The Tax Refusal - Come and see the blood in the streets.
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Here is an excerpt from his 2005 Nobel prize acceptance speech:
[...]
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 resonsibility 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. * from Pablo Neruda Tercera
Residencia, "Explico Algunas Cosas" in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda.
Edited and translated by Nathaniel Tarn. Jonathan Cape, London 1970.
**********************************
No one needs to be told of Harold Pinter's hopes and his determination
to help change the world. And his hopes that people of a similar
nature and capacity would "Take up the Torch".
Indeed!!
The "Tax Refusal" exists because individuals such as Harold Pinter
were able to have meaningful effect when communicating their beliefs
that "we" must wake.
Shall "we"? Shall "you"?
Dare "we"? Dare "you"?
If "you" have been moved to action due Mr. Pinter's speech, pay him
this homage:
Use "Your Neighbourhood Network" http://www.ynn.info
to help bring about the changes that MUST happen, lest our collective
infection by the madness of greed causes us to drown in the rivers of
blood we would loose upon each other in order to satisfy the needs of
our greed.
Thank you.
To a safer, saner and more caring world.
To Duty.
Daniel J. Lavigne, Founder
International Humanity House
http://www.taxrefusal.com