The Counsel

“The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself”, - so said Oscar Wide.

Isn’t it quite true? How often have we been advised, eloquently and  with the imperiousness of wisdom but annoying to receive? I often wonder if it is not easy to offer advice and suggestions on matters of life rather than to apply in our lives the silver-tongued regurgitation that we give.

I have often been forced to delve into all repository of patience when people intervene with corrective suggestions and how one should conduct in certain situations and matters. Which, knowing them is quite obvious will not be applied in their lives.There may be ideal ways ,but they may not always be ideal to be applied ipso facto.

Receiving advice, suggestions and pieces of wisdom are quite wonderful matter, but the provider of such advice is not the master, the bearer of the situation that one is in. It is one thing to articulate criticism in the way a person walks, but entirely a different matter to shove one’s leg into the others footwear and then enact a perfect "cat walk’’ in life.

This does not mean that perse, advises are to considered anathema. I feel it should be left to one’s judgment and acumen to discern, to sieve the supposed wisdom that is offered and apply what is wanted.

But the annoying part is that advises are often given unsolicited and without any personal experience or knowledge of the situation, the state a person is in ,or is helplessly left to tend all by oneself. And the hardest species who descend in such situations are the ones who believe they have the antidote for all and every matters in life.

Until a few years ago, there was absolutely no interpersonal connection between members of my paternal family and myself, my sister and mother. In fact they lived deluding themselves, that we never existed and that fabulous reign of opportunism ran for a quarter century and little more. It was a few years ago that one of my cousins whom I met the last when I was little alighted from no where one morning and eulogised my mother and fervently inquired about our well being.

 Conveniently for him and the rest of the folks it was sunshine days for me, my sister and mother. During the years of hibernation of my paternal folks, there was a lot of pressure personally on me from others in the form advises that we should not bear hurt and animus for their indifference and they were the brothers , sisters, nephews and nieces of my father. There was considerable pressure (let me call it, advise) from these “Samaritans” to engage my paternal folks in the wedding of my sister. I put my foot down that it was unnecessary. And that we really did not miss them all the years we were not existent from their point of view. I was categorised as arrogant and impertinent. So be it! My logic was simple, and that sunshine day relationships are rather done without. And I did not notice us missing something vital in life.

The past story is now repeating and has visited us (I, C and our children) from another angle. And I still hold the view that, sunshine day companions are always not welcome, even be it the Sultan of Brunei himself.

It gives one the much  needed vitality!

" I've looked on many woman with lust..."

“I've looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me”. These were the words of Jimmy Carter the former CEO of the United States.

I find it almost impossible to add on to his candid remark which may be universal about men. I felt comfortable reading Jimmy Carter’s comment because sometimes this unholy feeling creeps in, which will not from now on! And if any “man” chooses to deny or distance this comment as alien to his chemistry he must be “Janus – faced” and an incorrigible hypocrite. Well in a free world one can choose to be so or not and that should not bother anybody alarmingly.

“Ay, every inch a king. When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause? Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No. The wren goes to’t and the small glided fly does lecher in my sight. ....”.  The bard has comforting words that certainly does not spell doom and pell –mell for those of us who see comfort in Jimmy Carter’s observation .

Could there happen to be a man amongst men who would not ever covet lustfully a woman who is not his lawful wife? 

It is also said (quote),”Passion is the evil in adultery .If a man has no opportunity of living with another man’s wife, but if it is obvious for reason that he would like to do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he is caught in the act”. That was St. Augustine with puritanical religiosity of the early centuries.Which certainly forbade quite badly for the many who were St Augustine's contempraries as well as many of us.

The fact is that ‘coveting’ which Carter meant has to have a reciprocal action if it is not to end in a limbo. That brings us to adultery and which must have a respondents to call it so. I have not heard many women being candid as Carter was. Though disconcertingly for the prudish of the female sex, (there are still many around), the statements of Madhavikutty (Kamala Das) would be loathing. That lot among women would not even hesitate to call the late literary romanticist, Mrs. Kamala Das, lecherous and will eff and blind to damn her for bringing forth disrepute upon the female species.

Not many among women in our societies would speak openly about matters mentioned here. However it is only a common matter of logical deduction or inference that women are not a distinctly frigid species to not think as men do. It is true that social conditioning and morals laced and pickled in hypocrisy of ‘dos and don’ts’ taught while young play a dominant role in damming the rapids of biological exuberance.

It was quite some time ago and I was in casual discussion of “nothing “with an acquaintance of mine. Without deliberating, the topic of discussion moved into matters of man -woman relationship. Though we agreed that the moral fence is what pulls back the lecherous temerity in human beings, it is also precisely the matter that encourages jumping over the fence. We wondered if either of us could confidently state that these matters of moral restraints and dos and don’ts will stay in the next century. The word “adultery” may be consigned as an antediluvian word. Without any deliberate intent we moved into topics of our life before marriage and after, though we did not specifically broach on the subject of our personal adherences.She gave me the story of her friend who does not waste an opportunity to accuse her husband of misdemeanour, so that she could either be at ease with her liaisons outside or delude to feel satisfied that her acts  are tit for tat.

It was then that she did a sort of “Jimmy Carter”, when she said that she do fanatsise about other men in times of intimate moments with her husband (boyfriend), but has not found it enlivening. But she is not very fearful of maledictions from heaven or the taboos and conditoning associated with morality, because of her virtual escapades.A perfect victim for St. Augustine!

I wonder if the elements of priggish forthrightness will proscribe this post.

"Elementary and Silly"

The state of being peeved, feeling piqued, and desperately trying to hide behind any available apron from the silliness and stupidity of one’s conduct, is indeed an unpleasant state, but a fascinating display from the perspective of the onlooker. Especially when the onlooker has been made the center of the protagonist’s childish ire! The facial expression they bear when the ludicrous folly is apparent to the world is something that must be discerned at close quarter and enjoyed.In fact it does not make any sensible bearing to feel offended and angered by the puerility of the person.

I’m not referring to an oration or conduct with criminal intent. That is not the subject that I’m thinking about. This is of the absolutely childish and stupid kind, irrespective of one’s age or educational background. And it may be a harmless act or utterance, or one that has some malice sautéed.

How many such instances have some of us been through!                                                                              

I have been through some, and honestly I have had the amusing pleasure to watch at close quarter the discomfiture of the other. Saying something that had no reason to be told or doing something that was out of sync and silly, probably driven by ego and an imperious nature as also by the character of impatience towards anything and everything that is different from one’s predilection are what that sends such people into discomfiture and is overrun by the urge to hide his/her face from the glare of others. Such tribe never cease running and being grouchy .No sympathies from my position because, such conduct deserves such state of misery or discomfort. It is surprising why even erudite and the intelligent stoop and succumb into this silliness.

But do they will to accept the folly of their infantile disposition? Many may not! And that evidently tells that scholarship alone cannot be a panacea for the serious short comings in outlook and conduct. The ill luck is such people hesitate or decline to own up their folly- they apparently believe to be infallible.

Old habits die hard, don’t they? Or they may not. The onus of moving on will be on those of us who may not want to be as silly as the other. 

And it is true that when such person does something silly and of which he/she may be ashamed of, he/she always will declare that it is his/her duty.

Columbus, Osama and the Star of David

I posted some portions of this as my comment on a Blog post that came up on the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The fact that the USA is more often “the villain of the piece”, is a known matter and I’m certain acknowledged by the USA as well. Please go through the Nobel lecture of the British author Harold Pinter to know more about specific cases where the USA displayed hypocrisy, and criminal acts.

Osama like India’s Bhindrenwale was the creation of the State. If Mrs. Gandhi and the pliable joker Zail Singh cultivated and nurtured Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrenwale, successive governments in the USA did the act on Osama.

It has been the US policy of playing dirty in any third world or developing country if it feels that the government of the country has a policy of "equidistant".During the era of the cold war they did that under the guise of hunting communism under every bed.And after the fall of the iron-curtain they have a vital tool in Islamic exteremism  and the subject that has been at their heart since Christopher Columbus landed in the New World- "trade and usurping native resources".Though the Soviet Union (former) showed no qualms in playing dirty in countries that did not toe its line, one could understand that, because the so called communist in the former Soviet Union did not swear by values and principles of democracy and human rights. Fair play was not in their lexicon. But the USA, a country that spirits in calling itself the “new world’, the beacon of freedom and democracy- mauling societies and governments in poor third world is a paradox and symbol of decadence and hypocrisy that has eaten into its system.

Remember, the USA is a country built on sweat and tears of immigrants from diverse national background, who journeyed across the Atlantic. But also understand that it was the forefathers of some of those immigrants who ventured into the New World in the schooner “Santa Maria” from far flung Spain and thence began the systematic depravation and annihilation of the meek and the less powerful. The very same policy is continued since the last years of the 15 Th century, but in various other forms.

As long as the World does not exercise the will and the courage to designate a fair deal for the Palestinians who live as refugees in their own land,.men like Osama bin Laden will usurp the Palestinian cause and showcase it as injustice perpetrated on the Muslims of the world. The irony is that men like bin Laden do not care a hoot for the Palestinians and their cause. And in the same vein neither the Fatah nor the Hamas are interested in cahoots with the terror groups of bin Laden and the likes.  These terror groups like the Al Qaeda, Jaissemohammedh, and LET etc have only one agenda and that is the proselytization and cultivation of  perverted religious philosophies,bigotry and fanaticism.Finally a medieval and archaic Caliphate to invoke the manna from above! Issues like the Palestinian cause is  only an opportunistic tool in their ulterior venture.

If Muslims all over have a grievance that can be addressed by the world community, the US and the West in particular, it is the creation of a democratic Palestinian State, but, also ensuring that it accepts the necessity and the inevitability of coexistence with Israel. And rest of the grievances, injustices, and atrocities if any on Muslims elsewhere are often the making of the Muslim themselves. When Muslims – Shiites and Sunnis vie to extinguishing the other, when the Ahmedias and other schools of Islamic faith are hounded, when bigotry and obscurantism is pedaled by religious schools called madrasas, when medieval laws are inflicted on the hapless, when education is relegated to the background and when women are seen as instruments and trivia, then certainly its is the core problem within the community and that the making of the community itself. Why has not a Bin Laden come forward to tackle the dirt  and scum that has incised within Islam and Muslims like limpets? Why is it that as often said the majority of the Muslims are moderate and silent? They are silent and in my opinion pliable too, else men like Osama will not be able to hypnotize and brain wash young men and women to blow themselves into oblivion at the promise of a paradise full of fornicating women and men, of pleasure and spirit, but manifestly from where   nobody has yet come back to write a travelogue.

The misfortune of today is that even people amongst us  who laud and swear upon acceptance of dissimilar views and dissent as a civilized way of living, turn out to be extremely volatile and incapable of accepting a divergent view or opinion. Even in them lurks the bin Laden intolerance and extremism. And they engage not in discussion, debate or negotiation, but in playing spoiled, (the Blogdom has ample examples).Is not that a form of extremism?  

Extremism and intolerance in any form and guise is harmful. If there are two forms of extremism and madness in this world today that can perennially threaten the existence of man kind it is the fanaticism of Islam and Zionism.

  ", 

Musings over Easter Weekend

Sharachandra Govindarao Pawar was a clueless non entity till 1967, until when Y.B Chavan roped him into the then National Congress party. He shot into the State and National lime light after the AICC session in Gawhati in 1969. His growth through the State and the echelons at the Center are absolutely amazing. So is the booty, the wealth he amassed. He is alleged ( alleged because until one can be proved guilty) to have close links with the underworld Don, Dawood. He  has a finger in every pie! The recent price turbulence of onion, cotton, the past rise in prices of sugar, the IPL plunder, the Lavas deals, were all it is alleged, masterminded by him, in cahoots with the hoarders, accomplices and barons of sleaze..Remember he was also the defence minister ! He has the rare success in presiding over the ministry of agriculture when he ensured that there was maximum number of farmer suicides in India.His attitude towards the peril of debt ridden farmers and their plight was insensate, and hardhearted.  His nexus with big fertiliser Corporations is a known matter. And recently he has gone on record that India must export food grains and let the food grain market be opened to international trading. Remember this when we are still with a massive percentage of the population below poverty levels. And public distribution is still inadequate and inefficient in most states.He gloated over food grains rotting in warehouses.Reminds us in total of the Emperors of the ancient who presided over vast lands and playing fiddle when men and women in thousands lay famished and their life ebbing away.

And finally, now he has refused a blanket ban on the toxic pesticide Endosulfan ,citing trivial and frivolous reasons. He is blinded to the fact of  its lethal and  biologically mutating nature. And, is as expected seconded by the pliable spineless Prime minister we have.  Do each citizen of this country have to taste a teaspoon of Endosulfan to determine the greater effect it will have on the general population for it to be banned? Indeed he is the brand ambassador for Endosulfan.And it is rubbish and naive to expect anything from him that is inimical to the manufacturers of toxins.

The man is seventy plus and has amassed much wealth that would amaze even the Gods. And he still craves for more for more....! His appetite and lust for wealth will belittle the ravens craving for meal.

His contorted face,which is  facially paralytic , evokes contempt, revulsion and distress.

None will touch him, because in the present government he holds the deck of cards ( MPs)to derail the government. And the power of wealth  will not let nemesis near him."The chickens will not come back to roost".

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Gods own country has now something new to offer. "Cesarean Mella".

The report of two gynecologists in a hospital in Alleppy performing twenty one cesarean sections in two days is certainly a boost to the tourism’ possibilities in the state of Kerala. It may also  assist  a rare entry into the annals of the Guinness book.

Yet again a section of the fraternity of ( Physicians) have proved that ethics, morality, compassion and the wisdom Hippocratic oath inspire  is trivialised and rubbished.

“I SWEAR by Apollo the physician, Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation.
To reckon............, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.
WITH PURITY AND WITH HOLINESS I will pass my life and practice my Art............,Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves”.
 WHILE I CONTINUE to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot".

It is said that the two doctors were haste fully wanting to depart for the Easter weekend vacation. And they did not want calls at odd times to ruin their merriment over Easter weekend. Caesarean sections were performed on hapless women whose gestation period was still two weeks and more away to reach a full cycle. And now the inadequate facility at the hospital will have to bear another twenty one unenviable new born. A threat or possibility of infections and complications can be imagined. Disconcerting indeed!

Kerala has a third of child births through caesarean section. While the all India average is just 8 percent. And WHO recommended figure 15 percent.

Hallelujahs  to the Gynaecologists !

Std V , Government Model High School

This incident happened in 1970. The school, Government Model High School, Thpuram. I do not remember sharing the incident I mentioned with anyone else. Certainly not to the folks at home. Then  the schoolmaster was divine, and anything he did was accepted by folks at home ; the teacher was infallible, and the master was always right. To complain at home about your school teacher, let alone inappropriate behavior by a teacher, would invite rebuke, and they would not believe me. I’m certain that none of my classmates who were victims of the wired punishment that day  would have forgotten that shameful ordeal or dared to confide the matter to another.

 I had moved out of the Holy Angels Convent, where I had my early formative primary schooling (kindergarten to IV STD), and was admitted to the Government Model High School, which then was the foremost among institutions. And I was in strange, bossy, rough terrain, a far cry from the school managed by nuns.

The class I was in - STD V, E division. Male tutors were frightening, scarier than the ladies and nuns who managed class in the convent, and corporal punishments were a common fact those days. Krishnan Nair, a diminutive, slightly bald-headed teacher, was to teach us the second language, Malayalam, and Social Studies.

Daily, we were required to copy in a two line book, two pages from the Malayalam textbook. This was to improve our handwriting. Krishna Nair called us each to his table at the head of the class room and surveyed our home work of “two line writing." He began reprimanding the ones whose writing was not good. The boys were literally shivering when they noticed the form of punishment he meted out for poor writing. I do not recall what went through my mind while waiting for my turn. Finally, I was called to his table. He opened my book and surveyed, tapping quite sadistically the cane he held in one hand. It was not the possible caning that scared me. And,that day, he had decided not to use caning as a form of punishment. He smirked, looked at my copywriting, and had a wry smile. He twitched the fingers in his other hand gleefully; the long nails on his thumb and index fingers threatened like tigers' claws. I knew what was coming next. Then, like he did to the boys before me, he put his hand under my tousers and started gleefully pinching the soft skin on my testicles. His long clawed finger nails, I remember, dug deep into the supple skin. I writhed in pain and involuntarily lifted one leg. The torture, I guess, went on for perhaps half a minute. Then he caned my bottom and sent me to my bench.

The former was awfully humiliating, compared to the caning on the derrière. The burning in the skin and, most of all, the shame and ignominy of that man meting out that pervert treatment put me down considerably. There were quite a few boys who escaped the infliction, and they were giggling in hushed laughter. But nobody, I understand, went home with the story, and no parents turned up with any report against Mr. Krishnan Nair.

I do not know if Mr. Nair had any condition that made him inflict that awful treatment on us. It was horribly distasteful. However, no repetition of the incident happened.

I wonder if he is alive this day. If he is, he must be in his eighties.

A Must Read Lecture- "Harold Pinter"

Harold Pinter, Oct 30, 1930 – 24 December 2008), was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, theatre director, poet, left -wing political activist,and Nobel laureate He was one of the most influential and imitated of modern British dramatists. Pinter's writing career spanned over 50 years and produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays, poetry, one novel, short fiction, essays, speeches, and letters. The excerpts from his Nobel  speech, please gather time to not leave this unread.

Nobel Lecture

 There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other and are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand and then it slips through your fingers and is lost…………………………

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into …this territory. Politicians on the evidence available to us are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Qaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities and the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now.

I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.

The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'

Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.

Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.

Finally somebody said: 'But in this case "innocent people" were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?'

Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,' he said.

As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.

I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.'

The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.

The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.

The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.

I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.

Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.

The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed.

But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. 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.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. 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. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. 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. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? They are news - a small item on page six of news paers.. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people!

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.

Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.

The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.

Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I'm Explaining a Few Things':

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.

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

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.

I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right.

The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity - the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

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.

I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

IWhen we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man.