2003 Nobel Prize in Literature awarded toSouth African writer J.M. Coetzee

Oct. 2— J.M. Coetzee’s novels are characterized by their well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance. But at the same time he is a scrupulous doubter, ruthless in his criticism of the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of western civilization. His intellectual honesty erodes all basis of consolation and distances itself from the tawdry drama of remorse and confession. Even when his own convictions emerge to view, as in his defense of the rights of animals, he elucidates the premises on which they are based rather than he argues for them.

Coetzee’s interest is directed mainly at situations where the distinction between right and wrong, while crystal clear, can be seen to serve no end. Like the man in the famous Magritte painting who is studying his neck in a mirror, at the decisive moment Coetzee’s characters stand behind themselves, motionless, incapable of taking part in their own actions. But passivity is not merely the dark haze that devours personality, it is also the last resort open to human beings as they defy an oppressive order by rendering themselves inaccessible to its intentions. It is in exploring weakness and defeat that Coetzee captures the divine spark in man.

His earliest novel, Dusklands, was the first example of the capacity for empathy that has enabled Coetzee time and again to creep beneath the skin of the alien and the abhorrent. A man working for the American administration during the Vietnam war dreams of devising an unbeatable system of psychological warfare, while at the same time his private life disintegrates around him. His reflections are juxtaposed with a report on an expedition to explore the country of the native Africans, which purports to have been written by one of the 18th-century Boer pioneers. Two forms of misanthropy, one of them intellectual and megalomaniac, the other vital and barbaric, reflect each other.

One element in his next novel, In the Heart of the Country, is the portrayal of psychosis. A careworn spinster living with her father observes with distaste his love affair with a young colored woman. She has fantasies of murdering both of them, but everything seems to indicate that she decides rather to immure herself in a perverse pact with the house servant. The actual sequence of events cannot be determined, as the reader’s only sources are her notes, where lies and truths, crudeness and refinement alternate capriciously line by line. The high-flown Edwardian literary style of the woman’s monologue harmonizes strangely with the surrounding African landscape.

Waiting for the Barbarians is a political thriller in the tradition of Joseph Conrad, in which the idealist’s naivety opens the gates to horror. The playful metanovel Foe spins a yarn about the incompatibility and inseparability of literature and life, told by a woman who yearns to be part of a major narrative when in reality only one of minor importance is offered.

With Life and Times of Michael K, which has its roots in Defoe as well as in Kafka and Beckett, the impression that Coetzee is a writer of solitude becomes clearer. The novel deals with the flight of an insignificant citizen from growing disorder and impending war to a state of indifference to all needs and speechlessness that negates the logic of power.

The Master of Petersburg is a paraphrase of Dostoevsky’s life and fictional world. To die in one’s heart away from the world, the temptation that Coetzee’s imagined characters face, turns out to be the principle of the unconscionable liberty of terrorism. Here, the writer’s struggle with the problem of evil is tinged with demonology, an element that recurs in his most recently published work, Elizabeth Costello.

In Disgrace Coetzee involves us in the struggle of a discredited university teacher to defend his own and his daughter’s honor in the new circumstances that have arisen in South Africa after the collapse of white supremacy. The novel deals with a question that is central to his works: Is it possible to evade history?

His autobiographical Boyhood circles mainly around his father’s humiliation and the psychological cleavage it has caused the son, but the book also conveys a magic impression of life in the old-fashioned South African countryside with its eternal conflicts between the Boers and the English and between white and black. In its sequel, Youth, the writer dissects himself as a young man with a cruelty that is oddly consoling for anyone able to identify with him.

There is a great wealth of variety in Coetzee’s works. No two books ever follow the same recipe. Extensive reading reveals a recurring pattern, the downward spiraling journeys he considers necessary for the salvation of his characters. His protagonists are overwhelmed by the urge to sink but paradoxically derive strength from being stripped of all external dignity.

Source: The Swedish Academy (Stockholm) Press Release

Theatre group raises awareness on ‘disappeared’ children

By Marcela Valente

Just three years after two prominent actors in Argentina brought to the stage the story of a young woman who had been illegally adopted after her parents were “disappeared” during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, around 800 people are now involved in the “Theatre for Identity” movement.

During each season of plays put on by “Theatre for Identity,” the number of phone calls received by the offices of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an organization of relatives of the victims of the dictatorship, increases to an average of seven a day.

The human rights group was founded 27 years ago by women seeking their grandchildren after their sons and daughters became victims of forced disappearance.

Their grandchildren were either born into captivity to political prisoners, or abducted as small children along with their parents, and many were stolen and illegally adopted by members of the armed forces.

The recent annulment of the amnesty laws that let members of the military who committed human rights abuses during the de facto regime off the hook and the consequent reopening of prosecutions has once again propelled the cases of the illegally adopted children of the “disappeared” into the limelight.

The members of the “Theatre for Identity” movement are aware that the winds of change sweeping through Argentina under center-left President Néstor Kirchner will bring even greater support for their work, which began as a lonely effort in a hostile environment.

“Up to now, we were the artistic branch of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which is our mother organization,” actress Susana Cart, a member of the governing commission of “Theatre for Identity,” told IPS.

“But now we are an institution in and of ourselves, and we are discussing the possibility of registering as a separate non-governmental organization with legal status.”

The adventure began in 2000, when well-known TV and film actors Daniel Fanego and Valentina Bassi put on the play “A propósito de la Duda” (With Regards to the Doubt). None of the actors were paid for their work, nor were spectators charged admission to see the play.

Directed by Patricia Zangaro, the play explored the problems of identity faced by a young woman who had been stolen and illegally adopted as a baby.

“The idea was to put on two or three performances to help the Grandmothers in their search for their missing grandchildren. But the play continued to show to full-house audiences for a whole year, and 99 percent of the public consisted of people under 25, who generally do not go to plays, and especially not on Mondays,” said Cart.

Those involved in the initiative then decided to set up a 24-member commission that included actors, directors, playwrights, producers, set designers, sound technicians and other people from the world of theatre.

The name Theatre for Identity came from the title of the group’s 2001 season.
The first step was to invite people to submit scripts focusing on the dictatorship’s theft of the children of the “disappeared”.

“When there is a group of young people who have doubts about their identity, it is the identity of society that is in doubt,” said Fanego, one of the theatre group’s founders.

Of the more than 150 scripts for plays received by the commission, 41 were selected.

The group then found 14 theatres where it could put on the plays on Monday nights, drawing an estimated total of 35,000 spectators in the first season.

Last year, the focus was expanded from the problems of identity faced by illegally adopted children to problems of identity in general.

Around 20 plays were performed in seven theatres, which were attended by a total audience of around 17,000. “The idea was to show that the issue does not just involve a specific group of young people, but society as a whole,” said Cart.

This year, “Theatre for Identity” also put on its plays in outlying neighborhoods of the greater Buenos Aires, drawing around 8,000 theatre-goers in all. The shows in the capital alternate with performances in cities of the interior, like the seaside resort town of Mar del Plata in the southeast or Cordoba in central Argentina.

Play-writing workshops are also offered in which awareness-raising about issues of identity is carried out among the future writers. In addition, the group periodically issues calls for submissions of scripts.

The initiative brought immediate results. “During the season when the plays are put on, calls by young people to the offices of the Grandmothers have increased 80 percent,” Estela Carlotto told IPS.

Carlotto is the president of the Grandmothers, who so far have found 72 of the 500 children — now young adults — that they began to look for in 1976.

The Grandmothers receive queries from many young people with doubts about their true identities, and help them delve into the details of their past, to find out if there is any point of contact with the lives of their disappeared children and grandchildren.
If there is any suspicion that the youngsters might have been illegally adopted during the years of the “dirty war,” genetic testing is carried out to verify or discard that possibility.
Cart said the plays help people identify with the issue on a more emotional level. “We help raise awareness, and we think our work has a great impact,” said the actress.

Carlotto said the plays “give life to the need to find our grandchildren.” She herself still has hopes of finding her grandson among the young people who call the human rights group’s offices.

Her daughter, Laura Carlotto, was abducted by the security forces in 1976. After Estela’s desperate attempts to get her daughter back, she was finally handed her corpse — unlike most parents, who never saw their “disappeared” loved ones again, either dead or alive.
Shortly afterwards, she found out from other political prisoners that her daughter had given birth to a baby boy and named him Guido, after his father. Carlotto’s grandson would be 27 today, and she suspects he may be living with a certain couple who allegedly stole him and changed his name.

In the 1990s, the Grandmothers got the courts to open cases against members of the military on charges of kidnapping and disappearance of minors, an offence that was not covered by the amnesty laws.
It gradually emerged that the dictatorship had a systematic plan of stealing the young children of political prisoners, who were often raised by members of the military or the police.
The Grandmothers thus continue to promote initiatives like “Theatre for Identity,” while sitting by the phone and anxiously awaiting the next call.

Southeast tour speaks out against the FTAA

By najwa

Oct. 8 (AGR)— On Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 7pm, the FTAA Speakers Forum will make its final stop at the Asheville Community Resource Center (63 N. Lexington). The tour is traveling throughout the southeast United States to talk to folks about the effects that corporate globalization has had on the western hemisphere and how the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will continue its pattern of devastation.

The tour, which is visiting 13 cities in four states, is bringing together speakers from Mexico, Chile, and the US. Aldo Gonzalez, a speaker from Oaxaca, Mexico, is a Zapotec indigenous leader and director of UNOSJO, a grassroots campesino organization in the Sierra Juarez.

A well-respected leader of an important movement for food and cultural sovereignty in Mexico, Gonzalez has joined the tour to speak out against how genetically modified corn, through NAFTA and other neoliberal policies, has and will continue to threaten Mexican food security and indigenous cultures. He is specifically addressing the dangers the proposed FTAA poses to small farmers, consumers and indigenous folks throughout the hemisphere and offering viable community-based alternatives.

Speaking in Asheville will be Jason Tockman, American Lands Alliance’s director of international trade, and Marco Antonio Torres, labor organizer and consultant at the Center for Labor Research and Union Consultation in Mexico City. Pablo Huaiquilao, an indigenous Mapuche activist from southern Chile, was scheduled to speak in Asheville, but has had to return to Chile early due to a family emergency.

What is the FTAA?

The FTAA is a proposed expansion and strengthening of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into all 34 countries of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, except Cuba. Negotiations for the FTAA began in 1994 (shortly after implementation of NAFTA) and proponents are hoping to conclude the talks by 2005.

Opponents have argued that the FTAA will impose the failed NAFTA model of increased privatization and deregulation hemisphere-wide. The nine working groups set up to negotiate the FTAA correspond closely to the chapters of NAFTA and cover the following topics: agriculture, competition policy, dispute settlement, government procurement, intellectual property rights, investment, market access, services, subsidies and anti-dumping.

People from all of the Western Hemisphere have spoken out against the FTAA’s proposals to empower corporations to repress democracy. Opponents argue that the FTAA policies will enhance corporate power at the expense of citizens throughout the Americas.

Community organizations, such as the Peoples’ Consultation Against the FTAA, have pointed to NAFTA’s ten-year reign of devastation as an example of why to oppose further free trade policies. Under NAFTA, corporations are given the right to sue any level of government for laws that threaten their profits, including laws protecting workers, the environment, public health, and consumer safety. In addition, more than 765,000 jobs were destroyed in the US as a result of NAFTA. Opponents also call attention to the FTAA’s potential to privatize essential public services, destroy fragile ecosystems, undermine consumer rights, and starve family farmers.

Why the FTAA? Why now?

Melissa Fridlin, of the Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America (CITCA) — a local sponsor of the event, stated that this tour is part of an annual educational program hosted by CITCA and Witness for Peace. When asked why she felt it was important to organize a speaker’s forum, Fridlin said, “This is one of the most effective ways to get our message out to communities. It brings it home to people and makes it personal because people get to talk face to face with others who are being affected by free trade and fighting against it.”

Leo Gorman, from Witness for Peace, has also been traveling with the tour. “The purpose of this tour,” says Gorman, “is to speak out against free trade. With 10 years of NAFTA, we have seen that free trade only benefits a small group of people. Wealth is being concentrated more and more in the hands of the few. The FTAA would extend the reach of NAFTA and its devastation.”

Gorman went on to explain that this tour is meant to raise awareness about the mobilization to oppose the FTAA at its ministerial meeting in Miami this Nov. 17-21, but that it is also about sharing the experiences of the impacts of free trade on folks in the Global South. “We must show that free trade is not a just and ideal model,” stated Gorman.

Fridlin points to the recent break-down of trade negotiation talks at the WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico as a sign of hope to stop the FTAA. “We are making a difference,” stated Fridlin. “I am confident that the reason those delegates walked out of the WTO meetings is because of all the global organizing.”

Organizers of the tour stated that the purpose is for communities to learn more about how free trade affects all of us, especially developing countries and women, and what we can do to create a better world. Sponsors of the event are hoping that people in the community will take further action against free trade once they have had a chance to speak to those that are leading struggles throughout the hemisphere.

Asheville High gets private tour of Free Trade

At 3:45pm on Oct. 14, Asheville High School will be hosting the Speaker’s Forum in Mr. Kissling’s Room 119. This event is an attempt to make the forum more accessible to students and to get them involved in the fight against free trade.

When asked why he thought it was important that students hear about struggles against the FTAA, John Lapp, AHS senior, stated, “Corporate globalization affects all of us. Right now, it’s taking its toll on schools and education through privatization. [Young people] will be more affected by these policies because we will have to grow up paying for them.”

Both events will be accompanied by local speakers and a public speak-out on the FTAA. The event is free of charge and all are invited to come.

International Link serves foreign-born community

By Tamiko Murray

(AGR)-- It’s 3:00 on Wednesday afternoon at the International Link, and a grinning, young man from Costa Rica has come in out of the rain for his bicycle.

Arts and crafts by people from all over the world hang from the center’s walls, and people practice Russian, converse in Spanish or brush up on their English.

“It’s a wonderful place for people everywhere... new friends...new family,” says the man from Costa Rica, Edgar Arce, who apologizes for his “sleepy English.” An artist by trade, Arce facilitates a Spanish class at International Link. “In my country, I made a lot of different kinds of arts,” says Arce. His jewelry, displayed on the center’s gallery walls, is made of bamboo, seeds and stones collected from Costa Rican tropical rain forests.

For non-native English speakers like Arce, the International Link has acted as a “central resource for foreign-born peoples in overcoming language and cultural barriers,” while improving cross-cultural understanding, says the center’s founder and director, Geri Solomon. “We encourage people to come by and connect with people,” says Solomon.

The International Link assists participants and volunteers in breaking down stereotypical ideas of other cultures. Arce says his involvement with the center has changed the way he views people from all over the world. “I wanted to change something too,” says Arce. Latin people are from everywhere from Mexico to Argentina, he says, stressing how important it is to “change stereotypes.”

There are over 8,000 native Spanish speakers, close to 5,000 native Russian speakers and over 30 languages spoken within Buncombe County. International Link offers support services to over 300 foreign-born people monthly.

Solomon says people who move from other countries to the United States face many challenges. They have difficulty accessing community services and health care and have transportation issues.

Non-English speakers also deal with prejudice, says Solomon, who speaks of people being sent away from medical providers, who are unwilling to work with those they don’t understand. “My language is English, you’re the problem,” says Solomon to explain the mindset of many native English speakers.

Foreign-born peoples are often taken advantage of, says Solomon. They are overworked, underpaid and are unfamiliar with workers rights. Many are plagued with feelings of isolation and feel unwelcome in the downtown area. That’s why we’re here, says Solomon of their downtown location.

In addition to English tutoring, the center provides links to interpreters , networking, job placement, assists people in filling out applications and in making phone calls. Tutors also assist children with homework from limited English-speaking families.

Solomon, who has taught English as a second language for most of her adult life, felt a need for the growing foreign-born population in Buncombe County. By taking the “better pieces of different programs” she had previously been involved with she created the center. Solomon has received grants from the United Way, and 2 Smith Reynolds grants in addition to private donations for the center.

“Excuse me,” apologizes Solomon, who handles the multiple interruptions during our meeting without a hint of frustration. Although International Link has 85 committed volunteers, it is apparent the growing organization is always in need of more. In addition to support from bilingual and multilingual people, volunteers are needed for administrative tasks and fund raising. Solomon feels she is needed 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, “but I need sleep once in awhile,” she says jokingly.

Networking through a “skills bank” connects skilled workers with jobs such as ethnic catering, yard work, housecleaning and child care.

Foreign-born people may sell crafts in the International Link gallery to assist family members still living in their native countries. The gallery has recently expanded and now includes crafts from various South American countries, Poland, Bulgaria and Japan. There are drawings by children from Chiapas, “their vision of peace,” in addition to tapestries, clothing and many other hand-crafted items.

International Link hosts conversational, intermediate and beginning Spanish and Russian classes. The organization will be expanding its services to the Japanese community with the introduction of the Japan Club. The club will host classes on Japanese cooking, origami, home Shiatsu treatments and many other events to share Japanese culture with the community.

A “Practice your Spanish Potluck,” with Latin food, dancing and Spanish-only conversation is open to the community with a $4 donation.

The International Link is dependent upon community support and welcomes private donations . To find out more information visit their Web site at

www. internationallink.org.