A tryst with war movies

In Hollywood, ‘war movies’ is a genre in itself. Having seen many genres like sci-fi, romance, comedy, thriller etc I felt that I had not seen much of war movies. So I began watching war movies and for sometime that was almost the only genre I watched. Someone told it right ‘there are no war movies; there are only anti-war movies’. Yes, to a large extent the statement is right. Most of the war movies show the brutalities, causalities of war and hence give the message that war is futile. But there are some movies which see war in a dispassionate angle and don’t conclude in anyway. Usually the later kind of movies became great because they were not trying to make any statements and were just showing the war as it is.

The war movies that I have seen fall broadly into these categories:

1) Based on the two world wars
2) Based on Vietnam war
3) Based on wars fought before the world wars
4) Based on some revolutions or hypothetical wars

The events and the time period of the world war gave fodder for some of the finest war movies ever. So did the Vietnam war which was waged by the US against the popular opinion of the people.

I started watching war movies with the 1930 release All Quiet on the Western Front which is perhaps the earliest movies revolving around the world war. Then it was Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory(1957) which depicted the hostility that existed between Germany and France and how soldiers were made to act against their will and fair judgment. Some more from the category: Lawrence of Arabia(1962), The Bridge on the River Kwai(1957), The Best Years of Our Lives(1946) , Judgment at Nuremberg(1961), Letters from Iwo Jima(2006)

Next to the world war movies, the highest number of movies made about an event is on Vietnam war. The significant movies that are made are Apocalypse Now(1979), Platoon(1986), Full Metal Jacket(1987), The Deer Hunter(1978). Platoon is the movie which is directed by Oliver Stone who had first hand experience of Vietnam war as a marine corp. So that fact makes the movie more authentic. The movie Deer Hunter shows the most dangerous game of the world Russian roulette in great detail. Full Metal Jacket is one more masterpiece of Stanley Kubrick.

Among the war movies that were based on the wars before the world war, the movie 300(2006) which depicted the courage and life of Spartans stands out. Apart from that there are some good movies like Gladiator (2000) and Akira Kurusawa’s Ran (1980) which has the story of Shakespeare’s King Lear. I am yet to watch movies like Troy (2004) and Alexander (2004).

The movie The Battle of Algiers (1966) shows the Algerian struggle for independence from the French. The story is told from a neutral point without taking any sides for the portrayal. That makes the movie special. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is a suspense thriller in which the concept of brainwashing is shown vividly. It also shows the post war trauma that people face. It is perhaps one of the best war thrillers ever made.

Movies with comic touch:

Many movies use comedy to deliver the intended message. The earliest film which used comedy to deliver the ill effects of war was of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) in which Chaplin has parodied Hitler. Don’t know whether Hitler had seen the movie or not! Then a movie about a small & happy Jewish family at the time of world war is Life Is Beautiful (1997). The film has a good mixture of humor and emotional appeal. The movie Full Metal Jacket makes profuse use of comedy. Among all the war comedy movies made, the movie which is considered to be the greatest is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1962). The movie is considered as a masterpiece of black comedy.

The best I have seen so far:

Schindler's List (1993): This Speilberg’s masterpiece depicts the plight of Jews in the Nazi occupied Poland. The cinematography gives the film a sense of timelessness. This is a classic one. 

Inglourious Basterds(2009): I don’t know how true this story is but it is very interesting. In all the movies the Jews are the victims. For a change, in this movie a small group of Jews called Basterds hunt down Nazis and instill terror in their hearts. This is like paying with the same coin. For that factor, the film becomes dearer. 

Downfall (2004): This German movie depicts the last 10 days of Hitler’s life. The actor who has portrayed Hitler has given complete justice to the role. It is considered as an authenticated account of Hitler’s last days. 

Das Boot (1981) Another German movie which is based on the real event of German submarine which goes to attack the British side. The film gives a brilliant account of navy, wars under the sea. Technically, the film is considered perfect and the best submarine film to ever come. 

Full Metal Jacket (1987): The first part of the movie is full of comedy and is carried superbly by the brilliant acting of R. Lee Ermey. The second half gets serious with war scenes showing the difficulty of fighting in Vietnam, the sniper tactics. The movie is highly engaging and entertaining. 

Saving Private Ryan (1998): One more masterpiece of Spielberg! The depiction of war scenes is so raw and seems real. The first 30 odd minutes of the movie seems like cut and paste from the real war. So realistically it is shot. 

The Pianist (2006): This is one of the movies which doesn’t try to make any statements but gives the account dispassionately. The film is based on real story of Jewish musician Władysław Szpilman . Adrien Broody has acted brilliantly. The movie is directed by Roman Polanski who had had first hand experience of the events. 

The given list of movies is definitely not comprehensive in any way. There are still many good war movies I am yet to watch like black hawk down, good morning Vietnam, born on 4th of July and many more. So, the list goes on becoming long…

Nazism, Communism and Islam – The ideological parallels

All political ideologies aim to create a perfect society. The claims of the people who propound those ideologies are very lofty and promising so that people are lured to embrace them. But after some time, they turn totalitarian and they exert control through iron hand. They then turn tyrannical and instead of being boon to the masses, they become worst nightmares. Millions of people are massacred around the world because of the ideologies. Some ideologies (like Nazism, fascism) have existed in limited geographical areas at limited time but a few ideologies (like communism, Islam) have spread across the globe. 

The commonality in all the political ideologies is that they are totalitarian. In a totalitarian system, democracy won’t have any voice. The basic thing that every human being yearns, freedom will be completely taken away from the people and they are subjugated for the ‘greater’ cause. Some may wonder how a religion like Islam could be classified alongside some totalitarian ideologies like Nazism or communism. But a close study of it reveals the political motivation, ambition the religion has got and also some startling similarities it has with Nazism and communism. 

Communism and Islam:

1) In communism, the state is superior. In case of Islam it replaces the state with its god Allah and the laws of the state with Quran, Sharia’h and hadith.

2) In communism one is expected to surrender to the dictates of the state. In Islam, one should unconditionally surrender to the will of Allah and defined laws that are attributed to Allah.

3) Communists are convinced that their doctrine is superior and would inevitably spread throughout the world. Muslims are convinced that their religion is the greatest and it is to be spread throughout the world until every person has surrendered to Allah. In fact, Islam divides the world into two parts: the World of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the World of War (Dar al-Harb). The parts of the world which is Dar al-Harb, wars should continue until it is converted into Dar al-Islam. Then alone peace prevails.

4) For both ideologies, ends justify the means. Communist countries misrepresent and break the treaties whenever it served their purposes especially with non-communist countries. In Islam, same is followed and called Taqiyya. Taqiyya closely translates into lying. It gives license to Muslims to break treaties (the peace treaty between non-Muslim nations is called hudna) with non-Muslim nations when it served their purpose.

5) In communist countries, the party leaders are considered unerring and their say is final. They have the power to change the rule and execute any person if they perceive him as a threat to the state. In Islam, the Imams are considered infallible and have the power to give judgments interpreting their holy books.

Nazism and Islam:

1) Severe hatred for Jews: Both ideologies abhorred Jews. Hitler said Jews are to be hated because they are Jews. Quran turns Jews into apes and swine.

2) Brainwashing at a very young age: Nazis had young scouts, trained them, brainwashed them. It happens in Islam especially in the Middle Eastern countries where small children are turned militants and they are fed and brainwashed to become suicide bombers. Though this doesn’t happen in all Muslim countries, it exists in a large scale. Any ideology requires constant indoctrination for its survival.

3) Hitler believed his party would win war and rule over the world for thousand years, Muslims believe to this day that world belongs to Allah and his apostles and they have to continue to fight the infidels until the promised land becomes theirs.

4) Nazis did hero worship (Hitler) and believed he was appointed by fate , Muslims do hero worship (Muhammad) and believe he was appointed by Allah

5) Islam or the invaders who followed Islam religiously classified the human into three categories
                I. The Muslims, for whom Allah has promised the whole world
               II. Christians and Jews who could live under Muslim rule but only as third-class citizens
              III. Thirdly, the real pagans who have to be eliminated completely from the world.
    Nazism classified people into
                   I. The Herrenvolk : The people whose race is superior to all
                  II. Slavic Untermenschen: These are inferior people in Hitler’s planned future world order.

6) Nazism divides the world solely on the basis of the race. Islam divides the world on the basis of religion.

Apart from all these striking similarities, there are many qualities that all these ideologies share, like: They are totalitarian, intolerant, xenophobic, aggressive, and self-righteous. There will be no scope for free thinking or freedom of speech. Totalitarian ideologies that are based on religion are more dangerous because they can sustain for a very long period and they achieve a very strong psychological grip over its followers. 

Followers of a totalitarian doctrine with no god attached to it may have some doubt at some point of time but the followers of totalitarian religious doctrines don't face that problem because that void of doubt is readily filled by the 'will of god' or rather the doubt never raises in them. That's why we can see almost all Islamic terrorists are supremely confident about their doctrine and they don't have a shred of remorse in their violence. Totalitarian ideology without religion or god attached to it will die once their leaders are defeated. But those which are based on religion will continue even after the death of the founders and continue to grip the followers through their holy books. 

All ideologies are equally dangerous. Anyone wishing to live in a free world where there is a democratic process and where freedom of speech is celebrated can never support any of the totalitarian doctrines to usurp their societies.

Sources:
"Islam: Arab Imperialism" by Anwar Sheik
"Negationism in India" by Koenraad Elst

Alliance Memoirs - Faculties

With bagful of dreams, a tinge of fear and arrays of expectations I, along with many others entered Alliance Business Academy (only to be disappointed later of course!). Since I intend to write about the faculty members, I restrict to that subject alone.

             In the first interactions with the faculty members, I was pleasantly surprised. Most of them were courteous, receptive to courtesy, friendly with students. Though a few of our faculty members were like that in graduation, the number was very few. So it was a good beginning in Alliance. In the first semester, it was bi-modular approach for us i.e. at any given day, only we needed to listen to the lectures of two faculties. Usually they would finish their quotas for the semester in about 15 days. This method, like any other method had its own advantages as well as disadvantages. This was a novelty for us then. But we got accustomed to it soon. As far as teachers are concerned, most of them had the quality and competence to deliver and some were downright comedians with their own trademark antics. I enjoyed listening to most of them and resented a very few. Some memorable ones…

Nandita chaterjee & Navodita misra: The very beginning of the first semester happened with these two faculties. They knew what they were teaching (This seems like an ordinary statement but if you have seen myriads of teachers and their competence level, you would understand the immensity of it!). They had the standards required for any premiere institutes. They would have been good ambassadors of Alliance if Alliance stood for what it proclaimed.

Kameswaran: I don’t remember listening to his lectures except for the first very few classes and he did not have any complaints about it. He was busy with his business and we were busy with ours. We were more enchanted to his English accent than to his accounts lecture perhaps! He had a bovine kind of character and never scolded anyone.

Smitha: Most of us pitied her because she was given more responsibility than she could ever handle. She was helpful for most of us during our internships or during dissertations. A teacher should exert some control over the class no matter what. Most of us felt she lacked it. Apart from that, she was good

Sivanandam: Took operations research for us. Most of the time went for his earlier experiences in voting machine and BPL rather than for OR. He taught us overheads. Most of the things he taught us were over our heads. Very few people understood what he taught.

Havaldar: A thorough gentleman,an alumni of IIMA. He was a near perfectionist, the only person like him was Dr.Rajesh. He did everything professionally, even when he scolded us. He had a  very good knowledge of what he taught us but i felt the only lacking point was his sense of humor.

Rudramurthy: A quarter of humor, a quarter of arrogance and the rest for knowledge: that’s Rudramurthy. His subject knowledge and his ability to deliver were unquestionable. Very few people who possess knowledge can inspire students to go for a quest for knowledge. This person was capable of that. The way he inspired people in the field of finance especially stock markets was simply amazing. One of the lecturers I truly admired. 

Jatinder: Though seemed very promising at the beginning, he failed to carry that drive. May be all of us failed him. In the end it felt like over promise, under delivery.

Rajesh: A true taskmaster, he knew how to extract work no matter which way it was. He did possess good knowledge and expected a great deal from students which sometimes seemed unrealistic. But he did it with good intentions obviously. One of the few lecturers I really respected and feared! 

All in all though I have my resentment towards Alliance in some issues, in the issues of faculties I have very less complaints.

My Books Review: October '11

Negationism in India – The book starts with the explanation of the term ‘negationism’ in general. Negationism is a denial of historical facts, not the reinterpretation of the known facts. The original usage of the term lies in the denial of the Nazi genocide of the Jews and Gypsies in World War 2. Once the reader gets to know the meaning of negationism, the focus shifts to the Indian version of it which is more wide-spread than the former. 

Continued efforts are made to make the people of India to forget the persecution of Hindus by Muslims over six centuries. An excerpt from the book says “Since about 1920 an effort has been going on in India to rewrite history and to deny the millennium-long attack of Islam on Hinduism. Today, most politicians and English- writing intellectuals in India will go out of their way to condemn any public reference to this long and painful conflict in the strongest terms. They will go to any length to create the illusion of a history of communal amity between Hindus and Muslims.”

Then the author explains how negationism became official policy under congress rule. Great efforts happened to re-write Indian history in a large scale. Then explanation shifts to the distortion of history by Marxist historians and how the academia fell into the hands of Marxists and how they used it to rewrite history according to their ideologies. Many Marxist historians are analysed like: Romila Thapar, Bipin Chandra, Irfan Habib, Gyanendra Pandey etc. Negationism can’t happen without consistent support of the academia and the media. But now, negationists control most part of them. Therefore people seldom get to know the real facts.

In the later part of the book, the ideology of Islam & the character of Mohammed (the founder of Islam) are analyzed. It becomes clear from the argument that Mohammed had political ambitions than spiritual ones. The author demolishes the statement “Islam is good but some Muslims may be bad” but instead proves the opposite and shows how with following Quran and hadith strictly, no Muslim can be at peace with Non-Muslims ever.

This is a milestone book written by the Belgian author Koenraad Elst. Enormous amount of studies of various histories, religion, philosophies, politics, social structure have gone into the making of this book. The author has stayed steadfast to truth and not hesitated in touching a subject which is a ‘taboo’. I’d say this is a very essential book to understand how propaganda is created, how it is sustained for a long period of time by both outside forces and the inside ones and how it destabilizes the country. This is a scholarly work, a highly recommended read.