"Fragments From a Diary"
by Wallace Shawn

Check out playwright/actor Wallace Shawn's new piece "Fragments From a Diary" in the March 31 Nation magazine. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030331&s=shawn

"...We can't fully understand it. But it's clear that Bush and his group are in the grip of something. They're very far gone. Their narcissism and sense of omnipotence goes way beyond self-confidence, reaching the point that they're impervious to the disgust they provoke in others, or even oblivious to it. They've made very clear to the people of the world that they value American interests more than the world's interests and American profits more than the world's physical health, and yet they cheerfully expect the people of the world to accept their leadership in the matter of Iraq. They're so unshakable in their belief that everyone will like them that they happily summoned the world, a year ago, to observe what they'd done to the people they'd taken as prisoners, proudly exhibiting them on their knees in cages, under a ferocious sun, with their faces hooded and their bodies in chains. In other words, the only thing you can really say about them is that like all of those who for fifty years have sat in offices in Washington and dreamed of killing millions of enemies with nuclear weapons and chemical weapons and biological weapons, these people are sick. They have an illness. And it's getting to the point where there may be no cure.

"Meanwhile, I read my New York Times, and it's all very calm. The people who write there seem to have a need to believe that their government, while sometimes wrong, of course, is not utterly insane, and must at least be trusted to raise the right questions. These writers just can't bear the thought of being completely alienated from the center of their society, their own government. Thus, although they themselves would have considered a 'pre-emptive' invasion of Iraq two years ago to be absurd and crazy, they now take the idea seriously and weigh its merits respectfully and worry gravely about the danger posed by Iraq, even though Iraq is in no way more dangerous than it was two years ago, and in every possible way it is less dangerous."

This piece can be found on THE NATION's web site: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011203&s=shawn

Wallace Shawn is a playwright and actor.

THE NATION MAGAZINE
December 3, 2001

The Foreign Policy Therapist
by WALLACE SHAWN

To: The Foreign Policy Therapist
From: The United States of America
Date: November 12, 2001

Dear Foreign Policy Therapist,

I don't know what to do. I want to be safe. I want safety. But I have a terrible problem: It all began several weeks ago when I lost several thousand loved ones to a horrible terrorist crime. I feel an overwhelming need to apprehend and punish those who committed this unbearably cruel act, but they designed their crime in such a diabolical fashion that I cannot do so, because they arranged to be killed themselves while committing the crime, and they are now all dead. I feel in my heart that none of these men, however, could possibly have planned this crime themselves and that another man, who is living in a cave in Afghanistan, must surely have done so. At any rate I know that some people he knows knew some of the people who committed the crime and possibly gave them some money. I feel an overwhelming need to kill this man in the cave, but the location of the cave is unknown to me, and so it's impossible to find him. He's been allowed to stay in the cave, however, by the fanatical rulers of the country where the cave is, Afghanistan, so I feel an overwhelming need to kill those rulers. As they've moved from place to place, though, I haven't found them, but I've succeeded in finding and killing many young soldiers who guarded them and shepherds who lived near them. Nonetheless, I do not feel any of the expected "closure," and in fact I'm becoming increasingly depressed and am obsessed with nameless fears. Can you help me?

To: The United States of America
From: The Foreign Policy Therapist

Dear United States,

In psychological circles, we call your problem "denial." You cannot face your real problem, so you deny that it exists and create instead a different problem that you try to solve. Meanwhile, the real problem, denied and ignored, becomes more and more serious. In your case, your real problem is simply the way that millions and millions of people around the world feel about you.

Who are these people? They share the world with you--one single world, which works as a unified mechanism. These people are the ones for whom the mechanism's current way of working--call it the status quo--offers a life of anguish and servitude. They're well aware that this status quo, which for them is a prison, is for you (or for the privileged among you), on the contrary, so close to a paradise that you will never allow their life to change. These millions of people are in many cases uneducated--to you they seem unsophisticated--and yet they still somehow know that you have played an enormous role in keeping this status quo in place. And so they know you as the enemy. They feel they have to fight you. Some of them hate you. And some will gladly die in order to hurt you--in order to stop you.

They know where the fruits of the planet, the oil and the spices, are going. And when your actions cause grief in some new corner of the world, they know about it. And when you kill people who are poor and desperate, no matter what explanation you give for what you've done, their anger against you grows. You can't kill all these millions of people, but almost any one of them, in some way, some place, or some degree, can cause damage to you.

But here's a strange fact about these people whom you consider unsophisticated: Most of the situations in the world in which they perceive "injustice" are actually ones in which you yourself would see injustice if you yourself weren't deeply involved. Even though they may dress differently and live differently, their standards of justice seem oddly similar to yours.

Your problem, ultimately, can only be solved over decades, through a radical readjustment of the way you think and behave. If the denial persists, you are sure to continue killing more poor and desperate people, causing the hatred against you to grow, until at a certain point there will be no hope for you. But it's not too late. Yes, there are some among your current enemies who can no longer be reached by reason. Yes, there are some who are crazy. But most are not. Most people are not insane. If you do change, it is inevitable that over time people will know that you have changed, and their feeling about you will also change, and the safety you seek will become a possibility.

Wallace Shawn

WALLACE SHAWN (Screenwriter) was born in 1943 in New York City and was educated at Harvard University where he studied history, and Magdalen College, Oxford. He is the author of a number of plays and is a well noted stage and screen actor. "Our Late Night", the first of his plays to be performed, was awarded an Obie in 1975.

"A Thought in Three Parts" was first performed in 1976 at the Public Theater under the title "Three Short Plays", and then it was performed in London by Joint Stock, a company run by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark and William Gaskill. His other works for the stage include Machiavelli's "The Mandrake", which Shawn translated from the original Italian and in which he made his acting debut, performed in 1977 at the Public Theater; "Marie and Bruce" (1979); "Aunt Dan and Lemon" (1985); and "The Fever", which received the Obie Award for Best New Play in 1990-91.

With AndrŽ Gregory, Shawn wrote the screenplay for and performed in the film "My Dinner with AndrŽ" (1981). Other credits as an actor in films include James Ivory's "The Bostonians"; Woody Allen's "Manhattan", "Radio Days", and "Shadows and Fog"; Stephen Frears's "Prick Up Your Ears" and his "Saigon, Year of the Cat" (written by David Hare); Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride"; Alan Rudolph's "The Moderns" and "Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle"; Marshall Brickman‘s "Simon" and "Lovesick"; Neil Jordan's "We're No Angels"; and the recent hits "Toy Story" and Amy Heckerling's "Clueless". On television Shawn has a recurring role on the series based on Clueless and has appeared in recurring roles on "Murphy Brown", "Star Trek, Deep Space Nine", "The Cosby Show" and "Taxi".