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 10th
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 20th 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].
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