Images rule dreams; dreams rule actions. The image media, movies, can lead to hate-- and they can lead to empathy. They can pry open closed and wounded minds. Perhaps they can even "educate spiritually" in the sense that the Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan meant it when he said recently, "The American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., following the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, understood that it was all too easy to see one's own community or cause as the universal value. He constantly warned his followers not to use the excuse of injustice done to them to abdicate responsibility for their lives and obligations to others, calling for 'spiritual discipline' against resentment and self-righteousness."
Three new films about the Middle East-- Paradise Now, Syriana and Munich -- might be nominees for the first Spiritual Education Oscar. At least this is what Graham Fuller -- once one of the CIA's top analysts on the Middle East and political Islam-- thinks.. See his thoughts below:
CINEMATIC WATERSHEDS
Graham E. Fuller
Graham E. Fuller is former Vice-Chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA; his latest book is "The Future of Political Islam."
As wrenching and bloody events across the Middle East proceed apace, three films have appeared in the last few months suggesting signs of a possible turning point in the entrenched black-and-white perceptions of the combatants. The films are "Paradise Now" by Palestinian film director Hany Abu Assad, "Syriana" by Stephen Gaghan, and "Munich" by Steven Spielberg. All three films have stirred great controversy in Palestine, Israel and America--appropriately and beneficially.
Unquestionably all three societies have undergone their respective traumas, especially since 9/11: the US still struggles to make sense of the event even as the global American military response against terrorism continues. Arabs and Israelis have been locked in tragic combat and trench wars for several decades, but the emotional gulf between them has never been deeper. Israelis feel under siege from guerrilla and terrorist acts against the state and its citizens, while the costs in anguish and blood of occupying Palestinian territory since 1967 remain unabated. And Arabs feel that the Bush administration's Global War on Terror takes direct bead on all Muslims, their religion, independence, sovereignty and dignity.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, all three cultures--American, Israeli, Palestinian--have now regressed from the more universal and positive elements of their cultures to a psychological circling of the wagons, a reversion to the certitudes of super-patriotism, "my country right or wrong," in search of the elemental strengths of inflated nationalism in a time of trouble. But sadly, any culture perceiving itself under siege grows less receptive to open-minded and self-reflective examination of its security problems. As a result, none of these cultures has been ready to settle for anything less than "complete victory" cast in an elemental framework of good versus evil. Alternative perspectives that might shake certainty in the total virtue of one's own position and policies have been quite unwelcome. Yet, this psychological mindset could not be more damaging to prospects for any ultimate accommodation, reconciliation or resolution.
Here is where the willingness of all three films to depart from super-patriotic and simplistic certitudes becomes most striking. In all three cultures, American, Arab and Israeli, security solutions have never been more distant than today. But by now they may be more open to acknowledging the gray complexities of issues in which demonization of the enemy no longer facilitates solution. The actual "accuracy" of any one of these films will of course be debated by partisans for years, but that is not the issue. What matters is the vision of three directors who attempt to rise above the narrow patriotic certitudes and routine demonization of the enemy to suggest an examination of events at the human level and the reasons for why the "Other" is doing what he is doing.
In "Munich" Spielberg asks whether the horrific terrorism of Palestinian guerrillas does not have deeper roots in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. The film asks whether a policy of continued violence by the state is successful, or ultimately counter-productive. Above all, the film humanizes both Palestinians and Israelis--even those engaged in acts of violence and assassination on both sides--in a confrontation that only corrupts the state and deepens the divide. "Is there not some other way to deal with this?" the film asks. Some viewers will be offended at anything that to them smacks of "moral equivalence" between state violence and that of the enemy, or that undermines patriotic solidarity in a manifest struggle against evil. But Spielberg calls for a broader view that grasps the humanity and grievances of the enemy as an escape from the hellish logic of violent response to a series of events whose moral antecedents are shaky.
In "Paradise Now" Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad, while demonstrating the physical and psychological suffering of daily life in occupied Palestine, also suggests that the process of recruitment, training and dispatch of young suicide bombers in the name of religion is often cynical, manipulative, banal and inglorious. The fundamental wisdom of resort to violence and suicide bombing to achieve Palestinian goals is brought into question. This is hardly the film that the average Palestinian firebrand or fundamentalist cleric wants to see. Abu Assad too, suggests that a certain course of madness is underway here. But most strikingly the film offers a glimpse into the physical and psychological environment that produces young Palestinians suicide bombers impelled towards meaningless and horrible slaughter. We are offered understanding of their logic, even if we reject their ultimate actions.
Finally, in "Syriana" -again not to judge the politics of it--director Gaghan offers insight into how poor and exploited laborers in the Gulf oil fields can be radicalized and turn to anti-American suicide operations. Whether we agree with US policies or not, Arab perception of the American role in Arab politics and the whole US War on Terrorism becomes understandable. We can no longer view our policies in the terms of the good and evil that our overheated patriotic rhetoric might have us believe. Human faces and ground realities offer a more complex vision, the necessary starting point for greater policy wisdom and resolution.
Public opinion in each of these three societies has been far from ready to accept the messages of these films, perhaps understandably. Ideological super-patriots oppose any compromising of ideological simplicity and clarity by inconveniently complex reality. They seek to fight the good fight in the name of a Muslim, Jewish, or Christian God and the civilizational values of each. Most citizens are worried, frightened and support war as the safest response.
But now all three directors offer a cutting edge vision that rises to a broader plane of common humanity that indeed does challenge the simple vision of blood in the name of self-preservation. Given the rising costs to all in blood and treasure and the inability to achieve self-proclaimed "victory" goals in pursuit of their own absolute truths, films like these may bring about needed reflection in all three societies on the efficacy of violent policies. They may represent the opening wedge of a vitally needed turning point. None of these societies could have been ready for such films a year or two ago. Now they may be met with greater receptivity--and hopefully spark greater wisdom.
==========================