The Shiites celebrate a festival called Ashura in which they torture themselves (“beat and cut themselves with chains and knives in public rituals that leave the streets running with blood”)—it is coming up soon. The day before the festival started, there was a suicide bomber that fired a gun several times and then blew himself up and killing along with himself nine other people and wounding approximately 20 other people.
The film, Paradise Now, provided me a deeper understanding of why a person might possibly be willing to become a suicide bomber and causing things like this to happen. This movie gave me the impression that suicide bombers don’t really want to blow themselves up because of their own beliefs but more because of the pressure they feel from their authority. The movie portrays two ordinary people that are close friends. Life is pretty boring and could be better, but it’s not terrible—they have the basic food and shelter to live. They did feel trapped and hopeless, to a degree, about their current situation with
The portrayal of the Khaled and Said in the film totally shattered the image of the radical Muslim extremists that I often pictured in my head when reading articles such as this one on Littlegreenfootballs. On the other hand, the movie is a movie and it was a story about only two people out of the multitude of other previous suicide bombers. I can’t quite make up my mind on this matter, however, Paradise Now did indeed make me think and understand a little more why someone would be willing to bomb oneself up.
3 comments:
Interesting post on a tough issue. I think that you make good points on the surrounding pressures. I think the real question is what causes that pressure; how bad really is life there? And what are we doing to influence that pressure? Is there any link between the pressure on suicide bombers and US policy? Blowing yourself up is a last resort, and we need to be sensitive what is pushing Palistinians to that point.
I also thought that the movie touched on an important point that suicide bombers are in many ways a minority. Many Palistinians don't agree with the idea.
The movie sure puts a question mark beside the media-portrayed Muslim extremist suicide bomber. It's amazing what the media can put into our minds -- I doubt if anyone has a different version of the Muslim extremist in their minds before the movie. Being force fed with this version by the media for the last 6 years, we have associated many traits with Muslim 'extremists' that may or may not be true. We, too, are victims of propaganda.
It's nice that a movie was finally made to help the American people understand its 'enemy'.
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