"Nothing ever happened."

posted by k

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. When the news was released on Christmas Day, poters on the BBC's Have Your Say site rushed to condemn him, as though there were a peculiar merit in being first to condemn a man after he has died.

I don't understand that attitude. When icons of the right - even dictators - die, I try not to rejoice. I may sometimes feel relieved that people are free from fear as a result but there's something disgusting in publicly rejoicing at a fellow-human's death. Those who have suffered abuse or worse may be allowed their celebrations but these come from so twisted a world and so bad an experience that we should offer sympathy and understanding rather than trying to outdo them in shrieking hurrahs.

Many people disliked Pinter. He wasn't afraid of controversy and, like all of us, was imperfect. But he was willing to speak for those in need of help and for those who were threatened by state power. I wouldn't always agree with him but I admired his willingness to be engaged and to speak out, when silence would have been easier. I wonder how much his sympathy with oppressed people grew out of his experience as a Jewish tailor's son at school in the East End of London. He must have been fourteen or fifteen when the newsreel film of Belsen was shown in cinemas. Yet he became a conscientious objector in the late 1940s and, more recently, associated himself with Jewish campaigners who called for justice for Palestinians as well as Jews in Israel. These weren't popular or easy positions to hold.

Many of the swift attacks on Pinter target his work as a playwright, calling him "talentless," "shallow" and, of course, "intellectual." There's a laziness in most of the criticism. As a playwright, Pinter continually experimented and took risks. He also, in his early plays, wrote about working-class people - not nice, cosy, working-class people but people who were complex, hopeful, dangerous, often at odds with their society and one another. I'm no expert on Pinter's plays but they make me think - and that's high praise.

As a writer, Pinter cared about language and its relation to truth. The lecture he gave after receiving the Nobel prize for literature has, as its title, "Art, Truth and Politics." it was deeply concerned with two subjects: the way in which language can be abused to conceal the truth and the way in which government and the media prevent us from knowing the acts of horror which are committed on our behalf. Pinter's speech, famously, attacked the United States' role in supporting military dictatorships, and the way in which the United States' conduct is widely ignored. With corruscating irony, Pinter said:

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

And that's true of so many horrors, from bombing civilians to starvation and the destruction of the planet. It's easier not to know. It's certainly easier not to think about the grief, the corpses, the injuries, the sheer mess of wars and bombings conducted on our behalf. Again in his Nobel lecture, Pinter quoted Neruda (writing of Republican Spain):

"Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!"

Harold Pinter insisted that we see the reality, sure that if enough people saw what was really happening elsewhere, their common humanity and decency would ensure a gentler and more generous outcome.

Pinter's death came only four days after the death of another campaigning writer, the poet Adrian Mitchell. He too was concerned that people see and acknowledge the truth. His most famous poem, "To whom it may concern," was written about Vietnam but many of its words can be applied to all sorts of uncomfortable truths that we would prefer not to know. The economy is built on debt and injustice. We have prospered because other people starve. Our government sends its servants to lie, torture, maim and kill. Children born in this country are locked away because their parents are asylum-seekers. Even in Britain - even in peaceful suburbs - our fellow humans sleep in doorways and on pavements and don't have enough to eat. Lies are more comfortable. We can live in our cosy world where "Nothing ever happened" and choose the newspaper that tells us our lies of choice.

"much too umble"

posted by k

Tiny Tim has a lot to answer for.

That bright humility and gentle forbearance offers an unlikely model to oppressed people: a little boy, on crutches, doomed to die of poverty, joyfully pronouncing, “God bless us, every one.”

Of course, Tiny Tim wasn’t intended as a role model; he's in the story to refute Malthus’ definition of the “surplus population” - a drain on the economy and allowed to die. Tim had to be virtuous and charitable because he embodied values beyond the economic structures of society. Scrooge is converted from Malthusian economics to charity.

Uriah Heep in David Copperfield illustrates the dangers of expecting gratitude and humility. His humility is a fake – a ruse to gain wealth and power.

But there’s still an expectation that marginalised people should display extraordinary gratitude and virtue. I don’t know how often I’ve been told that I shouldn’t give money to rough sleepers because they’ll spend it all on cigarettes, drink and drugs. If I were homeless, I reckon I’d like a drink or two – or more. I might even try drugs as a means of temporary escape. And if I were a smoker, I’d find it hard to give up my addiction while begging in an underpass.

There’s considerable criticism of the behaviour of asylum seekers. If I’d been tortured – or if members of my family had been murdered – I might be grateful to the country that gave me asylum. But I might find it hard remember the rules of politeness in a new country and a new language. I might even be so traumatised that I’d behave very badly indeed.

If I lived with prejudice on a daily basis, I’d become angry and suspicious. It wouldn’t turn me into a nicer person. Some saintly people endure prejudice without resentment. I admire them but I it’s not prejudice that made them so good. They are good people despite the prejudice.

If Tiny Tim had been made to wait in the rain while bus-drivers refused to let him on because of his crutches, he'd probably have smiled sweetly. If shopkeepers had been rude or insulting or thoughtless, he'd probably have drawn a trite moral. And without the intervention of ghosts, Christmas magic and Charles Dickens, nothing would have changed. I'm pleased to see that Elizabeth McClung at Screw Bronze! isn't taking bad treatment by Victoria Transit so lightly.

Human beings who suffer oppression, prejudice and discrimination have the same human rights as anyone else - or they should have. They are not required to become exemplars of virtue. We - oppressed and oppressors together - are required to change society. And sometimes, those of us who are lucky, may have to surrender a little of our comfort.

The asylum seeker who asks directions may struggle with English. The new hostel for rough-sleepers may be on the way to the theatre. The bus may be a couple of minutes late because it stopped while a woman steered her wheelchair into place. There may be bigger adjustments too: abolition of torture, food and clean water for all, redistribution of wealth, real democracy, a just society. These things cost. Most of us have some privilege or comfort we fear to lose. The advantages - wider knowledge, deeper understanding - have no obvious monetary value. But Dickens was right in this: some values are more important than economic success.