War, an opportunity!

All Quiet on the Western Front (German, 2022)

Director: Edward Berger

Ancient Chinese philosophers, Lao Tze in particular, used to say, 'In War, everybody loses'. But on the other hand, Sun Tzu, the author of Art of War, the military treatise of the 5th century BCE, noted that amid chaos, there is also 'opportunity'.

In 1913, Henri La Fontaine obtained the Nobel Peace Prize for his outstanding work in peaceful internationalism. He asserted that the world, in the 20th century, had done away with wars and destruction. Believe it or not, the following year, Europe went into an essentially civil war which snowballed into a World War when the European colonisers sent their subjects to die in the greatest battle to end all wars.

Clive's plunder from 
Battle of Plassey (Palashi)
Auctioned at £3m

World War 1 never put an end to anything. Its effects are still felt today. In essence, Ukrainian War can be said to be an effort to end loose ends that were never resolved. As we can see, Russia and the USA, through NATO, are using the war as leverage to push forward their personal agendas and cement their hegemonic control of the world. The people on the ground suffer and lose their life and life-earnings, while others view it as an opportunity to enrich themselves and improve their own citizens' living standards. The war casualties are just mere collateral damage. Statistics.

All these talks about killing being a sin are easily justified. As in the Crusade Wars, killing for a just cause is just the caveat for leaders to gear their hot-blooded to sign up to serve the same flag they will be wrapped to be buried when they return home in a body bag.

This film is the adaptation of a 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque based on his experience with the Imperial German Army in WW1. Graphically, this anti-war drama shows how the low-ranking officers sacrifice their life and soul to serve their superiors. A simple comparison offered here is in the way these different officers dine. The soldiers on the battleground have to thrive on their rations and steal for the next meal when it runs out, while the generals are served top-class chef-prepared cuisines.

In war, not everyone loses. Some gain fame and glory, while many die. During Imperialism rule, many amassed fortunes that would last many lifetimes. One point to note is how a low-ranking soldier Robert Clive became Europe's richest man after the Battle of Plassey.

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History made easy!

King's Man (2021)
Story and Direction: Matthew Vaughn

I am so happy that the history lessons I was exposed to in childhood were varied. Thanks to the old Malaysian syllabus, the people of my generation are exposed to the likes of Rasputin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the events leading to World War 1.

At least I know the storytellers stretched their artistic licence too far to convince the viewers that a single organisation headed by 'The Shepherd' singlehandedly masterminded the genesis of WW1 and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in Russia. Interestingly, Rasputin is portrayed as a member of this cult and works in cahoots with 'The Shepherd' and receives orders from him. 

Even Gavrilo Princip, Archduke Ferdinand's assassin, is said to be in the above group. In reality, we know he did not act alone but as a member of a secret society called 'Black Hand'. True, the first assassination attempt failed, but the fatal shooting was by sheer coincidence.

Rasputin -The Mad Monk

Rasputin is visualised here as I remember him from my textbooks - A tall, scrawny man with bad teeth, piercing eyes, and a bevvy of women trailing in his shadows. If my memory does not fail me, the Russian prince suffered from haemophilia. Rasputin garnered the monarch's admiration after treating the haemorrhaging prince following a bad fall, not after poisoning him. 

Margaretha MacLeod nee Zelle
aka Mata Hari

I know the 'Mata Hari' was a Dutch spy accused of working for the Nazis. I never heard of her landing in the USA, and having a secret film recording of her in a compromising position with Woodrow Wilson prevented the USA from entering WW1. It was the gunning of the ocean liner RMS 'Lusitania' by German U-boats. Of course, some say it carried weapons and ammunition to the Allied Forces.

History is made easy here. It seems that The Shephard and his Flock. Vladimir Lenin and even a young Hitler are portrayed to have their beginnings in this movement. In essence, one hand controls the world's direction.

Despite being the third in its series, this film is actually a prequel to its predecessors. It shows how this clandestine movement started with a pacifist, Orlando, the Duke of Oxford, losing his wife during Boer War. Orlando's son, Conrad, watches the whole drama and grows up to want to fight evil.

After Conrad dies, the movement goes gangbusters to get to the root of world problems. The invincible Shephard is located and is neutralised.

An enjoyable watch, only for its cross-reference to world history events.

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The post war awakening

Virgin And Gipsy
Book Written: DH Lawrence (first published 1930)
Film version: 1970

It was a time when the Western society was evolving from one that lived for the collective good of the community to one that emphasised personal exploration and realising their full potential. The time was ripe for an individual break out from the yoke of social mores and search out for the real reason for his existence. The world was changing. They saw what conformity brought them - the greatest war to end all wars. Women realised they are more than what they are credence for. The Great War illustrated that they could perform jobs deemed only 'suitable' for men. The Suffrage Movement made great strides in wage equality and voting. They also found educational opportunities.

Women in the 'Roaring Twenties' were held back not simply by political, social and economic obstacles but by unconscious psychological “stops and inhibitions planted in childhood”. The rebel streak in them struggled to bring out suppressed desires, one of them being sexual desires. Novelists were quite open about women’s stifled sexual desires, be it clandestine or against the course of Nature. 'The Virgin and the Gipsy/Gypsy'  is one such book. 'Gentleman Jack' is another description of Anne Lister's sexual escapades written in coded journals.

The euphoria of the end of the war did not last long. The Great Depression, which rolled in 1928, also brought in unemployment, humiliating poverty, the rise of fascism, and another war was to muffle the postwar dreams of freedom, fulfilment and equality for women.

Women from the rest of the world may have followed the path shown by their counterparts in the Western of wanting to exhibit their sexual liberties. Although late for the party, even till today, they continue to find their new place in the sun. The struggle between conserving the sanctity of a biological process and controlling one's body is ongoing. One party calls it masculine toxicity, whilst the counterargument is that the female body is no business for societal scrutiny and rules.

'The Virgin and the Gipsy' is written by DH Lawrence. Lawrence had the dubious reputation of having many of his books banned for explicit sexual content during his lifetime. He was referred to as a pornographer in some circles, but many admired his openness. We grew up hearing about it through the forbidden book 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', which was surprisingly in the red spot section of my library. Still, we never laid our mere mortal hands on it as it was being passed around amongst the mafia of senior librarians and their inner circle. DH Lawrence also ran afoul with the law for being a British spy but was never convicted. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. 

This novella tells the tale of two sisters, their late teenage years, Lucille and Yvette, returning from France after finishing their studies to a lifeless village in the English countryside. The girls grew up with their vicar father without a mother. Their mother had apparently abandoned them to elope with her lover. This dark moment is constantly reminded to them by their domineering paternal grandmother, Mather, who moved in, filling in the place of the absent mother. Moving in together with Mather were her daughter (Aunt Cissy, Vicar's fussy unwed sister) and her son, the reclusive Uncle Fred.

The sisters, especially Yvette, find their stay back quite suffocating. Even though Yvette fills up her time partying and gallivanting with friends of her age, she finds it unfulfilling. She wants to find love. This, she finds in an unnamed character (at least till the end), a married gipsy who is scorned upon by her society. Yvette also finds acquaintance in Mrs Fowler, a soon-to-divorced Jewess, who lands in the village with her lover for a 'brought forward' honeymoon. 

Through the prism of her father's failed marriage, her domineering grandmother, the mousey behaviour of her father in front of his family and the restrictive atmosphere of the social mores, Yvette finds muscular virility in 'The Gipsy'.

It also looks at the invisibility of certain members of our society. The Gipsy, Joe Boswell, was a war hero in WW1, but he is just another social outcast in the post-war era. We can try to be politically correct by discontinuing the word 'Gipsy' and labelling them Romani instead. But the crux of the matter is that we have to change our mindset, not just the semantics. It is also a class issue.

Romani flag (Cakra!)

[P.S. For the record, the Romanis are said to have originated from Northern India. Known as nomadic travellers throughout Europe, and is often the subject of discrimination. They became a part of whichever land they sojourn. The Romani language is said to be almost 60% similar to the Punjabi language. During the WW2 Holocaust, Romanis perished in the concentration camp together with the 6 million Jews. In 1971, Gypsies from all over Europe congregated near London for the First World Romani Congress to stamp the existence. The representatives discussed multiple social, educational, war crimes, language, and cultural issues affecting the community. They agreed on a common flag for Romanis.]

[P.P.S. Gipsy evolved to Gypsy over the years]

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A full circle?

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Decided to give this classic movie another shot after the recent turn of events in Jerusalem. Every group seems to be trying to garner some brownie point from the clash. Something that arose as a real estate and enforcement issue has now snowballed to another intifada of sorts. The interesting thing that caught my eye is some faction's labelling of Erdogan as Palestine's saviour and the call for him to re-establish the Ottoman Empire.

If we remember well, the Ottoman was labelled as the sick of Europe towards the end of the 19th century. The Arabs were planning a revolt that appeared to go nowhere. Since the Turkish (Ottoman Empire) were aligned with the Germans in WW1, the British felt it made military sense to support the Arabs to fight the Turks. The Arabs always felt superior to the Turks as the Prophet was an Arab whilst the Turkish ancestors were originally barbaric nomads who embraced Islam. 

Ottoman Empire c.1900

The Middle East then was as tumultuous as it is now, with each tribe factions wanting to control water wells (not oil wells; petroleum was not discovered yet) and territory. TE Lawrence, an archaeologist, a paper pusher and a lieutenant in the British Army stationed in Cairo, wanted a piece of the action in the field. So he joined the Bedouins to be the military advisor to Prince Faisal of Mecca. He crossed the Jordanian deserts to help them defeat the Ottoman Army, bomb their strategic railway line and march all the way to Damascus. All these occurred circa 1917, during World War 1. All the while, the British and the French were busy carving up the whole of the Middle East for themselves.

Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff
(Lawrence and Shariff Ali)

The experience in the desert war front and the doublespeak of the Army may have proved too much for Lawrence to stomach. Much of what is narrated in this story is based on his book, 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom'. There are many controversies about the TE Lawrence character. Many historians disagree about the accuracy of the facts depicted. He is said to be narcissistic who tend to self-aggrandise. He is plagued with a traumatic upbringing. He was born out of wedlock to a nobleman. Two of his siblings were casualties of WW1, and it affected him deeply. TE Lawrence was doing espionage works for the British Army and is said to be doing it even after his 'Lawrence of Arabia' stint.

Back home, he enrolled in the Air Force under a pseudonym. But, some wonder whether this fascination with going under various surname, which he had done later, had something to do with his own 'borrowed' surname.

Lawrence of Arabia's path (1916-18)

There is a dispute about his sexuality. Many of his Arabs helpers were not mere companions or guides. Their relationship is said to be mere platonic. Nevertheless, the LGBT community place him as a gay icon. Many Arabs would like to believe that Lawrence was so mesmerised by the Arab culture and the Islamic religion that he dressed like an Arab and began quoting the Koran. But, perhaps, he was just an opportunist, working in cahoots with the Imperial forces to cheat the Arabs blind.

Coming to the news that amused me. So, it looks like the Arabs, after being oppressed and illtreated for more than 500 years by the Turks under the Ottoman Empire, need the Turks' help to free themselves (Palestinians are Arabs) from a common enemy, Jews.

But then it does not compute. With so many denominations within the religion and each proclaiming to be holier than the other as well as calling for each others' head, I wonder how long they would stick on to fight the common enemy before they pull the trigger against each other? The Arabs feel superior to the other Muslims because the Prophet was an Arab; the Persians place themselves above the Arabs with their long civilisation to back them up. The Turks with their Mongol ancestry are one notch lower than them. All of them look at the Africans as slaves and Asians as lesser beings.

Turkish media’s ‘Palestinian activist’:
‘Erdogan, come liberate Palestine.
Come establish the Ottoman Empire again.’

Another thing that fascinated me whilst watching this movie was the aversion that the Arab tribes had against each other. In this movie, we witness the blatant killing of a traveller of low social standing for drinking water off a well belonging to a nobleman. And I guess things have not changed much since then. And the audacity of the world to equate caste discrimination as synonymous to Hindu culture only. The want to dominate is universal.

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Fight till the last man standing!

1917 (2019)
Director: Sam Mendes

The story is written by Sam Mendes based on what his grandfather told him. Mendes' grandfather was a soldier in the Trench War, and this offering is in his honour for his heroic act of treading through the dangers of the enemy-line and the perils of Nature to pass over a piece of vital information to the advancing army. His deed indeed saved the day and many fellow comrades.

I am a little perplexed. On the one hand, I am taught that violence is the primitive way of settling an issue. Violence can never solve any problems but instead, create new ones. An eye for an eye leaves the whole blind, they say. Yet in the same breath, the same people proclaim that turning the other cheek is stupidity.

All through our civilisation, war has been part and parcel of our evolution. With each significant catastrophe that we go through, the human race seems to go up one notch in terms of scientific achievement. War propels the world forward. War stimulates the economy, and the desire to dominate is one thing that gives pride. We form tribes and fall in line under a piece of cloth to provide us with a sense of pride to uphold. 

In a war, we say, everyone loses but yet, we are ever ready to justify the mother of all battles to end wars. We know where it led us.

The promise of wealth and power is good enough reason for us to get up in the morning and plunge ourselves into the conveyer belt that would send us all to the hole of destruction. We repeatedly justify our resort to extinction as a means to settle scores by putting the blame on Nature. Even our Universe is rough in its actions. Scorching expulsions of magma, destructive clash of meteorites, earth-shattering movements of tectonic plates and extremes of temperatures proves that the world is no pleasure cruise.

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