In 1948–49, when he was 18, Pinter opposed the politics of the Cold War, leading to his decision to become a conscientious objector and to refuse to comply with National Service.
Yet, he had actually been an early member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the United Kingdom and also had supported the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–1994), participating in British artists' refusal to permit professional productions of their work in South Africa, by signing the "Public Declaration of Playwrights Against Apartheid" in 1963 (Hadley) and in subsequent related campaigns (Mbeki; Reddy).
[1] In the 1979 general election, Pinter voted for the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher, "as a protest against a strike at the National Theatre that was dogging a production he was directing."
[2] In his last twenty-five years, Pinter increasingly focused his essays, speeches, interviews, literary readings, and other public appearances directly on contemporary political issues.
His political statements have elicited some strong public criticism and even, at times, provoked ridicule and personal attacks.
He was very active in the antiwar movement in the United Kingdom, speaking at rallies held by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC).
[5] In his various public speeches and other appearances, describing former President of the United States George W. Bush as a "mass murderer" and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair as both "mass-murdering" and a "deluded idiot", Pinter specified that, along with other past U.S. officials, under the Geneva Conventions, they are "war criminals".
… In a policy document, the US has used the term 'full-spectrum domination', that means control of land, sea, air and space, and that is exactly what's intended and what the US wants to fulfil.
"[7] On his official website, Pinter published his remarks to the mass peace protest demonstration held in London on 15 February 2003: "The United States is a monster out of control.
"; nevertheless, "Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force—yet.
", Pinter concluded: "I believe Wilfred Owen would share our contempt, our revulsion, our nausea and our shame at both the language and the actions of the American and British governments" (Various Voices [2005] 247–48).
"[8] Pinter was active in International PEN, serving as a vice president, along with American playwright Arthur Miller.
In 1985, Pinter and Miller went to Turkey, on a mission co-sponsored by International PEN and a Helsinki Watch committee to investigate and protest against the torture of imprisoned writers.
[10] Although conceding that the former Serb leader was "ruthless and savage", in 2001 Pinter joined the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM),[11] which appealed for the former Serbian leader to be given a fair trial and for his freedom, signing a related "Artists' Appeal for Milošević" in 2004.
[12][13] In the last few years of his life, Pinter continued to contribute letters to the editor, essays, speeches, and poetry strongly expressing his artistic and political viewpoints, which were frequently published initially in British periodicals, both in print and electronic media, and distributed and re-distributed extensively over the internet and throughout the blogosphere.
[14] On 5 February 2007 The Independent reported that, along with historian Eric Hobsbawm, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, fashion designer Nicole Farhi, film director Mike Leigh, and actors Stephen Fry and Zoë Wanamaker, among others, Harold Pinter launched the organization Independent Jewish Voices in the United Kingdom "to represent British Jews ... in response to a perceived pro-Israeli bias in existing Jewish bodies in the UK", and, according to Hobsbawm, "as a counter-balance to the uncritical support for Israeli policies by established bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews" (Hodgson; IJV Declaration).
They debated his ongoing opposition to the Iraq War, with Rose challenging some of Pinter's views about the United States.
In mid-June 2008, opposing "a police ban on the George Bush Not Welcome Here" demonstration organized by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC), "Pinter commented, 'The ban on the Stop The War Coalition march in protest at the visit of President Bush to this country [England] is a totalitarian act.
After reading an interrogation scene from The Birthday Party, he explained that he "wanted to say that Goldberg and McCann represented the forces in society who wanted to snuff out dissent, to stifle Stanley's voice, to silence him," and that in 1958 "One thing [the critics who almost unanimously hated the play] got wrong ... was the whole history of stifling, suffocating and destroying dissent.
Twist words like "democracy" and "freedom", as he believes Blair and Bush have done over Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of people die.
In [March 2006], when he was presented with the European [sic] Theatre Prize in Turin, Pinter said he intended to spend the rest of his life railing against the United States.
Surely, asked chair Ramona Koval, [at the Edinburgh Book Festival that August], he was doomed to fail?
he said, laughing along with the audience at the absurdity, before adding: "But I can't stop reacting to what is done in our name, and what is being done in the name of freedom and democracy is disgusting.
"The Importance of Being Pinter: A New Production by the Belarus Free Theatre Reinforces the Global Resonance of the British Playwright's Political Works".
"Passionate Pinter's Devastating Assault On US Foreign Policy: Shades of Beckett As Ailing Playwright Delivers Powerful Nobel Lecture."
"Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine: Archived 1 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago & Howard Zinn" (Updated signatures).
Features photographs reposted from Mark Taylor-Batty's University of Leeds Website for the conference Artist and Citizen: 50 Years of Performing Pinter.]
[Correction appended 10 December 2005: "An article on Thursday about the playwright Harold Pinter's criticism of American foreign policy in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for literature described it incompletely.
"Pinter: Torture and Misery in the Name of Freedom" Archived 16 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine, adapted from his 2005 acceptance speech for the Wilfred Owen Award for poetry, rpt.
"Special Report: The Nobel Prize for Literature: 2005 Harold Pinter" Archived 14 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine.