Distant Voices Reviewed by Dave Osler Joumalism anthologies rarely work. Feature articles shorn of immediate context, ripped down from the centrespread and republished in book form years later minus their banner headlines, are frequently just plain dull.
Not so with 'Distant Voices'. This volume provides a textbook of leit wing journalism at its finest. Pilger has mastered the craft of marshalling fact after fact, quote after quote, to win his arguments by the written equivalent of Chinese water torture.
A palpable sense of anger portaacs 4ะป000 24356 savagely lashing ouf at imperialism, poverty and racism and from Britain to the Philippines, from One article on Cambodia, 'Relum to Year Zero' succeeds in packing a book on that God-forsaken country into thirty odd pages. It is an absolute bravura pertormance.
'Return to Yeat Zero' explains with damning clarily sow the British goverment Rouge to lay the land miner which blow kiddie's legs off, while simulataneonsly denying it in parlament.
byen it you are aware of reading the piece will still matenat on Balam ano tae Gulf War is absolutely outstanding too.
Not that "Distant Voices' is beyond cricism. Pilger lacke two key things; a mass audience and Marxism. Thanks to the Daily Mirror and the SWP, Paul Foot gets the edge both times.
With Pilger's written work now largely confined to the broadsheets and New ly inaccessible to many of the very people il should be reaching:
Pilger is a committed radical, from a socialist family. But unfortunately, he lacks the sole political theory that can both interpret the world and change it.
Don t get mad, get even. Get Marxism.
Coal not dole.
First issue out now - free! For coples contact:
The National Miners Support Network, c/o Jeremy Corbyn MP, 129a Seven Sisters Road.
London N7 7QG. No. 32 21 Nov, 1992