Fredy Perlman

“ She's your sister, Indio!
INDIO
If she ran away with an American, then she's not my sister! I hate her! I hate her! I hate the Europeans! I hate Pretoria as much as the Europeans! Why doesn't father want to fight against the Europeans, like Moses Burumba? It's Mr. Neriana that wants to sit alongside them.
CHUANA
The Europeans are men too. If your father fought against them, he would lose his spiritual freedom and become the same as they. Then not only his body would be enslaved, but his soul too. ”

“ MOKSA
I know, my son. I know. It is I who should find work. Ah, but I begin to turn in circles. You should be learning, not battling oppression and hunger. I have nothing to tell you, my son. When I try, I begin to sound like the others: sell your time and energy in exchange for money, renounce your life to keep on living; give up your soul to save your body. Physical survival does not concern us very much, either you or me. For me, to extinguish what is inside oneself, what one is, means death--after that, physical survival or extinction make little difference. ”

“ MOSES BURUMBA
(Vigorously)
We have accepted enough! In the fields we are horses and cattle; in the factories haulers and pushers. In the mines we are worms who crawl in and bury ourselves to dig out their stones.
MOKSA
I agree with Burumba. We are becoming like animals. The living day is no longer filled with man's fashioning his soul into the world. It is impossible to express ourselves in the mines. ”

“ We are sick men who cannot remember life as creation, expression, understanding; we cannot remember life at all; we can only dream of being not-sick, the rest of eternity being not-sick, nothing else. Totally consumed by the presence of sickness, our only hope is to be totally consumed by the absence of sickness.
INDIO
I do not understand what you are saying, father. You speak as if everything that has been done to Asia were the fault of Asians, as if the Europeans had never come. . .
MOKSA
Ah, Indio. You truly do not understand. ”

“ MOKSA
It was not the weakness of our souls but of our arms that gave Europeans the crown of India! The savage Portuguese saw vitality, culture and prosperity they had not dreamed existed. If we had fought them with their instruments, we would have won, we would have become a powerful empire of Portuguese Christians, we would today carry murder and death to every corner of the world. But then there would not be India. ”

“ You are still a dreamer, Krishna.
MOKSA
While I dream, India lives. I see India on every bowl and there is India. Every bowl is a speck in the universe, and each contains the whole universe. When I no longer people my bowls, there will not be a universe. ”

“ And because Men are the ones who blow the whistle while we Natives are the ones who jump. What if we starve to death, or if mother has to go into a factory to get food for Pretoria's baby! After all, what does it matter! Mother is only an old black woman!
MOKSA
If you and I had gotten the food, your mother would not have gone to the factory. And do you not forget your brother -- should he not be fed?
INDIO
If there was only Vaisya we could make it! And if Pretoria loves us so much, why doesn't she send some of her American money to support her daughter? ”

“ INDIO
If Pretoria hadn't left her baby we'd still have enough.
MOKSA
What remained of our water I have given to those who ran out sooner.
INDIO
I thought you'd never let mother work in that factory.
MOKSA
The children, she said. The children. They have not yet chosen your purity.
INDIO
That's it, isn't it? Pretoria's child. If it wasn't for her, mother wouldn't have had to go!
MOKSA
Where do our obligations lie, Indio? Can we feed only the children of others, and starve our own? Like this brown grass, we have dried up inside. We can bear no more fruit. ”

“ Men vanish in the desert sands, and the sand sweeping across our sun-parched bodies will soon turn us, as it even turns rocks, into sand. There will not even be a recollection that men once lived here. I remember one who dreamed that India would shake off this fatal dust, that torrents would fall and wash it away, that life would start again. But the drought has already destroyed far too much, it has stayed far too long. ”

“ MOKSA
When we cannot express ourselves in our work, we become dry inside. I had many things within me, but today they are only a memory of something that was real once, and tomorrow not even the memory will remain.
BURUMBA
Only two courses are open to us. We can do what Servus Neriana wants: continue as we are and crawl along our bellies for the rewards they may drop us. Or we can start resisting, an armed resistance, and change the situation ourselves. ”

“ The next scene took place in India, last year.
SCENE: INDIA
(Bare hut. Krishna Moksa, very old beggar, lies stretched out on the floor. Indio has same mask. Vaisya walks into the scene)
INDIO
You are pure, Vaisya. But your purity sits heavy on my stomach!
MOKSA
Do not let an old man die.
INDIO
Father was pure too.
VAISYA
Be fair, Indio. You've told me yourself that father had no choice.
MOKSA
I will not return in the shape of a man. I have not lived my life well. Do not let me die. ”

“ Edward had about as much to do with beating Pretoria's father as I had with ruining him.
EDWARD
The hell I did. You know I was in India at the time dad--and you know damn well why! It was your idea, not mine. Don't tell me you forgot! It was so you could rake in all those wartime profits!
DARIUS STARK
Are you talking about the Indian crockery plant?
EDWARD
It was your idea to start that factory! Use the local iron, labor, raw materials, sell the stuff to the British Army--and Bingo! Out goes the stuff and in comes the profits. Bingo! Just like that! Yea, I know dad. ”

“ Work is a hardship to be endured for its rewards.
Self-expression! Ah how the backward rationalize necessities!
What is the point of self-expression when you can have a task, a role, a function?
What point in understanding the universe when you can extend your physical being over it?
Work is a commodity, an asset in the acquisition of capital.
Capital means power over men, and over things. Mastery! Leisure! Personality!
Capital is a way of life! It is freedom!
With power over men and things, what need for work?
Who would choose drudgery then?
Except this dreg in India. ”

“ VAISYA
You are sometimes as small as they!
INDIO
Why do you always seek excuses for them? They have money and power; they don't need to be justified by you.
VAISYA
The whole village is going to be developed, houses and schools are coming, and you call it "mere palliative."
(Moksa starts crawling to corner of hut)
INDIO
The only reason the village is being developed is so the people can work more efficiently for the profits of the rich.
VAISYA
A man comes to help father and you suspect him of something filthy. ”

“ Moksa said there would be no talk of violence. But I knew this would not be so. We must peacefully accept our condition and work within it to improve ourselves. If you listen to Burumba, everything will be destroyed.
MOKSA
Violence itself cannot accomplish anything, it cannot change the situation. With violence you exchange one set of rulers for another, but for the rest of us the situation is the same. It is the situation that must be changed. ”

“ MOKSA
If they kill us they will have no one to hate. For centuries the Europeans crowded men into stinking ships and sold them in America like dogs, pigs and horses. They judged men by strength, by age, by tricks. After doing this to men the Americans learned to hate them so fiercely that one forgot there was still a human spirit in men who hated this way. ”

“ But to go into the factories and be pushed around like a draw-cart, to spend every living day doing the same thing! You go helpless and blind and deaf; you lose your mind and can never again tell what to do unless someone tells you. That's not a sacrifice; that won't help anyone; I'd be letting myself be murdered, a little every day, until there was nothing left of me but an imbecil, a cowed dog.
MOKSA
We let Chuana sacrifice herself for survival. Yet we do not retain our purity.
INDIO
Look, father, there are people at the house. ”

“ Now the region is called Peru and Bolivia, and the Europeans say it's over-populated and the people are lazy--but fewer people live there now than ever in the time of the Incas. A few big landowners own all of Peru, and the one time Incas chew leaves to forget their hunger and tell themselves there's something wrong with them and therefore it was right for the Europeans to destroy them.
MOKSA
Much of what you say is true, Indio. Ah, you are so young. You have learned much, but learning has not been a pleasure for you. ”

“ It's the same thing wherever the Europeans go. In Polynesia the Polynesians disappeared right after the French started Civilizing them; in Hawaii and Tahiti the original people are almost completely gone; all over Africa they kill men with guns and factories, mines and starvation diseases. Do you think all the dying people on this plantation are committing suicide; should they eat the rubber and tell themselves it's all their own fault? What they should do is chase out the guards and take over the land and grow food on it. But the guards would shoot, and that means violence doesn't it? ”

“ You fear I'll befoul your silent sleep: have you wake in black morning hours, your mouths full of pungent radishes, walls reeking of garlic, itching red lumps on your skin, and drink, deodorize and scratch, yet the taste, stench and itch remain engraved on your tongues, walls and skin--forever. ”

“ And violence is bad for the soul isn't it? So we have to blame ourselves and go begging, don't we? Stop screaming, Vaisya!
(Picks up Vaisya)
But you do not know any better, do you? Do you know what a cash crop is, Vaisya? I'll tell you. It's something that can be grown in a large area, sometimes as big as Java--something like rubber, or coffee, or sugar, or cotton. To grow it and pick it and carry it, a whole population of black and brown and yellow men is needed--these men are called Natives and are treated like animals, because all they're good for is picking and carrying the cash crops. ”

“ For how can you see dregs, froth and scum where I do?
You have merely to see dregs, and you prosecute.
Froth, and you judge.
Scum, and you execute.
Oh, Masters! Your generosity is truly unbounded! ”

“ It's too bad it was Pretoria's mother, but it's always got to be someone, doesn't it? Don't forget every bridge that's built, every great step-forward man has made, every peak he's reached, involved certain sacrifices! And haven't we repaired some of the damage by sending help to her father?
PRETORIA
Accidents happen all the time. They are the way Edward's factories do their killing. No, Harold! Don't tell me it was an accident in Edward's factory. ”

“ There Christians fix it up and put it in cans and they sell most of it back to the Natives, and the white Christians keep the cash. The Natives can't fix it up themselves because they're backward--those who think they can are Reds. That's called Progress, Vaisya. Remember that: Progress. The Europeans take Progress all over the world; it's because of their Progress and their Christianity and their white skins that they're civilized. See: we can't ever be civilized, because we're Natives. And it doesn't matter if you live there. They do the same thing to the black men who live among them. ”

“ It was suicide.
CURTAIN
HOUSELIGHTS
AMONG AUDIENCE
PRETORIA
She killed herself. She couldn't stand it any more--the drudgery, the unrelieved drudgery, the hunger. She couldn't stand it. That wasn't a life for anyone to lead--it was for animals, cooped up animals. How she must have hated it! How much easier it must have been to leave, to let herself die in the factory. Edward is lying! He had nothing to do with my mother! He's lying! He tried to kill my father. ”

“ Doesn't this prove I wasn't in South Africa. . . ?
HAROLD
Imbecil! Can't you control your rattling mouth? The woman you're calling a stupid bitch, the one who drowned in burning metal--are you that dense? It was Pretoria's mother! You should never have been given free reign over the India plant. From the very beginning there was no clear chain of responsibility in that plant.
PRETORIA
An accident. Edward's factory murdered my mother with an accident. It burned her alive. Edward's factory burned my mother to death. My mother didn't kill herself. She committed an accident. ”

“ The stew must be general, digestible as Pure Form.
You must be able to deny the radishes.
Impossible conditions!
You would have me conduct you through soot, grime and dust
And you'll demand, in the end, your purity?
Your faces clean, your suits unspotted, your tracts without a blemish?
Art, you demand. Beauty.
With dregs, froth and scum to Purge, Ennoble, Entertain. ”