Showing posts with label intolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intolerance. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 January 2022

Belfast – seeing The Troubles through a child’s eyes

Belfast, the semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, opens with what could be viewed as a rosy-tinted remembrance of life on a working-class terraced street in Northern Ireland’s capital in the late 1960s.

As nine-year-old Buddy returns home one summer evening, brandishing a wooden sword and a dustbin lid shield, playing at being the knight of his daydreams, the streets are full of children playing – ‘were there really so many children?’ you might think – while adults hang around chatting.

 

But just as you might be thinking that, a masked gang arrives to start a riot and things turn seriously nasty. They don’t care if children, women, the elderly – Protestant or Catholic – gets in the way.

 

Because this is August 1969, and the aim of the violence is really quite simple: to create a climate of fear that tells the Catholic residents on this mixed street that they must leave. Or terrorism, as we might call it.

 

The film shows a series of episodes in Buddy’s life at this time. His Pa (Jamie Dornan) is working in England as a joiner and can only visit every few weeks, so the family of Buddy (Jude Hill) and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) is held together by Ma (Caitríona Balfe), with help from grandparents Pop (Ciarán Hinds) and Granny (Judi Dench).

 

The character of Pa can feel like a bit of a type at times – he likes the horses to the detriment of the family finances, but he does also have greater complexity.

 

The family is Protestant but not particularly religious and gets along perfectly fine with its Catholic neighbours. However, as Pa continues to refuse the increasing threats of the local Protestant gang leader Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) to get involved in their sectarian ‘improvement’ of the area, the danger for the family, as to the community as a whole, grows.

 

And while it seems fanciful when Pa tries to suggest emigration to Australia or Canada to Ma, when he is offered permanent employment in England, with the prospect of better pay and better housing, the increasing threat moves them closer to a decision.

 

But for Ma – and for Buddy – the prospect of leaving their home, families, friends and much more is terrifying.

 

While Branagh’s film has already garnered awards and much praise, it has also been criticised in some quarters for being overly sentimental and for downplaying The Troubles.

 

I’m long enough in the tooth to remember reports from Northern Ireland – and of bombings in England. I remember bomb hoaxes at my girls’ grammar school on the outskirts of Manchester in the 1970s, when we would stand for ages in the cold while the fire brigade checked the building. Because you couldn’t afford to be casual.

 

I remember too, the revived IRA campaign – the bombs in the City of London, one of which rattled the windows of the flat that The Other Half and I shared, one evening when I was home alone. It was terrifying. And another on a morning when I looked out from our bedroom window and saw the cloud from the explosion rising around the Nat-West building, less than a mile away. The south-west of traditionally working-class Hackney is a stone’s throw from the City.

 

In other words, I most certainly would not play down the history of what happened.

 

But back to Branagh’s film specifically. It makes clear, for instance, that the British troops sent to Belfast to stop the violence seemed remarkably forgetful about who they were supposed to be protecting. It is full of the menace as it shows thugs taking over neighbourhoods and, tragically, dividing communities.

 

It nods to the role Protestant clergy played in the demonisation of their Catholic neighbours (and the hellfire-and-damnation sermon rings absolutely true for this daughter of an evangelical minister).

 

No, it is not some sort of Ken Loach take on Northern Ireland, but I suggest that, if it was, it would have fewer viewers overall, with the potential for less education of more general and less obviously politicised audiences. Perhaps some will actually go and read TA Jackson’s Ireland Her Own after seeing this?

 

Wikipedia describes it as a “comedy-drama”, but while there are some laughs, I think this completely downplays what Branagh has achieved. The Troubles are still raw – see Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement – and I think that this opens up the possibility for a wider audience to perhaps see it differently.

 

Plus, sectarianism and bigotry is as big a problem as ever, across the world. Just as Taika Waititi’s 2019 comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit viewed Nazism from a child’s perspective, and pointed up how children are taught – groomed – into intolerance, so this views the situation in Northern Ireland through a child’s eyes. Yet in avoiding adult sophistication, it makes similar points very clearly. And one could add that, for many English audiences in particular, it might be a slight surprise to see who the thugs are.

 

But back to this film. The cinematography from Haris Zambarloukos is wonderful. The use of music from Van Morrison works perfectly, the decisions on the use of occasional colour are interesting and Branagh’s use of pop cultural references works well.

 

On the performances, there is not a bad one to be seen, but perhaps the big plaudits go to Hill who is remarkable in the central role, and Balfe, who gives a powerhouse turn. Hinds and Dench offer the sort of support grounded in their vast experience and abilities that one would expect.

 

All in all, very much worth seeing.


Saturday, 18 January 2020

Jojo Rabbit – savaging propaganda and bigotry

Have you ever noticed how, at the cinema when the certificate is shown on screen, it will include keywords about the film’s content: ‘moderate violence’ or ‘mild swearing,’ it will tell you, for instance.

It’s difficult to know why this happens, since people have already made the decision to shell out their hard-earned and take their seat.

Does anyone ever leave on seeing this ‘guidance’?

Before Jojo Rabbit, the first word that pops up with the certificate – and which I’ve not personally noticed before – is “discrimination”. Which is amazing really, given that this is a film about the Nazis, propaganda and bigotry.

As the opening titles make clear, it’s “an anti-hate satire”.

But if you survive such a warning, then Johannes ‘Jojo’ Betzler is a 10-year-old boy living with his mother in Nazi Germany in the latter stages of the second world war.

Jojo has fallen hook, line and sinker for all the nationalism and bigotry with which he’s been pumped by the system – in spite of his mother clearly not agreeing with any of it. But his invisible friend, a childish Hitler, eggs him on.

A member of the Hitler Youth, he earns the sobriquet Jojo Rabbit after he finds himself unable to kill a rabbit as ordered at a youth camp.

But then Jojo finds out that his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl in their home – and slowly he finds that the propaganda he’s been fed is being challenged.

Taika Waititi had wanted to bring the story, based on Christine Leunens’s novel, Caging Skies, to the screen for years. Now he’s done it and the wait has been worthwhile.

In spite of having written the screenplay, directed and co-produced it – and played Hitler – Waititi (whose maternal grandfather is of Russian-Jewish heritage) never lets himself get in the way.

It’s frequently very, very funny, but never loses sight of the main aims: to throw a spotlight on the utter crassness of intolerance, the real dangers of nationalism, fake news and propaganda – and the impact of all these on children.

A little aside here.

A German friend, himself born in 1946, once told me how, in 1945, a 16-year-old cousin was on the front line to defend his home town against the allies.

Fully indoctrinated, he waited in a trench, his gun sights trained on the advancing US forces. Then he realised that a young American soldier was looking down his own sights at him.

Clarity cut through the propaganda and he realised that, just as he did, the American probably only wanted to go home to his mother. The teenage German threw down his weapon and threw up his hands.

Tragically, many more boys – and girls – did not reach such a conclusion. And perhaps it needs noting that a 16-year-old in 1945 had been just four when Hitler had come to power.

It was an anecdote that I remembered forcefully when watching Waititi’s film. Today, we’d know that what happened to my friend’s cousin and what happens to Jojo and his friends is ‘grooming’.

There are plenty of laughs, but it’s never at the expense of the humane message and indeed, I suggest taking tissues, because there are a couple of real couple of kicks to the gut that bring home the importance of the message.

It’s an excellent cast. Scarlett Johansson is a revelation as Jojo’s mother. Thomasin McKenzie as Jewish teenager Elsa is vulnerable yet strong – and (importantly) never plays the character as a ‘victim’.

Sam Rockwell gives a very nice performance as Wehrmacht officer Captain Klenzendorf, who has been ‘demoted’ to running Hitler Youth camps after losing an eye in the war.

Stephen Merchant has a cameo as a suitably sinister comic book Gestapo officer, while Rebel Wilson turns in a similarly fine cameo as Fräulein Rahm, a Hitler Youth camp instructor who spouts the most ridiculously extreme anti-Semitic propaganda.

Waititi’s own turn as Hitler is also very good – as is that of Archie Yates as Jojo’s friend Yorkie.

But to a large extent, the film rests on the 12-year-old shoulders of Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo himself – and it is a remarkable performance of enormous nuance.

And just a brief mention for the incredibly clever weaving in of pop culture references – keep your eyes peeled – which are not gratuitous but add to the whole.

Waititi has done something remarkable with Jojo Rabbit: in so many ways, you tell yourself it shouldn’t work. But in its irreverence and it’s sense of fun, it is perhaps one of the most deeply serious movies of our times and its message could hardly be more important.

Superbly entertaining – and with a deeply significant message.

Monday, 15 July 2019

Walks of witness, steps free of shame

Placard protesting against the homophobic laws of the
Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, who, in true
Freudian style, has ‘anal’ as part of his name
Last Friday was Whit Friday – a day that means little throughout most of the UK but which, in parts of the North West of England, has great cultural significance.

In the morning, members of local Christian churches march through their town in a walk of witness, usually with banners for each church (think a religious version of trade union banners) and sometimes with a brass band from, say, a local school.

In the afternoon – in Mossley at least – there’d be games at the local football ground. In the evening, there’d be the band contests, where brass bands would travel from town to town, à la Brassed Off, competing in each contest before travelling to the next one.

For eight years, when my family lived in the Tameside region, I would have the day off school. I’d march with my father’s church, enjoy the games and then hang around outside the church itself while the bands marched in and out of St Joseph’s school yard to perform.

Eight years was the longest we spent anywhere when I was growing up: the sound of brass bands is woven into my being.

Yours Truly
My last Whit walk was 40 years years ago on Friday 8 June, 1979.

This year, on 6 June, I took part in what was, in many ways, another walk of witness and my first such one: London Pride.

I’d thought about going to Pride before – only as a member of the crowd, mind – but then somehow just never got around to it.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that I was afraid of being outed to the only two people I was in contact with whom I wasn’t out – my parents. My father had, back in those Mossley days, carefully nurtured an awareness in me that people who knew him would see me doing things and report.

Trafalgar Square
It happened at least once that I can specifically remember now, about something ridiculously innocuous, but it was an idea that lingered. I don’t think that such things leave you easily, even if you cease to be consciously aware of them.

I never told Mother and Dad that I was bisexual: by the time I’d come out to myself, I wondered what the point would be: wouldn’t it just risk seriously upsetting them, given their attitudes toward sexuality – and sin?

A few days before this year’s Pride, a work email newsletter arrived in my inbox, announcing that there were spare places with our organisation’s contingent for the parade itself. I took the opportunity. It seemed an apt moment too, as I work through some of the things that have risen to the surface in the tumult of dealing with both parents’ deaths since 2017, plus my own cancer diagnosis last year.

The day of Pride, I got to Portland Place in good time, but realising that, in olive linen trousers, walking shoes and a branded UNISON t-shirt, I was woefully underdressed. So I picked up a little rainbow clip-on bow tie. I was still underdressed, but not quite as much so.

Steampunky Gothy greetings
The atmosphere was almost overwhelming. As an old friend noted to me later on Facebook, you feel surrounded by warmth and good feelings. I have never experienced anything like it. It was extraordinary to have people reach out from the massive crowd (an estimated 1.5 million on the streets of London) to high five as they wished you the best.

There was plenty of outré behaviour and attire – and I like that: I adore the transgressive nature of drag, for instance.

And off course, it was less than a week into my One Million Steps Challenge, so perfectly suited.

Perfectly suited too, for being not simply a utilitarian walk.

Some ask why Pride is needed these days. Well, when you hear and read of rising homophobic and transphobic attacks, you realise why.

When you read of the protests against the No Outsiders programme being taught in Birmingham schools, you understand why Pride is necessary.

Indeed, just today, it’s been reported that the government has been accused of being “too slow” to tackle the issue – and support the school: accused by the woman tasked with tackling extremism.

‘God is love’
But now, it seems that the protests by some Muslim parents, on the grounds of their religious beliefs, against teaching children that all people are equal, are encouraging others.

According to this report, a group called Catholic Family Voice has been set up near Glasgow by a woman who describes herself as “excited” by what’s been happening in Birmingham. Another woman has been individually leafleting schools on the issue, aiming to disrupt, essentially, while the founder of The Values Foundation makes it clear that she doesn’t ‘value’ equality.

There’s no way that people of faith will teach it’s OK to be gay,” she said. “They won’t because the Bible tells us it isn’t OK to be gay.”

Yes. And the Bible tells us that we should do an awful lot of things that these people would not remotely suggest were appropriate these days.

It’s also worth noting at this juncture, that plenty of people of faith have no problem with the spectrum of sexuality, just as plenty of people of faith acknowledge that evolution is real.

But that’s as maybe. The point here is simple: it might seem that LGBT+ people have equality – in law, at least. But while they continue to be attacked, simply for being who they are and loving who they love, then the struggle is far from over.

I‘ll go with this
In many ways, in terms of a practical, day-to-day level, it’s not been particularly difficult for me: despite being out to people in my daily life, I’ve been in a relationship with a straight, male Other Half for 30 years (he knew before I recognised it myself), so people comfortably make assumptions and frankly, I’ve no interest in making my sexuality the subject of every first conversation with someone.

But almost four decades to the day since I last took a walk of witness – and now, not because I had no choice, but because I wanted to – I walked again.

In times like these, with the rise of the far-right revealing again the attitudes that gave rise to the pink triangle – the symbol stitched onto the concentration camp uniforms of LGBT+ inmates in Nazi Germany – witness is vital.

This year is also the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, with all that began. Our history is important.

So too is showing solidarity with those still being persecuted and even being killed: four LGBT refugees from Syria had finally arrived in the UK a couple of days before Pride. Finally, they could experience what it means to be out.

And it is also vital to say, as MP Angela Eagle recently did in a speech about the Birmingham schools protests: “We aren’t getting back in the closet”.

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

Soyons tous caricaturistes: let us all be cartoonists


Today’s massacre in Paris has sent shockwaves around the world. Eight journalists, a visiting economist, a maintenance worker and two policemen were killed simply for doing their jobs.

For the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, that job was poking fun at whatever they considered needed it.

They sailed closed to the wind of taste on more than one occasion – and on more than one subject – but offending taste is not a crime and never should be.

There had been threats and an arson attack on the magazine previously. And all apparently because some people don’t like you to question their beliefs – particularly not when there’s a big god geezer involved somewhere.

Already, one or two commentators have suggested that the journalists brought it on themselves.

In other words, that they shouldn’t poke fun at certain things. Well, probably not religion in general and certainly not Islam, which has a minority of followers who get very, very offended if they feel that their particular version of a spiritual comfort blanket has been insulted.

Some have suggested that you can critique religious belief and attitudes in a way that is rational and calm and that Charlie Hebdo didn’t do that.

Indeed it didn’t. But that is to forget that satire is a long-standing part of European culture as a whole – possibly even more so in the UK.

And if satire is a valid form of literature/art/debate, then no subject should be exempt from its reach.

A very simple truth remains: no matter how savage a cartoonist is in ink, it’s ink – not blood.

Our thoughts should be with the loved ones of those who were murdered in Paris today, including the two policemen in the street outside the Charlie Hebdo offices, and with those who were critically injured.

To suggest those journalists were to blame is to utterly miss the point: nothing should be sacred.

There should never, ever be a right to not be offended.

Yes, any and all have the right to believe what they wish: but they have no right to force their beliefs on anyone else and they have no right to demand that everyone else adhere to their particular interpretation of whatever cult they happen to link themselves to.

And let us ensure that the terrorists do not win: in other words, let us never be cowed into refusing to moderate our criticisms through fear, because that would mean that the terrorists would have triumphed.

So let us all be cartoonists.


* Edited on 8 January to clarify the positions of those killed.