Plain Talk
Writers and artists, always at the spearhead of revolutions, are now giving a voice, and a resonant one at that, to the movement against war with Iraq.
Almost every day news items appear about actors and other artists expressing, in different ways, their opposition to any preemptive attack against Iraq.
Among all this flood of news I came across two stories, one in the form of an interview with Peter Ustinov.
"The time has come for the world to recognise that war, rather than an instrument for the elimination of terrorists and aggressors, is a crime against humanity." Ustinov quotes this from a statement issued by the Club of Budapest, which includes Mikhail Gorbachev and Vaclav Havel among its members.
Ustinov's interview appeared in the Sunday Times. When asked by the interviewer about the link between Saddam and Bin Laden, he replies: "Blair is very convinced. But he has only convinced me he is convinced."
Bush, he says, "was born again when he was 40, so he must be about 14 now."
He goes on to denounce those who assume war will be quick and painless. "They talk about intelligent bombs and you imagine bombs wandering through one window then wandering out into another room. It's propaganda. With an armada of 150,000 you can't avoid monstrous casualties."
So much for Peter Ustinov's interview. It remains undeniable that war, whatever its purpose and however its circumstances in the end, is one of humanity's uglier aspects. What is even more deplorable is that it is no longer properly associated with tragedy, being thoughtof, as it were, in terms of necessity. No war, no killing is ever necessary.
The other story published in the Independent is about a new anthology of peace poetry rushed out in three weeks by Faber and Faber under the title 101 Poems Against War.
The book brings together poets from Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Nigeria, Japan and China as well as Germany, America and England. It also includes a poem by the Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef.
The anthology, produced at break-neck speed, contains poems by contemporary poets like Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. And then of course there are poems by the well known English poets of World War I, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. The two poets are described by the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as the ones who "began writing in ways which not only questioned the purpose of war, but also challenged poetic orthodoxies". One of Owen's most quoted phrases includes the words: "All a poet can do to-day is warn."
The anthology also contains a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from Fears of Solitude, from which I shall quote.
"We send our mandates for the certain death of thousands and tens of thousands! Boys and Girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning mail!"
The shortest poem, Ireland 1972, by Paul Durcan, reads:
"Next to the fresh grave of my beloved grandmother
The grave of my first love murdered by my brother."
Jo Shepcott writes: "Bliss, the pilots say, is for evasion and escape. What's love in all this debris?"
Just one person pounding another into dust, into dust. I do not know the word for it yet.
And from James Fenton's Cambodia we read:
"One may shall smile one day and say good bye.
Two shall be left, two shall be left to die.
One man shall give his best advice.
Three men shall pay the price.
One man shall live, live to regret.
Four men shall meet the debt."
Watching the anti-war march in London the other day on television I spotted a banner that read Poets for Peace. They were marching as well as writing."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 March 2003 (Issue No. 628)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/628/cu3.htm