At 6am, 6th June!

The First Omen (2024)
Director: Arkasha Robertson

Recently, I heard about a mysterious case of a missing teenager in Rome, Italy. She was 16 in 1983 when she was allegedly abducted. Her father was an administrative staff member in Vatican City. 40 years into her disappearance, the Italian Police never found her. Along the way, there were allegations of abduction by international terrorists, murder by serial killers and many more. Pope John Paul II was also heard to have appealed to the perpetrators to no avail. The Holy See was not spared of accusations. Conspiracy Theorists accused a convoluted union of the mob and the Papacy, a collusion between the Italian Police and the Vatican, as well as the possibility of an unmarked grave in the Vatican.

It is not the best of times for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). At a time when many from the developed world had strayed away from Catholicism, stories of deviance and malfeasance spread quickly like wildflowers. 

This movie is set at a time when the RCC was losing its fervour. In 1971, a young nun-in-making, Margaret Daino, arrives in Rome to work in an orphanage. Margaret observes many strange things happening in the place. Many odd characters, such as senior clergy, use unconventional methods to run the institution. Margaret herself had a checkered past as a young American, moving from foster homes to foster homes and having visual hallucinations. 

Margaret discovers that certain clergy members tried to reignite people's attraction to Christianity. How they chose to do it was twisted. They invoked Satan to be born as an anti-Christ here on Earth to create mayhem so that people would once again go to the Church and God for help. Little does Margaret know she was the vessel to bear this devilish child.

The movie is actually the prequel to the 1976 blockbuster The Omen, which told the story of the US Ambassador's wife who delivered a stillbirth. A baby boy was swapped in the place of the stillbirth without the knowledge of the mother. The swapped baby turned out to be the anti-Christ. The child, Damian, went on a killing spree, killing his parents, abetted by his disguised nanny.

In terms of horror and suspense, the 1976 version is far superior to the latest offering from the Omen franchise. Despite what IMDB may say about 'The Omen' being banned in Malaysia, I distinctly remember seeing its posters around Penang in my teenage years. 

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Easier to go with the flow...

The Conformist (Italian, 1970)

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

With rhetoric like "you're either with us or against us!", there is a pressure for most of us to conform. The daily bombardment of an overdose of information in the social media puts its followers in a quandary. The urgency to submit to the flavour of the moment and to be on the right side of history is quite confusing.   

No man is an island. Living in a society, we are all interdependent. When one's own survival is dependent on goodwill and patronage of the others,  he would not want to offend the others' sensitivity; he would just conform or at least appear to. 

In the current world climate and the country's political scenario, the need to follow the majority is very real. Merely following the tide is, of course, less tiring. Fighting back and arguing your stand may sometimes be an act of futility. Arguing with stupid and zombies is never easy. It takes a certain kind of resilient to debate with people who set with their beliefs and are not ready to accept other opinions. Perhaps, they are fearful of losing the favour of the majority. 

Go with the flow...

This timepiece flick from 1970 is set in the trying times of the 1930s Italy when Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party members were overrunning the country. It tells of a disturbed man from the upper crust of society trying to be 'normal' in society. He tries to conform to the trend of the times without for a moment, taking a step back to ponder whether the action that he is about to do is the right thing to do. 

As in the observation of Plato in the Cave Allegory, people create their own perception of the world and are hellbent on living on that conviction. They resist any challenge to that belief because reassessing their stand merely is too taxing. It is easier to go with the flow...

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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What it takes to lead?

The Prince
Author: Niccolò Machiavelli (1532)

Think Machiavellian politics and what comes to mind are Robert Mugabe and even Dr Mahathir. Many miniseries addicts, especially of 'House of Cards' would recall the Kevin Spacey character of Senator Francis Underwood and his modus operandi which are similar to one propagated by the Master himself, Niccolò Machiavelli.

At a time when altruism and fear of God were the order of the day, Machiavelli's writing must have been a controversial one. It remains a pioneer scripture in the field called political philosophy.

What Machiavelli propagates may not appear just or 'Christian-like', but a leader to stay in power, it must be the divine. A true leader who is convinced is the best one for the nation, whether elected by force or popular demand, has to follow rules laid out by the man himself. He has to remember that he is alone. The only people that he can depend on are general citizens. He must always keep the general public contented and be on your side. He cannot trust the noblemen (in modern terms it would be fellow politicians) as they would be just waiting for an opportune time to grab power. The leader has to ensure that he controls the army and the generals as they found the backbone to safeguard his interest. For soldiers, he has to have people from his own kingdom. They would be more committed to defending the nation. Foreign mercenaries would not do as their loyalty is always suspect.

A good republican society depends on the interplay between the monarchy, the aristocracy and a populist government.

A leader must appear parsimonious, appearing thrifty to defend the coffers with burdening the people. He cannot, however, also profess goodness as it may fail in the end. In order to assure his political survival, a leader is justified to use whatever means deemed essential. A leader must be respected but fear cannot be used as a way to gain respect. Machiavelli's idea of a great leader is one with the regality of a lion and the ruthlessness of a wolf.

An interesting thing mention in the book is Machiavelli's comparison of Moses to that of a politician. He posits that Moses developed his own codes and arms to destroy his enemies.

Over the years, this book has had many critiques but, nevertheless, it remains a reading material to students of political sciences. What do you know, way back between 2BCE and 3BCE, Kautilya, wrote an even more comprehensive and refined treatise on statecraft, economics and military strategy. Kautilya was Emperor Chandragupta Maurya's teacher.