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My Twisted Reality

Matt, Kiomye and I spent the last four days in Seattle. We just drove back home this morning. For some reason, we’re ridiculously tired. Yes, we ran around a lot, but we got a good amount of sleep each night. I’m groggy and woozy. I feel like I’m adjusting to a different time zone. My find is foggy. I hate it. I have so much to do and I need to fully wake up and get thinking again.

This is going to be a very long post. Forgive me.

I have been overwhelmed with reality. To be an American living in America is to be a sea monkey living in a lovely little tank with pretty pictures pasted on the outside of the glass. So often, I can barely see past my television or computer screen, let alone beyond the boundaries of my country.

I am disgusted. I watched two powerful documentaries this weekend. The first was Control Room. The movie was only playing at the Varsity and not in the big mainstream theatres. Honesty, we had wanted to go see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, but all showings had been sold out for the night. Our friend Jason recommended control room, so we decided that’s what we would see.

The film was amazing. It was a documentary about the Al-Jazeera television station. I had heard references to this Arab station many times on American TV. I got the message loud and clear. Al-Jazeera is the big, bad bogey media of the Bush Administration. This was the station that showed the gruesome pictures of the Iraq war victims and the dead American soldiers. This was the station that Bush called, “The mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden.” Not one to take Bush’s statements to heart, I had listened to Amy Goodwin interview reporters from Al-Jazeera. They spoke of trying to provide their viewers with all the information about the war that they could. They did not censor themselves. They did not try to sanitize the war. They did not mean to show favor to one side or another. Hmmm, this didn’t match up with what Bush was saying.

The documentary allows the people at Al-Jazeera to show the cameras what they are trying to do and how they gather and analyze information and their debates about what is information and what is propaganda. There's not a positive word to be heard about the Iraqi dictator, and much admiration is expressed for the U.S. Constitution and values. One producer is angered because an American activist gives a rabidly anti-war on-air interview when the producer expected more measured opinions.

Also very interesting about the film is the frank, respectful exchanges between an Al-Jazeera journalist Ibrahim and Central Command press officer Lt. Josh Rushing which make up the heart of "Control Room." Rushing at first comes across as a typically slick p.r. guy offering clipped, official-line answers. Yet Rushing seems genuinely interested in the give-and-take with journalists such as Ibrahim, and he comes to see alternative points of view. After Al Jazeera airs footage of American military corpses and prisoners of war, triggering bitter complaints from U.S. officials, Rushing agrees that the broadcast sickened him but then reflects ruefully that he hadn't been similarly disturbed by previously aired images of Iraqi casualties. Rushing eventually comes to see parallels between Al Jazeera's appeals to Arab nationalism and the Fox News Network's appeals to American patriotism. (Salon.com reported last week that the Pentagon has barred Rushing from discussing the film, prompting him to consider leaving the Marines.)

One of the most poignant scenes in the film came just after a montage of Bush’s rationales for the war. He kept repeating that we are there to free the Iraqi people, that we are the great liberators, that the Iraqis are much better off with us there. The next scene showed a man standing in front of a mess of buildings that had just been bombed by American planes. His white robes were covered in blood. He was talking to the reporter, crying and yelling. He pointed at the scene behind him and said that this was a village, there were no militia here. He said he was covered with the blood of his brother and his five children. He then started crying something like, “I don’t want your freedom! I don’t want your liberation. Please go!”

Man. When faced with a plea like that, I want us out of there RIGHT NOW! I am so ashamed and pained by what my country, my leaders are doing to these people. I am sick of the images, sick of the crying mothers, sick of all the bullshit. I am so sick of this war.

Matt, Jason and I left the theatre and wandered dazed down the Ave. Street musicians asked us for requests and then chided us when we didn’t respond. We tangled in a hoard of students from the college headed out to the bars. The girls reeked of sweet perfume and the boys talked too loud. Silly. They seemed so silly. By the time we walked back to the car, we were able to start talking about the movie. We were all deeply affected. We were pissed by the lies we’ve been told about this war, and in shock at the scope of pain and suffering that has been inflicted on others by our government, our army, and our people.

It is difficult to know where to direct this angst, this knowledge, and this discomfort with the super-power mentality of our nation. It seems my very way of life conspires to make me forget, to make me apathetic. Our country in at war, yet my concerns when I wake up in the morning are far removed from this realits. I don’t worry about loved ones, or if my neighborhood is safe, or how I might lead a normal life in the midst of crisis. I am saturated in plenty. I worry only about how I will spend my time. Will we go to the movies today or should I work on my college homework? Where will we take our daughter to play this afternoon? Should we eat Big Macs or buy organic? Do I walk to exercise or watch The Bachelor on TV?

It is very difficult to see the role that I play in this war. It is very difficult to even remember that this war is happening. Two years ago, I read Power, Privilege, Difference by Allan G. Johnson and first came to terms with my privilege. I had always assumed that I deserved my privilege, my respect, and my lifestyle. It wasn’t until I read this book and had MANY discussions about its contents that I came to learn and accept that privilege comes at a cost to someone else. It is the nature of privilege. There can’t be privilege if all is equal. Privilege denotes a special treatment. Special means that not everyone receives this treatment. Acknowledging that I have privilege and recognizing all of my privileges are two entirely different things. This is something I have been working on for the past two years. I have given a great deal of thought to the matter. Beyond recognizing my privileges, it is often even hard to see who exactly my privileges detract from. Who suffers from my consumer lifestyle?

I drive a Buick. I am quick to say that it’s my parents and that I am only borrowing it until I move to Japan. (I sold my car to pay for the plane tickets.) Yet still, I drive this behemoth everyday. I drive it to school, even though the bus stops close to my house and takes me directly to campus. I drive it to pick up my daughter, even though I can walk the distance if I give myself 15 minutes more. Summer has warmed up Olympia. I turn on the air conditioning the second I get in the cars and feel sorry for all the suckers I see with their windows open and sweat on their faces. I have now started to consider the implications of my actions in more global terms. I have too much knowledge to pretend that my driving habits don’t matter to anyone. I have seen the pictures of the pipelines in Iraq. I have listened to the reports that show who is profiting from this war. I have seen the pictures of the children on the stretchers, children as old as my daughter with skin blown away and their muscles and bones visible. When I reach to crank the air conditioning, those images flash in my mind and I know that I am participating in an act of war.

What do I do with this knowledge?

It is so easy to forget, to push this war out of my head. My friends won’t blame me. They’ll feel better that I’m not getting “too political” so they don’t have to watch themselves around me. I can easily distract myself in my promising life. I have so much to do, so much to see. The news hurts, I can just turn it off. The reality of it does not live in my neighborhood. Let’s go get a mocha and walk by the lake.

Sigh. But what CAN I do? If I choose not to ignore, if I chose to accept my responsibility, what then? Do I stop driving? Do I monitor foreign news reports daily to supplement the meager reports that make it into the US. Do I travel to war zones, like my classmate Rachel Corrie did and throw myself bodily before the aggressors, my countrymen?

I don’t want to radicalize. I want to belong in “my” world. I want to speak the same language of entertainment news as my peers and sit in bars and laugh with my friends. Reality sucks.

I strayed so far from my narrative that I haven’t mentioned the second movie. The day after we saw Control Room, we saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Yes, this moving was maddening and enlightening as well. It was also a lot funnier and more entertaining to watch. I don’t think Moore’s documentary was as good as the Control Room as his bias is so strong. He provides the leftist propaganda to battle that of the right. I am glad for this film, and I hope many Americans see it, but it is not the harbinger of truth.

This post is long enough. I should let this rest here. I have much more to say, to learn.

posted by Scribbler @ Tuesday, June 29, 2004