Can theatre make a difference? Maybe?

[Denis Salter]

 Dear Colleagues,

Given the proclivity [sic] for generations of planned historical erasure, I fear many people will say: Miller who? McCarthy what? Paul Robeson--come again?  and so on, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
I believe that during a speech in Washington last March/April, with many pooh-bahs present, Miller presented a brilliant speech, taking a strip(e) off the side of almost every major U.S. politican/leader, going back to the thirties.  I was told the whole text was going to be published in the Atlantic or Harper's but I have not seen it.  I would grateful if anyone has a print copy.

Meanwhile, best of the Winter Solstice to one and all.

Pax,

Denis.
Arthur Miller accuses Bush of abusing and curbing civil rights
By David Lister Media and Culture Editor / GUARDIAN (UK)
22 December 2001
Arthur Miller, America's greatest living playwright, will speak out against the Bush administration for abusing civil rights, in a BBC interview to be broadcast on Christmas Day.

Miller was called before Senator McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee in the crusade against supposed left-wingers in 1956 and wrote one of his greatest plays, The Crucible, in response to it. He says he now fears the United States is using the war on terrorism to "increase its power over civil rights". Miller's words make him the highest-profile figure in the American arts world to take issue with President Bush's stance.

In the interview with the BBC World Service, he refers to Mr Bush's emergency order that allows non-Americans accused of helping terrorist enemies to be tried outside normal courts by military tribunals. Twenty million immigrants and visitors fall within its scope.

Miller says of the new law: "The government now is taking advantage of it ... and using it as a way of increasing its power over civil rights and so on, by this business of creating military courts for terrorists."

Asked by Ritula Shah, presenter of The World Today, whether he thinks the world has changed since 11 September, he says: "The confrontation of a mass dying is a traumatic experience even for the dullest mind and I think people were drawn together, but I question whether this is a long-term effect." Asked how events have forced American attitudes to change, he says: "I think that more people are prepared now ... to inquire as to why we are so hated in so many places.

"It comes as a big surprise to a lot of people who have always accepted that American foreign policy was beneficent." 


******************************************************
'If we rule the world together then we can succeed in peace and let each other be different and have different opinions and different cultures. If there was no diversity then life would be boring. Imagine me looking exactly like you or acting the same way! LIFE NEEDS difference and until we realise it then we will not achieve our hope of world peace!"-Natasha Salter, written on the occasion of her 11th birthday (20 November 01).

***************************************
Denis Salter
Professor of Theatre
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke St West
Montréal 
H3A 2T6

T: (514) 398 6573
F: (514) 398 8146
E: <d.salter at videotron.ca>
    <denis.salter at mcgill.ca>

Home Office
4965, avenue Connaught
Notre Dame De Grace
Montréal
H4V 1X4

T: (514) 487 2568
F via Email:  (309) 294 0444
E: <d.salter at videotron.ca>
    <denis.salter at mcgill.ca>

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/english/english.html

******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20011221/d4403d15/attachment.html>