The horoscope at the moment of my birth—in red October, between world wars and revolution—shows that Venus stood in Lepus, the Sign of the Hare, under Michael's Sword, which augured long journeys and that I would often sleep alone. At my birth the stars Astarte and Moloch stood in Aspis, the Serpent—which foretold revolutions and wars, bayonets and blood, burnt cities and fleeing mothers, as well as long trains of refugees who would fill the roads in many lands. The planets Shiva and Baal stood in Carnifex, the headsman—presaging a time of slavery and prison, with millions in captivity, surrounded by endless barbed wire. The planets Uranus and Pluto entered into conjunction in Pardus, the Leopard, and slowly proceeded on their way—as agents of the heavy elements uranium and plutonium—through Lupus and into the constellation Arachne, where they brought to pass cities leveled to the ground and charred bodies by the hundreds of thousands.
        —Moment of Freedom   (1966)

Power, which is the sole existing principle, means only one thing: the opportunity to cause others pain. . . .Authority claims truth for its own. The law claims to be just. Power calls itself freedom— because freedom consists in perceiving necessity, which is to submit to power.
        —Moment of Freedom   (1966)

They are absolutely not militarists, and if they were allowed to own everything in the world without fighting for it, they'd prefer it that way. They want. The world is my breakfast.
        —Moment of Freedom   (1966)

Europe today has a long and painful history of illness, a history of preferring lies to truth, gold to human kindness, power to understanding. We've preferred the disease to the medicine. And we've exulted over our false, bloated, sick health, we've prayed to the Caesars and we've cried "give us Barabbas" for two thousand years. We've eaten with the murderers and scorned the victims. And we don't even have the excuse that we didn't know better. We've known of other possibilities all along, we've had an almost free choice between understanding and violence —and our choices stand there in the history of our own sickness like milestones: gallows, stakes, and crosses.
               —The Silence   (1973)

To write the history of Peru is to write the history of colonialism; first come the soldiers, then come the priests, then come the ravens and the jackals. Then banks and business concerns are founded, for we shall inherit the earth in all its glory.
       Wherever you look you find the same faces, the same deeds, the same spirit. Through the fair kingdoms of earth we march to Paradise with singing. We have sanctified the injustice.
               —The Silence   (1973)

The murderers, muggers and thieves appoint themselves "the motherland," and it's a strange motherliness they show to their black, brown, yellow, and red children. Never has the world seen such mother love. Never has it seen more bloodthirsty mothers. Everywhere there's more gold to be looted, the pillaging goes on and on, hand in hand with the oppression of the legitimate children back home in Europe—and the curious thing is that it's the same circles of power which are involved in both cases. The power and the wealth are gathered into steadily fewer hands. Thine is the kingdom, Amen.
               —The Silence   (1973)

"I don't understand why you all take Hitler so seriously," Ali replied. "He's a rainy day. . . . I really don't understand what you all get so excited about! It's instructive for you to be treated yourselves for once the way you've been treating others for centuries. You ought to be grateful to Hitler: at least you've learned something from him— or at any rate could have learned something from him."
               —The Silence   (1973)

PICCOLINO: During the war between France and Germany the Germans occupied France. When winter came around the Germans needed fuel. The French government had fled the country and sought refuge abroad. In order to get wood the Germans issued a decree requiring French farmers to turn over their wood to the Germans. Sabotage would be punished by death. On its side the French government decreed that all those who did not sabotage the Germans would be punished by death. According to international law both governments were right. Who was wrong?
       The civilian population, of course. The French people were guilty no matter what. Either of sabotage or collaboration. Whatever they did they were to be punished by death! For both are punishable under international law. In time of war the civilian population is always wrong.
         — The Bird Lovers   (1966, tr. Timothy Schiff)

PICCOLINO: The world is ruled by typewriters, police and money. But the greatest of these is money, for he who has money, he has the police also. Money can move mountains.
         — The Bird Lovers   (1966)

Whether the Lord sends plague or famine or Americans or inflation or Germans doesn't matter; it is the powerful he sends: storms, hurricanes, generals or other monstrosities. The play is about us— we who let ourselves be bought. You don't blame the the wind and the rain. You blame the people who are too dumb, too cowardly, greedy or apathetic to protect themselves against the wind and the rain.
         — "The Bird Lovers: Letter to Peter Palitzsch" (1967)

We're outmoded because we still talk about the "European Economic Community" and the "Common Market"—which is today called "the Community". By changing the name they've managed to remove the two ugly words which originally belonged here: They got rid of both "economic" and "market." What's left is just one big fellowship, a purely idealistic program, a community made spiritual, from heart to heart.
         — "Greetings from the good society" (1972)

Our present society regards its academic youth as future passive instruments for capital and for the state, as—when they've finished their education—highly qualified, highly specialized and highly paid slave labor for industry and the military. The student youth are expected to be fed dully and docilely with specialized knowledge like passive humuculi, so as later to serve the politics of violence. The so-called "unpolitical" atmosphere which the older academics dream of within the universities' hallowed precincts is not an apolitical sphere, it is a deeply conservative and authoritarian world, where the supremecy of the "state" (i.e. the existing one) is tacitly taken for granted. We expect of student youth that they will put up with being used, with being "manipulated" by us, without being asked, without expressing themselves, but just blindly to carry out the wishes of those in power.
         — "The Colonels and Us" (1969)

Small children are taught to memorize this verse:

Fight for all that you hold dear,
Till your dying breath.
Then you'll find you need not fear
Either life or death.

But when the schoolboy becomes a man, and takes the consequences of this teaching, they put him in prison. Provided of course that he holds his own judgment dear, his own opinion, and that his judgment is in conflict with that of the state and the public. It is expected of a good citizen that he should "hold dear" the same things the state holds dear, such as atomic bombs, planes and rockets—-and these he should fight for.
          —"Pornogr aphy in Norway from Viking times to the present" (1967)

E32. The "political objectors" to military service are publicly described as a "problem." The opposite is the case: Our problem is that there is in this country such a dull and authoritarian youth that we still have young men who place themselves at the disposal of the oppressors of freedom and humanity. Our problem is that we have young people in this country who are willing to use force to support the governments of Turkey, Spain, Portugal and many other police states in the oppression of the inhabitants. What shall we do with this youth? What shall we do with a youth who are willing to place themselves at the disposal of the colonels?
         — "On political refusal of military service" (1969)

      Q. Are you a pacifist, Bj rneboe?
       A. Completely, absolutely!
       Q. And yet you haven't participated in or contributed very actively where the peace movement is concerned?
       A. No, I have a bad conscience on just that point. It is as if something has been holding me back, a feeling that it has been too nice, so to speak. I believe in a warlike pacifism, in a true spiritual battle— with the stress on the last part, i.e. battle. I believe it can form the point of departure for a whole new cultural life. But then we must be gathered, all who share the same opinion, to give it the greatest possible clout.
      — Interview in Orientering, 13 feb 1965 (Kjell Cordtsen)

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This page added March 2002