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A Play by Ariel Dorfman Based on Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders I Am Told That As a Child I Reached out to Others

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A Play by Ariel Dorfman Based on Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders I Am Told That As a Child I Reached out to Others SPEAK TRUTH TO POWE R VOICES FROM BEYOND THE DAR K a play by Ariel Dorfman Based on Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders I am told that as a child I reached out to others. I befriended Who a re Changing the Wor l d , a book by Ker ry Ken n e d y pygmies, even though in my community, in the Congo, they Cu o m o . were considered to be animals. I cut bread with them, I brought them to our house, I gave them my clothes. It was sick to soci- ety that I associated with pygmies, but I saw them as my BARE STAGE. DARK.LIGHTS RISE ON THE EIGHT ACTORS WHO friends, just like anyone else. Human rights are rooted in my REPRESENT THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS: FOUR MEN,FOUR life. WOMEN, GROUPED SYMMETRICALLY. MAN FIRST VOICE (MALE) Guillaume Ngefa Atondoko. Courage begins with one voice. It’s that simple. THE MAN MAKES A GESTURE AND THE NAME GUILLAUME I did what I had to do. NGEFA ATONDOKO APPEARS ON A SCREEN BEHIND THE Anything else would have tasted like ashes. ACTORS. That is what we know. Yes. He befriended pygmies as a child. Yes. Of course. AS LIGHTS FADE ON THE EIGHT,WE HEAR THE VOICE OF THE MAN (NINTH ACTOR) IN THE DARKNESS. FIFTH VOICE (MALE) (from the darkness) For a month, I was sentenced to death and I had great fear. MAN (from the darkness) They know.They can’t say they don’t know.They can’t say they LIGHTS RISE ON FIFTH VOICE. THE MAN MAKES A GESTURE don’t walk into this with their eyes open. AND THE NAME WEI JINGSHENG APPEARS ON THE SCREEN. LIGHTS RISE ON FIRST VOICE. Then I thought to myself,“Wei Jingsheng, you will die anyway. Why die as a laughingstock to my enemies?” So I controlled my FIRST VOICE (MALE) fear in that moment of crisis, and that moment passed. I held You walk into the corridor of death and you know.You know onto my dignity. If you cannot prepare yourself for death, then this moment might be your last. you should not decide to defy the regime.Your responsibility has to be with those who suffer. If you do not fight tyranny, the LIGHTS RISE ON SECOND VOICE tyrants will never let you live an ordinary life. SECOND VOICE (FEMALE) THIRD VOICE (MALE) You walk into the corridor of death. You walk into the corridor of death. FIRST VOICE (MALE) FIRST VOICE (MALE) . and you know, you know this moment might be your last. My name is Hafez Al Sayed Seada. SECOND VOICE (FEMALE) That’s what you know. THE MAN MAKES A GESTURE AND THE NAME HAFEZ AL SAYED SEADA APPEARS ON THE SCREEN. LIGHTS RISE ON FOURTH VOICE. These scars across my face are from when they pushed me FOURTH VOICE (FEMALE) through a window.When I was under investigation, they asked That is what I know. I know what it is to wait in the dark for me if I was responsible for managing everything here at the tor ture and what it is to wait in the dark for truth. Egyptian Human Rights Organization. I told them I was. I was responsible for everything. I wrote the report, I read it, I MAN’S VOICE (from the darkness) reviewed it, and I decided to publish it and issue it in a news- She knows. paper. I am not frightened.This is our job, to point the finger at government errors.If we don’t do this, who will? LIGHTS RISE ON MAN, CENTER STAGE. MAN She knows what it is to wait in the dark for torture and what Hafez Al Sayed Seada, yes.That is his job. And he was pushed it is to wait in the dark for truth. through a window.Yes. FOURTH VOICE (FEMALE) SECOND VOICE (MALE) I did what I had to do. If we don’t do this who will? My name is Digna Ochoa. Anything else would have tasted like ashes. THE MAN MAKES A GESTURE AND THE NAME DIGNA OCHOA LIGHTS RISE ON THIRD VOICE. APPEARS ON THE SCREEN. THIRD VOICE (MALE) I am a nun, who started life as a lawyer. My father was a union 50 leader in Veracruz, Mexico. In the sugar factory where he “Y ou ’ re threatening us.” And I said,“T ak e it any way you want.” worked, he was involved in the struggles for running water, roads, and securing land certificates. I studied law because I SEVENTHV OICE (MALE) (from the darkness) was always hearing that my father and his friends needed more My name is Doan Viet Hoat. lawyers. And all the lawyers charged so much. My father was LIGHTS RISE ON SEVENTH VOICE (MALE) AS MAN MAKES A GES- unjustly jailed for one year and fifteen days. He was then “dis- TURE AND THE NAME DOAN VIET HOAT APPEARS ON SCREEN. appeared” and tortured—the charges against him were fabri- cated. This led to my determination to do something for those I spent twenty years in Vietnamese prisons.Four of those were suffering injustice, because I saw it in the flesh with my father. in isolation.I was forbidden all pens,papers, and books.To keep The first case I worked on was against judicial police offi- my spirits up, I sang, I talked to myself.The guards thought I was cers who had been involved in the illegal detention and torture mad,but I told them if I did not talk to myself I would go mad. of several peasants. First, telephone messages came telling me I tried to take it easy, to think of my cell as home, as though I to drop the case.Then by mail, threats that if I didn’t drop it I had entered a religious way of life, like a monk. As I had no would die, or members of my family would be killed. I kept books, I just had to use the mind.Zen meditation helped—with working and we even publicly reported what was happening. it you turn inside. And I managed to secretly write a report Then, I was “disappeared” and held incommunicado for eight about conditions in the camp. I felt that if I kept silent in jail, days by the police. They wanted me to give them all the evi- then the dictators had won. I wanted to prove that you cannot, dence against them. I had hidden the case file well, not in my by force, silence someone who doesn’t agree with you. I con- office, not in my house , and not where the victims lived, tinued to fi ght, even from within the prison walls. If we don’t because I was afraid that the police would steal it. Now, I felt do this,who will? in the flesh what my father had felt, what other people had suf- fered. THIRD VOICE (MALE) Later, when I had managed to escape from the torture You walk into the corridor of death. house where they were holding me, I started to work with Centro Pro. And since then, I’ve handled a lot of cases of peo- FOURTH VOICE (FEMALE) ple like my father and people like me . I want to be free of these memories. My name is Dianna Ortiz. I’ve always felt anger at the suffering of others. For me, anger is energy,it’s a force. If an act of injustice doesn’t provoke MAN MAKES A GESTURE AND THE NAME DIANNA ORTIZ anger in me, it could be seen as indifference, passivity. It’s injus- APPEARS ON THE SCREEN. tice that motivates us to do something, to take risks, knowing that if we don’t, things will remain the same.Anger has made I want to be free of these memories.I want to be trusting, con- us confront police and soldiers. fident, adventurous and carefree as I was in 1987 when I came Something that I discover ed is that the police and sol- from the United States to the Western Highlands of Guatemala diers are used to their superiors shouting at them, an d to teach young indigenous children to read and write in th e y’ re used to being mistrea t e d . So when they run into a Spanish and in their native language and to understand the wom a n , otherwise insignificant to them, who dresses monk- Bible in their culture. But on November 2nd, 1989, the Dianna li k e and demands things of them and shouts at them in an I just described ceased to exist. Now, at this moment,I hardly authoritarian way, th e y are paralyz e d . remember the life I led before I was abducted at age thirty- O ne time we filed a habeas corpus on behalf of a man who one. Instead I have memories of the torture.You may think this had been “d i s a pp e a r ed” for twenty days . The authorities denied is strange but even at this moment, I can sense the presence of ha ving him in custody and then denied us access to the state my torturers, I can smell them, I can hear them hissing in my hospital where we knew he was being held. I spent a whole ears.I remember.That policeman raped me again. morning studying the comings and goings at the hospital to see Then I was lowered into a pit full of bodies—children, men, ho w I could get in.
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