Pinter´s speech at the Swedish Academy

[Billy]

I haven't read his speech yet, but I had to teach one of his plays when I taught senior drama and we studied Theatre of the Absurd. I didn't find him too bad at all, but then again, I like most of the Absurdists that I've read. I'll read the speech tonight.

 

[jaybe]

Uplifting - because he punched them in the stomach. The punches which we have neither the opporunity, nor the wonderful ability to use language in the way he did to make his punch.

 

[SFG75]

Now, if Pinter had said that he liked The Davinci Code, you'd have 25,792 posts about it.

Hey!, this guy has nothing on Dan Brown. Who has sold more books?...hmmm?....hmmmm?.....

 

[SFG75]

Having read the speech, I must say that I'm not all that impressed. He must've read a Noam Chomsky book and got all excited, nothing that hasn't been said or researched before. The fact of the matter is that during the cold war, third world nations could choose between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Human rights was a secondary concern, though what nation can claim not being at fault at any form of aggression? Those that remain neutral and stay out of world affairs are only able to do so when others assume the burden of beating back tidal wives of authoritarian ideology and the ensuing negative thing that happen(i.e.-deaths) when a nation is required to step up to the plate for the others.

I really doubt that this man has the facts straight at all in regards to his comments regading Nicaragua. I especially have a hard time reading the part about the Sandinista's not having persecuted anyone or put to death anyone like the contras did.

According to the Nicaraguan Commission of Jurists, the Sandinistas carried out over 8,000 political executions within three years of the revolution. The number of "anti-revolutionary" Nicaraguans who had "disappeared" in Sanadinista hands or had died "trying to escape" were numbered in the thousands. By 1983, the number of political prisoners in the Sandinistas' ruthless tyranny were estimated at 20,000. Torture was institutionalized.

Source

And things were so *equal* and *free* under Ortega that the people who ran La Prenza were just imagining their offices being ransacked or fire-bombed continuously. As for literacy and health care, the same thing is said to have taken place in Cuba, yet I don't believe anyone would maintain that the massive human flow northward to Florida leave due to the fact that people just can't stand living in a country with such great things because they have it soooooooooo good. He ought to communicate with political prisoners in Havana before glorifying Ortega ever again.

 

[Kenny Shovel]

Ok, I’ll have a go at moving this thread closer to closure.

The fact of the matter is that during the cold war, third world nations could choose between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Human rights was a secondary concern, though what nation can claim not being at fault at any form of aggression?

That’s a fair point; struggling countries or should I say more accurately, struggling regimes, often faced such a choice if they wanted to receive much needed financial backing; in many cases that was the only choice in town. In a similar way during the ‘Scrabble for Africa’ during the late 19th century, counties on that continent faced colonial rule by one European nation or another with independence never really being a viable option. Of course that’s a parallel that many Americans would be uncomfortable with because you don’t do imperialism do you?

Those that remain neutral and stay out of world affairs are only able to do so when others assume the burden of beating back tidal wives of authoritarian ideology and the ensuing negative thing that happen(i.e.-deaths) when a nation is required to step up to the plate for the others.

Yet counties like Sweden and Switzerland survived ‘tidal waves of authoritarian ideology’ during the Second World War, even when the wave had pasted right by them.

I really doubt that this man has the facts straight at all in regards to his comments regading Nicaragua. I especially have a hard time reading the part about the Sandinista's not having persecuted anyone or put to death anyone like the contras did.

Absolutely; my main beef with guys like Pinter is exactly that point. Whilst I can agree with the main thrust of his views about the Sandinistas, the skating over of misdeeds by those whose political ideology happens to agree with your own undermines any argument you put forward. My sympathy is with the ordinary citizen, who has to suffer whilst their country is turned into an ideological battleground waged by people who seem to care more for the theoretical than the practical.

As for literacy and health care, the same thing is said to have taken place in Cuba, yet I don't believe anyone would maintain that the massive human flow northward to Florida leave due to the fact that people just can't stand living in a country with such great things because they have it soooooooooo good.

Fair point, but then again there are also large parts of the Cuban population that genuinely support the revolution and Castro, and who take great pride in the society that has been built in their country; as yet we are unable to determine exactly which viewpoint is in the majority.

 

[Halo]

Thread closed until we've all had the chance to review it.