So begins the play, Antigone, approaching the end of its run at the National Theatre. This ancient play has been staged in many guises. A 1948 version set the play in the context of resistance to fascism. In the 1970s South African prisoners on Robben Island used the play to show the oppressive state of their lives under apartheid. At its core, Antigone is about the struggle between authority and liberty — particularly when authority feels threatened.
And now the play is about the dehumanising effects of the War on Terror. It is a violent, disturbing piece about the nature of power, zealotry and the dangers of certainty. Creon uses the war to justify extreme acts of oppression. He will brook no dissent. Any act of defiance, whatever its motivation, must be crushed without hesitation – always justified by the ever-present threat of the insurrection Creon sees all around him.
It is only after Antigone is dead, and all the terrible consequences that flow from her death are revealed, that Creon realises how futile and hopeless his position has become. His terrible certainty has not brought him peace.
Antigone is a tale of how violence and oppression, once unleashed, rebound to destroy their perpetrator. Real life is not so neat. But the damage to our democracy caused by a rampant security state is no less tragic.
After 9/11, the threat of further attacks was used as the trigger for a profound rolling back of our civil liberties. Indefinite detention without trial; extraordinary rendition; torture and complicity in torture. In many ways these effects continue. Communities under surveillance. Stacking the scales of justice against claimants attempting to hold the State to account. Talk of a Burqa ban. A government in thrall to Securocrats.
So strange that a play written 2,500 years ago should be a parable for modern times.
