¿Quien soy yo?

Gaby, the young girl at the heart of The Official Story, is taken, at age five, from the parents she has known and returned to her biological grandmother.  Her mother is dead, likely the result of torture due to dissident views and activities.  Gaby was taken from her mother at birth and given to her adoptive family because her mother was a "disappeared one."  

I imagine that Gaby's life would depend on what her grandmother tells her.  Since Grandma had not given up hope of finding Gaby, it is likely that she would tell Gaby about her mother; Gaby would learn that Mom fought against the government and corruption.  Perhaps to carry on her mother's work, Gaby herself would become a revolutionary.  

Just as many of the men we have seen in this course's films are burdened or buoyed by the sins of their fathers, I think Gaby would be influenced by her mother.

J'accuse

If I were an attorney representing the Horman family against the United States government, accusing them of playing a role in the disappearance and murder of Charles Horman, I think I would stick to one major question:  as deeply entrenched as the U.S. was in the Chilean coup, how could an American citizen be captured and killed without U.S. knowledge, if not support?  I would point to U.S. involvement in the coup, as well as their close relationship with some of the players involved.  My approach would be to hammer continually that question:  how did this happen independent of the U.S.?

I'm sure major film studios will hire me for screenwriting

For the week 10 assignment, I started off writing about Black Hawk Down, got ¾ of the way through it, and thought, "This paper is awful."

So I switched tracks and chose to write about what scene I thought should have been in the film version of A Dry White Season.

Here is my response to that question:

A Dry White Season: The Scene that Should Have Been

      As much as I enjoyed the film version of A Dry White Season, after reading the book, I wish screenwriters Colin Welland and Euzhan Palcy had included more from the novel. The film never explains the title. What is a “dry white season”? What does it mean? It must be significant; Welland and Palcy do not change André Brink’s title, so they must want us to understand something from it. But what?
     If I could add a scene, it would be to combine the reminiscence of The Great Drought of ’33 that Ben du Toit shares with the narrator with his observation, later in the novel, that he might be witnessing another “dry white season.” This scene is needed for several reasons, primarily that it explains the significance of the title. It also gets us closer to Ben; he believes that he must marry his dreams to “damn hard facts.” That insight into his psyche helps explain his reluctance to help Gordon. “I don’t think there is anything we can do about it now,” he says to Gordon after Jonathan was cut on the buttocks. And after Jonathan’s death, he echoes that statement with, “There’s nothing you or I can change.”
     As Ben becomes more entwined with Gordon’s case, however, it turns out that he was quite naïve when he promoted his reliance on “damn hard facts.” Ben du Toit, it turns out, sticks to his dreams until the end. He believes the best about his daughter, Suzette, thinking her incapable of betraying him. “What sense would remain in the world if one no longer had the right to trust one’s own family,” he asks. When confronted with a mob of angry black youths, he thinks that telling them, “I’m on your side” will stop them from assaulting him. He refers to himself as Father Christmas, a make-believe character embodying goodness and generosity. He is an idealist who believes that when he cautions Colonel Stolz about “living with [his] own conscience,” Stolz will have an epiphany about the inhumanity of his and Apartheid’s cruelty. Stolz, of course, thinks Ben Is the one in need of a conscience. Perhaps most telling, Ben professes to Stanley that Stolz and his crew “wont get away with it in court … Our courts have always had a reputation for impartiality.” Contrary to what Ben would like to believe about himself, he does not always temper his dreams with “damn hard facts.”
     By having Ben explain the context of his confidence in his own opinions, as well as his later observation that he is in the grips of another crisis, we would feel closer to him. He would appear less of an icon and more of a real individual to whom we could relate.
     I think it would be effective to place the scene in the later third of the movie, after Susan has left him and after Emily has been killed. The scene should take place not in his home, but somewhere in Stanley’s orbit. Stanley’s home or Father Masonwane’s – someplace that is not comfortable for Ben. It would be a moment in the film where he has to face that he has allowed his comfort to nudge out those “damn hard facts.”
     The three men gather after Emily’s death. They are drinking some of Stanley’s liquor, and they are silent. The only sound we hear is the thunk of their glasses pounding the table and the clink of the glass bottle up against their glasses as they are refilled.

Ben (to Stanley) Why do you drive a cab?

Stanley (stares at his empty glass until Father Masonwane fills it) 

Making small talk, lanie?

Masonwane Stanley is a secret capitalist, morena.

Stanley What the reverend means is that I made my way. My bra, man, he was a real tsotsi. He was my hero, I tell you. I wanted to do everything Shorty and his gang did. But then they caught him. Zap, one time. (p. 87) 

Ben What for?

Stanley You name it. The works, left, right and centre. Robbery. Assault. Rape. Even murder. He was a real roerie guluva, I tell you, lanie.  (p. 88)

Ben And then?

Stanley Got the rope, what else? Around the neck. I went to see him, a week before, just to say good-bye and happy landings and so on. We had a good chat. I still remember it. About life in jail. And being scared of dying. That tough bra of mine who’d never feared hell or high water. I went home to my mother to tell her about my talk with Shorty. She said: ‘Is it all right with Shorty?’ And I said: ‘He’s all right, Ma. He’s just fine.’ (p. 87-88)

Masonwane refills Stanley’s glass; Ben is silent. Several seconds tick by.

Stanley I decided I’d go straight. Didn’t want to end up like him. So I became the garden boy in Booysens. Picked up a girlfriend, a nanny. Nice girl. One night her master burst in on us and beat the shit out of us before we could put our clothes on. (laughs) That night I saw something I hadn’t seen before, and that was that I wasn’t my own boss. My life belonged to my white baas. It was he who organized my job for me, and who told me where I could stay and what I must do and what I mustn’t. I had to be free. Made some money in the market. A few of us clubbed together to buy a car. Then one year, I bought my own. Never looked back.  (p. 98)

Ben Now you’re your own boss?

Stanley I’m only as free as the white bosses allow me to be. Got that? (slams glass down on table) Do you think you’re free, lanie? (p. 98)

Ben I have dreams, Stanley. But I have the advantage of having learned, from a very early age, to make allowances for damn hard facts. My father was a farmer. My grandfather – my mother’s father – made my father take over the farm, and he was quite successful. When I was ten, the Great Drought of ’33, my family had to take the sheep to Griqualand West, where we’d been told that there was some grazing left. But the drought kept coming, and there we were, in some godforsaken district of Danielskuil, and there was no way out. My father had given me a few lambs, and in ’33, they had lambs of their own. Have you ever cut the throat of a newborn lamb? Such a small white creature wriggling in your arms. Such a thin little neck. One stroke of the knife. Every single new lamb that’s born, because there’s nothing for them to eat and the ewes have no milk. The ground has turned to stone, and day after day, the sun burns away whatever remains. When you look up you see the vultures above you. It was only Pa and me. We had 2,000 sheep when we started. A year later, we had 50 left.  (p. 30-310

Stanley Damn, lanie.

Ben The funny thing is, all these years later, I feel like I did then. Pa and I and the sheep. The drought that took everything from us, leaving us alone and scorched among the white skeletons. I feel as if I’m finding myself on the edge of yet another dry white season, perhaps worse than the one I knew as a child. (turns to Stanley) What now?  (p. 163)

Masonwane We must have patience. We must learn to love even our enemies.  (p. 173)

Stanley Got to do something, man. Even if my own people will spit on me for working with a white man. We can’t win, lanie. But we needn’t lose either. What matters is to stick around. (p. 287-288)

     The reasoned voice of the minister, combined with the pragmatism of Stanley and the loss of Ben’s naivete would be a good coda to Emily’s death and a prelude to Suzette’s betrayal. I also noticed, as I re-read the passages from which some of the above narration comes, the symbolism of “small white creatures,” the vultures and the “white skeletons.” Ben is witnessing the beginning of the drought of Apartheid, and he knows how droughts end. He also knows about the loss of his own innocence, which left its own bones and carcass.

Lumumba

Let’s play “What if” history: imagine that Lumumba had managed to overcome the challenges to his rule and stay in power. How do you think his presidency would have unfolded? Would he have succeeded in keeping Zaire from falling apart? Would he have established the country as a democracy or would he most likely have become a dictator ruling for many years?

I do think Lumumba would have kept Zaire from falling apart, but he would have been in for an incredible struggle. In overcoming the challenges to his rule, he would have had to surpass a lot of corruption and chicanery. But if he could prevail over the Belgians, the Americans and members of his own party, then he would have to emerge with a fairly strong, stable and consolidated base of power.

Considering how strongly opposed he was to Belgium’s rule and control, I don’t see how he could continue as a dictator without losing whatever moral authority he had. This is the man who railed against Belgium’s treatment of Zaire as slaves. To then refuse to allow democracy would be hypocritical, which very well would lead to a weakened Zaire that, again, would be colonized by a European country.

We wish to inform you that you forgot

The opening passage of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, by Philip Gourevitch, sets the novel’s tone of outrage, shock and sadness right at the start:

“The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

I certainly know about the atrocities of the Holocaust; it was taught to me in school, and I teach it to some extent to my 10th graders when we read Night. I’ve also studied and learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Rwanda? My knowledge of the genocide that occurred there was cursory at best, until I showed Hotel Rwanda as part of the Night unit. Even then, I am embarrassed to admit, I did not realize the connection with Gourevitch’s book.

It’s one thing to read about Hutus killing Tutsis, or the political corruption that fueled the genocide, or the European role in creating friction between the Hutus and Tutsis in the first place. But it is another thing entirely to read Gourevitch’s scathing indictment of the United States’ role – or lack thereof – in the tragedies in Rwanda. For all of the proclamations of “Never again” – never again will we have another Holocaust, never again will we allow groups of people to be exterminated – within a year of President Clinton ceremoniously opening the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, “never again” happened again. And Clinton and his administration did nothing about it because, as Gourevitch points out, “as far as the political, military and economic interests of the world’s powers go, it might as well be Mars. In fact, Mars is probably of greater strategic concern. But Rwanda, unlike Mars, is populated by human beings, and when Rwanda had a genocide, the world’s powers left Rwanda to it.” (p. 149) When the Clinton administration finally did agree to help, they tried to charge the U.N. $15 million for 50 armored personnel carriers. (p. 149)

Gourevitch’s scenes of murder and blood lust are chilling indeed, not just because human beings can become so irrational as to butcher neighbors and friends, but because the world stood by and did nothing. I think Hotel Rwanda should have included some of that. Rather than have Nick Nolte, who evidently never met a scene couldn’t masticate with wild abandon, represent frustrated westerners, director Terry George would have been better served by showing some of the Clinton administration’s hand wringing and poor decision making, as well as General Dallaire’s testimony regarding his predictions about what was going to – and did – happen in Rwanda.

As aggravating and disgusting as Gourevitch’s details about the limp world response to Rwanda is, his pages devoted to Odette Nyiramilimo leave us more hopeful and thankful. Odette is a Tutsi married to Jean-Baptiste, whose father was Tutsi and mother was Hutu. They are both doctors and have three children, and their story could be its own movie. They managed to escape through luck, strength of will, and blind determination. At one point, Hutus come to get Odette at the hospital where she worked; thanks to a mix-up with another woman named Odette, she escaped, whereas the other Odette was killed. Odette and Jean-Baptiste wound up at the Mille Collines Hotel, where manager Paul Resesabagina sheltered 1,100 Rwandans from certain death. Odette, Jean-Baptiste and their children survived the genocide, but her journey to recover from the ordeal is one that Gourevitch assures us will take a very, very long time.

We Wish to Inform You is an amazing book, and one I definitely would not have read had it not been for this class. It helped make me realize that I need to be ever vigilant against “never forgetting.”

What Would Xiu Xiu Do?

I finally received my copy of Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl.  I thought it was a good film, if ultimately very sad.  I might need a good French farce after all this heavy foreign fare.

Imagine that you are the daughter of one of Xiu Xiu’s female compatriots at the village where they started out. You were born in 1975 in Beijing, and you have grown up there hearing the story of Xiu Xiu from your mother and her friends and acquaintances. When the Tiananmen Square protests begin in 1989, you are thirteen. Do you take part in the protests? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about the protests against the backdrop of what you know of China’s past, especially the Cultural Revolution and Xiu Xiu’s experience?

All my life, my parents have told me the story of Xiu Xiu.  My mother, in particular, speaks of Xiu Xiu’s courage.  She was a girl who did as she was told until she could not bear it, at which point she begged her mentor to shoot her.  I ask my mother why she thinks Xiu Xiu was courageous, and my smiles and looks into her tea.  “Xiu Xiu did not stay,” she says.

Over in Tiananmen, college kids are protesting.  The government is corrupt, they say, and China needs to be a democracy.  They say they want a “dialogue” with the government but instead are ignored.  They want all of us to join them. 

My father would die of mortification if I went to Tiananmen.  I love him.  I respect him.  How can I dishonor him by saying that our government is corrupt?  How can I say that the government my father admires is dishonest? 

My mother – I do not know.  She admires Xiu Xiu for sacrificing herself.  But she also admires my father and she would not want me to bring him shame.  Which does she want more?

Or maybe I should not think about what my father wants or what my mother wants.  I am 13, and these students are standing up for me, aren’t they?  For my China? My China may not be my parents’ China. So do I watch them from the alleys? Do I overhear conversations about what is happening and what they are doing?  Or do I go?

There is part of me that will die of shame if I stay here and watch.  I must go.  I must be like Xiu Xiu, who did not stay. 

Paradise by the bomb blast lights

Continuing to skip ahead as I wait for Xiu Xiu, I watched Paradise Now.  Wow, what a film.  I think this one will stay with me longer than The Color of Paradise or Raise the Red Lantern, both of which I had seen prior to taking this course.  

Consider what Khaled says in that first taped statement. What is your reaction to the reasons he gives?

Khaled states that the Palestinians “have no other way to fight,” having exhausted “all possible means to end [Israel’s] occupation, with political and peaceful means.”  To remain in an occupied territory – a land he believes is his and is being illegally absorbed by Israel – is to “accept inferiority,” to “disappear.” 

Who owns what is a big question that I cannot answer.  Israel was there first, so perhaps they can claim squatters’ rights.  But they did leave, others settled there, and it became primarily the land of Palestinians.  Maybe they are the ones with squatters’ rights.  Israelis returned, demanded their land back, and attempted to regain control.  As Said says in the film, how can the occupier play the victim?  Israel cannot have it both ways, believe the Palestinians.

My first reaction, after reading the course materials and watching the film up until the point of Khaled’s statement, is that he has a point.  Israel does not want to share the land; they desire to purge it of any mark of Palestine.  Living in an occupied state must feel like prison, and in fact, the film’s characters repeatedly refer to their awful existence under such conditions.  Said left the West Bank only once in his twenty-some years.  He can’t even travel from town to town without going through checkpoints.  It is no way to live, yet it is living. 

On the other hand, Palestine has not, as Khaled would have us believe, tried “all possible means” to end the occupation.  They have tried some means, and most of those involved force.  Suha argues for peaceful resistance, claiming that dying for the cause does no good for those left behind.  They not only have to continue the fight, they are punished for the “sacrifices” of their loved ones.  Khaled appears to refuse to disagree with her, but later in the film, he tries to convince Said as Suha tried to convince him. 

I do think that Khaled raised some valid issues with Israeli occupation, but I don’t think that they justify his planned act of terrorism.

Respond to the second clip and the debate between Khaled and Suha, which in many ways mirrors the debate over violent and non-violent struggle against oppression.

I’m trying to think of an instance in history where peaceful resistance met with lasting success, and I am at a loss.  There may be one, and my limited knowledge of world history undoubtedly proves my weakness on this issue.  But Khaled asks a valid question:  how can you win a moral war if your opponent has no morals?  Regardless of whether he is correct about Israel’s amorality, his perception is that he speaks the truth.  If you believe that your adversary will fight dirty no matter how clean you are, will you win?  Maybe, as a high school English teacher, I’ve been around teenagers too long, but I’ve yet to see Suha’s plan prove successful.  On the other hand, suicide bombers do not further the cause they represent, either.  What good do they do, other than feed their own egos to be martyrs and heroes?  They believe they will go to heaven; but what about those left behind on earth?  Suha tries to explain this to Khaled, noting that his bombing ultimately destroys his fellow Palestinians. 

I am left with the consideration that neither of them is correct.  Peaceful resistance doesn’t work, but neither do suicide bombings.  Diplomacy should be the answer, as proven by the small successes such as Carter’s peace accords between Begin and Sadat.

Do you agree more with the petition to have the film removed as an award nominee or with the counter-petition?What are you reasons for favoring one side over the other?

I do not agree with the petition to remove Paradise Now from award consideration.  The arguments for this are that Palestine is not a true state and that the film offers a too-sympathetic view of suicide bombers.

Regarding the first argument:  I don’t really care, to be blunt.  A film is a film, and we should not deny Paradise Now its due simply because there is debate over whether or not Palestine is its own country.  That argument, to me, is presented by cowards and cry babies who are looking for the teeniest loophole.  To them, I say, put on your big girl pants and get over it.

As for the argument that Paradise Now humanizes suicide bombers and, as such, offers a dangerous example of sympathy, I concur with Professor Jones, who said in an audio clip on his blog that it’s okay to humanize Khaled and Said because they are, after all, humans.  What is more important, Jones states, is to understand the context within which suicide bombers exist, and I think that the film presented that very well and very fairly.  Did I sympathize?  Yes.  Does it make me cheer on suicide bombers?  No.  In fact, I applauded Khaled and was angry with Said.  Khaled took the stronger, more difficult path, whereas Said, even in an act of martyrdom, took the weaker, easier one.