Should I stay or should I go now?

For Sama (Arabic: من أجل سما‎ ‘min ajl sama‘)
(Syrian Documentary; 2019)

Recently I read of a young mother with her 4-month old infant participating in a civil objection against CAA and NRC at Shaheen Bhag in Southern Delhi. Soon after being in Delhi for a couple of days, the child fell ill and succumbed to pneumonia at the protest grounds. The mother said in a TV interview that she was not saddened by the demise. In fact, she felt proud that her son gave his life for the future of the country. Deep inside, she must be feeling like 'Mother India'. Given another chance, she would do it all over again.

Now, would you call that bad parenting or patriotism?

This is the same question the maker of the documentary 'For Sama' seems to be asking. Waad Al-Kateab, who started filming her life experiences as a university student in Aleppo, realised that her country, Syria, was slowly plunging into civil war. She started getting involved with students' resistance front against Bashar Al-Assad. As from 2011, as the violence by ruling regime against civilians escalated, she had to make a decision whether to stay and fight a good fight or escape the country. She opted to stay back. She soon met a similar-minded doctor Hamza, who made his personal mission to remain to treat the victims of the unrest. Waad continued filming her day-to-day events and sent it to Channel 4 of the BBC for broadcast.

Aleppo: Before and After Bombing pics
©boredpanda.com

Hamza and Waad decided to tie the knot despite the constant bombardment and destruction around them. All through her filming, she kept asking herself whether what she was doing was correct. The uncertainty became more acute as her daughter, Sama, for whom this documentary is dedicated, was born. She often wondered if she was ruining her daughter's future or depriving her of opportunities for a brighter future by her (Waad's) inactions.

All through the presentation, viewers are served with dead bodies, death and rubbles of what used to be buildings. Hamza, who ran make-shift hospitals with necessary facilities to treat victims, was bombed by Assad's and Russian bombers.

Finally, in 2015, Hamza, Sama and a pregnant Waad made a dash to Turkey as refugees. They eventually settled in the UK but has plans to return to Syria once normality returns.

When the comfort zone is rocked, what should one do? Should he run away from the offending agent or stand his ground and fight for his place that his ancestors had set foot, developed and attached their root deeply into the ground? Is it easier to maintain the peace and look elsewhere peace of mind? Anyway, discrimination, inequality and injustice are there all over the world. Deep inside, we are all entirely self-centred. Should we just mind our business, give a damn about others but just care for our loved ones?

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In no one we trust

HyperNormalisation (2016)
Written and Directed by Adam Curtis

Before the infamous 2004 tsunami hit Phi Phi Island in Thailand, there was a kind of an eerie silence. The shoreline receded and thousands of fishes were washed ashore. The cockle collectors had a windfall. Everyone was in a quandary on the bizarre turns of events. Then it hit them, the towering waves and destruction.

www.spectator.co.uk

That is what is happening in our world. Many strange and damaging thinks are happening right before our eyes. Our leaders are telling us that everything is okay and it is business as usual or rather life goes on. However, everybody knows it is not alright but still nobody wants to do anything because things are too complicated. This, in simpler terms, is the essence of the meaning of the word 'hyper normalisation', a term coined by a Russian writer (Alexei Yurchak  in 2006 book, 'Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation') referring to the time during Soviet Russia when everything was not right but everyone was given the impression that everything was hunky dory when it was not. The collapse, it was crystal clear and inevitable. Everyone knew but nobody would and could do anything about it.

In Curtis' normal hypnotising narration and documentary making techniques, he tries to make sense of current political climate we are in. He, in his conspiracy theorists' manner, tells us that that Man is stuck with this method of administration even though it is not the best where other ways have failed and how many of our manoeuvres have blown right in our faces, giving just the opposite of the intended desire.

The real world is complicated and our leaders have made it simpler for us, maybe far too simple to stay in power.

Although presented in nine somewhat disjointed parts, the whole narration may make sense at the end. In 1975, when New York City was having a crisis in its administration, it was soon realised that what it needs was not political leaders who would make policies but bankers who could provide finances. Money was needed to rule the world, not ideologies. Radical minded social reformers who used to dictate the scene during the times when factories workers and unions controlled their bosses, being out of money, fled to indulge in appreciation of abstract arts and music.

Over on the other side of the globe, in Damascus, Hafez al-Assad was trying to splurge Americans out of Middle East. Unfortunately, things only got worse with the Lebanon War in 1982. That is when Syria's liaison with Iran brought together Shia freedom fighters Hezbollah and Hamas, Palestinian freedom fighters. Their modus operandi of using suicide bombers, which by all accounts, is not sanctioned by Islam, seem to be the turning point. Americans left Syria in a huff in 1984 with their tails between their hind legs due to 'paralysis caused by the complexity of the situation'. It is funny this same life-saver has come to haunt Syria once again, now Arab solidarity and Syria is in shambles.

Here, again political intervention by Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy proved futile. His plan was to create constructive ambiguity to destabilise the Middle East to keep each other in check without solving the real issue at hand.

Libya's cartoonish leader Colonel Gaddafi became the lame dog accused of all of the atrocities around the world. Even though the Lockerbie downing of PanAm flight and other bombings were done by Syria, according to intelligence sources, Gaddafi did not mind being branded as the villain. He like the fear factor. Americans knew that attacking Syria is too risky. Hence, Libya was bombed instead.

With the advent of technology and creation of cyberspace, many things happened. People toyed the idea that perhaps the collection of data of Man, their likes and dislikes could be used to predict their predictability. The technocrats thought, maybe, science could be used to improve chances of winning bets, gambling and making money. It proved not successful. What it created was a group of narcissistic people, who found pleasure in trivialities and create an artificial environment to reinforce their self-reassurance. They heard and saw what they wanted to hear and see. It became a tool of perception management.

Many sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects became a common occurrence. There was talk that these were nothing more than the Army's attempt at developing stealth and more advanced killing machines. People became more distrustful of their leaders. This is when social media became a device to gather people against a common enemy - their Government. Demonstrations started the world over- the Arab Springs, the Tahrir Square and Occupy Movement. Even the cyberspace was good at getting together for a single cause, the upheaval did not progress. There was no future long term plan. The public loss of confidence in those in power is the main reason for the unexpected turn of events in Brexit and Donald Trump's appointment as the President of USA.

The picture and the thousand words

Aylan Kurdi at Bodrum Beach

It was just a picture to don the morning papers to say what reporters do best. Some of their photographs become international icons of a bygone era. Every living soul would be instantly aware of the American atrocity in Vietnam at one look of the picture of napalm struck confused girl running aimlessly with burnt clothes. This picture the dead toddler by the Turkish beach may one day be the reminder of the danger of stirring of a hornet in the highly volatile region of Middle East. For the perpetrators, the US, it is a European problem, not theirs. No rubber dinghies would traverse the Atlantic to reach their shores.

You think a picture is just a picture, but you would be amazed at the dynamics and rhetoric that goes through before and after it goes to print. A dead body polluting the beach of a bourgeois beach resort.

The child has no life. Death has engulfed him, but the picture is subtle enough not to appear gory. The violence and uncertainties that he had seen in his mind, on he can tell. He does not look death, as though just sleeping on his belly in slumberland. All dressed up with new shoes, hoping to start life anew in a faraway land away from hatred and killing but what he found was blissful sleep in after-life. They say God's justice must and will prevail on Earth as He wanted. Is this the result He wants? Dead at an age when life is just supposed to begin?

For the record, the head of the family tried to migrate to Canada, but it was rejected. So, he, with his wife and two young sons decided to flee the war-torn zone of Syria, with the help of a rubber dinghy manned by flight-by-night private boatsman, to make it to the nearest gateway to Europe, Turkey. Just 10 minutes into the journey, the seas turned rough. The boatsman jumped ship as it capsized. The father helplessly tried to rescue his family but in vain as he saw his whole family drown right in front of his eyes!

Critiques called it sensationalism of newspapers to up their sales. Scenarios like these are daily occurrences in many parts of the world. Over-exposure may desensitise readers, and the impact and devastation of war could be lost. Pressures for political will to act could be slow in coming.

Others complained of the insensitivity to the grieving parent and wondered if the picture would have made such an impact if the child was not so Caucasian looking but African or Oriental in appearance.

Anyway, the Imperialist are just feeling karma at play. They stoke the quiescent hornets' nest with fire, drain the honey and expect the angry hornets to just go away. The busy hornets, through trials and tribulations, had built a self-sustained equilibrium which worked for them. And it is in a quandary. Where do they go? Away from the fire!

On the Imperialist side, they are debating whether they are refugees, immigrants - political or economic ones. Some refuse to accept refugees of a particular faith, claiming that, from previous experiences, they exhibit holier-than-thou attitude once they are strong. They refuse to blend with society and bite the hand that fed them!

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

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