Kneller's Happy Campers

Caveat: My point of view on suicide is unorthodox and to some people very unsettling. Please keep that in mind before reading this post. Second, please note that I am not suicidal, I do not have suicidal tendencies, and I do not need therapy, well the last is probably debatable ;).


I didn't even know where to start with this novella. I loved it but was at the same time very bothered by part of its message. I had trouble grounding myself and deciding how much of it was commentary on Religion, particularly Christianity and Islam, and how much was just probing at existential questions. The blatant depiction of suicide bombers and Jesus make it difficult to ignore the religious references; however, as they seem to address more of a mainstream understanding or even stereotypical understanding of the religions I am not sure where or how to situate myself within that conversation. Consequently, I think I will focus more on the depiction of suicide and the implications surrounding such an act.

What bothered me most about this story was not its depiction of Jesus as a suicide, in fact I found that rather entertaining, or the failed hopes of the Muslim suicide bomber. What bothered me was the assumption of suicide as always condemnable. Thus Keret would be exposing the hypocrisy of Christianity and Islam, as those sacrificial figures (Jesus) or martyrs (Suicide bombers) are nothing more than common suicide victims. This does indeed as Katie said "pull the rug out from under" our common perceptions of those religions. The question remains where does this leave the act of suicide in general. Should one learn to always cling to life and make the most of this earth and accept death only when it comes naturally? It is in this question that I disagree with the conclusion the book seems to convey.

The suicides in this story are committed for religious reasons, cowardliness, unhappiness, and the inability to cope with what happens in life. These are, in my opinion, all deemed as condemnable reasons to end your prematurely. So heinous are these reasons for killing yourself, that you are forced to continue living in a world that is almost an exact replica of the one you tried to escape except that it is more mundane and detestable. What this says to me is you can not escape existence by any act of your own free will. Leehee is the champion of this point of view. She clings to life, and rather than see the negative aspects of life she is able to find happiness and pleasure despite the monotony of existence. She is the epitome of Albert Camus's statement "one must imagine Sisyphus happy." This story seems to say that you must find a way to be happy or at least content in this life because there is nothing better.

This notion that there is nothing better than this life to me is purely cultural socialization and survival instinct at work. To assume that suicide is always condemnable and life is always the better alternative leaves far too much grey area and this does not even broach the topic of how to decide what is a suicide and how do motives and/or intentions contribute to the definition of a suicide. Is a person who volunteers repeatedly to go to war and is finally killed considered a suicide? If a man who mistakenly believes he can save humanity and allows himself to be captured and killed is a suicide then surely the man who is willing to sacrifice himself for his country is no less suicidal. Further, what about those people with terminal illnesses, those cancer patients who have no hope of life, who live in constant pain, and decide death is better than this current existence? Even more complicated, what about those people who kill themselves for economic reasons? Look to the example of Father Time in Jude the Obscure, who kills himself and his siblings because his parents cannot afford to feed them. In these cases are not the intellectual gymnastics one would have to perform to find happy meaning in this life more delusional than deciding to end your life?

I feel we as humans often cling to life assuming it is the most desirable state of existence; the correct statement would be it is the only known state of existence. I further find that those who most condemn suicide are those who do not suffer with enough afflictions to be able to comprehend that nothingness, nonexistence, and the unknown hold the only hope of relief from the current state. I am not suggesting that suicide should not viewed as a tragedy and that those who are depressed should kill themselves instead of seeking help. I am, however, contesting that we should also look at whether our point of view on how suicide is understood is not just socialization and that further those who do commit suicide of any manner and for any reason are also victims of a socialization, it is just a different shade of socialization. Perhaps we should employ empathy in an effort to understand the motivations of suicide, thus we can either attempt to alleviate the hardships or understand the reasoning. Condemnation or judgment of suicide seems to me to be more a moral projection of an individuals cultural conditioning than a statement about the nature of suicide.

Jannissary

I decided to dabble in some research on the Janissaries because I knew nothing about the subject. As it turns out they were the first Ottoman standing army. According to Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge), the Ottomans were the only ones in Europe at the time to have a standing army. This is the part that grabbed my interest. I could not help but wonder if having a standing army added to the stereotype of a violent blood thirsty culture. Thus images of armed men who did not disband in times of peace gave a visual impression of a militarily and physically aggressive society.

Returning to the Jannissaries, they appear to originally have been prisoners of war or slaves. As time went on a devsirme system of recruitment was put in place. In this system, non-Muslim boys were taken from their families, possibly by force, and made to serve as a Jannissary. Sometimes this service of the son could be consider the feudal dues the family owed to the Sultan. The information on the page about the devsirme system says it was a way to humiliate non-Muslim families. I am not convinced of this statement, although this research is preliminary at best, it seems to me this is a way of passing on culture or enacting hegemony; however, considering the Janissaries were well paid, I am not sure humiliation is the correct description of the whole process. Jannissaries eventually became a lucrative position that sons of Muslim Turkish families were volunteered and the devsirme system was ended.

The Jannissaries became a strong political force. Those who were done serving would move onto positions in academia or the government. Eventually, they gained so much power they could control the Sultan. The famous Auspicious Incident, where the barracks housing the Jannissaries were fired upon killing about 4,000, saw the end of the Jannissaries. Those who were not killed in the Barracks were caught and executed later. It was been suggested that Mahmud II, the Sultan, was responsible for inciting this attack on the Jannissary.




This has been far from a comprehensive overview of this the Jannissary. What is interesting to me is the possibility of a standing army adding to the stereotype of a violent culture and the concept devsirme. It seems as though devsirme holds the possibility of being described as way to militarily homogenizing those people who are not a part of the dominant culture. This again would add to the idea of a violent culture and spread that idea if a person learns about the culture from inside a army. One could associate the violence with the culture as opposed to the nature of military or warfare in general.

Beaufort

After watching this moving I was not really sure what to think and I am still not really sure what to think. I was frustrated with the seeming ignorance or inconsideration on the part of the "command" in regards to the loss of life of the soldiers. Ziv, for example, seems well aware that he is going to die, that the bomb is most likely going to explode but yet those in charge do not seem to take this into consideration. Perhaps if this was a necessary road that needed to be clear, Ziv's death would seem less pointless. However, as it is later stated in the movie, the road was not that important.

I thought the movie achieved the goal of showing how war is futile. The fact that the soldiers are, for all practical purposes, guarding a large hill for mere ideological reasons and in doing so, waiting to be hit by missiles, leaves little room for one to argue the necessity of war. This particular example also strengthens the above idea that those in command are not concerned with the collateral damage, in this case soldiers, on the small scale.

Juxtaposed to the notion of the futility of war is Liraz's attachment to his assignment and to the ideology of Beaufort. Liraz is distraught at the idea of having to leave Beaufort. He loses his temper at his soldiers when they try to remove the dog and equipment from the station. Further in the middle of the movie, Liraz says he knows that he should abandon the station, that command's orders are not in the best interest of the soldier, but he says he physically is incapable of leaving. At another point in the film it is said that Liraz is just happy that they gave him a job as a commander. I would suggest that Liraz might be attached to having a purpose or feeling like he has a purpose. Thus by acting on his suspicions of command's poor judgment, Liraz risks losing his sense of direction in life. It's almost as if Liraz wants to buy into the ideology of Beaufort but he knows that doing so is just as meaningless as the war.

Overall, I am still not sure how I feel about this movie and I am quite sure there is something else going on that I am missing. I am not sure I would recommend it for viewing without also having some contextual information about the conflict between Lebanon and Israel.

Children of Gaza

The Image, the Icon and the Covenant

I am not going to write about my overall response to the book primarily because I feel like I do not have a precise reaction and there are too many elements in the novel that I like. However, I am going to momentarily digress from a strictly post-colonial theme and look at a part of the novel where Khalifeh seems to allude to Karl Marx and his view on religion.

In the section where Ibrahim first goes to meet Michael, Ibrahim thinks:


"I was filled with anger. This is the ambiance he created, feeding on people's ignorance, on the peasants' poverty, bleeding the misery of the needy. He was feeding them opium.."(113).

Marx famously said "religion is the opium of the masses." The parallel between what Ibrahim thinks Michael is doing to the people and Marx's opinion of what purpose religion serves to the people is hard to ignore. According to Marx, religion was a way for people to project their desires for this life onto the next. They were so focused on the next life that they could forget about the oppressions of this current life (sorry I'm paraphrasing Marx and his contemporaries). Thus religion provided a comfort and way for people to forget their present struggles. Instead of focusing on how to change the current situation people where focused on their next religious "hit" if you will, the next life, the next justification for their current suffering, the next time they could feel comfort and the next projection of happiness after death.

In Ibrahims's point of view, Michael and his Reike are doing this same thing. Michael is comforting and distracting people of their current sufferings. He is providing a type of opium. Ibrahim may be most distraught by this idea when he hears Michael talking to Sakineh after she is beat by her husband. Michael, through hypnotism, tries to relax and comfort Sakineh. The implication of this, however, is that the situation in which Sakineh lives will not change. Instead of looking for a way to alleviate the situation, Michael looks for a way to alleviate the present pain.

Perhaps what is also present is the idea that no one knows how to fix Sakineh's problem and the most they feel like they can do is provide a means to ease the suffering. The suggestion may be present that Marxism is not the answer to this problem.

Paradise Now

"Even worse they have convinced the world and themselves that they are victims. If they take on the role of oppressor and victim...then I have no other choice but to also be a victim...and a murderer."


Based on this thinking, Said is able to justify to himself the need for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. I found this scene to be crucial to the movie. The audience hears a personal justification for the taking of possibly innocent lives and killing oneself. Prior to the above quote, Said discusses how he feels imprisoned, how the world looks on passively and cowardly at the Palestinian situation. Said feels that the occupation exploits the weaknesses of people and manipulates them so that they behave in a weak manner that is not normally custom to their personality. This is culminated with Israel convincing the world that they are the victim. Said feels trapped. His only option to escape; thus, he must become a victim and a murderer. The remaining question asks how else can one combat both an occupier and a victim?

This scene comes after the scene with Suha and Khaled in the car, when Suha argues for peaceful options to end the occupation. She suggests that Israel cannot be justified in continuing its occupation and oppression if no one gives them a cause. Suicide bombings are ammunition for Israel to continue legitimizing their actions. What I find interesting is that Said's conversation with Abu Karem comes after Suha's argument with Khaled. Whether this placement suggests that Said's is a stronger argument than Suha's is debatable. I am not sure we are being asked to side with either Suha or Said but rather to empathize with them and understand that without the Israeli occupation there would not be a need for their opposing arguments.

Inside Fallujah

So I do believe I am the only one reading this book which and after reading part of it I almost wish I had picked the Baghdad diaries. Inside Fallujah is about a news crew that manages to get inside Fallujah and cover the American attack on the city. I will admit I was sadly misinformed about the role the mercenaries played in the Iraq War and the events that led up to the attack on Fallujah. The image of Iraqis burning and mutilating dead American bodies is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the image of American mercenaries harassing Iraqi civilians. The blatant disrespect of Iraqi custom that is depicted in this book is appalling. The resentment and anger on the part of the people in Fallujah seems justified. This part of the book is well thought out and not bothersome to me. What I am not impressed with is the author's, Ahmed Mansour, blatantly telling me what the Bush administration was feeling and thinking. I am not sure anyone can say with any level of certainty what the Bush Administration was feeling or thinking. I am angry and ashamed that our President behaved without consequence in such an undiplomatic and morally compromising manner. If one would like to postulate possible feelings or motivations on the part of the president that I would find acceptable but to tell the reader exactly how he was thinking and why is irritating to me.

The subject of mercenaries is also one that bothers me about this book. Mansour is willing to say that the American troops were a combination of both good and bad people. However, the mercenaries are assumed and argued to be ruthless and inhumane without exception. Perhaps this is the experience if the author and the people he interviewed. I do not believe that this sweeping generalization can be made. The mercenaries may have committed more atrocities than the American soldiers and in the name of money; but I would not universally categorize them as inhumane and ruthless.

The tone of this book is really what bothers me most. I feel the author strongly believes what he is writing and consequently I feel as though I am being manipulated to agree with his point. I am hoping that as the book continues this tone will lessen become more a story of the media crew's experience and less this person's editorial.