ohhh censorship...

I believe that the petitions regarding Paradise Now are complex, in part because the history of this conflict (and the continued actions of each side) are so complex themselves. I didn’t really agree whole-heartedly with either of them, though my overall stance is for the counter-petition—mainly because I am against the censorship of free dialogue and commentary. To me, as with the petitions for and against Paradise Now’s Oscar nomination, the fighting between Palestinians and Israelis is one in which it is impossible to “take a side.” (I’m discovering more and more that this is very often the case in conflicts such as this, once one is provided with a more complete, unbiased history.)

It is particularly hard to take a side, in any global conflict, with the knowledge of all the influence and politically driven prejudices one encounters in the media (and I guess is seemingly easier to take a side without this sense of distrust towards a biased, policy driven media.) Similarly, the controversy between Israel and Palestine is extremely complicated; the more violence that is committed, the more it is used in turn… and everyone thus becomes a villain. To quote Suha, “there’s no difference between victim and occupier if you kill…” “you keep giving Israel the excuse to fight with your violence.”

The original petition is concerned with the fact that the undersigned see the film as generally legitimizing Palestinian suicide bombers, making their actions seem valid to the viewer. They attest that the characters portrayed provide a humanized view of suicide bombers, which, according to the petition, thereby glorifies their ideology and the means by which they fight for it...

I just can’t even write anymore without first injecting my opinion that this is a fairly ludicrous argument. The petition goes on to note, “I watched the movie Paradise Now trying to understand what it is trying to say, what message it carries. That the murderer is human? He is not. That he has doubts? He has none. After all, he is willing to kill himself along with his victims.” How in the world can this writer make such absolute claims? Particularly when these elements were, in my opinion, exactly the film’s message.

Of course a murderer is human, they are capable of having doubts (and are likely to), and their motivations are of interest to people who would eventually like to see peace and are willing to think beyond violence to attain it. To ignore this, to argue absolutely against the fact that real, motivated people commit these acts in my opinion just promotes the continued stifling of any progress. To ignore the fact that such conflicts are complicated just makes it easy to decide who is “right” and keep things just the way they are.

For comparison’s sake, I wondered how many bonafide, Oscar winning movies glorify one side over another? And perhaps these films serve to validate a “side” that is more acceptable, which in turn makes their nomination and win at least tolerable to a majority… I did a quick internet search on Oscar winning films from 2001 and 2002 (in part because the films made during these years reflected the tumultuous times following September 11th, and the broadened base of attention towards terrorism and the conflicts in the Middle East… which I felt maybe prompted more pro-West storylines in major films, even more than usual.) Movies that made this list were Black Hawk Down, The Pianist, and Pearl Harbor. Since I haven’t seen any of these movies, and only know their general premises, I can’t say that I’m making a totally informed argument here… but my sense is that as long as a film portrays a side which MOST (American/Western) people agree is the “right” side, then the Oscar can be won with little conflict. (Two of these films glorify the actions of the United States in war, and the other shows the horrors of the Holocaust.) This is all pretty uncomplicated, argument wise: the United States—due much to the fact that they were participants in a war, regardless—committed violent acts against others. And yet, somehow humanizing those characters, the same who commit acts of violence against others, is okay… as long as most agree that they were in the right.

This then leads me to reflect on how one-sided our media coverage is regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict (duh,) and how maybe we’re a little touchier about seeing a side we don’t see much of… again, its easy to villainize a group of people if you don’t have to actually think of them as humans, with opinions and histories.

Ok, so my main question is, what’s wrong with a humanized view of humans? Isn’t education and knowledge the path to conflict resolution? If everyone continues to see through the people and only look at them as opposition, then the violent acts being committed would continue to be so much easier to carry out.

The original petition uses this humanizing view to strengthen its own plea: the petition writer’s young Israeli son was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber—this awful experience of loss is used as a basis for requesting a retraction of the Oscar nomination for this film. But using this logic, to suppress a point of view due to the fact that they have been involved with violent conflicts would be to censor almost the entire world. How many Palestinian mothers or fathers are mourning the loss of their child from a violent act of war? Please know, I certainly do not intend to seem as though I am diminishing the loss of this man’s son, because it is horrific and unimaginable to me… yet I feel it is important to note that seeing both sides of a conflict, and really connecting to their perspectives, is imperative to reaching a resolution.