open Democracy News Analysis - Harold Pinter - I salute you, Anthony Barnett - Comments

Rosemary Bechler on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

Rosemary Bechler — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:51:50 +0000

Anthony, you write: " There was a bite and irony in Pinter's observations except when it came to politics."

Theo Hobson's piece on Milton reminds us of the deadening 'post-Romantic' effect of separating literature or art from political ideas. Pinter's visionary politics is surely best found in his devastating evocation of bullying linked to his understanding of German fascism, the Cold War and the Britain he lived in.

I wish I had thought to mention in my blog on Sachsgate, that it would have been unimaginable without the televised The Birthday Party, and the terrorising of Stanley Webber by Goldberg and McCann.

BigC on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

BigC — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:19:12 +0000

"It's essential to be able to condemn policies without verbally annihilating your opponent."

I agree Anthony. And I whole heartedly agree that the word fascist is bandied around to an extent which understates it's wickedness and shows disrespect to it's victims. But Thatcher showed a contempt for democracy and, arguably, a willingness to use violence which makes her an exception and I continue to agree with Pinter.

Anthony Barnett on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

Anthony Barnett — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:19:52 +0000

BigC you write:

"In the light of your comments Anthony, I'm surprised you disagree with Pinter's characterisation of Thatcher as a fascist. Surely disenfranchising a hostile section of the electorate qualifies as an action to "stifle democracy". It's such a shame that you can't debate it with him further."

Thanks but... "Fascist!" has become a swear word that stops thought and is intimidating. All sorts of leaders (and led!) have sought to stifle democracy without overturning the basic rule of law or sending people to the gas-chambers. It's essential to be able to condemn policies without verbally annihilating your opponent.

BigC on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

BigC — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 22:02:46 +0000

"He was a mediocre talent puffed up with self regard and his own arrogance. In the next world he will realize how wrong he was on so much and have the time to reflect. "

I wonder if he was arrogant enough to think he knew what awaited others in the next world...

BigC on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

BigC — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:57:56 +0000

In the light of your comments Anthony, I'm surprised you disagree with Pinter's characterisation of Thatcher as a fascist. Surely disenfranchising a hostile section of the electorate qualifies as an action to "stifle democracy". It's such a shame that you can't debate it with him further.

Anthony Barnett on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

Anthony Barnett — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:11:11 +0000

Owly: "It is a pity you censor what you dislike like". Wrong, if I did I would censor you. It is OurKingdom policy to have comments that engage and don't just vent, swear and make ad hominem remarks with no substance, filling the space with tasteless 'ya boo' narcissism. If you don't like this policy - or think it "childish" - there is the rest of the world wide web to play in. We are attempting to grow up.

You write: "The Poll Tax was designed to create a link - still badly needed - between voting for expenditure and the tax that pays for that expenditure. It had nothing to do with the electoral register." I agree with the first part and you are wrong on the second. There should indeed be more locally generated taxation and a much stronger relationship between voting and paying than there is, but a capitation tax does not do this in the way that, for example, a local income tax would. On the electoral register point, I researched this at the time. The cabinet got a paper I think from the Home Office suggesting that the proposed poll tax, as a high flat rate of tax on everyone who registered to vote, would drive people off the register. This, indeed, is why a poll tax was, as I understand it, ruled unconstitutional in the United States as it is, in effect, a tax on voting. In 1992, after Thatcher was ejected and John Major had promptly abolished the tax, Major won the election to the surprise of many. The Telegraph diary reported that Thatcher, watching the results come in, said "The Poll Tax worked after all". (I am writing from out of London without the quote in front of me - but I have used it before). Behind the pretense of creating a 'responsible' relationship between tax and benefits it was a nakedly regressive act of gerrymandering.

owly on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

owly — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:45:54 +0000

Anthony,

Before you get all superior you ought to remember you deleted the first comment on this thread. The comment you left was childish and petulant. The one who stamped his foot was you not I. It is a pity you censor what you dislike like.

As to the term 'Fascist' Pinter used it to describe Lady Thatcher. So why do you see some justification in him using the term and not when I use it, with actually far more accuracy. Like many on the Left you have little or no understanding of what Fascism was, much less is. Lady Thatcher was anything but a Fascist - Pinter was more one than she was - and you ought to have pointed this out. You did not. To remain silent, as you did (although you slightly back track), suggests in the old legal maxim that you agreed with what he said as I pointed out. And if you are busy saying Mrs T was 'authoritarian', and thinking her a 'Fascist' (as you do) then one is given to wonder what you have to say about Blair and Brown. Probably not as much as you should.

The Poll Tax was designed to create a link - still badly needed - between voting for expenditure and the tax that pays for that expenditure. It had nothing to do with the electoral register.

As to your mate Pinter he was a mediocre talent puffed up by his own arrogance and that of the gullible such as yourself. Actually from what I have seen his work was utter rubbish. Lady Antonia had the talent in that house. As to his politics these were disgusting and hypocritical at best. He was only selectively interested in 'resistance to oppression' - you had to be the right sort of oppressed and the right sort of oppressor for him to show any interest. His humanity was always secondary to his vile politics, like so many of the Fascist Left.

Anthony Barnett on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

Anthony Barnett — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:23:10 +0000

Owly: Harold was not "railing" he was sitting in his own home. I did not silently consent to his view that Thatcher was a fascist, then or now. I politely disagreed. She was, however, in power, had broken consensus politics and pushed through the poll tax in part to drive poorer people from the electoral register and could fairly be described as authoritarian. Harold himself was never in power and went out of his way to express solidarity with resistance to oppression, notably in Turkey. It is therefore absurd to say, "Pinter was like so many on the Left a true Fascist." Indeed, your misuse of the term is exactly like his but has even less justification. Why are people so drawn to it? If it means anything in popular terms, it means a form of lawless, racist and populist ideology that will stifle democracy and physically intimidate free-expression. Randomly accusing categories of people as being "fascist" who clearly are not is like swearing. Indeed the main function of "Fascist!" as a term is to prevent argument - anyone who disagrees must be morally abhorrent. The claim you make against me is specific; even if it is wrong and can be rebutted it claims a certain exactness. What you say about Pinter is pointless. You don't have to like him but your opposition to him is spoilt by just stamping your foot like this.
(Apols if these comments seem out of order)

JFox on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

JFox — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:33:05 +0000

Yes. We will miss Harold Pinter. He has been part of our lives for many years - part of mine since, as a schoolboy, I discovered the theatre and heard the thrilling originality of his voice. His political sentiments - though not obvious in his plays - seem to me unimpeachable even if he sometimes expressed them in terms that may seem naive.

Part of that naivety is evident in the shock he clearly felt on learning about the violence and duplicity of US foreign policy. For those of us who have lived for extended periods - as I have - in a region of the world subject to US hegemonic ambition, there was nothing new about the contra tragedy in Nicaragua.

Leaving aside the invasion of Nicaragua by a US "private" army in 1855, American interference in that country got underway in earnest in 1912 with a full-scale invasion. The US marines remained in control for over twenty years, leaving only after they had installed a puppet government under Anastasio Somoza, one of the nastiest and most vicious dictators in Latin-American history.

Since the end of WWII, the US has demonstrated its neighborliness towards Latin America by supporting or fomenting coups in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Uruguay (1973), and El Salvador (1970s), and attempted violently to overthrow the established government in Cuba (1960s).

Elsewhere, for years, the US and its allies have supported and sustained corrupt, autocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia, the gulf states and Iran (under the Shah). Between 1961 and 1973, the US bombed and napalmed cities and villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, causing 300 times more civilian deaths than the September 11 attack on New York and Washington. More recently, US bombs have also rained down on Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, causing unknown numbers of casualities (“collateral damage” according to the US military - a euphemism designed to dehumanize the process of killing foreigners). Notoriously, the US helped to arm and train the Taliban and Osama Bin laden - doubtless on the theory that terrorists are acceptable if they direct their violence to “the other side”.

America’s impressive record of international human rights violations is probably the main reason for its refusal to recognize the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague - a body that all other democratic nations endorse.

Nor - until recently - did the United States acknowledge any need to curtail the freedom of its citizens to finance terrorist groups in other countries - including the IRA and the Continuity IRA in Northern Ireland - both of which received funding from US sources for many years.

American political domination is matched by her aggressive attempts to ensure that American businesses control the world’s markets and the world’s resources. The US has rewritten the international trade and investment rules to suit itself; and then - through the WTO - sought to impose them on the rest of humanity in the form of binding treaties. Free Trade is not free: it obliges signatory nations to compete solely on terms that assure the success of the powerful and the impoverishment of the weak.

Western capitalism is not simply a dominant economic ideology, it is also a dominant culture, language, and set of beliefs, in short a new religion, as profoundly monotheistic, predatory, self-righteous and intolerant as the Spanish Inquisition.

Such are the wellsprings of a grievance and rage in the Third World whose strength we can hardly imagine. A large body of opinion in developing countries views the United States government as the world’s number one terrorist organization. If terrorism is to be defeated, then the West - and the US in particular - is going to have to start at home.

owly on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

owly — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:31:38 +0000

Sitting next to Pinter when he railed about Lady Thatcher being a Fascist did it not occur to you just how pathetic a man he actually was ? No you 'listened politely' and even if you 'couldn't accept the description however odious her polices were' by your silence you showed your consent.

Pinter was like so many on the Left a true Fascist. He was a mediocre talent puffed up with self regard and his own arrogance. In the next world he will realize how wrong he was on so much and have the time to reflect.

Anthony Barnett on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

Anthony Barnett — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:29:22 +0000

I have deleted a post that was simply rude, personal and vile. In OurKingdom, we want comments that engage in some way or other. If they are just going to be ad hominem they must at least be witty. Posters that simply want to show off that they can throw dirt can do so on their own blogs.

BigC on "Harold Pinter - I salute you"

BigC — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:37:00 +0000

I have to say that I never understood any of his plays. But he was a good loud voice against US imperialism during a time when most tried to cover their ears.

Harold Pinter - I salute you, Anthony Barnett

Anthony Barnett — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:43:00 +0000

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I never knew Harold Pinter, but I met him. He was funny and disconcerting. The first time was at his and Antonia Fraser's house in Campden Hill Square for a meeting of what was known as the June 20th group. This was a gathering of left literary intellectuals which began in 1988 as an attempt to put some backbone into the Labour Party as led by Neil Kinnock. It was hosted by Pinter and John Mortimer, the latter a true Labour man. I spoke to them about Charter 88 which Pinter had promptly signed but which John Mortimer refused to support. I became a regular attender of the group which was scorned by the media for its well-heeled committment to socialism and the underdog. But it had a serious intent of providing a more self-confident hinterland for Kinnock to draw upon. He declined this, to the lasting weakness of Labour, in my view (but that's another argument). There was a bite and irony in Pinter's observations except when it came to politics. I recall sitting next to him when he assurred me with his characteristic intensity that Thatcher and her work was "fascist". I listened politely but couldn't accept the description however odious her polices were. Later we invited him and Antonia over to our flat in Covent Garden. I mainly recall him sitting in the armchair and pronouncing, "this is a pad". It made me laugh then and still does.

When he won the Nobel Prize I dreaded the prospect of the acceptance speech becoming a performance of his "Fuck America; America, fuck you", variety, which convinced nobody of anything except that this was his strongly held view. In fact the speech on Art, Truth and Politics was strong and thoughtful, if understandably uneven given his phyisical condition. It explained something I'd puzzled about. How did he become so political and keep up such a moral fervour with little depth of what I'd call political reading (as opposed to research, which he did)? Among other things he described the moment that I suspect explained this.

It is part of a fantastic passage in the speech, that deserves to be much better known:

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.'

In this way Pinter set out his case against the United States, and you still feel his shock - the Americans knew what they were doing. He then became equally unflinching. His speech is not subtle. There are counter-arguments that could moderate it. But it was not just a cry of rage or expletives. What struck me most of all was the way it was ignored.

In the UK only the Guardian reprinted it. It was not to my knowledge either reprinted or responded to in the United States, except, I think, with a dismissive sneering piece in the Wall Street Journal. No one denied his description of what had happened in the American Embassy in London. Quite simply, a major statement in which Pinter presented his critique of US imperialism to the world was treated... as if it was a bad smell rather than a well crafted case that demanded an answer. And today people debate in shocked tones the suggestion that American literature is parochial and its authors, with the exception of Toni Morrison, undeserving of an international prize.

Later I recall (and will put in the link if I can find it) an essay by David Hare that noted this scandalous silence.

You can read the speech here. And watch Harold deliver it from a wheelchair here. And you should.

Also on OK, Anthony Barnett responds to Nick Cohen on Pinter and "all the liberals and leftists like him".