The Song Remains the Same No 4: "It can call itself what it likes"

"When the Czech police use their truncheons in Wenceslas Square we describe this as an act of brutal repression consistent with the practices of a totalitarian regime. When the English police charge students on horseback on Westminster Bridge we describe this as a maintenance of law and order and are advised that it is a containment of essentially subversive forces. The Czechs use precisely the same language (as of course do the Turks, the Chileans, the South Africans, etc: the demonstrations are against the state and must be crushed. Here, as there, I believe we must assess a governing power not by what it says it is, or by what it says it intends, but by what it does. It can call itself what it likes."

Harold Pinter, from an article 'Eroding the Language of Freedom' published in Sanity in 1989.

Merry Xmas!