tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19475804926925423492024-02-20T05:37:56.688-05:00INTERNATIONAL LAW AND FILMSInstitute for International Law and Justice, New York University School of LawSurabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-80288643145459150952008-05-01T23:15:00.004-04:002008-05-01T23:46:38.832-04:00EXODUS (1961)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68Il8X-YPgaDj5evB36gp04mmMLb0NDC1YpIDWXnqsms-nEfaXsLgAcBRs5AqpDDx0PZGin8-1vQCsrG1-W4AcIvgdnrAWRm-wp7B8UjepN3F97Hx0JLS8DU7k_Bq5YMbyVrEIVHxTyCb/s1600-h/exodus.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195620060539911746" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68Il8X-YPgaDj5evB36gp04mmMLb0NDC1YpIDWXnqsms-nEfaXsLgAcBRs5AqpDDx0PZGin8-1vQCsrG1-W4AcIvgdnrAWRm-wp7B8UjepN3F97Hx0JLS8DU7k_Bq5YMbyVrEIVHxTyCb/s320/exodus.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Growing up, I would see paper-towel editions of Leon Uris’s books always on display at the neighbourhood market, always flanked by Victoria Holts, Wilbur Smiths and Danielle Steels. And I would wonder why. While size didn’t necessarily matter, the back covers would suggest vastly different contents and yet, the shop owners would unhesitatingly place the four piles together.<br /><br />Deterred by the company they kept, I never got around to reading any Urises. Having watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/"><strong>Exodus</strong></a> some days ago, I really wish I had read the book, just in case it is different! The film, a 1960 adaptation directed by Otto Preminger, was a disappointment.<br /><br />Exodus is the story of post-war creation of the State of Israel. The movie begins in 1947, Cyprus, with the determination of Haganah leader Ari Ben Canaan’s determination to transport the entire population of one Jewish refugee camp to Palestine.<br /><br />At that time, Palestine was a British protectorate, with a predominantly Arab population. Jews, among them survivors of holocaust, had intensified their claims to a Zionist state, and in the short term, were seeking entry into Palestine. Palestinian Arabs resisted both aims, and in the absence of a solution of the former issue, the British felt it imprudent to allow the latter – i.e. immigration of large numbers of Jews into the protectorate.<br /><br />Restrictions were placed on Jewish refugees to prevent travel to Israel, which, in the film, Ben Canaan was determined to violate. With forged orders he took aboard more than 600 refugees. The ship set sail for Palestine, but before it could leave the harbor, the British officials in Cyprus came to know. The harbor was sealed and the passengers asked to return. Instead, the passengers started a hunger strike. Following an impasse of several days, the British relented and the ship was allowed to sail to Palestine.<br /><br />The next part of the film focuses on events in Palestine, as the British are preparing to leave and the question of partitioning the land into separate states of Israel and Palestine is being debated at the UN, and culminates in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of November 29, 1947 confirming the partition. It follows the fortunes of the Ben-Canaan family and their friends and associates.<br /><br />After they land in Palestine, we are told that Ari’s father Barak is a leader in the Haganah (depicted as the mainstream Jewish organization seeking peaceful settlement of the Israel question) and head of the Jewish settlement of Gan Dafna. One of their closest family friends is Taha, the headman of the neighbouring Arab village. Ari’s uncle Akiva on the other hand is one of the leaders of Irgun, an extremist group relying on bombing British installations as its principal mode of expression. Other characters include the young explosives expert Dov, and a Danish refugee, Karen. Dov is a victim of sexual and emotional abuse at a Nazi concentration camp who survived because he was recruited as a <em>Sonderkommando</em>. Dov joins the Irgun and together with Akiva orchestrates a series of bombings on British installations. Karen, brought up by foster parents in Denmark has lost her mother and siblings, but believes her father, a famous scientist, is alive and in Palestine. She finally locates him, but he is by now unable to recognize or respond to her.<br /><br />A series of events including the capture of Irgun members by the British, a dramatic jail breakout orchestrated by Ari, UN announcement of partition, outbreak of violence between the Arabs and the Jews, a dangerous walk in the night as 150 children from the village are taken across the mountain to protect them from Arab armies and a bloody end, with the discovery that Taha and Karen have been killed by Arab extremists.<br /><br />According to Gideon Bachman <span style="color:#ff0000;">[1]</span>, Exodus has achieved the status of a historical epic, despite no claims to accuracy other than the fact that it weaves in references to some ‘real’ events. One such real event is attempt to sail to Palestine from Cyprus, but the fate of that ship, the real Exodus, was different. Its passengers were driven to Germany and into another refugee camp. The film is littered with similar faux-historic, unsubstantiated episodes. This is a relevant criticism, but not the focus of this post.<br /><br />The greater tragedy of the film is this: the film was shot against the backdrop of an enormously complex epoch in the history of this region, with a cacophony of issues providing any director with material rich enough for about 20 films (and posts on international law); it was shot in the region itself, and in the wake of a tremendously successful book so that it was assured of a large audience before release; it was a long film with a run time of three and a half hours; and yet there was barely a scene which engaged.<br /><br />In the attempt to tell the full story of the ‘birth of Israel’ as well as a few love stories, the director glossed over the following: ethnic nationalism, territorial identity, religious nationalism, self-determination, refoulement, forced internment, terrorism, status of protectorates, buffer states, the United Nations, legitimacy of trials, rules targeting particular communities etc. This is not a laundry list conjured out of nowhere, the film actually refers to all of these issues, but in the attempt to depict all, addresses none.<br /><br />So, you have a ship being forcibly prevented from sailing to Palestine suddenly allowed to go with no explanation why, beyond the hunger strike; passengers taken to Haifa and dropped off to roam at will; a UN General Assembly meeting in which the scene focuses on the votes of Panama and Peru; no explanation for why UN member states decided on partition; no explanation of the role the ever-present British regime played in the unfolding events. There were radio announcements of special curfews for Jews with no follow-up; award of capital punishment to Akiva and his cohort under a targeted provision, to which no further attention was paid.<br /><br />Even worse, the film infantilized both causes: Jewish and Arab. To only mildly caricature, from the depiction it would appear that the legitimacy of one group’s cause was owing only to the record of abuse and torture under the Nazi regime, with no portrayal of their centuries-old claim to that land; while the other side’s claim was pure bloody-mindedness, not even redeemed by an iota of passion or dedication to any particular ‘cause’.<br /><br />The multiplicity of views among the Jewish community was collapsed into two schools – and these barely explained - Barak’s and Aviva’s, peace loving moderates and the violent extremists. Only in one scene is any attempt made to tell a more complex tale: Barack goes to see Aviva (from whom he has been estranged for years), before he is hanged, finds himself yet unable to speak to his brother and leaves, but not before he tells his son that he cannot see his brother dying at the hands of the British. Just this one insight into a common feeling and then the scene shifts. The next time we see Barak, he is celebrating the UN resolution.<br /><br />The only Arab we see is the good Taha, apart from the disembodied split second appearance of the mufti, only to shake hands with a German ex-Nazi and declare death to all Jews. Otherwise, we are expected to go along with a vague sense of poor hostile multitudes ready to kill and be killed at the first ringing of the clarion.<br /><br />To get a sense of just how much Exodus manages to avoid accomplishing, one need only look at <a href="http://iiljfilms.blogspot.com/2008/02/battle-of-algiers.html"><strong>The Battle of Algiers</strong></a>, a film from the same period and a disturbing, emotionally wringing account, of another struggle between opposing causes. In Exodus, the vitals of Israel-Palestine conflict appear to have been shoehorned into the exigencies of an exotic love story - or three.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff0000;">[1]</span> Gideon Bachmann, Review, 14(3) Film Quarterly 56 (1961)</span> </div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-35505096079589169012008-04-17T11:01:00.009-04:002008-04-17T11:56:08.356-04:00Passport to Pimlico<div align="center"><strong></strong></div><div align="center"><strong>A Burgundian People and the Power and Perils of Sovereignty for Small States</strong><br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5190237020413330370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQDmdr7tfoIGkmOatrbJM20PI5pkyi_Jj5Co9odM2Xr79HgTPV54HJZkn1_YrtFQur7N0RN8Th2XMyUhV-zYXI0k6Wp8SiZlrEWQqR0TuayQqgEAPz0_YwhQrypbvBBIpbaZpw7O51-4RF/s320/pimlico+1.bmp" border="0" /> <p align="center"><br /><em>We always were English and we'll always be English, and </em><br /></p><div align="center"><em>it's precisely because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundians! </em></div><em><div align="justify"><br /></em>Ealing Studios' 1949 classic, <strong><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041737/">Passport to Pimlico</a></strong> is a hilarious take on the perils and benefits of independence for small states. Pimlico is of course a very small state – a manor house and its former grounds in London, which had been ceded to the Duke of Burgundy in mid-15th century. This charter is discovered in a buried cellar that is thrown open by an accidental explosion of a bomb left-over from World War II.<br /><br />The residents of Pimlico, suffering under post-war rationing declare themselves Burgundians, free from British laws, included British rationing. To add to their joys, buried treasure is discovered. The newly declared Burgundian territory is soon flocked by enthusiastic Londoners seeking to sell and shop – though as it happens, none are carrying their passports and consequently, unable to re-enter ‘Britain’.<br /><br />However the new state soon discovers also the hazards of sovereignty, as following its stoppage of a subway train at the ‘international border’ of Burgundy, it is blockaded by the British government and water and electricity supplies are cut off. The residents also begin to run out of food and water, and are invited to immigrate into ‘Britain’, but remain determined to fight for their freedom…<br /><br />---<br /><br />The issues for international lawyers? Kosovo’s <a href="http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?krye=news&newsid=1635&lang=en">Declaration of Independence</a> has provoked fresh concerns about the legal limits to the principle of ‘self-determination’ along with the legitimacy of the instant secession and its precedential value for regions of the world. The viability of the new state is additional consideration.<br /><br />Arguments on secession or ‘external self-determination’ usually devolve into a debate between the relative standing of the principles of territorial integrity and the right of self-determination. Till date, there exists no clear legal rule to determine when the latter principle may take priority over the former. The only easy cases are those in which it is possible to argue that the two principles do not really come into conflict; claims of independence by colonial countries and peoples for instance do not pose heavy legal challenges to territorial integrity.<br /><br />Recognition of a state newly formed by such an act of secession is ultimately a political act, and may be a constitutive element of state-hood, though in general it is supposed to follow upon a display of conformity with the criteria of statehood described in the <a href="http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam03.htm">Montevideo Convention</a>, viz. permanent population; defined territory; government; and the capacity to enter into relations with other States.<br /><br />Recent commentary on Kosovo focuses on the peoplehood of the Kosovar Albanians and their right to a distinct territory. The arguments in favour of an independent Kosovo are its existence as an autonomous province of Serbia within the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, its efforts through the 1990s to regain this autonomy within the successor state of Serbia, and its governance through international administration since 1999. The argument against, which Chris Borgen <a href="http://www.asil.org/insights/2008/02/insights080229.html">points out</a>, is that modern state practice normally does not extend ‘peoplehood’, and therefore the ‘privilege of secession’, to a fragment of a larger ethnic group. It could be argued that Kosovar Albanians are a fragment of the Albanian ethnic group, and thus not a ‘nation’ in the ethnographic sense.<br /><br />Effective government is another concern. While the size of the state is not usually determinative of its viability - and Kosovo with a territory of about 10,000 square kilometers and population of 2 million is a far cry from Palau (459 sq. km, 20000 ppl), Liechtenstein (160 sq. km, 35000 ppl) or Monaco (2 sq. km, 32000 ppl) – according to Thomas Grant “[s]mallness, especially when exacerbated by poverty, may impede [its] independence for political and economic reasons”.<span style="color:#cc0000;">[1]</span><br /><br />Jori Duursma’s study indicates that micro-states like the three mentioned above often assign away performance of public functions like judicial dispute resolution and performance of public services like transportation and postal services to other states.<span style="color:#cc0000;">[2]</span> Depending on their location, even states with significantly larger territories than Kosovo, such as Bhutan and Lesotho are subject to physical and policy influences from neighbouring states, India and South Africa, respectively.<br /><br />A profusion of small and weak states may give rise to systemic concerns. For one, each small weak state which is the member of the United Nations has a seat in the General Assembly at par with other states. If it votes according to the direction of another state, that state has acquired two de-facto votes. By counting Tonga, Solomon Islands, Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, among its numbers the US was able to <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030327-10.html">boast of a numerical Coalition</a> of 49 states that supported the Iraq war. It is also possible that lack of resources or lack of capacity to utilize those resources, leading to economic deprivation could result in political instability and human rights violations, and potentially endanger international peace and security.<br /><br />On the other hand, as Juan Enriquez argues that having ‘too many flags’ is not necessarily counterproductive from the point of view of particular states.<span style="color:#cc0000;">[3]</span> With a surface area of 704 sq. kilometers, Singapore for instance is an economically strong state. Slovenia, which seceded from former Yugoslavia has a strongly growing economy with a high human development index. Monaco, a tax haven, has the distinction of having the highest population density in the world.<br /><br />Naturally, Pimlico makes the absurd case for peoplehood as well as for the benefits and perils associated with independence of small states. There is no analogy implied to Kosovo. But do watch…<br /><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">[1]</span> Thomas D. Grant, Between Diversity and Disorder: A Review of Jori C. Duursma, Fragmentation and International Relations of Micro-States: Self Determination and Statehood, </span><a name="citeas((Cite as: 12 Am. U. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 629)"></a><a name="SDU_1"></a><span style="font-size:85%;">12 Am. U. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 629 (1997). </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">[2]</span> Jori C. Duursma, Fragmentation and International Relations of Micro-States: Self Determination and Statehood (1996).</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">[3]</span> Juan Enriquez, Too Many Flags?, Foreign Policy, No. 116 (Autumn, 1999) pp. 30-49.</span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-27122053453017205072008-03-26T20:54:00.002-04:002008-03-26T21:00:22.132-04:00Film Screening: USA v. Al-Arian<blockquote></blockquote><p align="justify">Thursday, March 27th, 2008, Vanderbilt Hall Room 220, 40 Washington Square South<br />6:30 pm</p><p align="justify">Members of the Public may attend with ID<br /></p><p align="justify"><em>From the flyer:<br /></em>“USA vs Al-Arian” is a disturbing film on freedom of speech in post 9/11 America and political persecution. The film follows the arrest and trial of Sami Al-Arian, an Arab-American university professor accused of supporting a terrorist organization abroad. For two and a half years Dr. Al-Arian was held in solitary confinement, denied basic privileges and given limited access to his attorneys. The film is an intimate family portrait documenting how a tight-knit family unravels before our very eyes as trial preparations, strategy and media spin consume their lives. Norwegian director Line Halvorsen has made a damning portrait of the case focusing on the trial’s emotional toll. This is a nightmare come to life, as a man is prosecuted for his beliefs rather than his actions.<br /><br />The Screening will be followed by a talk with Laila Al-Arian, New York based journalist and Dr. Al-Arian’s daughter. </p><p><em>Co-sponsored by the NYU National Lawyers Guild, Law Students for Human Rights, MELSA, and the Islamic Law Students Association</em></p>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-60946688523046817672008-03-15T21:59:00.008-04:002008-03-16T18:40:54.469-04:00Moartea domnului Lăzărescu | The Death of Mr. Lazarescu<div align="justify"><em><span style="color:#333333;">Hadas Leffel, intern at the </span><a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/index.htm"><span style="color:#000099;">UN CCPR</span></a><span style="color:#333333;"> and Executive Director of </span><a href="http://fspub.ro/page.php?pag=anunturi_7.12.2007"><span style="color:#000099;">Back From Utopia: Human Rights and Cinema in Post-Communist Societies</span></a>,<span style="color:#333333;"> provides the following review of Director Cristi Puiu's take on the essential reason for which we should respect human rights, as presented in the award-winning </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456149/"><strong><span style="color:#000099;">Moartea domnului Lăzărescu</span></strong></a><span style="color:#333333;">. An expanded version of this post will be included in a volume on Cinema and Human Rights (eds. Koen de Foeyter, Iulia Motoc, Ema Sandon and William Shabas) to be published as part of the </span><a href="http://www.eiuc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1"><span style="color:#000099;">Cambridge University Press EIUC series</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#333333;"> in 2009.</span><br /></div></span></em><br /><br /><div align="left"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178156848695016082" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 390px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 216px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="240" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZscdhqARqiuFMMMpfEG3tODCoUIS_8XZVSBP5YwpyW9TLPD0TqZ_4_EAIE3nQ2aO7zSyRIx5nunlCgtDIA0DmK69XVfRKmOMJ43kgFuv8UTEVVGcodbY4jH4cPMhCFtJ-z9HwKlG0TIi1/s320/thedeathofmrlazarescupic.jpg" width="390" border="0" /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><strong>How can we love them if they have fleas?</strong></div><br /><br /><div align="justify">What do we know about Dante Lazarescu? Miki and Sandu, his next-door neighbors, would be happy to provide a detailed list of his odious habits: sloth; overindulgence in alcohol, tobacco and medication; lack of hygiene. Another vice they might mention is Lazarescu’s preoccupation with his cats, which is repeatedly criticized and trivialized. When we are first introduced to Lazarescu, even as his own body is on the verge of collapse, Lazarescu does not fail to ask his cats how they are doing. His neighbors, however, repeatedly encourage Lazarescu to get rid of the cats. They are described as filthy and disease ridden; they consume without producing. As Sandu says to one cat: “You’re nice and cozy now that you’ve found a fool.” Lazarescu counters these accusations innocently, describing his cats as undemanding: “all they need are some bones and maybe some fish to eat.”<br /><br />Lazarescu doesn’t require much sustenance either. As an elderly, unhealthy man with few resources, however, he is also consuming without producing: a non-contributing member of society. He is a retired engineer from the age of Romanian Communism, a relic. His social utility has long expired and, like his cats, Lazarescu’s estimated valued worth is measured in utils in the film’s loveless world. He is inconsequential: a man as useless as the cats he is urged to discard. Why, then, do we care for Dante Lazarescu? We care for the very reasons that those around him criticize, marginalize and even punish him. In one instance, when asked “How do you feel?” Lazarescu answers: “Do you know how much I love my cats?” and he does, just by virtue of their existence. Lazarescu thus embodies the same moral principle that is so noticeably missing from the world around him: Unconditional Love. His capacity for love is neither a redemptive quality nor a personal characteristic. It is, rather, a symbolic essence that is embedded in him without any logical justification. As Puiu says, “If we split human beings into a human part and a spiritual part, [Lazarescu] is the human part, the part that dies. He's secondary.” The primary element is not Lazarescu himself, but the love he embodies. He is its object, just as he is the object of others’ neglect and misconduct.<br /><br />As we watch Dante Lazarescu’s descent, we intuitively judge the involved parties’ level of responsibility for his suffering and neglect. When Mioara warns Lazarescu against causing trouble at Spitalui Universitar, he asks: “Isn’t it the doctor’s duty to take care of the patient?” The ambulance driver responds by asking him “And what is the patient’s duty?” Here, as in the film as a whole, the attention to Lazarescu’s duty inevitably causes an inattention to his rights. The question of Lazarescu’s remains noticeably implicit in the film. The only occasion that touches upon Lazarescu’s legal rights is the surgeon’s refusal to operate on Lazarescu because he has not given his consent. What should be Lazarescu’s right to informed consent becomes his duty, a duty that he is unable to perform. If it is the doctors’ duty to care for patients, throughout the film we see them putting in the minimal amount of effort possible toward its fulfillment. The gross violation here is thus not of a professional medical duty, but of a basic human one. Puiu seems to be encouraging us to examine and define the moral duty of a human being. The language of human rights discourse provides a viable answer: the inherent dignity of a human person demands that the equal and inalienable rights of all people be respected and preserved. If a human being has an inherent right to dignity just by virtue of his/her existence, is it our moral duty to ensure that this right is respected?<br /><br />In order to answer this question we must reassess the justification for the moral imperative to respect human rights. Puiu’s answer is simple: the only justification needed is Unconditional Love, the love that is the essence of the spiritual side of man embodied in the Christ-like Lazarescu. Like Christ, Lazarescu symbolizes Unconditional Love and like Christ he is a victim of the human collective. Lazarescu also reminds us, however, that unlike his namesake, Lazarus, there will be no Messiah to bring him back from the dead. Even the film’s title assures us that there will be no deus ex machina to save Lazarescu. Indeed, at the end of the film, Dr. Angel is called but never appears. In a world where religious belief has no place in society’s moral compass, it would hardly be reasonable to expect miraculous salvation.<br /><br />There seems to be a missing link between the morality of human rights and the Christian idea of Unconditional Love expressed in this film. When we attempt to provide logical justification for the moral imperative reflected in Puiu’s notion of Unconditional Love we fall short. Without any religious ground for fulfilling our moral duty to uphold human rights standards, the concept of inherent dignity becomes questionable. Puiu has said: "We forget we are animals…I'd like to create situations that show the animal face of the human being."<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> It seems that Lazarescu had accepted this duality all along. When Sandu asks: “Why don’t you get rid of these cats?” Lazarescu responds: “Why don’t you get rid of Miki?” By the end of the film, Lazarescu and his cats stand on equal ground: bodies, animalistic. Lazarescu’s capacity for love, however, tells a different story. He knows that the love he shows for his cats cannot be reciprocated<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a>, yet he never ceases to impart it.<br /><br />It seems that the consistent truth of the film is that it is the capacity for love that a person innately possesses that cements human dignity. Lazarescu’s dignity remains intact: his inalienable right. If we seek to secularize this love for the sake of a stable justification for human rights morality, there is no guarantee that it will maintain its foundation. We must ask, however, if there is a need, after all, to define a moral foundation in order to establish the practice of kindness. As Dante Lazarescu shows us, love will still exist no matter how we define it. It doesn’t need much sustenance.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span style="font-size:85%;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> C. Bailey, Interview with Cristi Puiu in Now, March 30 – April 5, 2006. Vol. 25 no. 31. http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2006-03-30/movie_interview.php<br /></span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"><span style="font-size:85%;">[2]</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> In a moment of weakness, Lazarescu sneers: “You don’t care, you bloody animal!”</span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-19014508913020292642008-03-05T23:15:00.002-05:002008-04-17T20:51:57.515-04:00Notes on "Missing in Pakistan"<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174494655313636594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7V81yiuD6j8wAL4XpQ0oBD4t4z_HhBBiLE4MvOlNy8GgjiWYmPpUsAT-FWTQon9_dqIQzjtORgA5_hqtElm8VrNukNZgg4QYaG0jThPw7Tfv3AYzEIVRBSkHCOHRBwXLsk98Y0BGBxuWO/s320/14pakistan.xlarge1.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><div><div align="justify">At around the six-minute mark, with the increasing hysteria of Amina Masood’s screams, Missing in Pakistan finally progresses from a thoughtful but not-entirely riveting narrative to an extremely gripping – and disturbing - documentary about the spate of ‘disappearances’ in Pakistan.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> </div><div align="justify"><br />Amina’s panic arises as she realizes that her 16 year old son has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">arrested by the police </a>– and stripped of his trousers before being pushed into the police van. The site of his arrest, and its cause, is a peaceful protest organized by Amina to protest the disappearance of her husband. Ahmed Masood Janjua, was last seen by his family on July 30, 2005. Since then, Amina has received information through informal channels that her husband is in custody of the police, but no official is willing to confirm this, let alone provide her with a reason. </div><div align="justify"><br />Janjua is one among several hundred Pakistanis who have gone missing since the launch of the ‘war on terror’. Evidence suggests that the missing have been <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA33/051/2006/en/07b1cf5b-a2f6-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/asa330512006en.pdf">abducted and detained in secret locations</a> on the orders of the Pakistan government, which is one of America's allies in the War on Terror. It is reported that several have been <a href="http://www.chrgj.org/docs/OffRecord/OFF_THE_RECORD_FINAL.pdf">transferred to America's custody </a>as well.<br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174494251586710754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="203" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjLAW9cWViFOPDt5TR-S__8nDWcb2C91VBRLN4qRAw1mGyqZiZjFj8xcKHfNHRtQTR65nC28omo6trmmyOAh8NVDMIYYJSm8qQftva_UrgCzdhmWaaCvancjCuVXHTRrxGLUU5TheRsqO/s320/untitled.bmp" width="263" border="0" /><br />The Musharraf government claims that it is only apprehending terrorists, but has failed to provide evidence linking several of the missing to terrorism; neither has it brought them before Pakistan courts.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> Some of the missing, like Janjua, are members of groups like the Tablighi Jamaat, described as “<a href="http://www.usip.org/events/2006/0808_islamist_network.html">a global Islamic proselytizing movement with one of the largest numbers of followers in the world</a>.” It has been suggested that such religion-based groups may be recruiting grounds for terrorists, but there is no evidence establishing this particular group’s link to terrorists or terrorist activity.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[3]</a><br /><br />There is increasing bitterness in Pakistan at the government’s blind allegiance to American foreign policy at the cost of serious threat to the rule of law in Pakistan. “Do countries sell their own people?” screams one poster. It is an open secret that President Musharraf, who seized control of the government via a military coup in 1999, has been able to prolong his dictatorship due to backing from the western world, particularly the Bush government. BBC’s Zafar Abbas <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5282618.stm">notes</a> that as an active partner in the war on terror, Musharraf has been perceived by many in the West as one of the most liberal and enlightened faces of the Muslim world. Swayed by the exigencies of the war on terror, the American government has been able to overlook the suspension of due process in Pakistan, even as it goes about bringing “democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights” to other Islamic nations.</div><div align="justify"><br />The 24 minute documentary brings out the very thin line between acts of terrorism and those sometimes perpetrated in the name of counter-terrorism, it addresses the terror v. torture debate discussed in the post on the <a href="http://iiljfilms.blogspot.com/2008/02/battle-of-algiers.html">Battle of Algiers</a>, it raises questions about the extent to which <a href="http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20080227.htm">a state allows its internal governance to be overridden </a>by its obligations to other states and it provides an insight into the ‘conditional aid’ policies that governments of the North can use to arm-twist governments of the South. It also alludes to the ease with which values of democracy and rule of law can be co-opted or ignored. And of course, most significantly, it brings to public notice, several cases of disappearances in Pakistan and splices together the response from different communities of interest – the families of the missing, the government, the human rights fraternity and the lawyers. </div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="http://missinginpakistan.wordpress.com/">This</a> blog reports that the documentary has been circulating through informal channels as its content is too explosive for broadcast networks in Pakistan. It suggests that while there is a producer mentioned in the credits, there are doubts as to whether the person’s real name has been used. Other sites however indicate that Zafar is an independent journalist and film-maker. The documentary is freely available on Google video and on Youtube. Do watch. </div><br /><div align="justify"><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span style="font-size:85%;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> This is not to say that first five minutes were superfluous – in a second viewing I noticed details I had missed while settling down in the first; it is more a compliment to the film’s ability to shake even the over-exposed or desensitized (to documentaries, or the issues they cover) out of their passivity. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"><span style="font-size:85%;">[2]</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> The Supreme Court of Pakistan, seized of this matter, <a href="http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/12/top5.htm">has encouraged the government to regularize the detention</a> of those being held in secret prisons.</span> </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=1901450891302029264#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span style="font-size:85%;">[3]</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> See <a href="http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2006/1011_islamist_networks.html">here</a> for a presentation by Eva Borreguero, a Fulbright scholar and Professor of Politics, whose research is focused on this group, at the United States Institute of Peace.</span><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>Missing in Pakistan was </strong></em><a href="http://iiljfilms.blogspot.com/2008/02/missing-in-pakistan-movie-screening-in.html"><em><strong>screened at NYU</strong></em></a><em><strong> on February 26, 2008.</strong> </em></div></div></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-29700542136304614452008-02-25T22:30:00.006-05:002008-03-16T18:44:59.559-04:00The Battle of Algiers<div align="justify"><br /> </div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i2nqIKcmjiW9ZB7SDkJ-Chnj0ZwAB5tW-Ows1wlA_LVm2-Yk4vrais02bEsjcucojJopK8Po3TaMRBmpc37RTVo51K8KCc0XwmqerbmURVDiZs6tKyTAHD_JK9KKEpHSXV8vpbsAA6SF/s1600-h/120354403828484.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169193233676033506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 318px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 162px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="167" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i2nqIKcmjiW9ZB7SDkJ-Chnj0ZwAB5tW-Ows1wlA_LVm2-Yk4vrais02bEsjcucojJopK8Po3TaMRBmpc37RTVo51K8KCc0XwmqerbmURVDiZs6tKyTAHD_JK9KKEpHSXV8vpbsAA6SF/s320/120354403828484.jpg" width="320" border="0" /> <p align="justify"></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><strong>Mathieu:</strong> The word "torture" does not appear in our orders. We have always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies...twenty-four hours...the time necessary to render useless any information furnished ... What type of interrogation should we choose? ... the one which drags on for months? </em></span><br /><br /></p></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><strong>Journalist:</strong> The law is often inconvenient, colonel... </em></span><br /></div></span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><strong>Mathieu:</strong> And those who explode bombs in public places, do they perhaps respect the law? ...it is a vicious circle...All the newspapers, even the left-wing ones wanted the rebellion suppressed. And we were sent here for this very reason. And we are neither madmen nor sadists…We are soldiers and our only duty is to win...I would now like to ask you a question: Should France remain in Algeria? If you answer "yes," then you must accept all the necessary consequences.</span></em></span><br /><br />“Mathieu”, “France” and “Algeria” are possibly the only words that set the context for this exchange, replace these and this could be a transcript of current date. <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060906-3.html">Exhibit A</a>.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.rialtopictures.com/battle.html"><strong>Battle of Algiers</strong></a>, scripted by Franco Solinas and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, provides insight into an important puzzle for international lawyers: the terror v. torture debate. In the war against terrorism, is it acceptable to torture suspected terrorists? If so, what about the violation of their human rights and rights under humanitarian law? If not, then what of the risk to the lives and property of others, including innocent civilians?<br /><br />Article 2 of the <a href="http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm">Convention Against Torture</a> provides: <em>“1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction. 2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”</em> Other prescriptions include: torture must be included as a criminal offence in the domestic law of every member state (Art 4), victims of torture must be entitled to redress (Art 14), and statements made as a result of torture must not be admissible as evidence (Article 15). Torture is also prohibited by the <a href="http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm">ICCPR</a>, the <a href="http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html">UDHR</a> and regional conventions including the <a href="http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html">ECHR</a>, the <a href="http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/oasinstr/zoas3con.htm">ACHR</a>, and the <a href="http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm">Banjul Charter</a>. In <em><a href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/filartiga-630F2d876.html">Filartiga</a></em>, the 2nd Circuit declared that the torturer is ‘<em>hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind</em>’. In <em><a href="http://www.un.org/icty/furundzija/trialc2/judgement/index.htm">Furundzija</a></em>, the ICTY recognized torture as a crime erga omnes, and the prohibition on torture as jus cogens.<br /><br />Following 9/11, the Committee Against Torture, while condemning the attacks, also reminded State parties, “<em>of the non-derogable nature of most of the obligations undertaken by them … [Articles 2, 15 and 16] are three such…whatever responses to the threat of international terrorism are adopted by the State parties…will be in conformity with [these obligations]."</em><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a><br /><br />However, even as they cited these decisions and statement, the judges of the House of Lords in <em><a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd051208/aand-1.htm">‘A’ and others</a></em> felt unable to insist that it would be unlawful for the executive arm of the government to rely upon information obtained through torture: “<em>If under torture a man revealed the whereabouts of a bomb…, the authorities could remove the bomb and…arrest the terrorist who planted it</em>” In other words, a judgment replete with contempt for acts of torture and confirmatory of the absolute nature of the prohibition against the same, could not yet declare information obtained through such acts worthless for all purposes. The growing incidence of terrorism is gradually carving out an (only in fact) exception to states’ commitment to refrain from torture. This is reflected in the film as well, the scenes of torture are gruesome, yet it is not possible to describe Colonel Mathieu’s argument as lacking all merit.<br /><br />The context for the ‘Battle of Algiers’ is Algerian nationals’ struggle for independence from France. Algeria was a French colony for about 120 years, but the desire for greater autonomy had begun to take root towards the end of the first quarter of the 20th century. The end of the second quarter saw the formation of the <a href="http://www.pfln.dz/index_fr.php">Front de Libération Nationale</a> [FLN] – the group depicted in the film - which launched the call for the formation of an Algerian sovereign state; in other words, they demanded full independence from the French. A six year ‘War of Independence’ followed, in which the Battle of Algiers was one of the major episodes. Armed revolt was the route preferred by the FLN; gradually other groups were persuaded or coerced to join cause with it. The government responded first by harsh police measures, then by bringing in the military.<br /><br />Both sides were guilty of attacks on civilians and torture of captured persons. The laws of war were flagrantly violated. Though the film carries no express reference to humanitarian law, France was a party to the <a href="http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/genevaconventions">Geneva Conventions</a> at the time of the Algerian war. The FLN, a non-state actor was not a party to the convention, but had been <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FIRC%2FIRC88_864%2FS1816383107000835a.pdf&code=4e8d19f2cdf39adf00062d1042e9273c">in direct contact </a>with the <a href="http://www.icrc.org/">ICRC</a> throughout the war. Even so, the film indicates that there was little effort made by either side to contend with the protections afforded by the Geneva conventions:</div><div align="justify"><br />On at least two separate occasions we see Colonel Mathieu offering a fair trial to the members of the FLN if they give themselves up without using force. The <a href="http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/algeria-history-190805">ICRC notes</a> however that the French refused to admit that the Geneva conventions were applicable. <em>“It did not matter to France, which drew on the full range of penal law to counter the rebellion, whether those “captured while in possession of weapons” were in line with the law of war or not…Far from being seen as instruments of the State – as in the case of international conflicts – [the Algerians] risked being given heavy sentences simply for having taken part in the fighting.”<br /></em><br />In any case, the French made little attempt to differentiate between the “soldiers” and the civilians among the Algerian nationals; the film makes a reference to the napalm bombs used to wipe out entire villages. The film also shows that the pied-noirs, i.e. the European colonists, indiscriminately abusing all Algerian nationals for acts of violence, even as they employed Algerians in their factories and homes. The police too is seen as making little effort to collect actual evidence prior to making arrests, and in one incident an innocent Algerian road worker is arrested, ‘interrogated’ and his house and neighborhood in the Algerian quarter (the “Casbah”) bombed by the Police Commissioner and his friends as an act of revenge against the random acts of violence perpetrated by the FLN. The fate of the worker is not disclosed. <a href="http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/algeria-history-190805">According to the ICRC</a>, though the broad policy was to bring the Algerians before magistrates’ courts, “disappearances” were widespread. The ICRC had very limited access to prisoners; film makes no mention of any ICRC presence at the detention centers.<br /><br />On the Algerian side, the film faithfully showcases the actual events during the Battle of Algiers, including: guerrilla attacks by the FLN; bombing of popular civilian sites; and the general strike timed to coincide with the UN debate on Algeria. One of the most notorious incidents was the simultaneous bombing of a crowded restaurant, a milk bar and the Air France building by three women, as a reprisal against the French police’s actions in bombing the Casbah, and in restricting Algerians’ movement to and from the Casbah. The women, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassiba_Ben_Bouali">Hassiba Ben Bouali</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djamila_Bouhired">Djamila Bouhired</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohra_Drif">Zohra Drif</a> were all active members of the FLN, as were several others. Though not in this instance, in general the FLN capitalized on the fact that for reasons of cultural propriety, French soldiers would not search Algerian women for concealed weapons as they searched Algerian men.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Children also played a role in FLN operations; the character of petit Omar, who acted as the go-between for FLN leaders like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Ammar">Ali La Pointe</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Yacef">Saadi Yacef</a>, and who was pressed into service to plant bombs for the FLN when their adult membership began to decline, is taken from real life. Omar was Yacef’s nephew and was finally killed by a French bomb, when hiding with La Pointe and Ben Bouali. Another role for children, according to the film, was to help the FLN in its drive to weed out gamblers, drug-takers, alcoholics and prostitutes, described as products of the ‘colonial’ influence: <span style="font-size:85%;"><em>“Corruption and brutality have always been the most dangerous weapons of colonialism. The National Liberation Front calls all the people to struggle for their own physical and moral redemption -- indispensable conditions for the reconquest of independence. Therefore beginning today, the clandestine authority of the NLF prohibits the following activities: gambling, the sale and usage of all types of drugs, the sale and usage of alcoholic beverages, prostitution and its solicitation. Transgressors will be punished. Habitual transgressors will be punished by death.”</em></span> One of the most gut- wrenching moments of the film is the brutal lynching of a drunk man by a group of children. </div><div align="justify"><br />Another issue touched upon in the film is the question of choice of methods in the independence struggle. As described above, the FLN pursued a policy of armed revolt that could have been described as terrorist. However, at the time of the Algerian War, there was considerable debate on whether or not there should be a ‘freedom fighter’ exception to the definition of terrorism, such that acts of violence committed in the quest for independence would not be slotted under terrorism. During the Cold War, in most cases of anti-colonial struggle, one of the two power blocs would express support for ‘freedom fighters’; the other would condemn violence. The result was obfuscation of the permitted means to self-determination. Even today, though the period of anti-colonial struggles has come to an end, the international community has not been able to resolve the problem of separating ‘legitimate freedom fighters’ from terrorists; this has prevented the finalization of the <a href="http://www.reformtheun.org/index.php?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=1538">Draft Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism</a>. The <a href="http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/542/82/PDF/N0454282.pdf?OpenElement">Security Council</a> displays increasing unwillingness to include any exceptions to the definition of terrorism, on the other hand the <a href="http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbr00/video/cbr_ctd/cbr_ctd_27.html">Arab</a> and <a href="http://untreaty.un.org/English/Terrorism/oau_e.pdf">African</a> regional anti-terrorism conventions except acts performed in the course of the struggle for freedom.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a><br /><br />Another important feature is the French military’s reaction to the week long strike, including a freeze on hostilities, declared by the FLN. Through a general strike the FLN intended to showcase the popular support among the Algerians for full independence from the French; the strike was timed to coincide with the UN Debate on Algeria. The French military used it as an excuse to raid the Casbah. Despite the peaceful nature of the strike, all striking Algerians, regardless of the fact of their affiliation/non-affiliation with the FLN were treated as insurgents; participants were randomly selected, arrested and tortured in order to obtain information about the FLN.<br /><br />These tactics helped the military to identify and crush the leadership of the FLN, and so win the Battle of Algiers. Another blow to the FLN’s campaign was the UN Resolution which only expressed “the hope that, in a spirit of co-operation, a peaceful, democratic and just solution will be found, through appropriate means in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a><br /><br />However, in the long run, these military tactics undermined France’s position in Algeria, as military brutalities promoted popular uprising among the Algerians some months after the battle, and accelerated the decline in international support for the French colonial government in Algeria. In 2003, the Pentagon organized a screening of the film, apparently as an attempt to think creatively about the US military’s role in Iraq. The flyer stated: “How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a><br /><br />A remarkable feature of the film is its faithful and unbiased representation of the events that transpired. A major factor was the assistance Pontecorvo received from Saadi Yacef, who co-produced the film. Yacef also played himself in the film, other roles were played by Algerians, all non-actors; only one professional actor was included in the cast – Jean Martin playing Colonel Mathieu, a fictionalized character loosely based on General <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Massu">Jacques Massu</a>, the commander of the French troops in Algiers. The film was shot in Algeria, using the actual locations where the incidents had occurred. Moreover, it was shot very soon after the actual events had transpired. According to Charles Paul Freund, in 1965 when internal differences broke out between different factions of the FLN, and one faction surrounded another with tanks, the people of the capital literally thought another scene was being shot for The Battle of Algiers.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a><br /><br />The film was criticized for its condemnation of torture by both General Massu and his deputy in Algiers, General <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Aussaresses">Paul Aussaresses</a>. Massu was to later <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DA103FF932A05753C1A9649C8B63">regret</a> the military’s actions in Algeria, but Aussaresses continues to maintain that these tactics had been necessary. In 2002 he published “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Casbah-Terrorism-Counter-Terrorism-1955-1957/dp/192963112X">The Battle of the Casbah</a>”, in which he defended his use of torture. The French government subsequently tried and convicted Aussaresses for ‘justifying war crimes’. </div><div align="justify"><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span style="font-size:78%;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> Statement of the Committee against Torture, </span><a href="http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/c25a521171ce37ecc1256b20004cc4c4?Opendocument"><span style="font-size:78%;">CAT/C/XXVII/Misc.7</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, 2/11/2001.<br /></span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2"><span style="font-size:78%;">[2]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> See Thomas Weigend, The Universal Terrorist, Journal of International Criminal Justice 2006 4(5):912-932<br /></span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3"><span style="font-size:78%;">[3]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><a href="http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/340/16/IMG/NR034016.pdf?OpenElement"><span style="font-size:78%;">GA Res 1012 (XI)</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">. The Question of Algeria (15 February 1957).<br /></span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4"><span style="font-size:78%;">[4]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> Michael T. Kaufman, Film Studies, The New York Times, http://www.rialtopictures.com/eyes_xtras/battle_times.html<br /></span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=2970054213630461445#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5"><span style="font-size:78%;">[5]</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2087628/#correct2"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.slate.com/id/2087628/#correct2</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-11773119248850182402008-02-25T18:41:00.003-05:002008-03-16T18:50:33.402-04:00A quick thank you......to <a href="http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/law/faculty/profiles/Borgen">Christopher Borgen</a> for <a href="http://www.opiniojuris.org/posts/1203192906.shtml">this post</a> on <a href="http://www.opiniojuris.org/">Opinio Juris</a>. Incentive to awaken the blog.Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-15924202841720112562008-02-25T18:22:00.004-05:002008-02-25T18:30:19.674-05:00"Crossing the Line": Wed. in Vanderbilt Hall<div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Another screening this week. (See also "</em></span><a href="http://iiljfilms.blogspot.com/2008/02/missing-in-pakistan-movie-screening-in.html"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Missing in Pakistan</em></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>")</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /> </div></span><div align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </div></span><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">NYU Asia Law Society and Asia Catalyst </div><div align="center"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Documentary Film Screening - Crossing the Line</strong><br /></span><br />Wednesday, February 27 @ 7:00 PM<br />40 Washington Square South, Vanderbilt Hall, room 206</div><div align="justify"><br /><br />In 1962, a US soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth, and defected to the communist state of North Korea. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe is told. </div><div align="justify"><br />Join Asia Catalyst to see this astonishing documentary and toast the DVD launch. Co-sponsored by NYU Asia Law Society and APAC.</div><div align="justify"><br />Asia Catalyst is a New York-based nonprofit that helps to launch independent nonprofits in Asia that work on human rights, social justice and the environment. Asia Catalyzers give New York professionals and students a chance to get informed about hot-button issues in Asia while getting to know each other over a drink.</div><div align="justify"><br />Suggested Donation: $10 </div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-25002372666410063912008-02-25T16:14:00.012-05:002008-02-25T18:33:36.294-05:00"Missing in Pakistan": Movie Screening in Van. Hall<div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Members of the public are welcome. So if you can, get along! </span></em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></div></span></em></span><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The National Lawyers Guild, Law Students For Human Rights, </span><span style="font-size:85%;">and the South Asian Law Student's Association Present</span> </span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan and its Implications for Pakistan's Future<br /></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"></div></span><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></span><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;"><br />Tuesday, February 26, 2008</span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;">Vanderbilt 210, 4:30-6 pm</span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Food will be served</span> </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">A screening of the short (20 minute) documentary "Missing in Pakistan" will be followed by a brief talk and question/answer session with one of Pakistan's leading Constitutional Scholars, Hamid Khan. Recent events in Pakistan have been both frightening and inspiring, as the struggle for the rule of law continues in the courts and in the streets. Please join us for a brief film explaining the origins of Pakistan's "State of Emergency" and suspension of its constitution, and a talk with one of the lawyers who has been deeply involved with the legal battle to maintain an independent judiciary.<br /></span></div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><div align="justify"><br />Hamid Khan is a legal scholar, Supreme Court lawyer, former President of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association and the Senior Vice President of the political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. In addition, Mr. Khan, was a member of the defense team that successfully advocated for Chief Justice Iftikar M. Chaudhry reinstatement in July 2007. He also argued the case against President Musharaff - contesting his eligibility to stand for presidential elections - that precipitated the November 3 declaration of emergency rule. Mr. Khan has authored several authoritative texts of Pakistani Constitutional law. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong>Missing in Pakistan:<br /></div></strong></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong><div align="justify"><br /></strong>A short documentary written and directed by Ziad Zafar, an independent journalist and filmmaker. It was shot in February and March 2007 and highlights one of the key causes of the judicial and political crisis in Musharraf's Pakistan: the extra-legal disappearances of ordinary citizens at the hands of Military Intelligence. It reveals, as well, that the average Pakistani citizen can easily draw a stark connection between US ideals and policy with the realities in Pakistan.</span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-89677681393085564532007-11-28T13:40:00.000-05:002007-11-28T13:48:47.352-05:00Qiu Ju da guan si (The Story of Qiu Zhu)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2Jy5OFepsFh4l1PJC-NMJHIrk60Uz6jUhVJt2VJWne2xZ6o-mcjJ0CKixJZOAcpZymIzWy1PjF1ZNjikgBY7PGF3GD_y83ocgszZSQcOEbojr3eIOJT42xyKeR0ACDmcQnNFRN8Vg_6l/s1600-h/qiu+zhu.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5137963676937995282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2Jy5OFepsFh4l1PJC-NMJHIrk60Uz6jUhVJt2VJWne2xZ6o-mcjJ0CKixJZOAcpZymIzWy1PjF1ZNjikgBY7PGF3GD_y83ocgszZSQcOEbojr3eIOJT42xyKeR0ACDmcQnNFRN8Vg_6l/s320/qiu+zhu.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><div>Professor <a href="http://its.law.nyu.edu/faculty/profiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=cv.main&personID=20352">Frank Upham</a> has this to say:</div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"<strong><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105197/">The Story of Qiu Zhu</a></strong> is about the normative confusion caused when state law penetrates customary society, and specifically how a young wife, Qiu Zhu, tries to use law to get justice. Instead, she gets law and the movie is about the difference. It is set in a remote agricultural village in China at the time (1992) of the passage of the Administrative Litigation Law, which allowed citizens to sue officials for malfeasance. The village secretary and Qiu Zhu's husband have a fight, and the former injures the latter in a sensitive area of his body that affects him not only physically but as a matter of honor. Qiu Zhu takes it upon herself to get justice for her husband, first trying informal means, but eventually turning to the formal legal system. It is a great movie for those interested in law and development, law and culture, and modernization in general. It is also a very good movie - perhaps Zhang Yimo's best."</span> </div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-77755289667355239212007-11-01T17:59:00.001-04:002008-02-25T18:35:59.403-05:00Dormant, not Dead! And some movies<div align="justify">We will be back. Soon.<br /><br />Meanwhile, some films currently playing in theatres:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804522/"><strong>Rendition</strong></a><br />Egyptian man, suspected of terrorism, disappears on his way to Washington DC. A CIA agent is tasked with conducting an 'unorthodox interrogation' in a secret detention facility...<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431197/">The Kingdom</a></strong><br />A terrorist bomb detonates inside a western housing compound in Saudi Arabia igniting an international incident. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, a Special Agent from FBI negotiates a secret five-day trip to locate the culprit. While Saudi authorities in general are not pleased with the 'interference', a like-minded Saudi colonel helps them find their way to an extremist cell bent on further destruction...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.totaldenialfilm.com/"><strong>Total Denial</strong></a><br />Tells the story of a pipeline built by two oil companies, Total and Unocal in Burma, that formed the basis for the historic <a href="http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/corporate_accountability/corporateArticle.asp?ObjID=lrRSFKnmmm&Content=45">Doe v. Unocal </a>lawsuit in which fifteen indigenous people successfully sued two corporate giants in the U.S. courts for complicity in forced labor, assaults, rape and other human rights abuses.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443448/"><strong>O Jerusalem</strong></a><br />Based on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/O-Jerusalem-Larry-Collins/dp/0671662414">book</a> of the same name by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins which seeks to capture the events surrounding the creation of the modern state of Israel.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032854/"><strong>Terror's Advocate (L'Avocat de la terreur)</strong></a><br />The story of Jacques Vergès, the lawyer who has defended some of the most controversial figures of the 20th century - from anti-colonial bombers in Algeria, to left-wing extremists like Carlos the Jackal, to right-wing dictators like Slobodan Milošević. One of his his most infamous clients the Nazi, was Klaus Barbie. Vergès also defended Djamila Bouhired, the woman who planted the bomb at the Milk Bar, an incident famously dramatized in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058946/">The Battle of Algiers</a>. See <a href="http://www.tiff07.ca/filmsandschedules/filmdetails.aspx?id=705221140491386">here</a> for more details...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0823219/"><strong>Meeting Resistance</strong></a><br />A documentary on the Iraq War from the perspective of Iraqis resisting military occupation of their country. For more see <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/18/1419205">here</a>. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912574/"><strong>Banished</strong></a></div><div align="justify">The documentary revisits three of the communities that forcibly expelled their entire African American populations in the period between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression. See <a href="http://festival.sundance.org/filmguide/popup.aspx?film=4646">here</a> for more. </div><div align="justify"><br />Please note, this post does not touch upon the quality f any of these films, although some of them are extremely interesting.</div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-27971594152007987202007-09-05T20:30:00.000-04:002007-11-27T17:13:05.940-05:00Hotel Rwanda<a href="http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1140346/photo_03.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px" alt="" src="http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1140346/photo_03.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:10;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/">Hotel <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on">Rwanda</st1:country-region></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, who played an instrumental role in saving the lives of more than a thousand Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in </span><st1:country-region style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" st="on"><st1:place st="on">Rwanda</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family:georgia;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Rusesabagina, a Hutu, was an Assistant Manager at des Mille Collines, a luxury 4-star hotel. He was married to a Tutsi woman, Tatiana and lived in a predominantly Tutsi colony. With the death of Habariyama, the Hutus led by the Interahamwe commenced attack upon the Tutsis, and Rusesabagina, who had initially been concerned only with the safety of his own family, found himself sheltering his friends and neighbors as well. He decided to move them into the hotel, which housed many foreigners including humanitarian personnel and journalists, played host to important Rwandan officials, and was under the protection of the UNAMIR peacekeepers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The Hotel became a place of refuge for other Tutsis as well, despite the shattering of the initial expectation that it would be further secured by armed personnel sent by the United Nations. Troops arrived only to escort the foreigners out of the country, leaving the Rwandan refugees behind. The UN and the international community, with the exception of the UNAMIR peacekeepers just turned a blind eye on the genocide.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">It thus fell to the few UNAMIR personnel– who as peace-keepers, were not allowed to use force except in self-defense; and to Rusesabagina whose Hutu identity provided little protection as he was branded a traitor to the Hutu community for sheltering Tutsis, and indeed on one occasion his wife was severely beaten “for his crimes” and would have been killed had the UN peacekeepers not intervened.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Rusesabagina staved off the many Hutu attacks upon his person, his family and friends and the hotel premises with an arsenal composed of diplomatic skills, contacts among influential Rwandans and a stock of fine scotch whisky to use as bribes. Finally the UNAMIR was able to arrange for a deal whereby the Hutus would exchange their prisoners for those held by the Tutsis and Rusesabagina was able to retreat behind the lines of the Tutsi army, the Rwanda Protection Force, with his family, friends, hotel staff and others.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Rusesabagina was honoured for his courage and heroism with the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The film captures this tale very effectively, and succeeds in providing an emphatic, though understated window into the horrors of the genocide. In its two hours playing time it sketches the movement from apprehension to despair as the characters move from bewilderment at the reports of Habariyama’s killing, to hope that they will be saved by timely foreign assistance to the growing certainty of their own death. Indeed this translation is most poignant in the scene where the refugees discover that the armed UN troops have come to evacuate only the foreign guests.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Furthermore it avoids portraying the Tutis as objects of pity – indeed what comes out most clearly is their resourcefulness in face of imminent death and their contempt for the West which has failed to assist them. In one marvelous scene Rusesabagina suggests that they call up their connections in Western countries and bid them good bye in an effort to shame them into acting – the image you are thus left with is thus of ordinary people reaching out to other ordinary people, not piteous victims looking towards resplendent saviors of the world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The film also attempts to place provide the context for the violence, it lays out the background for the ethnic divisions between the Hutus and Tutsis. While the period of focus does not extend to the aftermath of this genocide – the coming into power of the Tutsi government and the Tutsi reprisals against Hutu refugees in Congo are not touched upon, it does address the foregoing period where Hutu citizens are exhorted by the government to make common cause against Tutsis who are characterized as rebels and rogues. The incendiary speeches made through the Radio Liberty, the Interhamwe rallies etc are showcased.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The film speaks for itself and it makes its points very effectively. Amnesty International has endorsed the movie, in the hope that it troubles its audience out of indifference towards other such situations and has designed a specific model for a </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/Organizing_Resources/Plan_a_Hotel_Rwanda_Houseparty/page.do?id=1101960&n1=3&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;n2=52&n3=1170">Hotel Rwanda Houseparty</a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> to ensure wider viewer-ship of the film and the issues it raises in the hope that this will draw attention to the genocide in Darfur.</span></span><br /></span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-43874474123967724782007-08-20T19:37:00.000-04:002007-11-09T17:39:05.073-05:00A Few Good Men<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRCT4BOHPqSI_xvds8Cx3W3OSxfkj7Pslo0mGCCC3uIkeDqLLaR-ru4MdgVRMqgaq4l_W1eG0tx_svJFsdoaDnluNrP7eL6hVlX2SGa3YnGLgLdVf9_eUkkAk3KLvLcbPwAiegAaoFcdC/s1600-h/cuba_01.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5054917945173602242" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRCT4BOHPqSI_xvds8Cx3W3OSxfkj7Pslo0mGCCC3uIkeDqLLaR-ru4MdgVRMqgaq4l_W1eG0tx_svJFsdoaDnluNrP7eL6hVlX2SGa3YnGLgLdVf9_eUkkAk3KLvLcbPwAiegAaoFcdC/s200/cuba_01.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">Adapted from a play of the same name by Alan Sorkin, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/">A Few Good Men</a> follows the efforts of a team of lawyers defending two Marines accused of murdering a colleague at a <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> military base. The defense discovers that the death was the result of a ‘Code Red’ – illegal corporal punishment meted out to a soldier in need of discipline – administered upon the order of a senior officer.</span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">This brings up a question of great relevance to international criminal law – what weight to attach to a defense of “superior orders” when these are claimed as the basis for action by a soldier. On the one hand a soldier’s duty to the military is considered paramount – the code for Marines is “Unit, Corps, God, Country”; at the same time, as a human being, he cannot be exempt from the moral duty to differentiate between right and wrong.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">How to decide which of these duties must take precedence, has never been easy. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Oppenheims-International-Law-Peace-Low/dp/0582302455">Lhasa Oppenheim’s work</a> is illustrative of this dilemma. In the first edition (1906) of his treatise on international law, he wrote “<i>If members of the armed forces commit violations by order of their Government, they are no war criminals and cannot be punished by the enemy…</i>.”. In the sixth edition (1935) however, having witnessed the horrors of the first World War, he stated “<i>The fact that a rule of warfare has been violated in pursuance of an order of the belligerent Government or of an individual belligerent commander does not deprive the act in question of its character as a war crime…[M]embers of the armed forces are bound to obey lawful orders only…</i>.”<a style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)" name="_ftnref1"></a><a title="" style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)" href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftn1">[1]</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">Indeed the film chooses to set this question against a more complicated backdrop than a situation of outright war would provide. The <st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region> military base is located in <st1:placename st="on">Guantanamo</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Bay</st1:placetype>, the situation with <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> is tense, and the marines are on the alert throughout. Just a few days before these developments, there was unauthorized firing between a Cuban and an American soldier. Thus without being ‘at war’, the Base is always in readiness for an attack and a cadet lacking discipline is unacceptable. It is to the credit of the film makers and Sorkin that they bring out all these nuances, but do not refrain from choosing one course of action as the correct one, with some excellent dialogue explaining why.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">The various sub-plots of the film provide several other interesting points to ponder over:</span><br /></div><ul style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" ><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The ethics of plea-bargaining – as Sgt Galloway ridicules Lt Kaffee for his conclusion of 44 cases in nine months through this device, and is herself dismissed as a spurious trial lawyer because of ‘too much passion and no street-smarts’;</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The conflicts of jurisdiction between different departments of the same organization reflected through the initial tussle between Sgt Galloway, Office of Internal Affairs and Lt Kaffee (JAG Corps.) for control over the case;</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The status of women in the military – indeed A Few Good Men has too few women of any significance, and the only one - Galloway - finds herself dismissed or ridiculed throughout. In fact, the script assigns most major faux pas to her character; and</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The problems of hierarchy that may interfere with a military court martial – as a Lieutenant, it is a major step for Kaffee to build up a case against seniors in the army.</span></li></ul><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">An issue which resonates throughout the film is that of the power of the phrase “national security”. In this film, made just after the end of the cold war, “national security” has an emotional pull and the military is not just a profession, but endowed with a special sanctity. This is articulated at different points in the movie by various characters. It is most poignant in the bewilderment of a senior marine who truly believes that the nature of the service he performs puts him above the rules in his execution of it, and who upon interrogation can only respond: ‘<i>I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your way</i>.’</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">Despite the fact that the Code Red was administered to a marine, not a terrorist, the parallels with the post 9/11 America and the debate over the legality of the manner in which the war on terror is being conducted are evident.</span><br /><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justifyfont-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><a name="_ftn1"></a><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0);font-family:times new roman;" ><a title="" href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftnref1">[1]</a></span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"> </span>Christopher Henson, <i>Superior Orders and Duress as Defenses in International Law and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia</i>,<br />http://www.unt.edu/honors/eaglefeather/2004_Issue/HensonC4.shtml.<br />Now, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides a test: “The fact that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been committed by a person pursuant to an order of a Government or of a superior, whether military or civilian, shall not relieve that person of criminal responsibility unless: (a) The person was under a legal obligation to obey orders of the Government or the superior in question; (b) The person did not know that the order was unlawful; and (c) The order was not manifestly unlawful.”</span></p><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-11905072100002965422007-07-19T02:03:00.000-04:002007-07-20T04:13:50.995-04:00Signs of Crisis: Religious Conflict, Human Rights, and the new Documentary Film in Southern Asia<p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The NYU Law School and the Department for Anthropology together hosted </span><a href="http://www.iilj.org/documents/SignsofCrisis-Final.pdf"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">Signs of Crises</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, a conference on religious conflict, human rights & documentary films in Southern Asia. Eight documentary filmmakers from India and Indonesia were invited to screen their films, and each session was enriched by the participation of academic scholars, human rights lawyers and activists and the filmmakers. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tilottama Karlekar, PhD candidate in the Dept. of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU, provides this insightful report on the films, and their role in times of crises. </span></p><p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong>Report</strong> </span></p><p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">In Central Java, Indonesia, relatives grieve as a mass grave reveals the remains of loved ones lost in decades past. In Kashmir, a woman looks straight into the camera as she recounts, matter-of-fact, her rape by Kashmiri militants and Indian officials. And in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, a Dalit poet sings of centuries of caste oppression and alienation. These were just some of the compelling, often searing images from the human rights documentaries screened at the “Signs of Crisis” conference held at New York University’s School of Law this past May. Centered on the work of eight documentary filmmakers from India and Indonesia, the conference brought together human rights activists, scholars and filmmakers for an intensive three days of film screenings, panels, and discussions. </span></p><p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">For people who have suffered extreme violence and injustice, legal redress can seem distant, even impossible. In an age of digital technology, however, cameras are easily available and can be everywhere. But what role can documentary films play in times of conflict and crisis? “We have to watch more films,” said Human Rights Watch Asia director Joseph Saunders as he talked of the unique ability of films to grab and hold people’s attention. But how can films best be used in an international struggle for human rights? And how do forms of media representation relate to legal representation in a court of law? As powerful images of human suffering—and strength and resilience—saturated the screen, viewers, scholars, and filmmakers attempted to come to grips with these questions.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Advocate and Witness</strong></span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">When faced with incomprehensible acts of violence, should the filmmaker be, asked Benedict Kingsbury, “an advocate like a lawyer, or a judge where there are no judges…for the responsibilities in each case are different.” Most filmmakers at the conference seemed to see themselves more often as witnesses, witnesses to history. Said acclaimed Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho, “Sometimes I feel like a small child waving a white flag because these trains are about to crash—but I’m too small and no-one can see me.” Indian documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan admitted to much the same feeling. Outraged by what he sees, the filmmaker tries to communicate this outrage to a larger public, hoping to show them “what really happened.” But most often, the crisis happens anyway. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Patwardhan’s now classic 1992 documentary, </span><a href="http://www.patwardhan.com/films/RamkeNam.htm"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">In the Name Of Ram</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, is a case in point. Shot in the months preceding the demolition of the Babri mosque in the city of Ayodhya, the film follows the buildup to this climactic event. As they march towards Ayodhya, Hindu militants contend that the mosque was built on the site where Lord Ram was born, and therefore has no right to be there. In the Name of Ram, which screened at the conference, follows the campaign to demolish a sixteenth century mosque at Ayodhya. Hindu militants contended that the mosque was built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and so had no right to be there. Patwardhan encounters a range of people—from militant right-wing cadres to “ordinary” people who are trying to make sense of the events, to the Ayodhya temple priest, whose inclusive, tolerant Hinduism provides a sharp point of contrast with the fundamentalism of the cadres. He asks a group of Hindu activists, “When was Lord Ram born?” “Hundreds of thousands ago…no one can really tell,” a priest answers. But the irony of building a movement on the certitude of knowing where Ram was born, when nobody knows when he lives, seems to escape everyone Patwardhan talks to.<br /></span><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089179012472192338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" height="321" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWc9auTwabEhTx04AnDzSQIdoHUtlno3a_vpBP6IqnNuxyh8hesNF4GA4sd3M6gQxJXusOXimy-GBVbaM5uDzmRr-qWe7eqI9s9RpgHYBYFfhBrLSustsUoxHPxm7XBxBvXZOWOASHOpp/s320/Poster_In%2520the%2520Name%2520of%2520God.jpg" width="220" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Years after the film was made, the eventual demolition of the mosque and the carnage that followed in its wake may seem inevitable. But at the time, Hindu fundamentalists were just transitioning from a radical fringe to a mainstream political force. The demolition seemed by no means a foregone conclusion. Patwardhan knew how perilously close a crisis was—he was there, but he could not get the film out to a larger public. The film was finally shown on television four years later, after Patwardhan won a court case against the government. To this day, Patwardhan remains convinced that the film could have made a difference. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Considered a pioneering figure in Indian documentary, Patwardhan has been often locked in battle with the state over censorship of his films. </span><a href="http://www.patwardhan.com/films/warpeace.htm"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">War and Peace</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> (2002), which also screened at the conference, faced a similar story of censorship. Made in the wake of the Indian Government’s nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1998, and the militaristic fervor that followed it, War and Peace is an expansive, ambitious examination on what this turn to militarism means in the context of Gandhi’s legacy. It is also global in scope, examining the international causes and consequences of war and nuclearization, venturing into the “enemy” territory of Pakistan to talk to a range of people there. Rakesh Sharma’s </span><a href="http://www.rakeshfilm.com/finalsolution.htm"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">Final Solution </span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(2004), about the 2002 massacre of Muslims in the western-Indian state of Gujarat, also faced an extended battle with the censors before it could finally be shown in India.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089180923732639090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatmpX1oVAe_kbYRWic_tOo0DOpB5wxxS35uifxUN-cB4hV-9mGaNnoBk9f-iIHj2g8q1qH6JtljC3qhS15NcyusKIw6iIlGGt0PJCCe5cHUTNu_5qz4t3VYNmZVbOmm3vtcaEpIWq5yRV/s320/cdcover.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><div align="justify"><strong>Embodied Memory</strong></div><div align="justify"><br />Being a witness is also about remembering. And what seemed to be striking in many of the films at the conference was the acutely embodied, physical nature of memory and the importance of place, in the stories people were able to tell. Garin Nugroho’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258056/"><strong>The Poet</strong></a> (<a href="http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/17/poet.html">Unconcealed Poetry</a>) (2001), is shot entirely inside two prison cells, capturing the reality of prisoners trapped in a narrow, claustrophobic space. Nugroho’s film was the first Indonesian film to deal with the events of 1965-66, in which millions of members of the Indonesian Communist party were massacred in Acey by the Suharto regime. After decades of silence, the end of the Suharto regime opened up the possibility of coming to terms with a long-suppressed trauma. In the film, the “poet” of the title is Abraham Kadir, who plays himself. Kadir was an eye witness to the massacre, responsible for blindfolding prisoners before they were executed. </div><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089182405496356226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3Lzdj5oujp_axh50siTbqf9RdqAAmGPmWdd45hKpceow8QxcKQxxOWqIiDosraAWbVlioKfTGExJhjha-EzZQIF5BhYsMyQoNsW5XumjQ-J89TDDKFlDyk1GnAT8KrKP4AhqT_msKock/s320/a_poet.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Now, decades later, he reconstructs those events with the help of other, local untrained actors. Kadir uses the medium of poetry, the traditional Acehnese “didong” poetic form, which blends music, dance, and song. While the confined space of the film recaptures the terror and sheer physical terror of those times, the use of didong seems to offer hope, pointing to the resilience of the Acehnese people, and the healing power that poetry, film, and other cultural forms can have. The film reflects Nugroho’s belief that film “must reveal the beauty and sensitivity of humanity—this is the basic idea of human rights.”<br /></span></p><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Lexy Junior Rambadeta’s </span><a href="http://www.in-docs.com/detaildoc.cfm?chid=F8F243F6-A770-4299-A5B346B1FCB1E903"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong>Mass Grave</strong> </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(2001) is another attempt to come to terms with the violent legacy of the Suharto regime. In November 2000, human rights groups and the families of those killed in 1965-66 exhumed a mass grave in Wosonobo, Central Java. As family members finally found the remains of their loved ones, there was an outpouring of grief. The bodies seemed to provide direct evidence that the killings happened, because the actual extent of the massacre still remains disputed, half-hidden. The recovery of the physical remains also seems to enable the beginning of a process of mourning. Healing cannot happen unless there is acknowledgement—and it is now, with these films, that there has been some degree of acknowledgment.</span></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089183041151516050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimWU3S2G3LW4QRd_g8Wh4da_Ls099hHdHlitKKvvVHeON5zbC_2H71BoPtS-Ygu-RX2MpVSpLO7d1nCHP74ytDev4_YaWiUknFkQKtzDD3UhBJQfpT3O9b9YKtJyuAMQEx6hEiR40Y-jz0/s320/mass_grave2.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">In other films, victims of torture and abuse painfully visit, physically or mentally, the actual place and scene where they suffered. In Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution, a mother visits the field in which she had to hide behind bushes and watch her young daughters being raped and mutilated. In Aryo Danusiri’s </span><a href="http://www.ragam.org/pb/wp_8efe4ff0.html"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">A Village Goat Takes a Beating</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, (2000), a film that documents the torture of Acehnese villagers by the military, victims go back to the place where they had been tortured, physically reenacting the details of their torture. These moments seem to point to the power that film can have as evidence, as an advocacy tool for human rights work—watching people reenact the trauma they have been through has a visceral impact that is hard to turn away from.<br /></span></p><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">In Sonia Jabbar’s </span><a href="http://www.asiasource.org/asip/autumn.cfm"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">Autumn’s Final Country</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> (2003), four women from the conflict-ridden region of Kashmir tell stories of displacement and loss. In form, the film is structured as a series of fairly straight-forward interviews: the women talk directly to the camera about their lives and experiences. Indu, a middle-class Kashmiri Pandit was forced to flee her home in Srinagar along with many other Pandits, but can never forget her “homeland.” Zarina, a day laborer, has been trafficked all the way from Bangladesh to Kashmir. Shahnaz has been raped and used for their ends by Kashmiri militants and by the Indian army and police force. And Anju’s father has been left to die in a village that is supposed to be under the protection of the Indian army. While the women represent varied social, economic, and religious backgrounds, the stories they tell all attain a quality of astonishing intensity, gaining force because the trauma they have been threw requires such great courage in retelling. As a deliberate strategy, the filmmaker excluded images of violence from the film. Instead, she intersperses the interviews with scenes of Kashmir’s natural beauty. After all, before it became better known as a war zone, Kashmir was fabled for its physical beauty and serenity. The immediacy of the human body, the specific textures, sounds, and moods of places is a large part of what makes these films so powerful and so evocative of what has been lost.<br /></span><strong><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Form and Narrative</span></strong></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Autumn’s Final Country was produced as evidence to be used in a court of law: the South Asia Court of Women in Dhaka. The fact that it was ultimately never shown in court because of complicated political reasons is another story. Aryo Danusiri’s Village Goat, which was commissioned by an NGO, may soon be used in court as evidence. And, Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution as well as Anand Patwardhan’s In the Name of Ram have been viewed by court commissions. Films, then, can certainly be used as a direct form of evidence in a court of law.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">At the same time, the evocative power and complex richness of the filmed narrative continually exceeds the limits and boundaries that official and legal discourses may need to place on it. Filmmakers like Amar Kanwar, who often eschews more conventional form to experiment with different modes of story-telling, display a distinct sense of discomfort with any strictly instrumental understanding of film as evidence or testimony. Memory is always fragmented, narratives change. Assuming that film can have any direct access to “truth” can be naïve to say the least. Sometimes, telling the truth about a situation is about finding new ways of telling it, pushing the boundaries of what is accepted as testimony in a court of law. “Is there one way of rendering and presenting testimony, for instance, that is more accepted than others?” Kanwar asked. “If so, we have to contest that, we have to find newer forms of rendering testimony…and push for these forms to be accepted.”</span> </div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089186249492086178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYucMP4zPTFQidtxUrzJvM6cU9CdXKHU-6Oe6hksbexf2aXkG52aCTtsBm2KancLmwvZj19NIT3Y_OF9IlC9AWhovPai91ZhILShx5YziqTIdx5Oxe6k4NMO7CUtoonaoD-qQV6FyDJAvW/s320/Kanwar3.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Kanwar’s own films represented distinct engagements with suffering and testimony. </span><a href="http://www.liaf.no/Annika/konstn.html"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">To Remember</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, (2003) is an eight-minute meditation on the meaning of Gandhi’s legacy in the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage. Made without sound (because “too much had been said and argued at that time, and there were no words left), it focuses on images of people visiting Birla House, Gandhi’s memorial, and ends with a sudden, pointed curse at those who would unleash such violence. </span><a href="http://www.yidff.jp/2003/interviews/03i047-e.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong>A Night of Prophecy</strong> </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(2003) traverses the margins, literal and metaphorical, of the modern Indian nation, from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland, and Kashmir. In each region, the film focuses on music and poetry as expressions of the sorrow and anger of people who have long been marginalized and excluded from the Indian mainstream. The result is a rich evocation of time and history through medium and poetry, as well as an exploration of the role of cultural forms in sustaining protest, resistance, and a sense of community. The film itself exemplifies the cultural work that films can do, along with Garin Nugroho’s epic </span><a href="http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931511.html?categoryid=31&cs=1"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;">Opera Jawa</span></strong></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, which screened later at the Asia Society.</span><br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5089186691873717682" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgz2Adr_lXxrAIDyoLcTW5b02rt5VGaF8-t-piCpcXRCMZNnTULSkMqI7OxsR_q4bkyUvlR5AsuprdT8owHMWt6PE6h4AW-FMjlvv0NdVX3lIMOwd1LhSom6sygSxJ3Ga81DSAmGBvBGxe/s320/affi_opera.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><strong>Audience</strong><br /></span><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The question of an audience (or lack of it) for documentary films was an important theme at the conference. Documentary filmmakers experience various forms of censorship: direct censorship by the state or other political forces, censorship by a market that deems documentaries as “unpopular,” and perhaps, to an extent, self-censorship. Filmmaker Sonia Jabbar said at one point, “I feel depressed when the films we make seem to have no impact—crises keep happening and no one gets punished. Nothing changes. It’s almost like we’re preaching to the converted.” And Anand Patwardhan warned, “I’m a little worried… (that) we get comfortable sometimes with the niche that we’re reduced to. But if we’re talking about the connection between documentary and human rights work, we don’t have the luxury of being comfortable in the niche. We can be quite satisfied with our own work and that is genuine and legitimate…but we have to push so that our films are actually able to change the political landscape.”<br /><br />Yet, filmmakers also talked about pushing for new audiences: through the circulation of pirated copies, or by making creative use of new modes of online distribution. As Faye Ginsburg pointed out, the documentary has always had unpredictable and uncertain circulations; even if they circulate among niche audiences, the impact of these films is hard to circumscribe or determine. And in the end, there is no denying the power these films hold for the communities they belong to: as archive, as memory, as alternative history. While documentary filmmakers and human rights activists should certainly push for better means of distribution and circulation, the films will stand as powerful and compelling human documents. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">And while documentary filmmakers and human rights activists certainly need to push for a better strategy and more means of distribution and circulation, the films themselves will stand as powerful and compelling human documents.</span> </div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-82141498577243314452007-06-20T20:00:00.000-04:002007-11-09T17:37:41.262-05:00Munich<span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/1/14/600px-1972_Israeli_Olympic_team.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px" alt="" src="http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/1/14/600px-1972_Israeli_Olympic_team.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justifyfont-family:georgia;" align="justify" ><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408306/">Munich</a>, A Steven Spielberg film on the events following the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1971 Munich Olympics, by gunmen from a Palestinian group, Black September.<br /><br />Partly for vengeance and partly as deterrence against future attacks, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place> decided to launch <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wrath_of_God">Operation Wrath of God</a> – whose mission was to identify and assassinate those who had been part of the Black September campaign. Mossad, the intelligence and special operations agency took the lead, putting together a special team (some claim, several special teams) for this purpose and a series of attacks were made upon key Palestinians. The Operation was subjected to a great deal of criticism especially in the aftermath of the "Lillehammer affair" in which a team of Mossad Agents mistakenly killed a Moroccan waiter in the town of Lillehammer, Norway – mistaking him for Ali Hassan Salameh, believed to be the mastermind behind the Munich Killings. International outrage over this incident led to a temporary suspension of this operation, but it was revived under after change of Israeli leadership – from Golda Meir to Menachem Begin – and Salameh was eventually found and assassinated.<br /><br /><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city> is described by Spielberg as “historical fiction” that builds upon these events. The story revolves around an assassination squad of five people led by a junior Mossad agent who are entrusted with the job of tracking down and killing 11 Black September terrorists. The plot develops with some deviations from the actual sequence of events - the Lillehammer affair does not find a mention - however the <st1:city st="on">Beirut</st1:city> affair ("Operation Spring of Youth") is included as is the long hunt for Salameh. An addition to the plot is a confrontation scene with some PLO operatives, where the parties launch into a discussion of middle-east politics. Towards the end of movie, the growing insecurity – as they are subjected to counter attacks - and disillusionment of the 5-man squad as they grapple with questions of morality and value of the task undertaken by them, begin to take the fore ground.<br /><br />The film – which was not a box office success, though it was nominated for the Academy Awards – received a mixed response. Indeed, many people who claimed to have enjoyed the movie per se, did not see it as a representative account of the Operation Wrath of God. Some took issue with the projection of the Mossad squad as a disillusioned bunch; some also protested against the fact that Spielberg told the story from a neutral point of view. Many of the others felt that <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city> was not sufficiently rigorous intellectually and its attempt to examine issues of self determination, competing nationalisms, international crimes, counterterrorism, use of force etc was rather superficial.<br /><br />In <a href="http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/movies/mmx-0501223-movies-review-munich,0,1683492.story">one review</a> carried by the Chicago Tribune, Alisson Benedikt states that Munich is “a competent thriller, but as an intellectual pursuit, it is little more than a pretty prism through which superficial Jewish guilt and generalized Palestinian nationalism look like the product of serious soul-searching.” She goes on to ask “Do we need another handsome, well-assembled, entertaining movie to prove that we all bleed red?”. <a href="http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/click/author-11031/reviews.php?cats=&letter=&sortby=default&page=8&rid=1487046">Adds Blogcritics’ Alan Dale</a>, suggesting the Spielberg has reduced the film to a good action flick but not much else “the brow-scrunching and ethical debates don't grow out of the assassinations, they merely follow them, and are not only inadequate but irrelevant.” Quite to the contrary, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001658226">Kirk Honeycutt</a> of the Hollywood Reporter claims <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city> is “a thought-provoking, highly charged inquiry into the political, moral and historical ramifications of terrorism and the effort to combat this scourge. While “<st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city>” does not lack for action and intrigue -- indeed it brims with it -- Spielberg deliberately mutes the tone of these events so the film can address the ethics of counterterrorism, in this case assassinations.” <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/23/DDGSFGBKCI1.DTL">Mick LeSalle</a> of the San Francisco Chronicle adds “<st1:city st="on">Munich</st1:city>” will be looked to as a popular document from early in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s terrorism struggle… [It] captures the bewilderment of its historical moment. It's an emotional film disguised as a thoughtful film, an artfully executed wail of frustration. As such, it's the most complete post-Sept. 11 time capsule since Spike Lee's “25th Hour.”<br /><br />Nationalism; guilt; counterterrorism; ethics; political, moral and historical ramifications of terrorism; post September 11 time capsule - the movie is meant as a journey from the immediate aftermath of a terrorist strike – when the adrenalin is flowing and one wants instant and bloody vengeance, to the gradual ebbing away of the certainty in your cause, in the face of its violent ghastliness. It is well worth a watch just to answer whether it is an adequate rendition of the same.<br /><br /></span></p><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;">Note: The picture is a photo of the Israeli Olympic team to the 1971 Munich Olympics, taken from Wikipedia.</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;"><a name="_ftn3"></a></span><p align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a title="" href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftnref3"><br /></a></span></p>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-36752196403982640562007-05-20T12:46:00.000-04:002007-11-09T17:51:19.430-05:00Anti-globalization across the Globe<div align="center"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwKGCXjCKqCDxBrEeYeUl5042wM5EuxJFfuuqobZMQlEh7evyWtc5NGzbuWhMlofO3zYLWhCSlBK8CAYqDkO3XbWBwzxbII9aqrnScIaS5LbHSik0fZTbtvSAcJD15s7u9C6B4EpLde9V/s1600-h/antiglobalization+slide.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067087562313524242" style="WIDTH: 242px; HEIGHT: 126px" height="106" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwKGCXjCKqCDxBrEeYeUl5042wM5EuxJFfuuqobZMQlEh7evyWtc5NGzbuWhMlofO3zYLWhCSlBK8CAYqDkO3XbWBwzxbII9aqrnScIaS5LbHSik0fZTbtvSAcJD15s7u9C6B4EpLde9V/s200/antiglobalization+slide.bmp" width="242" border="0" /></a></div><div align="center"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The recent controversy over Paul Wolfowitz's alleged favoritism towards his companion and bank employee Shaha Riza, has prompted the Board of Directors to ‘</span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60816FA3D5A0C728EDDAD0894DF404482">broaden and lengthen its investigation</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">’ into Mr Wolfowitz's conduct to cover other issues, such as his alleged attempt to curb the Bank's support of contraception in Africa.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Many believe that the World Bank's problems and the problems of the IMF </span></span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=305445&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/">run deeper</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">. While the lapse in internal governance that has been brought to light in this affair is worrying, the undemocratic process by which these administrative position s are allocated in even more worrying.<br /><br />Perhaps the greatest cause for concern is that the two institutions are just not representative of the world. The two documentaries suggested by Professor </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/staff/staff.asp?action=show&person=58">Ngaire Woods </a><span style="font-family:georgia;">show that the policies adopted by the World Bank and the IMF towards developing countries, which have translated into the conditions imposed on them in return for development assistance, have done very little good to the economies of these countries. The focus has been more on securing access to their markets for western products, and access to valuable natural resources, than on helping them towards development.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814666/">Bamako</a></strong>, by Mauritanian-Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako, is described as "a film about the devastating effects of World Bank and IMF policies imposed on African countries." One strand of the film follows the story of a couple, the wife a bar singer, the husband out of work, whose marriage is heading for the rocks; the other strand involves a mock trial in the shared courtyard where African civil society has put the World Bank and the IMF in the dock for having reduced African countries to extreme penury. A short analysis of various other issues addressed by the film can be found </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.lff.org.uk/films_editorials.php?EditorialID=119">here</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">.<br /><br />Bamako, which won critical acclaim in the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006, and has received fairly extensive </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.lff.org.uk/films_details.php?FilmID=941">coverage</a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> at the London Film Festival, is a film with a specific purpose viz. to make these two institutions and the western governments take notice of the plight African countries have been reduced to in their scramble to fulfil the conditions attached to development assistance and to repay the loans owed to these institutions. The </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.bamako-themovie.com/home.html">film's website</a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> hosts the </span><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.bamako-themovie.com/home.html">Bamako petition</a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, which directs specific pleas to the UK government officials. </span></div><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBF-ua5hKFHl5zpU1nmkQorl46c3-8aRrqT-GyOWE6UH1Dj4fbapwepEtroPgvCS4FbzDLX33guaVdTmhaI3mXNM49ogcGDXh3zeeXwCp5dtBdSR6W9GiJyP-5d06PPBrN4kbO8_V0rjPZ/s1600-h/bamako_420.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067087364745028610" style="WIDTH: 210px; HEIGHT: 105px" height="95" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBF-ua5hKFHl5zpU1nmkQorl46c3-8aRrqT-GyOWE6UH1Dj4fbapwepEtroPgvCS4FbzDLX33guaVdTmhaI3mXNM49ogcGDXh3zeeXwCp5dtBdSR6W9GiJyP-5d06PPBrN4kbO8_V0rjPZ/s200/bamako_420.jpg" width="210" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><div align="justify"><br /><strong><a href="http://www.bamako-themovie.com/home.html">Life and Debt</a></strong>, directed by Stephanie Black, is also about the impact of World Bank and IMF policies, but in another geographical location - Jamaica. Based on the award winning text, </div><p align="justify"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Small-Place-Jamaica-Kincaid/dp/0374527075"><span style="font-family:georgia;">A Small Place</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, by Jamaica Kincaid, the film, its website indicates, "is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day existence are determined by the USand other foreign economic agendas. (A full synoposis is available </span><a href="http://www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">)<br /><br />Through these snapshots it builds up a picture of the irony of Jamaica’s turn to the IMF – former Prime Minister Michael Manley, who for want of an alternative, signed Jamaica’s first loan agreement with the IMF in 1977 one year after he was elected on a non IMF platform; and the impact of this upon its economy. The </span><a href="http://www.lifeanddebt.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">film's website</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> reports:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">“At present Jamaica owes over $4.5 billion to the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) among other international lending agencies yet the meaningful development that these loans have "promised" has yet to manifest. In actuality the amount of foreign exchange that must be generated to meet interest payments and the structural adjustment policies which have been imposed with the loans have had a negative impact on the lives of the vast majority. The country is paying out increasingly more than it receives in total financial resources, and if benchmark conditionalities are not met, the structural adjustment program is made more stringent with each re-negotiation. To improve balance of payments, devaluation (which raises the cost of foreign exchange), high interest rates (which raise the cost of credit), and wage guidelines (which effectively reduce the price of local labor) are prescribed. The IMF assumes that the combination of increased interest rates and cutbacks in government spending will shift resources from domestic consumption to private investment. It is further assumed that keeping the price of labor down will be an incentive for increasing employment and production. Increased unemployment, sweeping corruption, higher illiteracy, increased violence, prohibitive food costs, dilapidated hospitals, increased disparity between rich and poor characterize only part of the present day economic crisis.”</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Jamaica appears to be only different in its details from that of the other countries of the developing world.<br /><br />It is only fair to mention many of its viewers (</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20010823/cleisure/cleisure3.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">1</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.cinescene.com/dash/life&debt.htm"><span style="font-family:georgia;">2</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">) feel Life and Debt is more appropriately characterized at an excellent polemic rather than a documentary. This is not a criticism of the film, Life and Debt is unapologetically, a tale told from a particular point of view. Its strength in is the evidence it provides to back up its claims, and in its capacity to disturb its intended audience – the First World. </span><br /><br /></p><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqs4JhNNbzgcHn-KGZ3cXzCvthDfftIhCug7EPhEcPz1s6H6DbtyVWHWHChqmpaxy2Qab0XWWFgfLhseoPI3nUhewWva8EQSYcYyhHPcu2E1pPaSEfCxfoyeT1I2q9f27fFXQKS1ScM4jS/s1600-h/Life-and-Debt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067087124226860018" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqs4JhNNbzgcHn-KGZ3cXzCvthDfftIhCug7EPhEcPz1s6H6DbtyVWHWHChqmpaxy2Qab0XWWFgfLhseoPI3nUhewWva8EQSYcYyhHPcu2E1pPaSEfCxfoyeT1I2q9f27fFXQKS1ScM4jS/s200/Life-and-Debt.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Another documentary, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia"><a href="http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/dolls-cn.htm">Dolls and Dust</a></strong></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">, examines the impact of industrial restructuring, globalisation and "mal(e)-development" on women workers in three Asian countries – Sri Lanka, Thailand and Korea. The documentary is a record of testimonies taken from working women over a two-year period, in which they speak about the effect that World Bank and the IMF policies have had on their lives, their communities and the environment.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />In a review of films dealing with <a href="http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/fc/fcgrossholtz.htm"><span style="font-family:georgia;">feminism, women workers and globalization</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">’, Professor </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~kznorsig/CPE%202002/Jean%20Grossholtz.htm"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Jean Grossholtz</span></a></span> states:<br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">“Dolls and Dust is a detailed description of the effects of globalization on women in Sri Lanka,Thailand and Korea. The different experiences of women in these cultures and countries are made clear while we are shown in intimate detail the painful similarities of their plight under the neoliberal trade system….The film shows women workers and union organizers… struggling against the effects of neoliberal economics, debt, and structural adjustment. … driven off the land and out of their villages by World Bank and corporate economic development projects … Mobilized into a new work force employed by companies that make export goods for transnational corporations, … the world's cheapest labor force. …</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">This film presents a firsthand look at the period of the "Asian miracle" and how it went bust from the point of view of the neglected community -- women. It is a remarkable document, accessible and useful both to those who have knowledge of the World Bank and to those ignorant of its work. … Anyone who does not understand the fuss in Seattle, Prague, Quebec, Genoa, and Qatar could do well to look at this film.”</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">The 60 minute documentary was produced by regional NGO, </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.cawinfo.org"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Committee for Asian Women</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">, and researched and directed by alternative communication group, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.ifiwatchnet.org"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Wayang</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">. It was selected as an award-winning entry from Asia during the 4th International VideOlympiade held in Cape Town, South Africa (September 18-21, 1998). </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6t97A5I4QEyTd0v4r9UTl2uHDm4_WhSMfGspbxx3NWn6UHhG36d2sK3iDWCVaQqTGydQrd-WpKsiIxaLJ1-krORvclb2v1SvyBKanmfSoDRmWsE355Zy0rTeq76rt4faHD3poZfOoKgBE/s1600-h/dollsndust_cover_thumb2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067086720499934178" height="150" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6t97A5I4QEyTd0v4r9UTl2uHDm4_WhSMfGspbxx3NWn6UHhG36d2sK3iDWCVaQqTGydQrd-WpKsiIxaLJ1-krORvclb2v1SvyBKanmfSoDRmWsE355Zy0rTeq76rt4faHD3poZfOoKgBE/s200/dollsndust_cover_thumb2.jpg" width="252" border="0" /></a> </div><div align="center"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">As </span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">for the third global institution, the World trade Organization, an excellent insight into its lop-sided operation is provided by Dr Woods herself, in a radio documentary composed for BBC Chanel 4. Titled ‘<strong><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/qyup3/">War by Other Means</a></strong>’ the documentary was broadcast in two parts. In the first, ‘ </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6242451.stm"><span style="font-family:georgia;">A tour into the secretive world of trade negotiations</span></a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">’, current and former negotiators provide a window into what really goes on behind the closed doors at WTO meetings – complete with frank details about the arm twisting and pressure tactics levied on the smaller players by the big powers. To quote from the BBC excerpt:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">“They're bullies, (one former Brazilian official says of trade negotiators from the big economies). They say you might as well sign here. Or this is good for you and you don't know anything. Sign here and keep your mouth shut.”</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Part 2, the ‘</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6246041.stm">Inside story of the uprising at Cancun 2003</a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">’, explores the change in manner in which negotiations were conducted. Effectively for the first time, the developing countries were collectively holding out for a fair deal, and were willing to walk out without striking any deal at all, if they they could not get a fair one. This despite </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="FONT-FAMILY: georgia" href="http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol17no3/173wto">open threats</a></span><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> such as that from US Senator Grassley who said he would use his position to “carefully scrutinize” how countries behaved in Cancún. The US evaluates potential partners for free trade agreements on an ongoing basis,” he said. “I'll take note of those nations that played a constructive role in Cancún, and those nations that didn't.”<br /><br />Thus in a sense the failure of the Cancun round was due to an apparent shift in the bargaining positions between the developed and developing countries, unaccompanied by a corresponding shift in the willingness of the developed quad (US, EU, Canada, Japan) to compromise. However, the documentary also cautions that the clear divide between the developed west and the developing rest is a myth. Countries like Brazil and India, have a foot in either camp, and China, the ‘sleeping giant’ is poised to become the largest economy in the world. Third world countries acknowledge that the interests of these players are not perfectly aligned with their own – at present it is pragmatism that keeps these countries bound together, but different incentives could well lead to different alliances.<br /><br />The documentary explores these issues and more in its total run time of 45 minutes. It expressly asks, and leaves you wondering, whether the failure at Cancun is just evidence of the increasing moribundity of the WTO, which like its other sisters, the World Bank and the IMF, is based on power equations that appear outdated.</span></div></span></span>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-9736676604687724362007-05-17T11:34:00.000-04:002007-06-05T14:29:07.744-04:00Armin, Shame<div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Humanitarian actors and the media reporting from zones of crises, conflict and post-conflict rebuilding, have to walk the narrow line between creating awareness of the conflict (and evoking the will to respond among distant communities) and ensuring that affected populations are not portrayed as helpless, pitiable, without dignity. The</span><a href="http://www.sphereproject.org/content/view/21/84/lang,English/"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> Sphere Project Handbook </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">notes:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">"...disaster-affected populations must not be seen as helpless victims, and this includes members of vulnerable groups. They possess, and acquire, skills and capacities and have structures to cope with and respond to a disaster situation that need to be recognized and supported. Individuals, families and communities can be remarkably resourceful and resilient in the face of disaster, and initial assessments should take account of the capacities and skills as much as of the needs and deficiencies of the affected population. Irrespective of whether a disaster is of sudden onset or develops gradually, individuals and communities will be actively coping and recovering from its effects, according to their own priorities."<br /><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">This difficulty is further exacerbated by the fact that interest is more likely to be generated when the audience can 'connect' with the victims than when they are fed facts and figures detailing the enormity of a crises. Stories are thus built on the 'power of one': they center around particular individuals, in the hope that their suffering will strike a chord with members of the audience, </span><a href="http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showcolumns.aspx?id=COLEN20070006608"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">for the emotions that these stories narrate - hope, despair, success and failure are universal</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">. There is always a risk that in showcasing these individual victims, humanitarian actors and the media - no matter how good their intentions - will focus more on the awful ordeals the victims have undergone and the period of greatest suffering, than on any other aspect, whether it be their ability to cope with the crises and move on with their lives, or their pursuit of other ambitions. Indeed, the rather cynical and regressive belief that if a episode does not move you to pity, it will also not lead you to loosen your purse strings, has a surprisingly strong hold. </span><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"></span></p><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxzSm324iOD9R7cJ8U-BDn4c2ePWK3IUd83rewm3sE8VcaYNosfrMZp4BPeG5IXuYEr5XI5RT_suYG14brsInPGnVFOhs4XHKLpW1IASaA0rV8cydDsqKj_HYzxUUbFRTFeLYdGY4tRY2/s1600-h/armin.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067089052667175970" style="WIDTH: 127px; HEIGHT: 191px" height="200" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxzSm324iOD9R7cJ8U-BDn4c2ePWK3IUd83rewm3sE8VcaYNosfrMZp4BPeG5IXuYEr5XI5RT_suYG14brsInPGnVFOhs4XHKLpW1IASaA0rV8cydDsqKj_HYzxUUbFRTFeLYdGY4tRY2/s200/armin.png" width="137" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">At the recently concluded </span><a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Tribeca film festival</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">, two movies dealt with this issue very sensitively. The first, </span><a href="http://www.armin-the-movie.com/armin/index_.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><strong>Armin</strong></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> <span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">[Note: the following paragraphs contain several Spoilers]</span> by Croatian director Ognjen Sviličić, takes as its subject the story of a father and son, Ibro and Armin, who are traveling from their small town in Bosnia, to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The purpose of the trip is to secure a role for Armin in a movie being shot by a famous German filmmaker in Zagreb. Armin is a talented actor and plays the accordion; both father and son are confident that this will be enough for him to get a role, in the film, which predictably, turns out to be, as both father and son say, "yet another film on the days of the conflict". </span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">As it turns out, Armin is not selected after his audition. At a later point however, the filmmakers, whose interest has been somewhat piqued by Armin's odd silences, see him collapsing in the middle of a song that he is playing on his accordion and immediately assume, that he is suffering from some sort of post-conflict trauma. Ibro and Armin are then called in and offered - a starring role for Armin, in a film which explores his 'condition' as a result of the Bosnia-Serbia violence. The father and son are shocked. The son runs out of the room and the father, who had been most keen on a break for his son, rejects the offer. In one of the most poignant scenes of the film, the father embraces his son, who is weeping in the bathroom, presumably out of a sense of insult at all the gratuitous pity, and tells him the filmmakers 'don't know any thing'. The remark is telling for the film makers, without a doubt very sensitive, sympathetic people and extremely kind, have totally missed the fact that Armin , who has been through the conflict, but whose fainting fit was not the result of any post-conflict disorder, wanted the role on the basis of a belief in his talent, not on a platform of victim hood.<br /><br />The film has received </span><a href="http://seencine.blogspot.com/search/label/Ognjen%20Svilicic"><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >several</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> </span><a href="http://eng.kosmorama.no/program/film_a/armin"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >favourable</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> </span><a href="http://www.armin-the-movie.com/armin/news_content.html"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >reviews</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> that characterize it as a story of a father-son relationship; this is accurate and the evolution of this relationship over this period is beautifully portrayed. However, the movie goes beyond this relationship and makes a strong point about being a part of certain chain of events and being an interested outsider; about recognizing patterns and actually understanding why they play out as they do. The film makers are as bewildered by Armin's behavior, as the father and son are by what drives the filmmakers’ interest - why Armin's 'condition' is a matter of greater interest than Armin's talent. Above all, as mentioned before, it provides a beautifully understated critique of the slippery-slope of victim representation in popular media. The director </span><a href="http://www.film.hr/croatiancinema/index2.php?cc_tekst_id=20&PHPSESSID=1aea9d8dd942d26db84814b891a74ba1"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">sums it up</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">:<br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">"This film is my way of telling a story about the war; what that situation brings and how one can deal with it. Father and son are fighting for respect. Their only problem is <span style="font-size:100;">that</span> they are from Bosnia, and we all know what that means. They want to escape their poverty and the only thing they have to lose is their pride. That‘s all they have. For the rest of the world, they are simply two poor people from a devasted country. This is why they have to fight."</span> </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5TdYUKEeaj_diWgHXfMmCS2FT_WELZQAik8Q5vST3ew-F0AbfAqx5Fkvg5nZ9LwlYa0rbmuXNl8MnCXWKwCA6ZZpreqAhKoAaydFuARUvBH9BSQQlBK0TLQNFsxWf-RgGocWsgLrTtWW7/s1600-h/Mukhtaran.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067089847236125746" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5TdYUKEeaj_diWgHXfMmCS2FT_WELZQAik8Q5vST3ew-F0AbfAqx5Fkvg5nZ9LwlYa0rbmuXNl8MnCXWKwCA6ZZpreqAhKoAaydFuARUvBH9BSQQlBK0TLQNFsxWf-RgGocWsgLrTtWW7/s200/Mukhtaran.gif" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><div align="justify"><br />The second film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844752/"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><strong>Shame</strong></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">, was unarguably one of the highlights of the festival. The documentary is the story of Mukhtaran Mai who was gang-raped on the order of the village council as punishment for a crime committed by her younger brother. Her village council, in Meerwala, Pakistan, like many others in the country and in other parts of the world, was blissfully following their time-honored practice of </span><a href="http://www.aliran.com/content/view/91/10/"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">'honor for honor'</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> - Mukhtaran's 12 year old brother was accused of having compromised the honor of a young Mastoi girl, so the girl's brothers were given the right to extract revenge from Mukhtaran. The resultant shame that would result from this, would be the family's absolution. After the incident, Mukhtaran and her parents were expected to shut up and go on with their life, of course, with lowered heads. Mukhtaran was shunned and was even expected to commit suicide, as her natural course of action. She did not, and shocked the village by not only filing a case against tremendous odds (the nearest police-station was more than 50 kilometers away, and initally refused to register the complain) and bringing them to justice, but in also creating a media storm which brought attention - not to her sufferings, but to the state of affairs in the country that had allowed such practices to continue unquestioned, since time immemorial. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Under the stunned and then gradually admiring eyes of her village, the unlettered Mukhtaran used the compensation money awarded to her by the government to start a girl's school, remarking that it was the ignorance of the villagers which had led them to preserve such heinous customs. It was a blow to her, when the High Court overturned the death sentence that the lower courts had awarded to the culprits; for she could not believe that this time it was an educated, urban set of people who had failed her cause. Mukhtaran's case is now awaiting final judgment by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Despite setbacks, like the High Court verdict and the ebb in international interest - which lead to a decline in aid, Mukhtaran continued to build up her school and various other community institutions. Her village, which previously had no roads and no electricity, now has both, as well as its own police outpost. Plans are afoot to build a community centre, and Mukhtaran now heads a full fledged </span><a href="http://womenforhumanity.org/.newsdetail.php?id=90"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">development organization</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">The movie also showcases the very constructive role that the media played in this case - it was through the media that Mukhtaran was able to make the inital appeal for justice; it was the media again which went back to her a year after the whole incident to discover that she had taken to selling her family's livestock in order to keep the school running, publicity of this lead to fresh aid for the development of the village; finally it was the media which took the first step in reversing the attribution of shame - Mukhtaran was not portrayed as a shrinking victim but a strong woman fighting for justice and fighting also for the emancipation of her village; it was the turn of Mukhtaran's community and members of the Pakistan government to be ashamed. The documentary includes the episode during which the Government of Pakistan put Mukhtaran </span><a href="http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29197"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">under restraint </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">to prevent her from traveling to America to speak about her case and her problems in bringing the perpetrators to justice, as well as her development efforts, in which, as she candidly put it, she seems to have taken on the duties of her state. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Above all, the film is a very sensitive exploration of Mukhtaran's journey from immediate aftermath of the crime, to the present in which she has earned the respect of international society, as also the previously unwilling admiration of her own community. it has conveys a sense of the horror she went through without dwelling on it and has gone on to present a composite picture of the manner in which the different interests and goals of the various people involved have played out. The director, Mohammed Naqvi, tracks the change in perspectives of the government, the villagers, NGOs and the international community, Mukhtaran's family and Mukhtaran herself, over the five years since the incident. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">He also provides several interviews conducted with the family of the culprits, who have remained in a pall of gloom since the death sentences were awarded by the court of first instance (at present of course, their fate hangs in balance). The mother is very bitter, she cannot understand what her sons have done that has has landed them in this situation. While these days they do not admit to the crime at all, one could probably understand that her bewilderment would arise even if she knew her sons to be guilty - for in her mind, they only did what the council told them to do, in fulfillment of tradition. Her own daughter (the girl allegedly compromised by Mukhtaran's brother) who claimed that she too had been gang-raped previously, by Mukhtaran's twelve year old brother amongst others, but this family chose to let the tribal council decide for them. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">It is important that the film does not swing the other way either and represent Mukhtaran's life as one without any set-backs altogether, after the one launching incident.<span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">[1]</span> Mukhtaran's school faces many challenges, not only financial ones - as many of her pupils are taken away by their parents as soon as they hit their teens, in order to marry them off; there are members of the community, her elder brother among them, who feel she has brought more shame upon them by her actions; </span><a href="http://www.despardes.com/articles/dec06/20061227-mukhtar-mai.htm"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">some others believe that the incident may now have come the basis for a money making operation</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">; and three years after her efforts to educate her people and her numerous efforts at promoting consciousness of human rights and dignity across the country, a nine year old gets raped in her own village. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">The documentary's portrayal of the affair had brought the audience to its feet every time it was shown at the festival, hopefully it also set the donations boxes overflowing at the Sakhi benefit dinner, and for once not as a matter of charity but of a genuine desire to assist in her development efforts.</span></div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Finally, a note on the use of the word Shame. Apart from this film, Shame was used as a </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shame-Novel-Salman-Rushdie/dp/0312270933"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">title by Salman Rushdie</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> in 1983, for his book set in a country ‘not quite Pakistan’ and revolves around the lives of two men, modeled on former Prime Minister Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto and General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. It is also the English title for </span><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Shame-Novel-Nasrin-Taslima/dp/1573921653"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Taslima Nasreen’s book</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> on the anti-Hindu riots which erupted in Bangladesh, after the demolition of Babri Masjid in India, by Indian Hindu fundamentalists in December 1992. Following its publication, a death </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">fatwa</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"> was issued against Nasreen; Rushdie is also under a death fatwa, for another book, Satanic Verses.<br /><br />---- </span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">[1]</span> Although, during the Q&A session after film, there was an audience member who, probably not in the best of taste, wanted to know if, after all that happened, Mukhtaran would change the fact of the rape if she could? The director, who was playing interpreter, understandably refused to put the question to Mukhtaran.</span> </span><a title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=973667660468772436#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1"></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div></span><a title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=973667660468772436#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"></a><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"></span><a title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1947580492692542349&postID=973667660468772436#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"></a>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-46569477046902922252007-05-15T20:00:00.000-04:002007-11-09T17:37:08.141-05:00Syriana<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/12/09/syriana_448.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px" alt="" src="http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/12/09/syriana_448.jpg" border="0" /></a></span><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:85%;">The tagline of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/">Syriana</a> is “everything is connected” and this is exactly what the movie portrays. Principally a tale about the oil industry, the tale the movie tells is spun across <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on">USA</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Switzerland</st1:country-region>, the middle east, south <st1:place st="on">asia</st1:place> and the far east. A missile disappears in Iran, a Geneva-based consultant group covets the role of economic advisor to the heir of an Emirate,; the heir to the Emirate, Prince Nasir, awards an oil contract to China, the immigrant Pakistani workers of the US firm which previously held this contract lose their jobs, and are inducted into a fundamentalist group, the US firm merges with a smaller company which has landed an oil contract in Kazakhistan, the Department of Justice is worried about this merger, the companies hire a law firm to ensure the merger is pushed through, the CIA meanwhile plots to kill the heir Emir and set up his weaker pro-America brother on the throne to secure American oil interests. A CIA agent, a young economist, a laid-off worker and some lawyers are pulled into these complex webs like so many flies.<br /><br />The exact plot line of the movie is difficult to describe, for it is non-linear<span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"> </span><a style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)" name="_ftnref2"></a><a title="" style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)" href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftn2">[1]</a><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"> </span>and the plot only comes together – if at all – towards the end of the film. Indeed in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/REVIEWS/51130002/1023">review</a>, Roger Ebert makes a valid point when he states “The more you describe it, the more you miss the point. It is not a linear progression from problem to solution. It is all problem.”<a name="_ftnref3"></a><br /><br />At one level the root of this problem revolves around the lengths to which the American government would go to maintain its supplies from the wells of the Middle-East. Indeed, ex-CIA Agent Robert Baer, whose book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/See-No-Evil-Soldier-Terrorism/dp/140004684X">See No Evil</a> was the inspiration for Syriana, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/12/05/DI2005120501696.html">told Washington Post</a> that “[i]t’s a fictional place, a term used inside the Beltway, to describe redrawing the borders in the Middle East to suit our interests. It’s a made-up name. For example, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> is very much an artificial country and that is one reason we’re having so many problems there because the Iraqis are not a people with a common identity.” The film's website also states that ‘Syriana’ is a very real term used by <st1:state st="on">Washington</st1:state> think-tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the <st1:place st="on">Middle East</st1:place> [to suit Western interests]. As the story indicates, the reshaping need not only be geographical – the term can also refer to political interference – such as the CIA plan to kill Prince Nasir.<br /><br />At another level however the movie rises above being merely a powerful indiction of American quest for oil. Syriana spins an intricate tale of corruption and vested interests at every level as each state, each group within the states and each individual within the group tries to realize their/his desired ends. What emerges most clearly is that there is hardly anybody who is capable of grasping, let alone controlling the whole process – the American oil interests are but one variable, as are the ambitions of the heir to the Emirate and his brother, the dreams of the retrenched immigrants, the goals of the law firm, the ambition of its individual lawyers, the motives of the oil companies, etc. It offers a window into the complications which are often very simplistically subsumed within labels such as “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> foreign policy”; “Islamic terrorism”; and “spreading democracy”.<br /><br />The film is remarkable for the fact that throughout the course of its complicated narrative, it endeavors to bring the different shades in the characters of each of its major actors, whether by exploring their backgrounds, or through clever dialogue. In addition it makes a bunch of small points which go into bolstering its overall attempt to give the viewer a sense of the complexity of such affairs. To mention a few of these:</span></p><ul style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" ><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The laid-off Pakistani workers feel a sense of alienation in the Emirates, for even though it is a muslim country, it is very unlike their own. Furthermore this is not because of sectarian Shia/Sunni differences, but because of ethnic and linguistic dissimilarities. This may appear to be an obvious point but is usually missed by films that lump together the entire ‘Muslim world’.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></li><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">In one instance Prince Nasir claims his plans for rebuilding the Emirate are constantly obstructed by the American government forcing him to buy their products – like outdated aircraft – at exhorbitant prices, in order to combat the growing unemployment in the manufacturing sector.<o:p></o:p></span></li><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">There is an interesting dialogue on the nature of the <st1:place st="on">Caspian sea</st1:place> – is it really a sea, or is it a lake and what the implications of this are, in terms of rights over its waters and its deep sea oil fields. The dialogue also explores how the countries surrounding it prefer to characterize it and why.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:85%;">Lauded and criticized for its complex story; reviled by some as an anti-American film - Charles Krauthammer in an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201209.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns">Op-Ed</a> published in the Washington Post states “Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction”; praised by others because it does not descend to this level of simplification; a winner of several major awards, Syriana is a visible, moving film, well worth a watch – or as some suggest, two back to back viewings, to truly appreciate its intricacies.<br /></span></div><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0);font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;" ><a title="" href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1947580492692542349#_ftnref2">[1]</a></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"> </span>A good synopsis is available on the film’s official website <a href="http://syrianamovie.warnerbros.com/">http://syrianamovie.warnerbros.com/</a>.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947580492692542349.post-24180201988525844752007-04-18T19:17:00.000-04:002007-11-09T17:36:08.778-05:00Dr Strangelove<div align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX2fzudT_jdUCQMyAVxWmTbBPBBu7fOKD12PGNl0xNEuZGcLCHysIrh0H-E7HvVRPFLwfeQV_HdSz6tu5jAwDZjY6Kr_VD9RosJav_-16snFufjHvItdAWUtVg5MLG5MTxLXweaWev_chK/s1600-h/509px-Nagasakibomb.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5054918374670331858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX2fzudT_jdUCQMyAVxWmTbBPBBu7fOKD12PGNl0xNEuZGcLCHysIrh0H-E7HvVRPFLwfeQV_HdSz6tu5jAwDZjY6Kr_VD9RosJav_-16snFufjHvItdAWUtVg5MLG5MTxLXweaWev_chK/s200/509px-Nagasakibomb.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" align="justify" ><span style="font-size:85%;">A Kubrick classic, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/">Dr Strangelove </a>is a black comedy that satirizes the Cold war doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The doctrine was based on the principle of deterrence, and provided in essence that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by either super-power would effectively result in retaliation by the other and would lead to the destruction of both; and thus, knowing this, both parties should refrain from using these weapons against their opposing bloc. Dr Strangelove exposes the fragility of this principle by showcasing the ease with which a nuclear attack may be set in motion even without the intention of knowledge of the principals.<br /><br />In the film, a mad <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> army general, hoping to force the US into war with the USSR, sends the airforce bombers to attack the Soviet Union's military bases. Without a psecial code, known only to the general these planes cannot be recalled.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify;font-family:georgia;" align="justify" ><span style="font-size:85%;">The horrified <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> President, establishes contact with the Soviet Premier, through the Russian ambassador, only to discover that the Russians have been building a secret ‘Doomsday’ machine which will obliterate all life on Earth within a few months of an attack on <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Further, the Russian cannot deactivate the machine.<br /><br />The President turns to Dr Strangelove, a wheelchair-bound, former Nazi, to advise him on the potential impact of the doomsday machine. Dr Strangelove is quite the mad scientist who is also suffering from the alien hand syndrome. His right hand alternates between trying to strangle his neck and performing the Nazi salute. Strangelove explains its capacity for total annihilation of human life; he also points out that when shrouded in secrecy it has no value as a deterrent – thus pointing out that even within the framework of deterrence, lack of intelligence regarding a nuclear build-up results in a situation of potentially more horrific consequences, unaccompanied by greater stability.<br /><br />The President then cooperates with the Russians in shooting down the planes, but one plane succeeds in bombing a base.<br /><br />In one of the most popular scenes of the film, Major TJ King Kong, commander of this plane is swept onto one of the bombs while trying to get the ejection doors open, and falls to his death, waving and whooping all the way down – in part a tribute to the single minded devotion and courage of the soldiers, and in part a reflection on their vulnerability to brainwashing and exploitation by the higher military and political echelons, a theme also seen in a Few Good Men.<br /><br />The Doomsday machine is thus triggered and the Americans and Russians alike are now faced with the prospect of total annihilation. Faced with this calamity they remain united for the five minutes it takes for Strangelove to come up with a proposal for saving some lives – a deep underground bunker where about 200,000 people can be housed for a century, while the earth regenerates. The Russians decide to follow this plan and construct their own bunker. The last few scenes show senior American officers worrying that Russian bunker will be better than theirs and that Americans will thus emerge at a military disadvantage a century later. They start discussing how they must prevent a ‘mine-shaft gap’ (A reference to the Cold war preoccupation with "missile gap")<br /><br />Kubrick had initially intended to make this a serious film about the instability of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, but realized that a black comedy was a more effective way of exposing its absurdities:<br /><br /><i>"My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question</i>."<br /><br />The result is a gripping, often tongue-in-cheek film that explodes comfortable myths about the improbability of nuclear war, and the instability of deterrence. Issues it touches upon repeatedly are<br /><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></p><ul type="disc" style="font-family:georgia;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">failure of intelligence – not only did the Americans not know about the Doomsday machine, limited information resulted in troops believing they were at war;<o:p></o:p></span></div></li></ul><ul type="disc" style="font-family:georgia;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">the Cold war climate of deep suspicion – while this is evident in nearly every frame featuring the American war room and in Ripper’s speeches; it is also evident in the reaction of the Russian premier, who when contacted by the US president does not directly relay information about the Doomsday machine to him, he only mentions it to the Russian Ambassador who sees it fit to let the President know;<o:p></o:p></span></div></li></ul><ul type="disc" style="font-family:georgia;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">the power play between the Americans and the Russians – even at the end with annihilation imminent, the Americans are worrying about a mine shaft gap, and the Russian ambassador is taking surreptitious pictures of strategic maps in the war room;<o:p></o:p></span></div></li></ul><ul type="disc" style="font-family:georgia;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">tension between the realpolitik notion that ‘might makes right’, and rule of law, an issue which continues to be relevant today. This is reflected in the film through the contrast between the suggestions of the President’s advisors who want to follow General Ripper’s airstrikes with a full scale attack since they have the capacity to severely disable Russian capabilities, and the President’s actions in refusing to do so and instead inform the Russians of the strike.<o:p></o:p></span></div></li></ul><ul type="disc" style="font-family:georgia;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><div align="justify"><span style="font-size:85%;">repeated hailing of the President as Fuhrer by Dr Strangelove, ex-Nazi – to drive home the total irrationality which gripped the US and the USSR leading to the long drawn out Cold War. Indeed Strangelove’s suggestion for selecting people for the underground bunkers also hints at eugenics.<o:p></o:p></span></div></li></ul><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">True, the details are different. During the Cold War, the Russians did not have a “doomsday” machine and it is not known whether the US ever embraced a plan R; and today the Soviet Union no longer exists and Russia per se is not a threat; nevertheless nuclear armament continues, several countries have acquired the bomb in the last decades, many, especially neighbors, remain in a state of deterrence with each other; and the escalation of ongoing conflicts into nuclear war, whether through government intent, or through inaccurate intelligence, remains a grim reality.</span><br /></span><br /></span></div>Surabhihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02877580930089983979noreply@blogger.com0