Why politicians should still beware Pinter

Had he lived, the playwright Harold Pinter would recently have turned 80. Although no longer with us, the words of this unyielding opponent of tyranny are as powerful as ever. By Ed O'Hare

Anyone who has listened to public debate in recent times must now be thoroughly tired of hearing the two words which are never far from politicians lips: 'openness' and 'transparency.' The perpetual deployment of these terms is certainly ironic because the very discourse of politics, the language our representatives use to address the questions important to us all, has never been more opaque.

In the past twenty years a whole new political vocabulary has come into existence which reflects, and in fact makes possible, the vastly different way that the business of politics is now conducted. Displacing the grandiose rhetoric of yesterday's statesmen is a shifting network of generalisations, equivocations and platitudes which often amount, when put under the lenses of logic and common sense, to absolutely nothing. One of the first to recognise this development was Harold Pinter.

Throughout his 50 year career Pinter conducted a devastating dissection of the relationship between language and power. From his earliest 'comedies of menace' such as The Birthday Party and The Caretaker right up to the brief dramatic works he wrote in the early years of this century, Pinter proved that there is no such thing as safe, innocent conversation. In his plays every linguistic exchange is a duel in which one person attempts to impose their view of reality upon another.

The infamous Pinter pauses are points where the battle ceases and a victor emerges, along with a victim. In this way, what Pinter exposed better than anyone was the violence veiled within everyday language. He demonstrated how a beautifully wrought speech could conceal a vicious threat, a seemingly innocuous statement could be deadly and a moment of silence could reveal everything. As Pinter wrote, we must never forget that all language is ultimately "a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

What gives Pinter's plays their lasting ability to disturb is the way in which they show language to be an instrument of control which can easily take control of those who use it. As he wrote, language is not a stable, reliable system but "a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you." When we listen to his characters talking, strangers chatting, old friends reminiscing, dinner-party guests making pleasantries, what we really hear is a succession of attacks, counter-moves, violations and suppressions.

The crowning glory of Pinter's writing is that meaning is of little relevance to his combatants. In the drive for linguistic supremacy who is speaking is of greater importance than what is being said. This gives rise to the many classic moments of sustained lunacy in his plays, where we see people onstage using words we understand but whose discourse is strange, baffling and incomprehensible. When the curtain falls we are no nearer to knowing what, if anything, has happened but we have a very clear impression of language's capacity to warp and distort reality.

We like to think we know what a threat or an accusation sounds like. We also like to think we know what the truth sounds like, but we don't. For Pinter language allowed politicians to avoid questions about reality since they are "interested not in truth but in power and the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain ignorant, 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 on which we feed." To observe politics is to observe what Pinter called "a scintillating stratagem" in which "language is actually used to keep thought at bay."

Pinter may not have been the first writer to see the danger inherent in the manipulation of language but he was definitely the most skilled when it came to presenting how this manipulation operates. Asked, when given the Nobel Prize in 2005, why his work has had such an impact on the world of theatre and elsewhere, Pinter attributed this to his ear for the corruption of language. He knew that any apparatus of oppression relies upon the eradication of free speech. This was why Pinter endeavoured to be the voice no-one, particularly politicians, wanted to hear, a voice for the marginalised, dispossessed and victimised.

Occasionally his criticism of governments or individuals could be excessive or simply unwarranted but in general his ear for language seldom misled him. He was a relentless and much-needed public opponent of some of the most cruel and disgusting regimes in modern history.

This brings us back to the dilemma in contemporary politics. Language is a living thing and like all forms of life it evolves but we must be alert to its perversion. The tendency to over-generalise pushes specific human concerns, the plight of real indivduals, out of the picture. The undermining of language may begin innocuously enough (just look at how the wonderfully neutral word 'issue' is now used to refer to everything from the cost of groceries to illegal immigration to terrorism) but unless it is stopped there is no limit to its destructive consequences for human freedom. To prevent this we must remain vigilant and ask ourselves what our representatives are saying. Pinter once wrote that as a citizen he believed he had a obligation to ask what was true and what was false. As he put it, "We must pay attention to what is being done in our name."