Norman Mailer in Amsterdam 2001

Unauthorized translation of the Newspaper article in NRC Handelsblad

Norman Mailer about the wounded ego of his home country, ‘Americans cannot stand criticism.’

Amsterdam, 29 Oct.


Norman Mailer was in top condition, Saturday afternoon at the ‘Nieuwe de le Mar theater’ in Amsterdam. As an extra performance after his show at the Crossing Border Festival. For a full room of invited people he held a brilliant and completely improvised speech about ‘the American ego.’ Him entering the room with the use of two walking sticks must have been a shock to many people who have become used to the ultra-masculine image that he has kept up for the past fifty years. Although Mailer is almost eighty years old, his mind is still clear.

 

He doesn’t want to downplay the human tragedy of the thousands that died when the two planes hit the twin towers in Manhattan, but the American writer will not cry for the disappearance of those towers.

‘In the aftermath of the events it turned out how much these towers were worshipped by the American people’ he says, “Not as examples of beautiful architecture, but as distinguished pieces of corporate power play. The WTC  wasn’t only an architectural monster, because it disturbed the rhythm of Manhattan’s skyline, but also a symbol of lack of respect. It was also a monster for the people who did not work there, because it said to those people: if you didn’t make it up there, boy, you’re out of it. Therefore I am sure that if these towers would have been destroyed without any loss of life, a great number of people would have cheered. Everything that is wrong about America has led this country to the point that it built this Tower of Babel, that would have to be destroyed subsequently.

‘One shock followed another and another as the days followed, and it soon turned out that the impact was so much bigger than all other events because these disappear to the background very soon in a country that has such a short collective memory as ours. First Americans saw something which looked like a fifty-million-dollar-movie-scene, those magnificent images of a plane that entered the building. It was as if God and the devil had decided they could do a better movie shot than any of these bastards down below would be capable of. And then came the next shot: we had to realize that those who did this were brilliant people. It turned out that the ego which we could uphold until the 10^th of September was inadequate.’

Mailer is without mercy in his analysis of present-day Americas. ‘America is a country that is built on a tremendously optimistic and risky idea of human nature: if you give people enough freedom, ’good’ will always overcome ‘bad’ Many elements of this idea lived on long after World War II, even until today. That was the reason why we became known as a very friendly country, something the country needed because it lacked roots characteristic to many other countries.’

The rise of technology in the fifties and sixties is partly responsible for the eradication of these roots. Television, with its unrelenting commercial interruptions added to this.

‘Television does not tell you anything about the meaning of events, it disturbs and twists every notion of what could be important. We leave the thinking to what I would call pundits, people that keep babbling to us from the TV screens and know for themselves that there is nothing inside, except deep mediocrity.’

The material success of the country together with the lack of roots and historic insight gave rise to a soothing and unpleasant feeling of self-love that made it ever more difficult to talk about a few essential characteristics that were lacking.

‘We have completely lost our respect for language. A democracy cannot function without accuracy and intensity of language. Take a good bureaucrat like Colin Powell, how can he talk of an attack by cowards? That is an enormous misuse of language. You might call it a monstrous deed, devilish, low-down , but how can you say the terrorists were cowards?”

Americans cannot get themselves to say that courage is needed for such an act, that those people might well be admired. Your words might be explained in the wrong way. The key issue is that we in America are convinced that they were blind, lunatic fanatics that did not know what they were doing. But what if the perpetrators are right and we are wrong? We have lost the ability to rationally analyze the enormity of our enemy’s position long ago.’

Like the 20^th century stated in 19145, the 20th century started 11 September 2001. The last century was according to Mailer ‘the worst century in the history of Christianity’ but the 21st century might become worse. ‘The possibility that we in this panic, with all security measures that are in place- will degenerate into a police state –there are many Americans who would like that idea anyway – is real, when not enough people will keep cool. Chance is that these ideas will flourish, because in the past decade the country has become numb and less alert, more stupid and most of all more spoiled than twenty years ago. All other values became second after money, we became obsessed by it. We have become a country, where among ego means a mental condition that does not like questions a of which the answer takes longer than 10 seconds. That’s why we finally have in George W. Bush the president we deserve.’

When someone from the audience criticizes Mailer for his not so patriotic points of views, he shakes his head slowly. ‘The true test for a great country is that it can stand criticism. We do not behave like that, because we cannot stand it. There is something more important than ‘my country right or wrong’ and that is the idea: let us hope we are right and use our best talents to try to show are. I never liked the idea that you have to be thankful because the country has given you so much. You do not have to spend the rest of your life on your knees cleaning the dust from your parents’  shoes with your tongue because you have so much to thank them for.’

Anyhow, something good might arise from this new situation. ‘An end to all those decades or arrogance and ignorance, the mentality of  don’t bother me with all those questions I don’t have to think about, I’m an American, I know.’

 

[ This report was put out by Reuters, I obtained it from www.dawn.com   a paper in Pakistan. I obtained an English translation from the original Dutch at www.middleast.org/comments/1.359.shtml].