Harold Pinter Is Dead at 78(from Wikipedia):
Pinter's Recent political viewsFor over the past two decades, in his essays, speeches, interviews, and literary readings, Pinter has focused increasingly on contemporaneous political issues. Pinter strongly opposed the 1991
Gulf War, the 1999
NATO bombing campaign in
Yugoslavia during the
Kosovo War, the United States's 2001
War in Afghanistan, and its
2003 Invasion of Iraq.
In accepting an
honorary degree at the
University of Turin (27 Nov. 2002), he stated: "I believe that [the United States] will [attack Iraq] not only to take control of Iraqi oil, but also because the American administration is now a bloodthirsty wild animal. Bombs are its only vocabulary." Distinguishing between "the American administration" and American citizens, he added the following qualification: "Many Americans, we know, are horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless" (Various Voices 243). He has been very active in the current
anti-war movement in the United Kingdom, speaking at rallies held by the
Stop the War Coalition (StWC), which reprinted his Turin speech.
[25]Since then he has called the
President of the United States,
George W. Bush, a "mass murderer" and the (then)
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Tony Blair, both "mass-murdering" and a "deluded idiot" and has described them, along with past U.S. officials, as "
war criminals." He has also compared the
Bush administration ("a bunch of criminal lunatics") with
Adolf Hitler's
Nazi Germany, saying that, under Bush, the United States ("a monster out of control") strives to attain "world domination" through
"Full spectrum dominance". Pinter characterized Blair's
Great Britain as "pathetic and supine," a "bleating little lamb tagging behind [the United States] on a lead." According to Pinter, Blair was participating in "an act of premeditated mass murder" instigated on behalf of "the American people," who, Pinter notes, increasingly protest "their government's actions" (Public reading from War, as qtd. by Chrisafis and Tilden).
Pinter published his remarks to the mass peace protest demonstration held on 15 February 2003, in London, on his website: "The United States is a monster out of control. Unless we challenge it with absolute determination American barbarism will destroy the world. The country is run by a bunch of criminal lunatics, with Blair as their hired Christian thug. The planned attack on Iraq is an act of premeditated mass murder" ("Speech at Hyde Park"). Those remarks anticipate his 2005 Nobel Lecture, "Art, Truth, & Politics", in which he observes: "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" (21).
In accepting the
Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry, on 18 March 2005, wondering "What would Wilfred Owen make of the
invasion of Iraq? A bandit act, an act of blatant state
terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the conception of
international law?", Pinter concluded: "I believe Wilfred Owen would share our contempt, our revulsion, our nausea and our shame at both the language and the actions of the American and British governments" (Various Voices 247-48).
In March 2006, upon accepting the
Europe Theatre Prize, in
Turin, Pinter exhorted the mostly European audience "to resist the power of the United States," stating, "I'd like to see Europe echo the example of Latin America in withstanding the economic and political intimidation of the United States. This is a serious responsibility for Europe and all of its citizens" (Qtd. in Anderson and Billington, Harold Pinter 428).
