Talking to Terrorists

Robin Soans

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781350275317
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435826
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"I looked around the room and I thought, I'm the only person in this room that hasn't killed anyone"
Talking to Terrorists is a play commissioned by the Royal Court and Out of Joint. The writer, director Max Stafford-Clark, and actors interviewed people from around the world who have been involved in terrorism. They wanted to know what makes ordinary people do extreme things.
As well as those who crossed the line, they met peacemakers, warriors, journalists, hostages and psychologists. Their stories take us from Uganda, Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Ireland - to the heart of the British establishment. Talking to Terrorists was produced Out of Joint Theatre Company at the Royal Court Theatre and on a UK tour in 2005.

TALKING TO
TERRORISTS

Characters

AN EX-MEMBER OF THE IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (I.R.A.)

AN EX-MEMBER OF THE ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE (U.V.F)

AN EX-MEMBER OF THE KURDISH WORKERS PARTY. (P.K.K.)

AN EX-MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL RESISTANCE ARMY, UGANDA. (N.R.A.)

THE EX-HEAD OF THE AL AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADE, BETHLEHEM. (A.A.B.)

EDWARD, a psychologist.

PHOEBE, a relief worker.

AN ARCHBISHOP’S ENVOY.

AN EX-AMBASSADOR. (AMB.)

A BRITISH ARMY COLONEL.

RIMA, a journalist.

NODIRA, a dancer.

EX-SECRETARY OF STATE. (S.S.1)

ANOTHER EX-SECRETARY OF STATE. (S.S.2)

HIS WIFE.

CAROLINE, a landowner.

JAD, FAISER, MOMSIE, AFTAB, Luton Muslims.

A BETHLEHEM SCHOOLGIRL.

LINDA, MATTHEW, MICHAEL, a Foreign Office Committee.

JOHN, a husband.

MARJORY, a cleaner.

DERMOT, a bodyguard.

WAITRESS IN DUBLIN.

INGRID, a carer.

A number of names have been withheld or changed at the request of the interviewees.

Act One

MARJORY enters with a vacuum cleaner, cleaning up shards of plastic which litter the carpet. The S.S.1 comes in, slightly unsteady on her feet. She indicates that the hoovering should stop. MARJORY turns off the hoover.

S.S.1: I’m sorry, Marjory, do you think you could do upstairs? Sorry about this…I thought we’d get this done before you got here. It’s our Labrador puppy…he eats everything in the house. I’m sorry Marjory, is that alright?

MARJORY: That’s alright, I can do upstairs and finish this later.

S.S.1: It’s not putting you out?

MARJORY: No, no, I’ll do upstairs and come down later.

MARJORY goes.

S.S.1: I’ll leave the dog next door. We’ve had to take the phone out of here; he ate the phone. And he’s a terrible farter.

I got on with terrorists on both sides ’cause I treated them as human beings. They were mostly normal working-class men…I had an affinity with them. People said it was my gender…it wasn’t…it was my class… that’s what did it…I used to say to them, ‘Don’t call me Secretary of State, call me by my Christian name.’ I shook their hands…none of my predecessors shook their hands. I didn’t have a voice like: ‘wonderful to see you.’

Talking to terrorists is the only way to beat them. I can’t understand why Tony didn’t understand that. Gerry and Martin wanted to talk; of course they’d done dreadful things, but they’ve got wives, they want to play with their kids, they’re normal family men. I wanted to appear as normal as possible. Mind you, it was fucking difficult…I had the Special Branch, I had security, I had the R.U.C., all men…wherever I walked I had this phalanx of men, like a tail, following me. I ran away twice. When I was staying at Hillsborough Castle which I shared with the Queen, darling, there was a pub half-way down the hill…

(Calling off.) John!

JOHN: (Off.) Yes?

S.S.1: You wouldn’t make us some coffee would you? There’s some bourbons somewhere. There’s one Hobnob left but that’s mine.

Distant sound of hoovering.

Ask Marjory if she wants a cup.

It was hard for both sides…they were bigoted, prejudiced, distrustful, fearful. I had to treat them as kids in a way. If I did something for Sinn Fein, like the Bloody Sunday Enquiry, I had to do something for the other side…an extra seat in the European Delegation, or access to Blair immediately.

JOHN comes on.

JOHN: I can only find one Hobnob, it’s in three bits.

S.S.1: Makes no difference to me.

JOHN goes.

S.S.1: I was just left to get on with it. Cabinet meetings? You must be joking. I wish I could have taken my knitting in. Cabinet is a completely vacuous structure, and that’s partly why I left. You’d walk in, sit down… Tony would say what policies he’d got in mind… ten minutes…totally vacuous, ‘Speak’; then Gordon would speak with more ‘Speak’…six to eight minutes; Jack Straw occasionally…he thought he was important enough…that was ‘Speak’. If Clare or Robin spoke that would have content, but Tony and Gordon just nodded. There was no other forum; Ali and Mandy made most of the decisions; if I really had something urgent to say I would tap Tony on the shoulder on the way out. I talked to Bertie Ahern as much as I talked to Tony.

JOHN comes in with a crumpled paper: the remnants of a biscuit packet.

JOHN: Is this what you meant?

S.S.1: Thanks.

JOHN goes.

S.S.1: I’ve been saving this. When Paisley walked out, I thought, ‘Thank God.’ He wouldn’t let anyone else speak, he just shouted them down. The other thing I thanked God for was the Women’s Coalition; they helped me with the seating arrangements. You couldn’t have a Shinner next to a Loyalist, you couldn’t have a Shinner next to the U.U.P., but with my two old fogies from the Labour Party, and the Women’s Coalition, I had enough people to put between the people who wouldn’t sit next to each other.

JOHN comes back in with the coffee.

I don’t miss it. I miss the car. The car meant John and I could go out in the evening, and we could both get pissed. Some ex-ministers have two cars; I got none; and no security…they took it away the day I left government. We’ve got nothing out here.

JOHN gives the cup of coffee to his wife. Her hand is shaking.

S.S.1: Thanks darling. Fuck, I’ve slopped it. We said, ‘Can you do anything for us out here?’

JOHN: They put in panic alarms.

S.S.1: We took them out last week. They kept going off.

We’re miles from anywhere out here.

JOHN goes.

S.S.1: I’ve never been afraid. When I was at Hillsborough I used to walk in the grounds. If a sniper wanted to he could have got me any time. We used to have wild parties. I didn’t invite Gerry and Martin ’cause that meant I’d have to invite the other lot as well. The most important thing…I was an ear listening. You have to allow that they believe in what they’re doing.

PHOEBE comes on together with EDWARD, a psychologist, who breezes on. There is a comfortable chair into which he eventually settles. He takes off his coat and scarf.

EDWARD: I think I gave my peak performance last time… this may be something of a matinée performance.

S.S.1: Tony seems to have learned nothing from history. If you want them to change their minds, you have to talk to them. They won’t do it very willingly because they don’t trust you, but yes, you have to talk to terrorists.

Exit.

PHOEBE: It’s really difficult for me to talk to you because…well…because what do you say when you return from interviewing children who were abducted by men who raped them, or nailed their knees together to stop them running away… Do you talk about the weather? And how do you talk about it without sounding sanctimonious or preachy? In the past, I…I…I suppose I’ve given up really…just slotted back into conversations about how hard it is to get a good cleaner.

EDWARD: Ninety per cent of the population aren’t enormously involved in politics; what are they doing? They’re taking the kids to school, they’re watching EastEnders…on the whole they’re not watching plays… they drink a bit, read a bit, have a bit of sex. When they see a politician on the television, their first thought would be, ‘Would I get into bed with him?’ When they saw Thatcher they thought she was a bit bossy, Howard’s a bit creepy, they used to like Tony but now he’s a bit iffy… That’s the ninety per cent.

PHOEBE: Save the Children is a child rights organisation. Increasingly children are being used as combatants by armed groups. They’re cannon fodder. What we’re trying to do is negotiate their release. But to give you some idea…there are twelve thousand child soldiers in Liberia alone, and all the child agencies combined have a capacity for dealing with two thousand. It’s a strange world I inhabit, meeting the extremes of human behaviour. It’s certainly easier to be there, feeling you’re doing something…

EDWARD: Ten per cent of the population do things…

PHOEBE: But even that’s complicated, because in many emergencies you are just one of the headless chickens.

EDWARD: Ten per cent. They’re the movers and shakers.

PHOEBE: There have been times when I felt I was able to do something, and that brings an extraordinary sense of achievement and energy.

Exit.

EDWARD: It does look as if terror groups have a dynamic. They always start with a radical thinker…a dreamer, a proper intellectual with a sense of history; and a grievance. ‘Look at the year 1500. The Arab world were leaders in philosophy, astronomy, medicine, mathematics…and look how badly we’re doing now.’ It puts me in mind of Al Qutb. He formulated his radical new version of Islam on the campus of an American University. He sees all these scantily-clad cheerleaders…becomes sexually aroused. So he concludes, ‘The fundamentals of our religion have been sidetracked by Western decadence.’ People who want to cancel out a culture have to convince themselves it’s worth destroying. The 9/11 terrorists went to topless bars when they were learning to fly in Texas. It’s like me going to a country and instead of, you know, going to the Museum of Modern Art, I go into all sorts of sordid dives. I allow myself to enjoy the experience before feeling righteously indignant. But then this is a very hard culture to be sexually pure in. The teenage years are hard enough, but for young Muslims in Luton it must be intolerable.

A bookshop inside a mosque in Luton. FAISER, MOMSIE, JAD (older) and AFTAB are sitting on the floor. They are in stockinged feet.

FAISER: I don’t do any of that foolishness I used to do a few years back…like chirping gals in the weekend… doing tings with dem.

MOMSIE: What you gotta remember bruv is that I went to hell, took a holiday there, and still came back; and I’m not going there again.

FAISER: Getting mash up on booze and drugs…

MOMSIE: Ravin’, gal, booze and drugs / …madness, pure madness.

AFTAB: When I was young, I was in a state of confusion, and was not even aware of the foolishness / I was playing at.

MOMSIE: Bro, I went into prison a nutter and came out a Muslim.

FAISER: It hits you, bang, like bang bruv…what am I doing with my life?

AFTAB: We was all brought up here; you learn to walk like / …

MOMSIE: / walk like, talk like…

AFTAB: Talk like, and like all the other kids you rebel / …

FAISER: Rebel / more…

MOMSIE: / rebel more

AFTAB: ’Cause the background is…

MOMSIE: / Strict.

AFTAB: Strict.

FAISER: You know like Monday to Thursday, sort of normal…then four day benders…

AFTAB: Everyone’s doing it so it must be good.

FAISER: It’s like Robbie Williams bruv…he’s had it all, all the cars, the women, and he’s saying like, ‘I’ve had enough. I don’t know what to do, but I’ve had enough of that.’

MOMSIE: He should come here. (Laughter.) No seriously / he should come here.

AFTAB: You’re right bruv, he should.

FAISER: Can you tell me that you could concentrate or keep your mind calm if you open a magazine and see an image of a naked lady / or some sexual reference?

MOMSIE: Can you believe this…I was with my father… it was ten o’clock yesterday morning, we was watching T.V. and a...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• TALKING TO TERRORISTS
• RESOURCE MATERIAL