Gisteravond namen twee van onze bekendste schrijvers deel aan een tv-discussie.

Het onderwerp?

De uitspraak van de Paus, dat God zich van de mensen heeft afgewend.

Jezus Maria! Waar hèbben we het in Nederland over.

Harold Pinter, de bekendste toneelschrijver van Engeland, deed onlangs ook van zich horen.

?Earlier this year I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and its after-effects were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a man unable to swim bobbing about under water in a deep dark endless ocean. But I did not drown and I am very glad to be alive. However, I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare ?? the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. "If you are not with us you are against us" President Bush has said. He has also said "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror, chum. That's you.

The U.S. is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and is prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has more of them than the rest of the world put together. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow inspection of its own factories. The hypocrisy behind its public declarations and its own actions is almost a joke.?