Or, some thoughts after viewing V for Vendetta
I've just watched the movie V for Vendetta. Before I say anything concerning the movie I'm going to give you a link to what is perhaps the most sanctimonious, patronising, self-satisfied review in the history of movie reviews. As I read it I doubted I and the reviewer had seen the same movie (Link). However, there's nothing unusual in that for me. When I still lived in the UK I used to base my choice of what movies to watch on the depth of loathing on the part of professional reviewers for any given film. 99% of the time, what they hated I loved. The same is true of V for Vendetta.
First, a little backstory that Americans may be unaware of. In the UK the 'V' sign has a long and distinguished history dating back centuries to our nearly incessant wars with the hated French. Even today, in these times of European Union and polical correctness, every true Englishman loathes the French on the basis of a natural instinct. As I have often said, France would be a wonderful country if it wasn't occupied by the French.
Th 'V' is formed by holding the index and middle fingers erect. With the back of the hand facing outwards and away from the body it's an insult, derived from the fact that the French hated and were terrified by English longbow men who used those two fingers to draw back their arrows and release them. In effect it means 'F*ck you, I can still kill you'. It's other usage is far more recent, dating back to Churchill and the second world war. In this form the same two fingers are used but the palm faces outwards. It can be used to mean 'peace' or 'victory'. Personally, I prefer the former version to the latter.
The central character of the movie, 'V', is a terrorist/freedom fighter/hero whose true name and face is never revealed. Instead he wears a mask meant to be a stylised reproduction of the features of Guido 'Guy' Fawkes who in 1605, along with a group of fellow Catholic conspirators plotted to kill the Protestant king James the First, along with his Parliament, by destroying Westminster Palace (known to Americans and others as the 'Houses of Parliament') by detonating 36 barrels of gunpowder placed in the Palace's cellars. Guido Fawkes was discovered in the cellars shortly before he was to have detonated the gunpowder, arrested, tortured, convicted and then hung, drawn and quartered, the remains of his body being dumped on a local midden.
He was the most sensible man ever to have entered Parliament - and look what happened to him, poor bastard.
He was discovered on the night of 4th/5th November 1605, and ever since his death the night of the 5th of November has seen the celebration of 'Bonfire Night', in which effigies of the poor sonofabitch are burnt on top of large fires. These are usually accompanied by firework displays, often organised by municipal authorities, though private Bonfire Night parties are held up and down the country also. I've never been certain whether the point of the ritual was to celebrate the discovery of the plot and subsequent saving of James I and his Parliament; or to commemorate and lament its failure. According to the national mood in Britain at the moment (where Blair and his party are almost universally loathed and are headed toward utter defeat at the next General Election) the next Bonfire Night will serve the latter and not the former purpose.
So much for the history of the actual Guy Fawkes.
'V' the character is unashamedly a terrorist - or a freedom fighter - in a Britain that's depicted as a cross between the 'Airstrip One' of George Orwell's classic '1984' and a commercial dystopia reminiscent of Wal-Mart on acid. Everyone is well fed, well clothed, well housed. No one wants for anything. At the opening of the movie, it's revealed that America, as a consequence of involvement in some catastrophic war, has lost its hegemonic position and sunk so low as to be forced to beg England (the word 'Britain' never appears in the movie) for food aid. It's implicit in the text of the movie that England has returned to its former position (in the days of the British Empire) as a major player in world events, if not actually occupying the position once belonging to America.
England is a Dictatorship, ruled by a High Chancellor (an entirely fictious political role), his Secret Police (known as 'fingermen') and the Armed Forces. While everyone has sufficient to satisfy their material needs, everyone is known, everyone is watched, everyone is subject to detention without trial, torture, incarceration, execution, at the whim of the government. This may seem far-fetched to those Americans that believe the UK to be a democracy very much like their own - but that's a fond illusion born of ignorance, than which nothing could be further from the truth.
The UK has no written constitution. When Blair was first elected back in the late 90s he and his party caused the European Convention on Human Rights to be incorporated within British law; they also created a Freedom of Information Act (though very much more limited in scope than the American Freedom of Information Act). Anyone who follows the British press will know that, in these latter years of Blair's tenure, both have been routinely abrogated at every opportunity.
Furthermore, Blair is attempting to force through Parliament an Identity Card scheme that will include biometric data and which will be part of a national 'security database' that will take cognizance of every kind of personal economic activity (that will for example have mandatory access to the personal banking details of every 'citizen'), that will have mandatory access to the health records of every citizen; that is in fact the most far-reaching and invasive scheme of its type anywhere in the world. To this draconian and totalitarian attempt ought to be added the omnipresence in British towns of Closed Circuit Television Cameras (all of which are linked directly to the central police stations responsible for each locality) as well as Blair's recent attempt to force through Parliament a Bill which would have allowed Ministers of the Government to re-write laws without consulting Parliament first (in other words, by Ministerial fiat and without democratic oversight) and you can see that the movie will have a particular resonance with British audiences that it will not have for Americans.
To all of this ought to be added the London subway attacks of July 7th, the rising animosity towards and fear of Muslims generally, and the campaign against, and vilification of, migrants of all types which Blair's government has conducted (in the name of a genuine popular concern) ever since it came to power.
Britain is ripe for the reception of this movie, and while I've no doubt that here in America it will cause questions to be asked as to the nature of 'terrorism', the proper limits of private action against the state, and others beside - those questions will be asked in Britain with a particular vehemence and sense of urgency that Americans are not likely to share. I predict that V for Vendetta will be a runaway success in Britain, because it resonates on any number of levels with immediate and deeply felt concerns.
Despite the failure of the reviewer in the linked article to appreciate it, 'V' is a deeply ambiguous moral figure. He resorts to a comprehensive violence that includes many innocent bystanders as its victims because, for him, there is no legitimate way to secure the demise of an oppresive and dictatorial regime. A regime that came to power (so the movie reveals as it progresses) through the most hateful means imaginable (which I won't reveal here). A regime which gave birth to 'V' through subjection to a program of experimental torture designed to create the means which led to the regime's institution in the first place.
Through the deliberate manipulation of public terror the 'High Chancellor' created the circumstances necessary for the English to believe that dictatorship was the only possible alternative to chaos. Here in America the manipulation of public terror has been used to legitimate the creation of political instruments such as the Patriot Act, as well as to gain acceptance for and toleration of institutions such as the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and for acts such as the interception of private telephone calls made by American citizens.
As in the movie, fear is the prime motivator of politics and the prime justification for acts that would not otherwise be tolerated.
'V' recognises that, if his vendetta against the British State is to succeed, if it's to have any chance of succeeding, the lives of innocents will have to be sacrificed along the way. He bombs public buildings. He takes hostages and brings about their deaths (where he doesn't kill them by his own hands in order to leave no evidence). He tortures. He murders. He is the exact representation of everything we are being taught to hate, fear, and condemn. And yet his dilemma is made clear - in order to bring an end to evil he must do evil - and nothing justifies what he does except the end to which his acts are directed. Acts which receive increasing popular approval as the movie progresses toward its apocalyptic climax.
When the movie 'Independence Day' was released in America I heard reports that the scene in which the White House was destroyed by the aliens was received with cheering by cinema audiences around the country. If you've seen the TV trailers for V for Vendetta you already know that the Houses of Parliament are destroyed - I predict that that scene will elicit a similar reaction among the British - and with greater justification since the current regime there is regarded by large swathes of the population as the enemy of democracy and of the people, notwithstanding Blair's constant claim that he and his party are all good guys and therefore to be trusted. The devastation that man and his lickspittle lackeys have wreaked on British politics is utterly unknown here. Blair is not a good man.
The main question the movie forces us to ask is not 'Who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter?', because very often the two are exactly the same. The question it forces us to consider is 'Who is the good terrorist?' And that can only be decided by a consideration of the ends to which terrorist acts are directed. The criminal or 'evil' terrorist is one whose acts of violence are directed toward personal gain. The perfect example of the criminal terrorist is the offshoot groupings which are the descendants of the IRA in Northern Ireland. Though this is a fact virtually unknown in America, both Republican and 'Loyalist' groups in Northern Ireland remain actively engaged in punishment beatings, cross-border smuggling of drugs, cigarettes and gasoline, prostitution, money-laundering and any number of other conventionally criminal acts. Their 'long war' is over and they have transformed themselves, on both sides of the religious divide, into gangs of common-or-garden criminals. They have lost their political motivation, their political vision, and have no interest but personal gain.
'V' on the other hand is a good terrorist. He has no interest in personal gain. He sacrifices everything he values to free himself and others from tyrrany, his violence is directed at the overthrow of those who possess an otherwise overwhelming monopoly upon the means of violence. He fights fire with a fire of his own and his rectitude is confirmed, in the movie, by the degree to which his actions attain popular approval. Does anyone else see parallels with a contemporary terrorist group? Both Hamas and Hezbollah fit neatly within this category - they are both groups of good terrorists in this sense.
Whatever the movie's merits as an artistic event (and I think it has much merit as a work of art) its chief value lies in pointing out this hopelessly grey area - the terrorist/freedom fighter as an amoral moralist, a practitioner of vicious virtue. 'V' inspires love in the woman he tortures and deceives. He inspires respect and admiration in the populace that he ruthlessly sacrifices to his political vision. He inspires hatred and fear in tyrants and their agents, and does so by dispensing the simplest and most straightforward form of justice.
And the movie makes patently obvious a fact that politicians of every sort wish to hide from the populations they govern - that the definition of a terrorist or a freedom fighter is no simple matter but one of perception and preference. It elucidates, in the clearest way, just why it is that groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah command such a degree of popular support - despite the fact that the populations who support them suffer drastically as a consequence of their acts.
The good terrorist is one who makes war against the instruments of oppression in the name of a political vision of the greater good. The bad terrorist is one who serves nothing but his own interests, and is prepared to sacrifice others in the name of nothing but his greed.
Of course, most of those reading this will deny that a 'good terrorist' is anything but a contradiction in terms. Let them remember that, before the creation of the State of Israel, Ben Gurion and other Zionists were actively involved in attacks against the British Mandate forces in Palestine, attacks that included the killing of British servicemen. Were they terrorists or freedom fighters? Since they fought against what they perceived as an illegitimate political form, and in the interests of the future people of Israel, they were good terrorists, or, if you prefer, freedom fighters. I don't doubt, however, that the widows and orphans left behind as a consequence of these killings would call them, simply, murderers and terrorists.
Remember these complexities next time you watch O'Reilly or some other talking-head inveighing against the evils of terrorism, and extolling the virtues of those who carry out the same kind of acts in the name of self-defence. Remember that Israel, that darling of America's political elite, was born out of the struggle of good terrorists to free themselves from the tyrrany of the British - just as Hamas and Hezbollah struggle to free themselves from the tyrrany of Israel.
It's only by being aware of these contradictions, of the depth of the agon between conceptions of justice and freedom, justice and tyrrany, that the human condition has any hope of redemption. The fact that the movie illuminates this struggle, that it illuminates the tragic nature of human existence in a way comprehensible to the simplest mentality, is its true value as a work of art.