Thursday, October 25, 2007
Doris Lessing, An Artist Who Doesn't Mince Her Words
I like Doris Lessing, Nobel Laureate for fiction.
This woman proves the point that I have made in the past that politics and government and anything that impacts on the punter in the street, whether it be downtown Scunthorpe in England, Auchtermuchty in Scotland or New York in the US of A, might be better left to artists rather than politicians.
Doris, in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, has said that the attacks of September 11, 2001, weren't as terrible as the American people think.
Although two buildings collapsed, and nearly 3,000 people were killed, she points out that over 3,700 died and many thousands of people were injured in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
Violence supported by money from the United States: [Colcam]
Doris says Americans are a very naive people, or they pretend to be, and admits that any American would think she was mad.
Lessing is no less scathing of Tony Blair: "Many of us hated Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected."
George Bush wasn't left out either: "He's a world calamity. Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."
Indeed.
I have a partner who grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the troubles, so I asked her what she thought about the difference between 9/11 and the conflict she lived through, and which she thought was worse.
She said: "In terms of loss of life, they are both as bad as each other, but I think 9/11 SEEMS worse because of the volume in one day."
OK - a valuable insight - but I should add my own view.
The Northern Ireland conflict and the attack on New York, and which of these may justify the greater attention, is to some extent unimportant, as for many the greater cause for concern in 2007 is the loss of civil liberties which the citizens of the USA and Great Britain have suffered since 9/11, justified by both governments as the cost of fighting the 'war on terror'.
The Northern Ireland war - and that is what is was, despite the denials of British politicans, who preferred to describe the conflict as a terrorist or criminal operation - never led to even the suggestion of 90 days of incarceration for terror suspects, nor was the right to demonstrate in front of parliament questioned, and never did we have the outrageous plans for a national database and ID cards to supposedly protect us from the 'terrorists' who would steal our democracy and our way of life.
Surely the greatest threat to the British And American 'way of life' are the present governments - Bush, Brown and Blair before him, who seem intent on curtailing our freedoms and taking a grip on power not seen in a civilized nation since the days of Hitler.
Doris may be 88, but she certainly knows a thing or two.
Read: Sept 11 attacks not as bad as IRA, says Lessing
HOME
This woman proves the point that I have made in the past that politics and government and anything that impacts on the punter in the street, whether it be downtown Scunthorpe in England, Auchtermuchty in Scotland or New York in the US of A, might be better left to artists rather than politicians.
Doris, in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, has said that the attacks of September 11, 2001, weren't as terrible as the American people think.
Although two buildings collapsed, and nearly 3,000 people were killed, she points out that over 3,700 died and many thousands of people were injured in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
Violence supported by money from the United States: [Colcam]
Doris says Americans are a very naive people, or they pretend to be, and admits that any American would think she was mad.
Lessing is no less scathing of Tony Blair: "Many of us hated Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected."
George Bush wasn't left out either: "He's a world calamity. Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."
Indeed.
I have a partner who grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the troubles, so I asked her what she thought about the difference between 9/11 and the conflict she lived through, and which she thought was worse.
She said: "In terms of loss of life, they are both as bad as each other, but I think 9/11 SEEMS worse because of the volume in one day."
OK - a valuable insight - but I should add my own view.
The Northern Ireland conflict and the attack on New York, and which of these may justify the greater attention, is to some extent unimportant, as for many the greater cause for concern in 2007 is the loss of civil liberties which the citizens of the USA and Great Britain have suffered since 9/11, justified by both governments as the cost of fighting the 'war on terror'.
The Northern Ireland war - and that is what is was, despite the denials of British politicans, who preferred to describe the conflict as a terrorist or criminal operation - never led to even the suggestion of 90 days of incarceration for terror suspects, nor was the right to demonstrate in front of parliament questioned, and never did we have the outrageous plans for a national database and ID cards to supposedly protect us from the 'terrorists' who would steal our democracy and our way of life.
Surely the greatest threat to the British And American 'way of life' are the present governments - Bush, Brown and Blair before him, who seem intent on curtailing our freedoms and taking a grip on power not seen in a civilized nation since the days of Hitler.
Doris may be 88, but she certainly knows a thing or two.
Read: Sept 11 attacks not as bad as IRA, says Lessing
HOME
Labels: America, Art, Civil Liberties, Freedom, Terrorism, UK, War
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