Distant Voices
By John Pilger
Vintage. 397 pp. $14.95
Reviewed by Frank Noakes
"Unless prejudice is countered, it is reinforced. Unless misconceptions are corrected, they become received truth." — Distant Voices
George Orwell wrote in "Politics and the English Language", published in April 1946: "In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel." This is more true 47 years later.
Of course, rebelliousness is no guarantee of clarity, nor of accessibility; even with many writers on the left, especially academics, words, as Orwell noted, have parted company with meaning. All the more credit, then, to John Pilger, the rebel who combines clarity with both precision and easy access.
Writing in the Observer, Salman Rushdie says: "Pilger's strength is his gift for finding the image, the instant, that reveals all: he is a photographer using words instead of a camera." This book is Pilger at his best.
Many of the essays in Distant Voices are reproduced, some updated, from his regular column in the British magazine New Statesman & Society. There is also new material on Cambodia, building on the author's pioneering work that alerted the world to the situation there.
Those comfortably accepting of the establishment prejudices which parade as fact in the compliant media may find Pilger's work offensive to their "common sense". Perhaps it will challenge some. The establishment, including the leaderships of all mainstream political parties, will simply be offended. Therefore, the book comes highly recommended.
The essays cover the tragedy that British politics inflicts on the poor and infirm; the clawing back of civil liberties; the obscenity of the Gulf War and the manipulation of the public mind. They take us to Cambodia and Nicaragua, through Palestine and on to Australia. The book projects a radically different, and refreshingly honest, world view.
One point of difference I have with Pilger is his view, in the essay "Wild colonial boys", that Australia lacks independence. Most of the arguments used to justify this position could be applied to many other independent countries. The
US interferes in the internal affairs of European nations, but they remain independent.
The Whitlam government turned a blind eye to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor for the same reason that the current Labor government looked away when the Fiji coup took place, and for the same reason it supports the Papua New Guinea government in its war against the people of Bougainville — because it has the same general political and economic interests as the US — and the rest of the first world, for that matter.
Others will have their own differences. However, Pilger's positions are argued honestly and passionately; they contribute to a dialogue that is necessary and urgent in the face of a worldwide ideological offensive by increasingly extreme right-wing forces.
The book is serious, but this does not prevent Pilger's charm and biting wit from shining through. There is no cynicism, nor is the book depressing or defeatist. The short essay format makes it easy to read, to pick up and put down, but not to forget.
There is no need of samples here. Those familiar with Pilger's work need only know of the book's existence. For the unacquainted, Distant Voices is an impressive introduction.