Saturday, March 26, 2011
Honeywell Radiator Instructions
MAIL GHOSTS OF THE PAST: KAPUSCINSKY, TRUTH AND POWER (www.letraslibres.com)
An interview with Artur Domoslawski
publication in Spain, where Ryszard enjoys a mythic stature of the biography written by Artur Domoslawski Polish journalist, was preceded by some controversy. The controversy began as an echo of that originated in Poland, where the book was a small earthquake. It quickly became a bestseller and led to a widespread lynching of the author, who from both fronts were accused of betraying the memory of his friend and mentor. The news wires coming from Poland and the English media (but also English and Italian) reproduced or played, talked about a controversial book, a kind of summary trial bound in 600 pages, full of accusations exposé written with the sole aim to destroy the reputation of the author of The Emperor and Travels with Herodotus. When months later the book was finally translated into Castilian, the surprise has been capitalized. non-fiction (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2010) is not nearly what we had been told the newspaper. In it a serious and, at times, revealing on a number of legends and inventions that both in life and in his writings, went through truths, but the book is much more. It is, above all, a major effort to put in place and historical moment in which he lived, to understand and explain how this war child born in Pinsk, convinced communist for most of his life and revolutionary living became a legend of international journalism.
What time arises to write a biography?
Well, it was a little after the death of Kapuscinski. A journalist friend told me: "I wish we could write a biography together." I never had written a biography and had not even thought of writing one. And while the idea Kapuściński was alive I had not even crossed his mind. At first I was startled by the size of the work to be done, because it is not only Kapu, but to write, for example, about his years in Africa, one must consult a number of sources, find many books, more even when dealing with a topic that I am not a specialist. Latin America know better, is an area to which I traveled and about which I have written enough, it's even easier to know what books I should go. While in the case of Africa had to consult with friends, experts, teachers. The fear is there, but the temptation is growing, as a grain that grows, as I think about the project and then tell my friend: "Ok, let's do it." But a few weeks she is not interested, have other issues that interest you most and leaves.
How conducts the research?
Almost the entire first year was basically Kapuściński reread and think and plan entire library research, travel, interviews. In late 2007 start doing the first interviews, just to see if this could go on, because it still was not sure. Especially reporters Kapuściński generation as Daniel passent, the Polityka magazine, or the former head of the same publication, which is interesting because the founder of Polityka was then the last first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, Rakowski. After these initial readings and interviews, still do not see how it will be the architecture of the book, but I feel it is something I really want to do and, above all, make a list of people that I have to interview, guided by a chronology of the life of Kapuściński. Divide your life into eras, I make a list of basic readings and interviews for each period, starting Pinsk. Obviously it is a preliminary list because then in the research process emerging new readings and new interviews.
When did doubts arise about the legends and factual lapses of Kapuściński?
The first case in which I begin to see that the data did not fit in the legend is that he had met and made friends with Che Guevara. That was the first question I had, I remember it well. I saw the notation on the cover of the English edition of The Soccer War and it caught my attention because I knew he had gone to Latin America Kapuściński as two months after the death of Che Guevara. There was the possibility that they have been found in Africa, so I researched and asked. Had a friend, Nowak, who is one of the best sources of the book, who first met Guevara in Zanzibar, and he confirms that it is impossible Kapuściński had found Che in Africa. One day, googling, I found an interview with Jon Lee Anderson in a Colombian magazine in which Kapuściński told that that was a publisher's error. Then I talk with Jon Lee on this and other topics. That was the first. Then, when I did interviews with old Polish journalists, from time to time one would say, "Look at this or that, check the Katyn" [referring to the story that makes Kapuscinski in The Empire of how his father had escaped from a transport to Katyn, where Soviet troops killed more than four thousand Polish officers]. From what Che Guevara, I knew I had to verify certain things, things you read and then thought "why not tell the whole story and only appears that point?" The second issue jumped when I traveled to South America in November 2007. He had already re-read his work, had made three or four interviews, I traveled to Chile invited to lecture and I used to go to Bolivia. I went to Santa Cruz, where I meet "Chato" Peredo, a Bolivian guerrilla ex. I carried a Mexican edition of The Soccer War entitled The boots, which had fragments of his other books published in Poland. I will read some fragments Kapuściński dedicated to his father, also a rebel, and Peredo tells me are inventions invented color notes Kapu. I try to be fair to him, not looking to be tough, there are cases in which errors are attributable to neglect, but others do not. I really like the theory of Kapuściński about rumors and their importance in the social landscape painting. I agree with that, but I must say they are rumors, not pass them by hard evidence.
There are things that can be careless, but in the book there are others who are legends or deliberate constructions ...
is the case with the legend that Kapuscinski was about to be shot first in Bolivia, Ghana and then finally Usumbura prison in Congo. I had doubts about the veracity of this. Even after finding the narrative constructed by the son of a Czech journalist who participated in this expedition Congolese. Nothing I wrote or did the reporter indicates that the Czech after they were about to be shot. And there is no one remembers one thing and another does not, memory is capricious, and one may confuse or forget details, but if it is about being shot, that is not forgotten. Nowak then confirm my intuition, to tell all the friends of that time they heard these stories from the mouths of Kapuściński licenses knew they were hers, and when anyone ever insisted on the veracity of these facts, Kapu put some face and changed subject.
That's an interesting thing that several people repeating throughout the book: when confronted Kapuscinski was seen about a point or a story, far from refuting the doubt, put a face, smiled and changed the subject. Did it occur to you at any time?
You know I do not remember now same? But while researching the book, they discovered that, somehow, I had fallen in some of these Twister when we talked about the slaughter of Tlatelolco and the Pinochet coup. "I was there, was there, in those days," he said more than once, so with that ambiguity. At the time I did not insist, were things said during our talks, and I do not imagine that someday would write a biography of him.
regard to Che, "you tried to contact the English editor to find out who invented this legend?
No, not really. For First, after I made inquiries, it became obvious that he had not known the Che and he made no effort to correct that history. On the other hand, find the editor would have a big job that I did not know if it was to be rewarded. I sensed that after twenty years, would meet a "do not know." And there were many things about what to investigate. There are always things that do not follow because you have to calculate time, effort and results.
One of the criticisms that have been made in Poland following the publishing of the book is to uncover the circumstances are not such, they are things that you do know. What is curious because if you already knew, then what is the scandal ...
It's just not true. There is no previous text about nothing written by a Polish journalist or researcher to tell what is told in this book. Sure you can say, "I knew." But where is it written? Who knew? Where was it published? Nothing, nothing. With respect to the folder on Kapuściński collaboration with the secret service, that had been published. I provide an interpretation, based on my conversation with an expert, called "The Interpreter" in the book whose name I can not reveal. I trust as I said this person, I have sufficient reason to trust what he tells me, though, as I said also in the book, perhaps not told me one hundred percent, because we are talking about a world full of secrets. But I trust in what I said, I know this person before and I know that is a source of serious and well informed. He gives an explanation and with that and much other information I give my explanation, and there's two things that nobody had ever said in Poland. On the one hand, how journalists worked both sides of the Iron Curtain. And, second, an explanation of the position of Kapu. There were two streams in Poland in the last twenty years. A coming on the right, engaged in a witch hunt. And Kapuściński was always a possible target because it had been a member of the party and his celebrity status in the world of culture, so it could be accused of treason or compliant for its actions during the communist era. The second trend, with which I was identified for many years as people of my newspaper, who spoke with understanding of actions and decisions of people like Kapuściński during those years, but in my opinion, is a position paternalistic. Position taken mainly by people at the time linked to the democratic opposition to communism and which says: "Ryszard is of us, committed errors of youth, then changed his mind. "But this is not so, there were mistakes of youth, were his convictions, a further strong convictions, I believe that somehow legitimate historical context, something I try to explain in the book. For him there was a devil, Kapuscinski did not have to sell his soul to the devil to be able to travel abroad and make a career, he believed that People's Poland was his country, his country, believed in the project. If you crossed a border that must not cross, was different. A journalist should not collaborate with the intelligence, but he sold his soul to the devil for help the communist system, he was a communist. And this is a completely different narrative discussion that existed in the Polish debate.
That effort put in historical context Kapuściński Polish politician is probably the most interesting of the book. And, understand this point, one is able to see, as you say in the book, Kapuscinski did not understand their "collaboration" with the communist government as a toll, but he was a believer, someone who believed, more or less critically over the years in that system. Do you think that it remained so afterwards?
After a few years after the fall of real socialism, five or seven, until the appearance of new revolutionary movements, like the one led by Subcomandante Marcos, that fascinated him, apart from this very brief period, remained unchanged Kapuściński , continued to believe the same thing. Their position, their values, the heart was on the left. As explained in the book, all that, the way he saw the world is in that book forgotten, why they killed Karl Von Spreti?, In which he writes with empathy for the Guatemalan guerrillas kidnapped the German ambassador expounding his theory of guerrilla violence as the end of a long chain of violence initiated by the state and imperialism. That was written in the seventies, but in our century Kapuściński which infuriated him most of the journalists said about the war on terrorism, I thought that they knew nothing of the Islamic world, who did not understand where he came from such violence . Criticizes Al Qaeda, obviously, but it irritated him what he considered ignorance and lack of reflection on the Polish commentators.
The book explains that the Emperor was read in Poland as a metaphor for People's Poland and, in general, the power in the countries of the Soviet world. Do you think you that the hype and licenses Kapuściński took in that book, and others like the Shah, are the result of those blinders that saw the world or are they the result of over-exertion by squaring the metaphor?
regard to those two books, maybe he had in his head that he was writing a metaphor for Poland, but I think, and this is something different, that their understanding of the mechanisms of power and speed come from your experience in Poland. This can be seen in the chapter in which I use fragments of the Shah and the transfer to Poland of the fifties and the second revolution of 56. To me it is obvious that these events, experienced by Kapuscinski, behind his understanding of revolutions. And their experience in the court of the seventies party behind their understanding of the mechanisms of power. I think that while writing The Emperor was not sure what would, I think it was and is an experimental work that was inventing a style, a new narrative, and out came something that can hardly be called non fiction or journalism. It is a work of literature. Then, in the first place, he could not say in Poland under that was a metaphor, in spite of which was well understood by the Polish readers. When published in the Western world, was read by many readers, most, as non fiction. And there's a problem, of course.
was never For you non fiction?
No.
Why him?
I think not, but never clearly stated. I think that from the beginning crossed a border, he could not call things by their name in Poland because the book would not have passed the censors and then left it.
Do you consider important to specify whether a book is journalism or literature?
course. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the universal mechanisms of power, but not a journalism student who wants to understand the craft workshop.
"The controversy generated by his book in Poland was due to the status of national symbol that has Kapuściński?
also why, but I think I should explain a little more about the Polish context for foreign readers to understand it better. I have already spoken before about the two narratives about the communist past, the right and left, and this book proposes a third narrative more difficult to understand. On the other hand, we Kapuściński deity status in Poland, what makes you who think you should not even pose a type of questions, and raise them is an offense. A third issue has to do with the ideology of Kapuściński. In Poland, the intellectual circle, which I formally belong, is related to the Gazeta Wyborcza, the newspaper where I work, took over Kapuściński. It is our Kapuściński. And because it shares our vision our world. What, seen closely, it is not true. Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland comes to occupy space here [in Spain] occupy the country, but more edging to the right. Center right, if you will. Liberals in the American sense socially, but liberal or conservative in economic and geopolitical. And Kapuściński, as I explain in the book, was always a very left. But that did not look. Even in the newspaper published those interviews that I cite in the book, in which Kapuściński expressed sharply divided views on the online newspaper, with regard to Iraq, for example. But that did not see, no one wanted him.
How Kapuściński who looked the other hand seemed to like quite the praise and public recognition that the right or the center-right appropriates his work or his figure when he was a man as the left?
That's a very good question. I believe, and explain in the book, we all have different dimensions and aspirations. On the one hand, as we said before, Kapuscinski was a man quite full and had a very strong convictions, but not naive, knew well how the world was well aware that talent is not enough, you have to help things to happen. And hence everything that is told in the book on their progress through the corridors of power in People's Poland, for example. He had some ideas and these ideas are in his writings, but often are written so as not to irritate too depending on who, not to bother too much into the mainstream. It may seem a contradiction, I do not think it is, although it is a very strange coincidence that the man in love with the revolutions had that desire to be recognized by the mainstream. But for me the most interesting feature of this case shows that the mainstream that celebrated Kapuściński never read his work carefully, do not read with care and detail needed to discover that deep Kapuściński ideas were radically opposed to yours. And even, sometimes, these ideas were an attack on that same mainstream. He, of course, took advantage of that blindness. Kapuściński was never such dissident, like Noam Chomsky, who was at war with everybody.
No was the kind of character that fascinated him. It was a revolutionary.
Exactly. Had a revolutionary spirit but had a revolutionary behavior.
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