BLACK JANUARY, part 2 : MUNICH

I don’t have a lot of intellectual consideration for Spielberg, or rather, I don’t consider him as an intellectual. I find his stances sentimental, sometimes corny, and his messages unexciting, sometimes simplistic. A humanist, yes, a dreamweaver, yes, a storyteller, yes. But an “auteur” ? No, to me Spielberg is merely what I was told Walt Disney was when I was a child – which far from deserving scorn is actually quite an achievement and a unique performance in itself, but then, doesn’t make him the kind of Elder I’d ask for advice on the great debates and philosophical issues of our time : that’s simply neither the place he’s earned himself nor the function he professes when he produces his flicks under the label “Dreamworks”.

So what is “Munich” ? A nightmare treated like a dream, and the first case of its kind to my knowledge in Spielberg’s career if you admit with me that “Schindler’s list” was, in spite of its theme, a fairy tale like all the others. Which means that it’s not a nightmare treated nightmarishly : not an anti-Zionist blame on Israel’s policies, not an ignorant misinterpretation of history, not a demonstration of the evils of vicious cycles of violence. No. Just a dream. For children. A plot with no other consistency than its own dramatic logic and tricks. A lavish, sophisticated narration skillfully staged, compelling to watch and avoiding Hollywood hyperbolic vulgarity thanks to the refreshingly tasteful sobriety in acting from the cast. A reality expurgated from its most adventurous aspects, where the Mossad has committed no mistake, the traumas don’t really traumatize, the burdens weigh without necessity and all the characters but the victims have the time to have their say and to show (off ?) their humanity.

I don’t want my money back. I liked the movie. But I want my nightmare back. I want the question of the vengeance asked. Its legitimacy, its significance, its affinities with war, its affinities with justice, its discrepancies with justice. I want to know why, as casually mentioned in one cue (while I would have made the entire script revolve around this), Golda Meir chose to treat Black September, a Palestinian paramilitary organization, like a country and not like a criminal, like Hitler’s Germany and not like Elie Wiesel’s Eichmann. I want to be shown the religious paradox of a David eager to prove his personal might coupled to the cathartic, symbolic dimensions in this fantasy of “the wrath of God” (!). I want to be explained the differences between Israel behaving above the human law and the USA violating the decisions of the UN. I want to know whether the crosscut sex/slaughter means that Avner is aroused by violence and perverted by his experience, or on the opposite so disturbed and traumatized that he’ll never be able to make love normally again.

In a word, I’m afraid I want another “Munich” than Spielberg’s.

Unlike a lot of his detractors, I don’t blame the filmmaker for having chosen a slippery topic. On the opposite. Unrestricted kudos for that. PC must die, and PC rages about Israel. I mean that PC consists in praising instead of respecting, and that’s what you do when you unduly demonize or worship Israel or Palestine – disgracefully insisting that one of the two sides must be “good” and the other one “evil”, when all I see is two nations fighting for one land and having each perfectly legitimate reasons to call it its own. There is no “good” and “evil” in a tragedy. There is the tragedy.

I want a “Munich” produced by “Tragedyworks”.

BLACK JANUARY, part 1 : HAMAS

Hamas got in the day “Munich”, which tells the tale of their fathers Black September, came out in Israel. I would like to dedicate this entry to my friend Waldo, who lives in a place where getting on a bus is a big adventure and sitting in the sun drinking your beer is not far from showing suicidal tendencies.

Hamas is in, and on its way to respectability. And Sharon’s end comes at a very bad moment. He had the intelligence and the right mixture of flexibility and inflexibility to handle the influence and the temptations that would seep from an elected form of Hamas.

No cause for rejoicing. The parliamentarization of a terrorist pack doesn’t equate to the legalization of pot IMO. It’s an institutionalization, not a permission. The consent to “Hamas way of life” pre-existed to any form of access to official structures, if only because Arafat had already walked that path from the PLO. Terrorism is at the heart of the Palestinian policies, it is not a taboo. Therefore I don’t think that the wolf in the sheepfold will suddenly become “tame”, as if all they needed was a mike to speak their minds and chill. Hamas don’t want peace, their voters don’t want peace either (one of them said on British TV that he wanted “purity”, I’m sure that’s what Rabin’s murderer wanted as well). They may want more land, more power, more respectability…. But peace to go forward ?

How many far right parties became “tame” in history once elected ? No sham. Sincere question.

There’s a brand of leftists who like to say that Hamas's violence is justified as a response to Western / Zionist colonialism. I'd rather ask about how can anyone in his right mind endorse Hamas.

Hamas is a far-right organization. It advocates genocide (its stated goal is the same as Ahmadinejab's - to remove Israel from the map), promotes fundie bigotry (its stated goal is to unite Palestine under an Islamic State) and practices totalitarianism (it does not distinguish between Israeli civilian and military targets, nor between combatants and non-combatants, to them a good Israeli is a dead Israeli, period). What on earth do they like about it ? Its objective being to support the oppressed and wronged ? Cry me a river. I can think of other ways to support the oppressed and wronged.

Sociologically, Hamas is the expression of Palestine's anger against despoliation, but much the same way that the Nazi party was the expression of Germany's anger against the diktats from the previous war. I have no respect for far right anger. I despise the stupidity that leads to death wish instead of hope and life as embodied by socialism. I have no respect for Hamas, no sympathy for their struggle, and I regard their left-wing Western supporters (if any) as morons. They are loons and fascists.

I don't regard Zionism as a form of colonialism either. I think that oppressed Jihadists are colonialists who failed more than democrats forced to defend their existence. If I were a Jew I would be a Zionist, completely, and how. When you're the scapegoat of the world, the least you need is your own country.

As for the use of violence, I have no problem with it as a last resort, even if the nature of what a "last resort" is remains debatable. One thing I'm sure of is that promoting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and describing it as "the embodiment of the Zionist plan to usurp Palestine" isn't part of what I call a "last resort".

This victory I regard as the worst disaster to have affected the Middle East since Rabin's assassination. But the situation is still open in spite of all.

An op-ed piece about the event says in conclusion : "Political Islam, once the preserve of fanatics, could be on the verge of becoming mainstream, perhaps one day even respectable." Yeah… Sure enough, mainstream = respected, respected = respectable in a world where might is all and right is nothing. But WHAT will become respectable ? Hamas's worldview, or their name castrated of its political load ?

This is entirely up to the international community - and to Israel.

For if Hamas became such a monster, it's of course because of the Palestinians' immoderate taste for martyrdom... BUT NOT ONLY.

It's also because of Sharon and the way he humiliated Fatah and made it ridiculous and helpless by stating repeatedly that they were clowns unable to bring their terrorists under control, instead of valuing them as allies in the process of peace.

It's also because of Bush and his Crusade toting contempt of the Muslim world, his all-Amerikkkan way to bring democracy to savages who can't understand it, and the interpretation he will make of these results as more evidence that the Palestinians are ontologically wrong and hateful.

And that's why I think it's a shame that Sharon can't get on with the clever move toward the center he had begun. He had the credibility to do it in a consistent way and what he was doing was simply changing the image of Israel, for he seemed to be aware of how obsolete and dangerous a "ballsy", Bush-henpecked Israel had become.

Without him, his new party means nothing, and I dread chaos.

MUSIC AND POLITICS

Do your politics affect what music you listen to ?

My answer is definitely yes. But only skin deep when I look at it.

I'll take the example of three cases of artists that I strongly despise and dislike for political reasons : the Stranglers, Eminem and the Rolling Stones.

- The Stranglers' "Rattus Norvegicus" had obnoxiously sexist lyrics plus they insisted on building their reputation on various and extreme forms of anti-feminist provocation and outrage. Their act at one point was but SM shit, and they went as far as abducting protesters who were demonstrating at one of their gigs to make fun of their indignation. Perfect swines. OTOH musically I loved "Rattus Norvegicus". Powerful, brilliant, and more importantly, something sincere beyond the cynical lyrics. Later on JJ Burnel's girlfriend got murdered and he wrote "La Folie". No comment.

- Eminem was such an imperialistically bombastic and egotistic proud-to-be-an asshole homophobe that I couldn't even listen to his output. Then he came round to dreading that his younger brother and friends might be tempted or forced to serve in Iraq and he wrote "Mosh", which is an overwhelming work of art and the closest thing to F9/11 I ever saw. I then listened to the rest and was but forced to admit the jerk's absolute brilliance. No comment.

- The Rolling Stones were caught from the start between theft and tribute, pillaging and promotion. They always respected the bluesmen who had made them what they were, but the balance was lost after Brian Jones's death when they began to cash in on their "evil" image to promote the most vulgar of consumerist values and recycle everything they could for their own purposes. From "Street fighting man" to "Sweet neo-con", the audacity remained but Bush's name got lost, cuz, you know, Keith Richards lives here so let's be bold but not too much. No comment.

All in all I don't take anyone's word at face value. Someone who claims reactionary positions isn't necessarily right-wing. It's even truer the other way round.

And deep down, my personal postulate is that there is NO such thing as a right-wing artist. True art is bound to be revolutionary - even the brand which defends itself from any political involvement.

If I find no rebellion in a work, then that's what I truly despise and I turn away from it quite naturally believe me !