| Certain speeches read like poems; they can be recited again and again without any reduction in the pleasure their sounds and syllables evoke. Others, like good books, can be taken up repeatedly and reread each time with a fresh interest. Most speeches, though, are spoken into the wind and once blown away, like dandelion seeds, they are scattered and soon forgotten. Some rare speeches retain a haunting persistence about them. They hover like unsettled ghosts, as if in search of a second life, restless to be reheard. One such speech was made on an October [1958] evening , not all that long ago. Listen to its echoes. ‘For the last two years, I have been watching, with the deepest anxiety, the ruthless struggle for power corruption, the shameful exploitation of our simple, honest, patriotic and industrious ends. There have been a few honourable exceptions. But being in a minority they have not been able to assert their influence in the affairs of the country.[EXTRACT] |
Published in The Nation 18 June 1993, and reprinted in The Armless Queen (1994). |
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