
2、成千上万的人死了，这是不是美国的外交政策导致的？
政治家使用的政治语言从来不会像上面说的那般冒险，因为他们大多感兴趣的是权力的维护而不是真相。为了维持权力，那些人必须在漠视真相中生活，甚至不惜牺牲自己生活的真相。因此，围绕着我们的是大堆的谎言。
每一个人都知道，入侵伊拉克的理由是萨达姆政府拥有大规模杀伤性武器，会产生大面积的损害。我们曾相信那是真的，可是它不是。我们被告知伊拉克和基地组织有关系，它们要共同对“９·１１”事件负责，我们也曾相信这是真的，可它不是。我们被告知伊拉克威胁了整个世界的安全，我们还曾相信这是真的，可它仍然不是。”
真相现在完全不同了。真相在于美国如何理解自己在世界上的角色，在于它选择怎样去表达。
美国在第二次世界大战之后的外交策略中，有很多鲜为人知的事情。其中一个是尼加拉瓜事件。尼加拉瓜桑迪诺解放阵线１９７９年推翻了美国政府支持的索摩查政权，之后美国政府仍然在金钱上支持反对者的反抗运动。我在上世纪８０年代参加了一次由尼加拉瓜领袖麦克马弗组织的谈判队伍，力劝美国停止对反对者的支持。麦克马弗说：“我在尼加拉瓜北部主持一个教区，教徒们建了学校、医疗中心和文化中心。我们过着平安的日子。几个月前，反对者袭击了我们，毁坏了所有的东西，奸污护士和老师，残杀医生。他们的行为像野蛮人。请劝阻美国政府不要再支持这些令人发指的行为。”然而当时的美国代表团团长雷蒙德·塞茨，被公认为理性、负责的人，却说：“让我告诉您，在战争中，总是无辜的人受害。”当时，现场一片死寂。我们瞪大眼睛看着他，而他却连眼睛也没眨。终于有人打破沉寂，问道，“可是这些无辜的人是被贵国政府和其他政府支持的暴徒所害。如果国会继续给与金钱支持，那他们会做出更多的暴行。……支持谋杀、破坏一个主权国家公民的权利，难道您的政府不感到内疚吗？”塞茨非常冷静地说：“您说的那些事实不足以支撑您的结论。”更让我愤怒的是，当时的里根政府曾经说过“反对者在道德上和我们国家的奠基者们是一致的。”
虽然桑迪诺政权并不完美，无论是在政治理念还是在治国策略上都有很多不足，但是他们当中有充满智慧、理性的人。他们废除了死刑，分给人民土地，创办学校实行免费教育消除文盲，可是这些政策被美国指责为共产主义的颠覆行为。如果这些政策得以确立，周边国家会质问为何如此并且会仿效。鉴于当时萨尔瓦多还存在着强烈的反抗力量，因此美国出钱支持反对者并且最终推翻了桑迪诺政权。
其实美国也在其他国家实施过相同策略，成千上万的人死了，这是不是美国的外交政策导致的？答案是肯定的，但是没有几个人知道。事情从来没有发生过，什么也没发生过。尽管他们曾经发生了也好像没有发生一般。这一点也不重要，和任何人的利益无关。美国犯下的罪行是系统的、罪恶的、毫无人性的，但是几乎没有人真正地谈论它们。你不得不把这些都交给美国来办。它已经在全世界范围内实施了有医学效用的权力控制，然而却把此说成是为人类共同利益服务。这是一种聪明、甚至充满机智、极度成功的催眠。
我所说的美国，毫无疑问，是路演中最引人注目的一场表演。残忍、冷漠、瞧不起人并且粗鲁无礼，但是它同时也很聪明。作为一个推销员它把自己推销了，最畅销的商品是爱自己。听听所有美国总统在电视上时常提起的“美国人民”，这个词经常出现在这样的句子中，“我想对美国人民说，现在是祈祷并且维护美国人民权利的时候了，我恳请美国人民相信他们的总统将要做出的举动是代表美国人民的。”
这是一个高明的策略。语言实际上被用来隐藏真正的想法。“美国人民”这个词真不愧是让人深信不疑的保护层。你不需要思考了，舒服地往保护靠垫上一躺就行。保护靠垫也许会窒息你的智力或者你的批判能力，但是它确实很舒服。当然，这个保护层对遍布美国那４０００万生活在贫困线以下的、那２００万关在集中营似的牢房里的美国人来说是不起作用的。
美国再不被“低强度冲突”的传统策略所困扰，它再也不觉得有必要节制一下，甚至委婉一点。它直接摊牌，无惧也无喜。联合国、国际法或者持异议者，它都不在乎，因为这些无足重轻，毫不相关。可怜的、懒散的英国则像一只温顺的绵羊紧随其后，与其携手前进，时而发出“咩咩”的叫声。
3、认清真相是所有人的重大责任
我们的道德感哪儿去了？我们曾经拥有吗？现在为何不见了？良心是什么？让我们看看聂鲁达的诗《解释一些事情》，任何一首现代诗歌都比不上它对轰炸平民的描述：
“你们会问：你诗里的紫丁香哪儿去了？／点缀着罂粟花的形而上学的词藻哪儿去了？／还有，那轻扣出／鸟声和节拍的雨点哪儿去了？／／你们会问：为什么在我的诗里／不再诉说梦、树叶／和我的国土上的巨大的火山？／你们看／鲜血满街流／你们来看一看吧／满街是血啊！”
而我的诗歌《死亡》更要让人触目惊心：“凭什么你宣称死亡的尸体已死？／是你宣告尸体死亡？／你认识这具死去的尸体？／你怎么知道这是个已经死去的尸体？”
当我们看着镜子的时候，觉得里面的影像是精确的。但是我们稍微转动千分之一米，影像就变化了。其实我们看到的是永无休止的反射影像。但是，一个作家有时候需要打碎镜子，因为通常在镜子的另一面，真相正凝视着我们。我相信，除了那些存于尘世的众多不平之事，作为公民，用坚定、果断、严厉而理智的决心去认清我们生活、我们社会中的真相，是我们所有人肩负的重大责任。事实上，这是我们必须做的。
Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture
Art, Truth & Politics
In 1958 I wrote the following:
"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."
I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.
Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me.
The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of The Homecoming is "What have you done with the scissors?" The first line of Old Times is "Dark."
In each case I had no further information.
In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed didn"t give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that matter.
"Dark" I took to be a description of someone"s hair, the hair of a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into light.
I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.
In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), "Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don"t you buy a dog? You"re a dog cook. Honest. You think you"re cooking for a lot of dogs." So since B calls A "Dad" it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn"t know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.
"Dark." A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. "Fat or thin?" the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.
It"s a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author"s position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can"t dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man"s buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, 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, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.
But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.
Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.
In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on an act of subjugation.
Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.
Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.
But as they died, she must die too.
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.
The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.
But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.
Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.
But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States" actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America"s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as "low intensity conflict". Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.
The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America"s view of its role in the world, both then and now.
I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.
The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: "Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity."
Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. "Father," he said, "let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer." There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.
Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.
Finally somebody said: "But in this case “innocent people” were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?"
Seitz was imperturbable. "I don"t agree that the facts as presented support your assertions," he said.
As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.
I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: "The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers."
The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.
The Sandinistas weren"t perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.
I spoke earlier about "a tapestry of lies" which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a "totalitarian dungeon". This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. "Democracy" had prevailed.
But this "policy" was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.
The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn"t know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn"t happening. It didn"t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. 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.
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. 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. It"s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, "the American people", as in the sentence, "I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people."
It"s a scintillating stratagem. 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. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn"t give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.
What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what"s called the "international community". This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be "the leader of the free world". Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man"s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You"re either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it "bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East".
How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they"re interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.
Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don"t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. "We don"t do body counts," said the American general Tommy Franks.
Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. "A grateful child," said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. "When do I get my arms back?" he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn"t holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you"re making a sincere speech on television.
The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm"s way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.
Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, "I"m Explaining a Few Things":
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children"s blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull"s eye of your hearts.
And you will ask: why doesn"t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!*
Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda"s poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein"s Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.
I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as "full spectrum dominance". That is not my term, it is theirs. "Full spectrum dominance" means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don"t quite know how they got there but they are there all right.
The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.
Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government"s actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force – yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.
I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man"s man.
"God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden"s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam"s God was bad, except he didn"t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don"t chop people"s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don"t you forget it."
A writer"s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don"t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection – unless you lie – in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.
I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called "Death".
Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?
Who was the dead body?
Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?
Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?
Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?
Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body
When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
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.（黄佩 编译 有删节）
川公网安备 51041102000034号
