All these movies seem to be revolving around the effects of wrong political ideologies in the society. Politicians are more concerned with their personal interests than the people they represent. These dirty politics have triggered enmity between citizens leading to civil wars. In these wars, innocent civilians are the bearers of the entire burden. They brutally kill and maim each other. There is widespread insecurity in their countries and this drives them away into refugee camps where they starve and suffer a lot. The greedy politicians blindly partner with intruders and choose to neglect the interests of their citizens. The external powers influence and use them to exploit their countries’ resources. The main driving forces behind these civil wars are external influences, religious conflicts, terrorism, betrayal and racial prejudice. (Collier 212 )
The movies relate developed world with the civil conflicts that have grown roots in many third world countries. The external powers meddle into these young nations’ affairs with hidden motives. In the Earth, western influence disturbs the peaceful and harmonious Indian population. It fuels the civil strife that torn the nation apart. Western powers lured some powerful Indian men to sign treaties that they little understood. These treaties sealed the Indians’ fate without their knowledge. Once signed, the treaties bound every Indian citizen and their lives never remained the same again. They started living in fear as shown by the two Indian friends. In the end, they decide to seek refuge elsewhere. (Ethridge and Handelman 516)
The Black Hawk Down is yet another result of the West’s indulgence into the third world’s affairs. US sent her troops into the Islamic country of Somalia to assist the poor starving citizens get humanitarian assistance from the United Nations. They claimed that Somali leadership under Aideed blocked this help from reaching the starving citizens. However, evidence shows that what people perceived as patriotism is actually a hidden agenda of drilling the country’s oil. Somali location is also at a strategic position in the Arabian Sea. (Sanei 13)
Hotel Rwanda is another movie that shows the onset and impacts of civil wars in Rwanda. This is also another case of foreign influence on developing countries. This movie describes how Europeans came to Rwanda and created divisions between African communities based on skin tone and nose width. Those Europeans claimed to offer the Rwanda citizens assistance. This help was never for free and they had to pay a price for it. The Rwandese plunged into war, genocide and political unrest that traumatized the whole country. The Hutus and the Tutsis murdered each other in cold blood and thousands of dead bodies filled the roads. The Rwandan citizens realized the truth when it was very late. A lot of harm had unfolded in their midst. Europeans never accorded them value that they attached to their glamorous appeal. Rwanda is thus plunged into a pool of sadness helplessness, fear and regrets. The Europeans were only selfishly tried to push their interests down the throats of the Rwanda people. They exploited the philosophy of divide and rule. (Allan and Thompson 256)
The Last Emperor is a true Chinese story that narrates how the Japanese used Emperor Aisin-Gioro Puyi to gain their interests. Puyi becomes an emperor at a very tender age of 3 years. He is inexperienced and has to rely on aides to rule the Chinese Republic. He soon realizes that not everybody in his palace supports him. He does an overhaul in his palace so as to clear the mess. However, warlord Feng Yuxiang successfully chases him away and he gets refuge in Japan. The Japanese later on take over Manchukuo and prefers Puyi as the new emperor. This is because they realized that only Puyi could be submissive to their demands. They force Puyi to sign series of documents that favored the Japanese cruel military combat during the World War II. At the end of this war, Puyi is captured by the Russians and denied royal treatment.
Terrorism is also another major factor behind bloodshed in most of these movies. Terror activities against Christians and the Jews have claimed may lives in these movies. The masterminds of these terrorism activities are portrayed by the movie makers as the Muslim community. Terrorist attacks always target their perceived enemies mostly the non-Muslims. The terrorists attack their targets either directly or through suicide bombers.
True Lies and Rules of Engagement are criticized by the Arabs for portraying them as Public Enemy. According to these critics, the movies portray them as heartless, brutal and primitive uncivilized who aim at hurting non-Muslim society. However, the truth of the matter in these movies is that they show the episodes of direct and suicide bombers on US and her premises and their perceived enemies. Most of the terrorist attacks on US premises and embassies have been in one way or the other linked to the two Muslim terror groups: Taliban and Al-Qaida. Nearly all the terrorist attacks, starting from the April 18th 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut that killed 63 people to the September 12, 2012 rocket attack have been praised by these terror groups. For instance, the 1998 simultaneous bomb explosions in the east African capitals in Kenya and Tanzania were planned by the Al-Qaida which is an Islamist group. (Forest 103). These attacks brought down tall buildings in the cities of Nairobi and Der es Salaam in Kenya and Tanzania. The 1998 series of bombings on US embassies of killed hundreds of people.
The assassination of Gandhi in his own country is a form of betrayal and treason. He fought had for the solidarity of the Indian people. He also relentlessly tried to bring together the fighting Hindu and Muslim communities. With all this in his legacy, he did not deserve to die this way. This assassination is a form of terrorism that works within a person’s homeland. It comes from a careful plot from betrayers with evil minds.
Religious conflict is another factor fueling political unrest. The Muslim and Christian communities always rub shoulders. The Rules of Engagement and True Lies are movies that clearly explain religious conflict and racial prejudice in our society. Muslims embrace violence against non Muslims. Their grouped which are based on the Muslim faith terrorize their victims either directly or through suicide bombers. Furthermore, these groups have always publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks on US soil and premises abroad. This has made the public perceive Muslims as heartless, brutal and primitive religious maniacs who only think of terrorizing civilized Christians and Jews. Even though these movies are fictitious, they use villain characters that portray the realities of Muslims. They are always bent on hurting innocent people out of no good reason. Christians therefore, associate Arabs with terror activities while the Muslim community views them as their haters. (Matthews 313)
Religious discordance is also evident in the Indian movie Gandhi. After India gains her independence, Gandhi finds it difficult to reconcile the hostile Hindu and Muslim populace of India and Pakistan respectively. To reduce this tension, he has to declare hunger strike. This helps in reducing bloodshed that had started between the two cruel groups. (Aiyar 82)
Unrest that prevail the movies is also as a result of racial prejudice and tribalism. In the movie Gandhi, racial discrimination is the starting point for Mahatma Gandhi’s problems. People throw him out of the train because he is an Indian and has a colored skin. This clearly shows how Africans discriminate against the Indians. According to Aiyar 83, Gandhi did not like this racial prejudice and he had to do something. He starts a peaceful campaign and protest to demand equal right for all races in South Africa. His preaching on non-violent and no-cooperation principles puts the British in South African power at risk. He goes ahead to make fools of the British rule by producing and selling salt against which was monopolized by the British. This monopoly is also a creation of racial prejudice. The British regards Indians as primitive and they cannot entrust them with the production and sale of salt. This hurts the British more and more.
In the Hotel Rwanda, Hutus and the Tutsis are two different tribes that draw swords on each other. They have been driven to this situation by the European activities in Rwanda. Rwandans are brutally murder each other based on tribal lines. This leads to massacre that leaves thousands of bodies lying on the roads and fields. Ethnicity is a very volatile concept that can drive our societies into tensions. This is what ripped apart the Rwandan community. (Thompson 265)
In conclusion, the main films in this course talk about poor governance and ill-motivated external connections. Tribes rise against tribes and what follow is mass killing of people. Again, betrayal from the developing countries has denied such citizens good leaders as they get assassinated by those who think they are not good leaders. All this leaves them with sad memories regrets.
Works Cited
Aiyar, Mani Shankar. A Time of Transition: Rajiv Gandhi to the 21 Century. New Dehli:
Penguin Books India, 2009.
Annan, Allan Thompson and Kofi. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Ed. Allan Thompson.
Kampala: Fountain Publishers IDRC, 2007.
Collier, Paul. Understanding Civil War: Africa. Ed. Nicholas Sambanis Paul Collier. illustrated.
Washington DC: World Bank Publications, 2005.
Dragan, Antulov. Internet Movie Database. 1998. Thursday 24 January 2013
Forest, James J. F. Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century: International
Perspectives. Vol. 3. USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.
Marcus E. Ethridge and Howard Handelman. Politics in a Changing World: A Comparative
Introduction to Political Science. 6. Canada: Cengage Learning, 2011.
Matthews, Warren. World Religions. 7. Belmont: Cengage Learning, 2011.
Sanei, Jabril. "Somalia: The Long Struggle for National Unity." Green Left Weekly 3 March
2004.
