Harold Pinter-Nobel Prize Winning Speech

Harold Pinter-Nobel Prize Winning Speech Highlights.

Harold Pinter, who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, had the following to say in his acceptence speech.

...the United States had not only lied to justify waging war against Iraq but had also “supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship” in the last 50 years.

"I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, and El Salvador and, of course, Chile."

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them,” Pinter said. “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.”

Pinter attacked American foreign policy since World War II, saying that while the crimes of the Soviet Union had been well documented, those of the United States had not. “I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road,” he said. “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.”

He spoke of language as an obscure of reality, saying that US leaders use it to anesthetise the public. “It’s a scintillating stratagem,” he said. “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. ”