Hatred breeds hatred

La Haine (Hatred, French, 1995)
Screenplay, Direction: Mathieu Kassovitz

This hint has been present throughout our history. Contended people make peaceful nations. Peaceful regions bring prosperity, meaning wealth. When people have money jingling in their pockets, they can fill their stomachs and are happy. They are kind to each other and respect each other.

I still remember my history teacher, Mr LKK, in his theatrical manner, describing the scene in France in 1789 before the Bastille invasion. The peasants were hungry, while King Louis XVI and Mary Antonette were busy enjoying their cakes. This resentment eventually, as we know it, changed world history.

This film tries to highlight the same point: Resentment among the people brings hate, and hate begets more hate. The people in the lower socioeconomic strata will always get the raw end of the bargain. Any new legislation or taxation will affect the poor more than the affluent. Understandably, they are the community with the lowest threshold for dissatisfaction.

The hate that brews in the suburbia and the poorer side of town is dangerous. When people are helpless, violence remains the last bastion of expression. This film was hailed for highlighting the slow cancer growing in the banlieues (troubled French suburbs) that needed government attention before it became a national catastrophe. Sadly, the result of that warning is reality. Frequent rioting in French, German and Belgian suburbs is common.

The film tells the story of a broken suburbia. There is no economic activity, and the young have no future to plan for. They identify themselves with gangs. Three young lads, a Franco-African, a Jew and a Muslim, are close friends. There is a semblance of a school but hardly any teaching. Children are not interested, and the outdoors is dangerous, with frequent rioting and police raids.

One gang member is seriously injured by the police. It angers one of the two teenagers in the story. The rest of the tale is about their wasteful wandering, doing seemingly unproductive things, and getting into the wrong side of the law in the next 24 hours.

It is about a society in free fall, the nightmare that no nation leader would want to see in his tenure. The responsible citizens must read the writing on the wall and act accordingly. When the domino wall starts falling, there is no stopping. The dialogue at the end of the movie tells it all. When the society is going down, it tells itself, 'so far so good, so far so good'. It does not matter how it falls; all that matters is how it ends!

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