August 18, 2005

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  Who's the enemy?
  A couple of weekends ago I happened to watch a couple of movies on DVD that started me thinking about the fact that the world certainly seems on the verge of some sort of "breaking point" with regards to differences in ideologies and if we don't start realizing that irregardless of the ideologies we practice, we're all human beings, and if we keep travelling down this road on which  we find ourselves we might find ourselves in the ditch with all our tires flat and no way out.
  The movies both dealt with our "enemies" during WWII. The first is a live action film called Downfall, released last year, that documents the last days "in the bunker" with Adolf Hitler and his closest military advisors and acquaintences. The second is an anime (Japanese animated film) called "In the Grave of the Fireflies" which tells the story of two children orphaned during the allied fire bombings of Japan right before the end of the war. Here are two films, made in Germany and Japan, telling the story of the end of World War II from a slightly different perspective from that which I have been accustomed to seeing in slightly less than a half century of going to the movies.
  Japan and Germany were part of the "axis" powers, the "enemy" of the allied block which included England and America. I also just finished watching another WWII themed film, "Is Paris Burning?" which details the last days of axis power in Paris, France, which was taken over by Nazi forces but liberated by the allies shortly before the European allied victory.
  Watching the "enemy" in these films was epiphanic for me. Because, as we all should know, if we practice tolerance and have a humane view of all our brethren, the enemy is not that different from ourselves.
  In the Gaza strip in Palestine this week, the Israeli settlers who were part of Ariel Sharon's settler's movement back in the late 60s and 70s have been ordered, by Sharon himself, now Prime Minister of Israel, to abandon their homes and leave. The Israeli army has been called in the "help' with the evacuation, and some of the settlers have likened their own troops to "Nazis" and the pullout as a parallel to the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Germans in WWII.
  I read a story in the L.A. Times just this afternoon at lunch about the school system in Pakistan, where the textbooks, which are unilaterally pro-islamic tracts, preach to the schoolchildren that jihad is to be practiced at all costs, whenever the Islamic faith is threatened, and pro western "infidels" are to be eradicated, and Pakistanis are to be vigilant, even to the point of becoming martyrs for God.
  I have often written that in the Middle East, the battle lines have been drawn in the sand for millennia, and it will be exceedingly difficult for any power to erase thousands of years of animosity between Muslims, Jews, and Christians. All these religions practice tolerance, and love for your fellow man, by the way, and they all share the same Old Tesatament, in case you didn't know. The Jews call their Bible the "Torah" and the Islamic faith calls theirs the "Koran", and it's the Old Testament in Christian religions, but it is basically the same "book" with the same stories, and the same conclusions.
  Man created religion and man has pitted himself brother against brother for these many years.
  In the movie, "Grave of the Fireflies", the protagonists, a young boy and his toddler sister, have to survive the near destruction of their home town by their "enemy" which is the allied forces. Since this is anime, the children are 'wide eyed' in keeping with the tradition, in which even Japanese are portrayed with "western eyes" so if one just happens upon seeing the movie and doesn't know who the people are supposed to represent, the story being told is quite a universal one.
  In the movie "Downfall", as the hour of liberation by the Russian forces (fighting for the allies in WWII,. and the first troops inside of Berlin) approaches, not only Hitler himself, but many young, and old soldiers, along with some of their families, kill themselves matter of factly. Of course the future could only bring death at the hands of the war crimes tribunals, but they might of surmised about that but didn't know it for sure when they committed suicide.
  Granted, these are movies, but they are movies made about a decidedly different "side" of the story, and I just kept thinking about the fact that all of this seemed worthless and useless. Death at the hands of "the enemy" is basically suicide, because we are all in the same boat. We are all human, and we are all listening to the supposed "voice of reason" spoken by our leaders.
  Now George "antichrist" Bush is certainly not Hitler, and I can't see Americans ever killing themselves if they are "defeated" but I seem to recollect that we never really "won" any war during my lifetime, including Korea and Vietnam. We ended up "policing" the dividing line in Korea, and we brought a lot of our allied Vietnamese home with us when we pulled out of that country, after too many years of heartache and death.
  Another film stoking my fires of thought concerning the concept of "enemies" is a documentary made last year called "Gunner Palace", which is set in Baghdad, Iraq during our continuing current "war". The film interviews a batallion of young soldiers who are basically "policing" the city of Baghdad. Seeing random fighting in a big city always makes me think of my own L.A. during a couple of riots I've witnessed. (I witnessed the L.A. riots of 1992 close up, right outside my window in Long Beach) "War" when fought on city streets, with the "enemy" in street clothes, looking just like the "friendlies" resembles pretty much a "riot" where nobody really knows what is going on, and people are getting maimed and killed FOR NO APPARENT REASON.
  Who is the enemy? America, being the "melting pot" which accepts all "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free", had a rather large Japanese population during the early days of WWII, especially here in California. Right after Pearl Harbor, in which 2300 Americans were killed, the Japanese people were definitely "the enemy." The looked different, they acted different, they worshipped a different "god" and we stole the lands of the California Japanese population and shipped them off to concentration camps. We're in the process of "racially profiling" "undesirable" Islamic folks as I write. Who knows? They could be terrorists.
  Who is the enemy? I believe we are all "equal" no matter what we believe, and we should be smarter than we are when it comes to fighting our brother, no matter what color his skin, or what his beliefs. But if our "brother" raises his fist, or pulls a gun, or a machete on us (In the country of Rwanda in 1994, one race or tribe attempted to purge the country of the other and the weapon of choice was the machete) what do we do? Fight back? Turn the other cheek? Turn tail and run? During the riots, I left town, and headed for the beach at San Clemente, far from riot torn L.A. The riots lasted nearly the whole weekend. It was during my birthday, too, and I felt as if the whole city was in flames.
  The enemy is an ideology, a set of beliefs, a "rulebook" written by a demagogue, which is foisted upon the populace, whether or not they want it. In France during WWII, the people who "collaborated" with the Nazi's who had taken over the country, were later lambasted, ridiculed,  and sometimes killed for their part in not opposing the then status quo.
  In our own beloved United States, during the years 1860-1865, the term "brother against brother" took on a surreal meaning. As a result of an ideological rift in the country, which almost divided America down the center, one group of states "seceded" from the Union, and the Union forces "fought" to get them back. Lots of brothers died, some in their own backyards. Could this happen again? Look around. It's on the brink of happening right now outside of Bush's vacation home.
   Something's got to give, I think, sometimes, as I have these awful epiphanies watching movies that are supposed to entertain me. Perhaps I'm just watching the wrong movies. (Remember 9/11? After twin aircraft plowed into twin towers, the entertainment industry in this country was careful about what subject matter occupied it's movies. It's now five years later, and there are two movies about to come out (Red Eye and Flight Path) which deal with airliners in peril. Two airliners just had terrible crashes just this week. But these movies will come out on schedule.
  Is all this too scary to think about?
  In a word, yes.
  Who's the enemy?

  
  

  Copyright Walt Kelley 1971

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