I have been plagued by disturbing dreams for the past few years. Dreams in which I have been pitted against family members which often feature violent arguments. This stems, I believe, from my feelings of being an outsider within my various circles of family and friends. I am very politically minded with a strong left-wing view of the world and imbued with a sense of fairness and equality concerning issues of ethnicity, gender, culture, religion and lifestyle (including sexuality). I stand aloof from my family who I feel are politically apathetic, have casually racist attitudes, and are generally ignorant of world events and issues that are important to me. I can’t talk to my family and most of my friends about topical issues and problems facing the world today because they have not made it a priority of their lives to keep themselves informed and instead seem to be content with passing passively through life with a kind of “don’t tell me anything upsetting that I don’t want to deal with” kind of attitude. I don’t mean to sound harsh or elitist. I know I am far from perfect myself and have many flaws and bad habits but I think my dissatisfaction with my place in life concerning my family has led to these dreams where all the things I feel are wrong with my family are amplified and exaggerated.
I guess I’ve always been pretty sensitive to injustice and prejudice which seems endemic in our society. Recent events culminating in the election of our nation’s first African-American (or in this case multi-ethnic) president has highlighted how fractured and adversarial our society has become. Conservatives and those preoccupied with “traditional values” and “culture wars” feel marginalized and threatened by a changing world while liberals are angry and dismissive of President Obama and other politicians because they feel their agenda is not being acted on quickly enough or at all. Within the framework of this dichotomy , I find two recent films of especial interest, not only because of the social commentary embedded in the screenplays, but also because of the timing of these films coming at a place in history where “us” is pitted against “them” and concepts like unity and brotherhood seem in danger of winding up in the dustbin of history.
Invictus is a fact-based story set in the recent past of South Africa, while Avatar is set in the distant inter-stellar future. Both films, I think, can teach us a great deal about ourselves as a functioning society, both where we have been and where we might be headed, while offering clues that could lead to our salvation, but may also lead to our doom.
Invictus deals with African National Congress activist and leader Nelson Mandela’s post-prison life and ascendancy to president of South Africa. The title of the film comes from a poem of the same name that Mandela, known as “Madiba” to his friends and supporters, finds strength from while languishing in prison for 27 years. The poem may sound familiar to those of us from creative writing classes past. “…I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul…” Mandela, played with such dignity and grace by Morgan Freeman that it is downright eerie, has been elected the nation’s first black president and must now tackle the difficult challenge of uniting a fractured and embattled country. Sound familiar? The white Afrikaner minority which had previously held power with an iron fist feel like they are losing their country and national identity. They react in a typically fearful way, forged by lifetimes of living in a profoundly racist society , by belligerent defiance and predictions of rampant crime and degenerate culture. These blacks that are now in power are not much far removed from monkeys, are they not? They do not possess the intelligence and wisdom required to lead a great country into the future. Sure we segregated them and set up an apartheid system that limited their freedoms and associations but that was for their own good, to protect them from themselves and their bestial instincts. The black majority, on the other hand, who have lived their whole lives under the heel and by the leave of their Afrikaner overseers, see a grand opportunity to get back at their tormentors and avenge past wrongs. But neither of these groups reckoned with wisdom and foresight of Nelson Mandela.
One of Mandela’s first acts is to retain the previous administration’s all-white security detail to join with his own bodyguards, setting off anger and distrust among his staff. The returning security detail, sure they would be fired, must now look at Mandela with some measure of respect as they come to terms with their duty to protect a man that they had previously despised. But that was just a small-scale beginning of Mandela’s determination to unite his country. As the rugby World Cup will be hosted in South Africa the following year, he sees an opportunity. Rugby is an extremely popular sport in South Africa as well as it is in the Caucasian-dominated Europe. The South Africa team, known as the Springboks, mirrors its apartheid past by being all-white, save for a lone, token black player. The team colors are the same as the colors on the apartheid-era national flag. The black majority populace looks upon those colors and the rugby team with hatred and scorn, a reminder of their tyrannized past. They would like the team to adopt the colors of their new flag, which many in the stands proudly wave, while most of the whites still defiantly wave their apartheid flag. Earlier in the season, Mandela attends a game where he is announced amid a mixed chorus of cheers and boos. After waving to the assembled throng he goes up into the stands, much to the chagrin of his security detail. He makes a point of thanking and shaking the hand of a white man who is waving the new flag.
Meanwhile, the rugby board meets and votes for their team to adopt the new colors of their flag. Immediately after their vote Mandela arrives and with stirring words tinged with rebuke convinces the board to take another vote. They must not let the evil of the past prejudice them as they prepare to deal with the future of their country. In order to unite their country the past must be forgiven. Only the future is now important. This man who spent 27 years at hard labor breaking big rocks into little rocks had the moral strength and courage to forgive the past for the greater good.
As I watched these scenes I couldn’t help but think of the current situation in the United States. As President Barack Obama wends his way through a battlefield of dissent and media manipulation, trying to cobble together a workable health care reform bill, would not the lessons of Nelson Mandela’s struggles to unite his country help Mr. Obama find strength to do what he knows in his heart is right, despite what criticism and blowback might come? We must ask ourselves what would have happened had Obama stood up to those on the political left and said, “We cannot have universal health care free for everyone and run by the government because this will result in fear and outrage from many sectors of society, however misguided and wrong-headed that outrage may be. In order for us to survive with a healthy and prosperous union we must always strive to win hearts and minds to the goal of brotherhood and we must put aside our petty squabbles because to do otherwise will surely darken our hearts, quell our joy and poison our spirits,” We must ask ourselves what would have happened had Obama stood up to those on the political right and said, “You must cease and desist your obstructionism and racism, whether covert or overt, your class warfare and the scapegoating of your problems. Together, as a united nation, we are strong enough to over come all our problems and petty disagreements. Empathy not antagony is the only way to find our way out of 250 years of walking through the wilderness.” I realize Obama and Mandela’s situations are not entirely analogous . Mandela risked angering his base for the common good while Obama needs to stand up to his political foes (conservatives, Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats) if he hopes to pass any kind of meaningful, non-watered down health care reform.
As I write this, the fate of the health care reform bill appears very much in doubt, but there is still time and much to do. Obama will have other chances to right his ship before he must face a reelection campaign in 2012. If he continues to prevaricate and stumble politically and his poll numbers continue to dwindle, other Democratic candidates will emerge to oppose him in the primary. Obama must be the “master of his fate” and find the “captain of his soul” within him.
By now just about everyone on the planet has seen James Cameron’s extraordinary film, Avatar. Much has been said and many accolades have been given about this film. As I was enjoying the brilliant 3D rendering of the story I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the political aspects therein. What we have is an Earthly security force commanded by a marine colonel who are acting basically as mercenaries to try to extract a valuable mineral from the surface of Pandora, a moon of the planet Polyphemus, which is in the Alpha Centauri system. Are you with me so far? Good. Unfortunately, complicating matters is the fact that Pandora is inhabited by 10-foot humanoids called the Na’vi, an indigenous people who revere trees and nature. The Earthly invaders are determined to successfully execute their mission even if they have to destroy the Na’vi to do it.
In order to collect information three humans must infiltrate the Na’vi via “avatars” which allow them to pose as members of the native populace. Of course, in what should have been a foreseeable consequence, the human infiltrators start to bond with their subjects and sympathize with their plight. This leads to a rebellion of the three “advance scouts” and other members of the security force still in the orbiting space craft. It becomes clear to these rebels that their commander is bent on extracting the mineral even if he has to kill every Na’vi on Pandora in order to do it, which the rebels, in good conscience, cannot allow.
This got me thinking as I was watching the film of moments in our own nation’s past where members of the military have refused orders they feel are immoral and even killed (“fragged”) their superior officers to prevent them from committing an atrocity. Imagine if soldiers, en masse, had just said “no” to George W. Bush when he ordered them to invade Iraq. As we now know, this country was invaded and occupied under false pretenses, having no weapons of mass destruction and having no involvement whatsoever with Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks committed by them on September 11, 2001. Millions of people all over the world took to the streets in February 2003, on the eve of Mr. Bush’s mass deployment of troops to Iraq, to protest this outrage. What if the soldiers ordered to deploy had refused to go? Of course we all know that discipline and unquestioned performance of duty is essential for an armed force to succeed efficiently. Some would argue that insubordination of any kind would destroy the military and leave our nation vulnerable to attack. I myself served in the army in the 1980s so I have some first hand insight regarding these issues. These are genuine concerns but I have to ask at some point “when is enough enough?” What would it take for a decent man or woman to say “I’m no longer going to allow my country to commit atrocities in my name and I will refuse and resist any coercion to force me to commit such acts?”
This has happened in other countries*. Why not the U.S.? What will it take? How many late night raids, shooting, raping, destroying families, rounding up men in villages and detaining them without lawyers or any charges being filed? How many thoughtful, brave Americans like Pat Tillman will be used for political purposes to sell lies? How does all this affect the soldiers who are ordered to do despicable things that run contrary to their natures? Hundreds of soldiers wounded in body, mind and spirit have returned home only to be refused treatment and benefits that were promised to them upon their enlistment. What effect does that have on a society? As the song says “When will we ever learn..?”
My hope as we pass into the future grappling with these questions is that more movies will be made, more books written, more protests will be organized, more meetings of concerned citizens will be adjourned and we can start to bring some sanity back into our foreign policy and stabilize our place in the world theater. Like it or not, as we go, so goes the world. That’s the responsibility of a world leader. We can lead for good or we can lead for ill and it’s up to all of us to make the crucial decisions that can bring this world away from the precipice. I hope to sleep more peacefully in the future and less troubled by rancorous dreams. I love my family and my friends but people need to wake up to the reality of what is going on and the acts that are committed in our names. This is a pivotal point in history and, make no mistake, we will be judged by our actions or lack thereof by future chroniclers of history. So please, for the love of everything that you hold sacred, put down that tabloid, turn off that mindless television program, make a few fewer non-essential cell phone calls and do something , ANYTHING, that will make a positive impact in your community, your world, and in the lives of the people you care about.
Thanks for reading this and pleasant dreams….
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_to_serve_in_the_Israeli_military
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