Only a Film, but…

Tea it down

Only a Film, but…

February 3rd, 2009

This weekend I finally got round to watching ‘Grave of Fireflies’. After delaying watching Slumdog Millionaire because it’s rumoured to show a wee bit of child cruelty (ok, my friend told me everything, the whole shebang, she completely doesn’t understand such a thing as ’spoilers’). So that kind of put me off watching it - for now. After weeks of watching so many Gazan children suffering, I really can’t stomach it.

But what did I do? Watch something even worse. I love Studio Ghibli Anime films and have previously watched Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away. I knew this was grim and no fairy tale like the other two, yet I was unable to resist. It absolutely breaks your heart, because you know how real it all is.

Never, no war. I don’t want this to continue. Let this be our past, not present, nor future. It may have happened in my parents generation, my grandparents generation and so many times before that, but so long as my generation is on this earth - let us not allow for there to be war. What’s different this time is we people can talk much louder than the generations before us. If we’re loud enough maybe we can change the way things work up there, in the world of politics?

I’ve witnessed a lot of defeatist attitudes with regards to the Middle-East conflict, like; ‘Oh Palestine is doomed anyway’, ‘there is very little we can do’. Ok, granted, maybe you’re right BUT to a certain extent.

If you’re Muslim - continue reading, otherwise you probably won’t understand:

Why do we forget things like ‘Sadaqah Jaariyah’? Those countless tales of how fate can change by even the smallest of actions? Like how a lady of extreme evil who was seemingly destined to go to hell, yet she came across a thirsty dog, gave him water and thus changed her fate.

Who knows, tomorrow a doomed Palestine too may be able to stand again and prosper and become successful again, who knows? And I don’t mean that as a negative for Israelis, maybe they can co-exist (maybe Zionists (nay, ALL extremists) can just fuck off)? That’s exactly the charm you see, we don’t know. So why then are we so certain that something is destined towards doom? It’s never foolish to hope.

I remember talking to work colleagues recently saying what happened in Gaza is the worst thing to happen in ages. A colleage of mine snapped back ”how can you say that? What about the Tsunami and things like 9/11?”. I responded with; ”yes but the Tsunami was a natural disaster, and there was a huge global aid response and 9/11? That was bad but the perpetrators were a demonised handful of bad guys and America responded by attacking entire nations to compensate for it and did anyone ever say 9/11 was good? And that there were probably nothing but a bunch of mafia gangsters in the building or something?”. I then went on to explain how all the calamities against Gazans were being wrongly ”justified” because they were executed by a government which is deemed ‘legitimate’ and ‘do-no-wrong’ by the likes of her, how the heck can we expect people to give aid if they think it’s a good thing if Israel is ”pummeling those pests into the ground?”… and so on. Anyway, they just shut up right there. No I’m not proud of myself, I’m upset as to how I’m still having to explain why I supported the Palestinians and dared scrounge money off my work colleagues for that cause. They still won’t let it go. I won’t let it go either, this is my personal ’small thing’.

Palestine is only one example, I am talking of many places around the globe that are conflict-stricken including our very own Swat, the ghastly tales spinning out of that place these days are exactly that; ghastly, but true. But hey ‘what can we do, eh?’

Yada, yada, yada… anyway, I’m tired and need sleep. But please, those of you who think small things can’t make a difference, please mull over this one a little.

Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking of this for a while and switched on Aalim Online (urgh, I know) to see Junaid Jamshed as his guest (not so urgh after all) and again funnily enough he brought up exactly that topic; how small actions can change fate (both in a good and bad way). But please just let’s think of the good small changes for now.

About the film, if you’d like to read more on it, here’s an article by Sonya Rehman on it. Do read up on it and watch that film, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.