May Festival 2009

[Indigenous] The Land Owns Us has a great and inspirational message. Time and time again I hear it from our elders “the solution”. Uncle Bob Randle hits the nail on the head with a lovingly clear message of how we were, how we have been mislead of which will ultimately improve us, turn back the clock and be the way we were and hopefully more.

I found the film Gaza Tragedy very disturbing but not, I suspect, in the way intended by the film’s producers.

The film is a series of photographs that quickly fade from one image into the next. There is hardly a second or two to take in each image, but the overall effect is emotionally devastating (it is good that Campfire has included a warning about this before the start of the film).

The images are increasingly confronting. The opening photos are of tracer bullets and rockets illuminating the sky, with tanks and launchers. Then, in sequence, they show damage to buildings and homes; injuries to people; portraits of the dead; scenes of grief and mourning; faces that show fear and trauma. The focus is almost entirely on children. The final images are of a candle-lit vigil, before the film pauses briefly on two children, backs to the camera, arms over each other’s shoulders, one wearing a kaffiyeh and the other a kippah – the one Palestinian, the other Jewish.

It is impossible not to feel deep pity and sorrow for the people who are suffering in these photos, particularly the children. The images are an assault on our senses. They trap us within the horror we are watching, barraging us with feelings of violence and terror. On this level, the film conveys much more raw emotion than words generally can do.

But I also find myself asking why someone would want to make a film that does that. Do the producers really believe that by mounting a visual assault on the viewer, they will be able to alter the tragic situation in Gaza, to inspire us to make a difference, or at the least to increase our sensitivity or awareness? To put it another way, is there any real hope in the film, a belief that peace is possible?

To my mind, hope is missing from the film. And I believe the reason for this is that there is no attempt to search the reasons for the Israeli incursion into Gaza, no attempt to acknowledge how much Israel also has suffered over several years of violence and vilification against her citizens including her children.

The failure of the film to look beyond the immediate tragedy of Gaza to the deeper tragedy of two peoples unable to reconcile mortal differences suggests to me that there is a disturbing agenda to “Gaza Tragedy”. I believe it is designed to create sympathy for the Palestinians without a corresponding sympathy for the Israelis. It portrays the tragedy in Gaza as completely divorced from political realities and Palestinian children as the victims of pointless, malicious carnage initiated by the Israeli Defence Forces. It seems to be saying that, if only Israel stopped the bombing, Palestinians and Jews could live in peace, because their children would walk hand in hand into the sunset.

I cannot see how such a film can be conducive to the pursuit of peace. On the contrary, because it is so unbalanced I see the film as a real stumbling block to peace. In my view, peace requires sympathy for all the victims, not just the victims in Gaza. It requires both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to accept and acknowledge responsibility for the violence. A film that truly seeks to contribute to peace must show the horror of suicide bombings in Israeli cities, the trauma of several years of rocket attacks on Sderot and other Israeli towns, and the affects of Palestinian terror and violence on Israeli children, alongside images depicting the suffering of Palestinian children in Gaza.

In short, I believe that this film is political propaganda dressed up as a photographic essay about peace.

It may get away with this to some extent because on one level “Gaza Tragedy” is in fact an anti-war film that promotes the basic right of children to grow up free from terror. But, on another and more visceral level it is also a condemnation of Israel – and, I felt, Jews at large (note that kippah in the final clip) - as the unilateral source of violence in the region and the ultimate cause of Palestinian suffering. This simplistic and manipulative view of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza affronts my moral sensibilities. I believe that their leaders must accept some responsibility for the suffering of their own people, as a result of their long-standing attacks on Israel. There is no sign of this mutuality in the film.

In this light, the final frame is either extremely naïve, or deliberately cynical. It is a cliché to say that Palestinians and Jews should overcome their rivalries and be friends. We all long for this. But there is no longer any hope in simply saying it (either with words or in an image). The real issue is how this is to be achieved. My faith teaches me never to give up hope. I strive for peace not by manipulating images to shock people into making moralistic judgments but by acknowledging that children on both sides of the conflict are suffering from our adult intransigence and reliance on violence.

[The Land Owns Us] Bob Randall’s view of life and the peaceful happiness he felt by viewing everything around him as “one” was truly inspiring and something that I, as a Muslim, could definitely relate to.

As an Aborigine, Bob viewed the land as owning the people as opposed to the Western view, where people own the land. He argued that everything in flesh dies, but the land still remains. Similarly, in the Quran, it says: “Verily everything will perish, except the face of thy Lord”.

My view of life as a Muslim is similar to Bob’s because I view everything and everyone as connected to each other: the birds, the flowers, the sky, the earth and every single human being on earth. The concept of oneness in Islam is called “Tawhid”. Bob mentioned in this short film that he was taught as a child that life was binding and connected everything and everyone. If one views everything and everyone as connected to their own Self, then they begin loving everyone and everything as they love themselves, for everything is part of them. This is why Bob says that caring for everything around you is an essential aspect of his view on life. The Prophet Muhammad also taught this very message when he said “Love others like you love yourself”.

In fact, I can relate to Bob’s perspective that by viewing everything as ‘one’, he can never feel lonely, because it is impossible to feel lonely when everything around you – the birds, the plants, other human beings, the land – are all part of you. I can relate to Bob’s spiritual connection to the world, and the joyful happiness he feels through my interpretation of Islam. Islam literally means ‘submission’ and for me, this means submitting to the idea that we are all one and therefore, we are all responsible to care, nurture and love each other and the world around us.

I strongly recommend that the documentary Gaza Tragedy is not shown to anyone. If the aim is to arouse action to stop wars, one page of stills printed out is enough for raising thinking and discussion.

Put together a documentary with glimpses of from up to 20 countries (a) BEFORE with beautiful buildings and showing one happy family, (b) THEN glimpses of war – tanks, bombs, soldiers, destruction, suffering, (c) THEN of trying to rebuild. Include one scene from each of WW1, Guernica, the Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, Blitz, Stalingrad, Dresden, Hiroshima, Changi, Indian partition, Cambodia, Rwanda, Dafur, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, then, out of chronology, Thirty Years War, American Civil War, THEN – taking up about as much time – scenes of healing, the struggles of rebuilding and peacemaking, a desert that has never recovered from war, and the final picture of the two little boys, Arab and Israeli together.

Why Gaza Tragedy should not be shown

1. I know suffering. I have seen people starve and die in a gutter. Family and friends have suffered and worked in wars and their aftermaths, including in Gaza and Israel. How to arouse those who have never suffered? Not by Gaza.
   
   
2. Images do not convey reality when they become too common. Western children and adults have seen tens of thousands of incidents of violence, war, horror, suffering, and grief on film and TV. Now many can’t tell the difference between reality and entertainment. TV-savvy teenagers can discuss a road safety film in terms of what grisly scene gave them the biggest buzz: ‘I liked the bit where his guts fell out.’
   
   
3. Horror scenes of mutilation, death and grief have become so popular in the media that they’ve become cheap. The psychodynamics of response to so much are often unhealthy, even pathological. They include titillation and fascination, and defensive mechanisms of becoming callous, identifying with the aggressors, and needing ever more horror to have an impact. The sensitive – young and old – can have horror images stuck in their psyches, that they cannot forget. It’s a form of child abuse. So much blood.
   
   
4. Imagination deadens with too much horror. (Do viewers imagine the grieving mourners with cameras in their faces?)
   
   
5. The film may be intended to be a discussion-starter, but my other recommendation for a documentary (or project) would be far better. A film relying solely on emotions can prevent thinking and finding out more about what can be done and trying to do it.It puts too much upon the leader of any discussion, who may not be up to it.
   
   
6. Film like this is NOT ‘more eloquent’ than the written word. It omits both faith and reason. The written word can explain so much more eloquently, thatit is essential that schools teach book literacy. B.O.O.K.s are Bodies of Organized Knowledge; poetry can arouse thinking that stays in the mind. This generation sees thousands of films and treats them as forgettables.
   
   
7. My ‘gut’ reaction is that there is too much of this sort of graphic imagery, which can become ‘entertainment’. My intellectual reaction is that piling uphorrors smothers thoughtful responses.The final glimpse of two Arab and Israeli children is necessary – but a bit glib.
   
   
8. How the film relates to my faith and understanding.Original Stupidity is as dangerous as original sin. The present over-emphasis on emotions (so easy) is at the expense of both faith and reason (difficult). The fact that a film is made like this, just piling on horror and voyeurism of suffering, needs thinking about. People need to think more about what they are doing, even when they intend good.In war, too, the perpetrators of evil may think they intend good.
   
   
9. Questions to anyone thinking of showing this film.Think of your aim, and find some another way to do it. For examples, the The Costs of War film that I suggest can also be done as a project with research, as well as a documentary.Examine war and hatred in the Bible and in history – yes.The causes of wars – yes.Even more, study how peace has been made in the past, and how it might be made now. For example, the generosity of the Marshall Plan contrasted with the viciousness of the WW1 reparations. The lands sowed with salt, and whether today’s far greater destruction by wars may never be repaired.
   
   
10. ‘One picture can say more than a thousand pictures’. There is one memorable picture from the Vietnam War. A thousand pictures numb.
    
    
11. ‘I have set before you life and death.Therefore choose life’. Today evil gets far more publicity than good.(Discuss).One reason is that images of evil have more impact than mediocre images of good - check the Bible warnings images. For example, think of a happy family party. A photograph can show its happiness. But on TV it would be boring. Actors have a far harder time acting goodness than badness, so they can prefer acting badness.
    
    
12. How can youth today be enthusiastic about goodness? And know about the goodness in the world, not be overcome by the evil? About taking intelligent action rather than escapes? See faces in school classrooms – defensive, sullen, mocking, peer-driven, making self-destructive choices.How many of them see the world as a place where cruelty and greed win out? What rules in their imaginations? How can they learn that life being fully lived is far different and better than images on screens?

[Gaza Tragedy] Relentless and uncompromising, to turn away and disengage would be to take the easy option. The lack of guided commentary was at first frustrating: give me a voice-over to make sense of this, offer a perspective to help me shape my own... yet, on reflection, the absence of this device forced me, the viewer, to make sense of it for myself. If sense can be made of this? And perhaps it is this question that makes its greatest impact. The images build to a climax before a short collection of hopeful images that conclude. Hope is brief and is far outweighed by the brutality of the images presented that make up the majority of the film, yet hope is still present. Hope is fragile, like the pigeon held in the hands of the children, like the naked flame of the candle, yet hope - even just a glimmer - reinterprets violence and challenges us to move beyond.

Do I fail to see God here? It is an easy temptation to turn away and add to the claim that where there is suffering so there God cannot be. Yet I see God in the suffering. I see God in the parent who mourns, the neighborhood which is lost and the sky which frames the devastation. I also see the opportunity for each of us to reflect the nature of God in response to suffering. To comfort. To assist. To mourn with. To never, never, give up the questioning and wrestling with God. From my faith perspective, hope is necessary. But hope cannot be a far-off distant promise that is divorced from the reality of the present moment. Hope draws me in and introduces me to something beyond myself. Hope is in its nature communal. I cannot be an observer to violence and do nothing without first giving up on hope. A hope shared brings me to questions of "What can I do?" and "Where is my part in this?" (even as I witness it from the other side of the world). It is only when I live out the response to these questions that I continue to live consistently with my faith.

[The Passion of Marc] Marc reveals the secrets of his past and by doing so enables us to see the problems he encountered as well as the peace he now knows. This is real peace, the ‘peace that transcends all understanding’ (Philippians 4:7); the peace that comes from faith in Jesus Christ.

The film is up close and personal, giving Marc’s private thoughts and feelings. He reveals how he had sexual addictions and was healed by God after he repented. I like the way we are taken into Marc’s confidence as he shares his past. The film allows us to hear and see Marc in a way that the written word could not do – this is especially so when he speaks directly to the camera.

Forgiveness is a powerful theme in the film. As well as God’s forgiveness, we see his wife’s forgiveness and their resolve to restore their relationship.

The most encouraging thing is to see how Marc is using his past experiences to help young people address matters of sexuality. He exposes myths about condoms and ‘safe sex’. But we don’t feel he is lecturing – he is sharing from the heart. When he speaks to a school class we see his genuine interest and concern for them; that abstinence prior to marriage really does give freedom and helps to avoid the pressures of the world.

The film reminds us that, no matter what we’ve done – and we’ve all done wrong things we regret – God will forgive us if we repent and say we’re sorry. It doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences that follow sin, as we see in Marc’s story. However, God can enable us to use those experiences to help others.

I think that the film effectively shows the heart of the Christian message of repentance and forgiveness by highlighting Marc’s poignant personal story. Do you?