Distant Voices

Is this book out of print. It seems to be available in bookshops here in Ireland.March 2000

DISTANT VOICES BY JOHN PILGERJournalism at its worst is froth and bubble, at its best it is a dissection of the truth and in the hands of John Pilger, it is definitely the latter. A skilled word smith, he has long been recognized as a 'voice in the wilderness.' His articles and essays as paraphrased in Distant Voices are a cry for reason amidst a world of chaos. The current crisis in East Timor receives ample coverage in Pilger's book, as does the other side of the Gulf War where he redefines the term 'surgical strike' and 'carpet bombing.' The Cambodian crisis of the eighties is exposed as a giant sham and the heartache of Bosnia is laid out for us in black and white.Not content with hot zones, he has also exposed the New Elite of his own world, the powerful media magnates who control the flow of information to the global community. The New Britain of the nineties had its roots in the Thatcherism as unveiled in Distant Voices. But amongst the doom and gloom he is able to season it with bursts of black hearted comedy and satirical exposes of our sacred cows; Disney comes off second best.When information is power and controlled by an elite oligarchy, Pilger is one of those who seeks to give power back to the people, as they cry with distant voices.Written by Alastair Rosie

"Who sold weapons to who?" These and other interesting questions are explored in Pilger's essaysThe short answers are "we did" and "to Saddam". "Modern" Iraq begins with the coming to power of the Ba'athists with Washington's help in a cruel and bloody episode which "extinguished all hope of a pluralist Iraq" (Pilger). Saddam Hussein was famous then as a torturer at a place known as "The Palace of the End". He and others in his party courted favour with the CIA and together they oversaw the slaughter of Iraq's opposition (teachers, artists, writers, trade unionists, journalists). In the 80's Britain and the US sold many tons of weaponry to Iraq, and even following Iraq's genocidal gassing of the Kurds in 1988, Britain granted Iraq over $500 million in British trade credit."Like other American-sponsored tyrants before him - Diem in Vietnam, Noriega in Panama - Saddam Hussein outlived his usefulness, especially when he had the temerity to challenge our divine right to the resources of the Gulf. For this principle many thousands of people got zapped" (John Pilger)."Our position should be the protection of the oil fields. Now Whether Kuwait gets put back, that's subsidiary stuff." Said Les Aspen with an unusually firm grasp on the facts of the case as the war was just picking up.Much of this recent history (and more!) can be found in John Pilger's book "Distant Voices" published by Vintage in 1992. Pilger is a top Journalist, winner of numerous awards (Emmy, Adademy Award, Journalist of the year, etc etc), a fine writer, and a humanitarian. The next time some maniac decides to lob explosives (or worse) in the vicinity of Times Square or Piccadilly Circus it will behove our leaders and ourselves to consider: "What has driven them to this?" Will it be the sanctions or the bombs themselves? Or will it be the smug and self-satisfied way in which we speak of our freedom and our principles while remaining loyal and patriotic to the evil carried out with our consent? Pilger explores these questions and more...During my 7th grade history lesson on the evils committed during W.W.II, I often wondered how modern, well educated, Christian Germans had en masse become such monsters. Well I now know the recipe for the evil madness that consumed the Germans. It consumed America more than once - during the Salem trials, and the McCarthy inquisitions. ___My own Recipe for evil follies:"Begin with a healthy ignorance of the 'enemy' and add a pinch of fear." This fear could be economic but a fear of "weapons of mass destruction" will certainly be sufficient. "Drugs" have replaced Satan and Stalin as one of our chief fears during this enlightened time. "Follow on quickly to cull any dissenters by calling them sympathisers and unpatriotic, and by questioning their integrity and intelligence." The mass of patriots will naturally assist this process.A modern addition to this recipe and the piece de resistance is