THE WORLD AS CONCENTRATION CAMP?
Wicker, Brian
doing so the legislature should take account of the character of Irish society (i.e., traditional Catholicism) and the "quality of life." This quality of life would be damaged by the...
...Commenting on the government bill, Mrs...
...The point rather is that the only way of putting questions as large and unmanageable as these into a discussable shape is by dramatizing them...
...A settlement which is purely external and imposed by fear is not peace...
...This quality of life would be damaged by the "contraceptive mentality" which in England, the bishops claimed, had led to widespread abortion...
...One of Carl Mclntyre's missionaries to Chile sent back a panegyric on the golpe last Fall beginning with I Timothy: "I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority...
...As it happens the present menu in the London theaters is quite appetizing (though you never know how soon it will be before some of the best dishes are 'off...
...The bill also aims at totally banning abortifacientsma difficult assignment for legislators as even Irish medical opinion is divided as to what constitutes an abortifacient...
...Is the world we are living in more like a conference room or a concentration camp...
...This trend was supported by a Supreme Court decision in December on the appeal by a Mrs...
...he was expelled on May 2. The social teachings of the churches, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bible--any one is evidently too much for Chile's ruling powers but all three are enjoying something more than a certain succ~s d'estime in Santiago today...
...I have been sent to announce liberation to the captives, freedom to the prisoners (Is...
...In mode and manner it is very dated: but in its implications, it is surprisingly up-to-date...
...And the empiricist or the positivistic philosopher may well at this point use what may be Commonweal: 277 called 'Wittgenstein's razor,' and insist that if the question can't be clearly asked it had better not be asked at all...
...no one can be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned...
...The former are mostly from recent encyclicals and Vatican II although there's a marvelous quote from Pope Nicholas I (A.D...
...So each of these two major plays from the recent past gives an answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this article, for each of them dramatizes the proposition that the world is more like a prison than it is like an eighteenth-century drawingroom...
...Patrick Cooney, announced that he intended to introduce legislation to bring the law into line with the Court's ruling...
...This proved to be successful, with many local politicians becoming afraid of constituency and parish priest opinion...
...The inevitable sequel to the introduction of the government's bill was the refusal of the Senate to give the Robinson bill a second reading...
...For as soon as you confront two new plays by English writers, like Peter Nichols' Chez Nous or David Storey's Li]e Class you begin to realize how much English drama is still basically Ibsenite...
...everyone has the right to participate in the government of their country either directly or by means of representatives freely chosen . . . . After each article, superbly selected biblical quotes underscore the ancient basis for the supposedly modern UDHR: You shall proclaim freedom on the earth to all of its inhabitants (Lev...
...Robinson, who is a Professor of law at Dublin's Trinity College, said, "I think it will to some extent make us the laughing stock Of Europe in its present form...
...Although the Cardinal has since followed through with two subsequent and unmistakably clear declarations-his Easter Vigil homily and the pastoral letter of late April--the UDHR publication served as a kind of pre-pastoral letter...
...I have ,just returned to Birmingham from a short spell in Lon'don with a party of adult students...
...I suppose the reply will mostly depend on where you happen to find yourself born...
...Commonweal: 279...
...Each of the thirty articles of the UDHR is emblazoned like commandments across the top of each page: Every person has the right to life, liberty and security of person...
...In its judgment the Supreme Court stated that those parts of the Irish law were unconstitutional which forbade citizens to import contraceptives for their own personal use...
...and from a 1971 document called the Social Credo of the Methodist Church...
...The bill, which at the time of writing is before the Dail, the lower chamber, permits only married people to have access to contraceptives...
...What follows is a lengthy excerpt from the Pope's December 8 message for the Day of Peace, concluding with these words: "Repression is not peace...
...61,1...
...He is now free and has been "strongly encouraged" to accept an offered post in the United States...
...9 0 9 0 Q 9 9 0 9 O0 9 00 REPORT FROM BRITAIN THE OBLD AS A CONCENTBA TION CAICIP...
...That is to say, is still concerned with the unmasking of illusions, the exposure of people who are merely 'acting' a part...
...29,2...
...It is almost a particular study of The Waste Land's sense of directionlessness: 'In the mountains, there you feel free...
...Mary McGhee against the 1972 seizure by customs officials of a package of contraceptive jelly being sent to her from Britain...
...Whether the cause is a rational one or a piece of nonsense, it seemed to be agreed that a certain degree of fanatical adherence 'through thick and thin' was the best recipe for survival in the world of the concentration camp...
...I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.' The permissive 'adult' figures who move about their taxhaven in the Dordogne have most of their illusions torn away as the play progresses: but in the end, I feel, we discover that the unmasking of illusions is not enough...
...JOHN COONEY (John Cooney, Commonweal's regular correspondent in Ireland, is on the staff o[ the Irish Times...
...Much the same could be said of Life Class, a brilliantly observed and acted study of a seedy provincial art-school, and dominated by the figure of a posturing pseudo-avantgarde teacher who in fact has nothing to give to anyone --neither his students, nor his wife, nor the school itself...
...Theologically progressive but far from radical, he was not politically active nor was he a member of the Junta's ecclesiastical bSte noire, Christians for Socialism...
...As one commentator remarked, the Irish bishops still dominate the bedroom...
...True peace must be based on a sense of the untouchable dignity of the human person, from which arise inviolable rights and corresponding duties...
...You either The Cardinal And the Junta While not quite rivaling the sale a couple of years ago of the Secret Documents of ITT, a new edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is moving briskly in Santiago these days...
...alien to considerations of the common good and man's moral freedom...
...Catholic Conference...
...Most of the Protestant citations are from World Council of Churches assemblies (Evanston, Geneva, Uppsala, etc...
...BRIAN WICKER (Brian Wicker is Commonweal's correspondent in Great Britain...
...And the answer to that question seemed to depend on how you view the contemporary scene...
...To ask of them, 'Is life really like this?,' is to ask that question in a precise and thus answerable way...
...Lawrence, these contemporary unmaskings seem rather routine, like the illusions themselves...
...That's a risky statement to make in Chile, even if you are just quoting the Pope...
...Unmarried tourists visiting Ireland and either importing contraceptives or purchasing them in Ireland would be in contravention of the regulations...
...THOMAS Qr0mLEY (Thomas Quigley is on the staff of the Division for Latin America, U.S...
...At the moment there is little indication that the bill will be amended in the direction sought by Mrs...
...But what follows is unlit dynamite...
...But to say that the question is ill-formed, or too general to be answerable, is not to say that it is intrinsically unintelligible or is incapable of being put into any kind of words...
...that have made scripture-quoting by the oppressors of this world a nearly obsolete form...
...Gajardo is also out of jail and out of Chile, but his exit was even less "voluntary...
...20,13...
...it said that at least in the area of basic human rights the church was in no way going to back away from its commitment to the poor and oppressed--those whose human rights are most violated in today's Chile...
...A few weeks ago I was at a conference of philosophers and literary critics, and the conversation over the dinner table where I was sitting turned to the question whether the people most likely to survive conditions of imprisonment or torture were fanatical believers in some kind of cause...
...McGhee had been told by her doctors that, because of her health, she should not have any more children...
...The justices also made the point, contrary to article 37 of the Irish constitution which states that the woman's place is in the home, that couples have the right to choose whether or not to have a family, thus opening the way for a complete revision of the position of women in Irish society...
...After the Scriptures come equally well chosen excerpts from Catholic and Protestant church documents...
...Quietly, various groups launched a letter campaign in which signatures were canvassed and sent to politicians to show them the grass-roots opposition to change...
...In accordance with the Supreme Court decision the Minister for Justice, Mr...
...Cowardice is not peace...
...Given the Junta's total censorship of all media, this issuance of a basic UN document, now some six months after its 25th anniversary date, constitutes a major "statement" by Santiago's Cardinal Silva...
...It is indeed true that peace will accept obedience to just law and legitimate authority, but it will never be 24 May 1974:278 need an obsessional and passionate (and, of course, extremely intelligent) commitment to the idea of life as a wilderness of mirrors (as with Pirandello), or you need a sense of personal involvement in the wilderness itself (as with Williams) to justify the continued dramatization of disillusionment itself...
...We had gone to see a sample of current West End theater productions and to discuss them...
...no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment...
...The ironies of these two plays are, like Priestley's, refleeted in their sardonic titles: but the question remains whether the combination of exceedingly skillful observation (a kind of plastic surgery in reverse, done not to hide but to reveal our social disfigurements) with a prevailing and all-encompassing sardonic irony is enough...
...A mother of four who lives in a mobile home, Mrs...
...But then, naturally, the question arose whether, if this is so, fanaticism was not a virtue...
...On the other hand the priest or partisan just back from the other side of the iron curtain, or indeed from Washington or Mozambique will doubtless tend to regard the whole world as a sort of 'aldeamento' or 'specification zone.' Clearly, there is no definitive solution to such a large and vaguely-formulated disagreement...
...And this is where another of my recent experiences comes in...
...The Chilean Embassy in Washington thought highly enough of the letter to I include it among its handouts but the Junta has not otherwise been caught with its Bible open...
...25,10...
...However, at the time the momentum appeared to be in favor of change...
...Called simply "Christian Reflections on the UDHR," the handsomely printed 32-page booklet published by the Catholic archdiocese is interesting for several reasons...
...all are equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law...
...It is even arguable that here is a strictly unanswerable, because ill-formed, question: a question that it is not worth discussing until it is more precisely put...
...The genial philosopher in English university even now, will tend to see it as the former, and to regard the polite skepticisms of postEnlightenment culture as our most important cultural assets...
...couples will be able to purchase contraceptives only at licensed chemist shops, and people "without a living spouse" found contravening the regulations will be liable to fines of around $250 or face imprisonment...
...It's selections like these (and the Radical Bible, Quotations from Chairman Jesus, etc...
...everyone has the right to leave and to return to his own country...
...In retrospect, it can be seen that for many Catholics this episcopal statement was the signal for defensive action to save the country from the contamination of the permissive society...
...Or perhaps it is that the dramatists themselves are not sufficiently passionate, not entangled enough, to convey the necessary sense of shock and healthy indignation...
...For in so far as even part of the answer has to be 'yes, the world is a kind of cosmic concentration camp,' the conclusion has to be drawn that the sort of commitment which alone enables one to stand the test of survival under extreme conditions is itself a virtue...
...Yet both he and his wife were summoned for questioning by the army in March and, on April 19, he was arrested, brought to the now infamous Estadio Chile, and remained there without charges until April 29...
...To see Pirandello's Henry IV or Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire only helps to prove the point...
...It may in fact be defeated as a result of the fear of politicians of grass-roots country opinion that remains staunchly in favor of Humanae Vitae...
...Robinson...
...Where, we feel, are the positive values in the name of which the masks are to be torn off...
...By comparison, not merely with Ibsen but even with, say, the early plays of D.H...
...Perhaps one has to say 'yes and no': but even this is a kind of answer...
...2,13...
...In its heavily 'well-made' way, the play is rather bitter under its surface realism: not only about the good Edwardian Eden that is ended, but also about the illusions and hypocrisies and roleplaying antics that seemed necessary to sustain even that nostalgic vision...
...Polish nationalists under Hitler, Jehovah's Witnesses under Franco were cited in evidence...
...Rise up and take the child and his mother and flee into Egypt . . . because Herod is seeking to kill him (Mt...
...Arrested at the same time was Joel Gajardo, a wellknown Presbyterian theologian who, like Charles West and others in this country, was in dialogue with the Prague-based Christian Peace Conference...
...in case of persecution, everyone has the right to seek and receive asylum in whatever country...
...I suspect that this is partly why most of us feel that, whatever the technical shortcomings of his work, a man like Solzhenitsyn is intrinsically a greater artist than any of our latterday social plastic surgeons, for all their skill in diagnosis and the baring of its collective skull beneath the skin...
...We saw five plays in three days...
...This bill was duly published but it clearly was a narrow construction of the Supreme Court ruling...
...866) in which he condemns the practice of extorting admission of guilt by use of force...
...Thou shalt not kill (Ex...
...Samuel Araya, pastor of Santiago's Providencia Methodist Church, founder and former director of Chile's ecumenical seminary and one of Latin American Methodism's most respected figures was an author of the Social Credo...
...The Cardinal's introduction is but a single sentence saying that he offers this Christian reflection in an ecumenical spirit to all Chileans of good will, making his own the following words of Pope Paul...
...The first of these two plays is a dramatization of the false values and attitudes best described as those of the Sunday Times color-supplement: a glossy offering of middle-class 'culture,' advertiser's fantasy and professional man's rootless cosmopolitanism...
...The first-J.B...
...Priestley's Eden End-- is a National Theater revival of~bne of his plays of the thirties: a play built around the irony of viewing, from the perspective of 1934, a family living in 1912 and not noticing that the world was about to go up in flames...
...When the just rule, the people rejoice (Prov...
...Most of us felt, I think, that these contemporary illusions were just not big enough, or perhaps were too familiar already, to justify the effort devoted to their unmasking...
...I am still not sure how to answer it myself...
Vol. 100 • May 1974 • No. 12
