Harold Pinter (2005) Art, Truth And Politics Nobel Lecture

This heartfelt and often confrontational speech from Harold Pinter, recorded after he was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, addresses all three of the elements in its title: he discusses (and contrasts) the concept of truth in art and truth in politics. Pinter includes (from 15:22) first hand testimony about the way things really were in Nicaragua at the time of the US IranContra activities, and even offers (then) US President George W Bush a script for a speech (beginning at 41:12) which ends: I possess moral authority. You see this fist This is my moral authority. And don t you forget Pinter s speech ends with a reminder to us all of our personal responsibility for reestablishing truth in our own lives and in public discourse: 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 mandator