Film: An Independent Mind (2008), by Rex Bloomstein
An Independent Mind is a film by Rex Bloomstein that showcases 7+1 people that fight for freedom or liberty around the world. His IMDB profile has not been updated yet with this film, however you can read the details of the eight people at the English Pen.
While watching the film, I tried to make a mental route throught the countries when these people come from. In addition to this, I tried to find similarities between the cases.
The movie starts with Mali and the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire). In 1999 there was a coup in the Ivory Coast, and a new ruler comes in power promising change. Soon enough, he does not deliver and appears to be transformed to a dictator. The critics are silenced by death squads and Tiken Jah Fakoly, singer and songwriter flees the country to Mali to save himself. From there, he writes songs against corruption and he appears to be very popular in West Africa and Europe. Several of the West African countries used to be colonies of France, and French is spoken throughout this segment of the film. It would be interesting to investigate if there is any involvment of France in the coup in Ivory Coast, or whether the current situation is self-inflicted.
Then, the film jumps to Burma (Myanmar) and the Moustache Brothers. They are a comedic trio from Mandalay, north of Burma, who have been for many years under house arrest by the military regime. Similarly to Tiken Jah Fakoly, they are criticizing the regime in their comedy acts and are forbidden to perform. In practice, they perform illegally to tourists in their house and we are shown such a performance in the film. Two of the brothers served in a labour camp for almost six years because they performed for the political leader Aung San Suu Kyi where they criticised the government. Aung San Suu Kyi is in house arrest in the old capital of Burma since many years ago. Currently, only two of the brothers maintain a moustache.
Continuing east, we move to China and Mu Zimei, a female blogger who maintained an online diary of her sexual encounters. In the conservative Chinese society, her blog had been extremely popular. The Chinese government felt that she was corrupting the morality of the people and took actions to silence her. She was forbidden from writing, was not allowed to publish a book with her blog material, and lost her job as a journalist. The living standards in China have improved tremendously and families have a single child which would get the full attention and possibly get spoilt. Although not mentioned specifically in the film, it appears that the new generation in China is very open to sexual encounters while just the previous generation was too conservative. In the film, Mu Zimei mentions that some women and girls would use her name as an excuse to their multiple sexual encounters. I feel that the silencing of Mu Zimei did not contribute to a change in attitude in China. Instead of dealing with the issue, the Chinese government appears to try to postpone the inevitable.
Back to Africa and Algeria, where Ali Dilem, a political cartoonist is being persecuted for criticising the government. He currently is about to stand trial for 10 cartoons that could potentially send him to jail for 20 years. The type of criticism he does cannot be categorised as extreme, compared to what you in Western Europe and the US. Ali Dilem mentions sarcastically some French cartoons of the French political leaders that where much controversial than his work. The Algerian government appears to be unable to accept political criticism.
From Algeria, we cross the Mediterrenean Sea and move to the north of Spain and to the Basque country. The heavy metal music band Soziedad Alkoholika has songs in their repertoire that appear to incite violence against the Spanish government. At the Basque country, many of the people have their own national identity. During the dictatorship of the Fransisco Franco, the Basques were severely persecuted. The early democratic governments appear to continue the harsh attitude against the Basque activists. The Basque activists would bomb or assasinate, and the government would persecute and put to jail. In some of the songs of Soziedad Alkoholika we see references to the fascists, the Franco era, which appear to imply to the Spanish government at the time they were written. Soziedad Alkoholika has been through a national tribunal normally used for terrorism cases and currently awaits for a court case that could potentially put them in jail for two years.
We cross the Atlantic to Guatemala, and Marielos Monzón, a human-rights activist. Guatemala has had a terrible modern history, in cases influenced by foreign governments. Marielos Monzón’s father was assasinated by the military regime when she was a child. Her house was invaded three times by the security forces, apparently in a process to intimidate her. Many groups in Guatemala have been persecuted by the military government, among which are indigenous groups. Marielos is currently working on a book documenting the killing of indigenous people that took place years ago by the military regime.
Back to Europe and to Sweden. This is not a person that is persecuted by the Swedish governemnt but rather a poet and journalist (was member of the Syrian Communist party) from Syria that is currently a political refugee in Sweden. Faraj Bayrakdar, was detained in 1987 and was held in prison for seven years, enduring torture and having no communication at all with his family. At one point in the interview, he mentions that about five years in jail, he was given a photograph of his daughter. He was put in jail while his daughter was 3 and he could not recognise her in the photograph.
Finally, the film concludes with British writer and historian David Irving. Davind Irving is accused as being anti-semitic, racist, that he follows that holocaust denial movement and many more. It looks strange that Rex Bloomstein would include this profile in the film, as in all other cases there is persecution by governments or types of regimes. One explanation could be that the filmmaker wanted to exploit the reactions against him for publicity purposes.
David Irving’s slot in the film felt it was very short. I am not sure if that was really true or it was because he talked in a fast pace, at times not being clear as to what he was mattering. He mentions that his upbringing was terrible, and at the age of 12 he got hold of a book by Adolf Hitler. He read it and said that the book changed his life. He worked on historic documents of Nazi Germany where he drew the conclusion that the crimes during WWII against the Nazi are either not true or overstated. It was not clear which documents he read, or whether he got hold of sanitised documents only where the full picture of the WWII may be missing.
Has David Irving been persecuted? A few years ago he served eleven months in a prison in Austria, after being convicted of “glorifying and identifying with the German Nazi Party“. During the limited time in the film, he mostly talked about the time he spent in prison, his fellow inmates from Croatia, from Africa.
As moronic as racism or nazism can be, does it make sense to put someone in prison for that? How do we treat people that have a different view than we do? The regimes in Ivory Coast, Burma, Algeria, Guatemala and elsewhere probably feel and are convinced they do the right thing. They feel disrespected when they are mocked and respond with violence, physical and phycological. They probably feel they are doing the right thing because they were provoked.
There are people in Europe that are racists, they are fond of nazism, they believe that even within a race some are somehow genetically inferior. The current trend is to have all these people be quiet. In most cases, they are quiet (unless drinks are involved) or if they are loose canons.
Would it be better to let people speak up and talk without fear of vindication? Do we believe that if nazism is discussed openly, it could bring a new WWII?