…a few thoughts on war.
Recently, I went to see the film No Escape (2015, dir. John Erik Dowdle). It was a spur of the moment decision, something to do on a Saturday night where else I had no other plans.
To be quite honest, the film shocked me. Certificated as a 15, some of the violence was implied, but a lot of it was also fairly graphic. It is set in an unspecified East-Asian city – by deduction, this could be Laos, Cambodia or China as the main characters of the film escape across the border into Vietnam by the end of the film – and the director’s attention to detail was stunning. I say this begrudgingly, as he created a war-torn, riotous city in the midst of civil-unrest and governmental destabilisation, but the tension and sense of upheaval was immense. The opening scenes are brief compared to the bulk of the film which focuses on the commencing events after a government coup, but they set a peaceful, hopeful scene as Jack (Owen Wilson) and Annie Dyer (Lake Bell) arrive in Asia with their two daughters ready to start a new life.
The image that stayed with me the most is a passing shot, where Jack is running through the streets after getting caught in a firefight between the authorities and a mob of civilians, trying to find his way back to the hotel where he and his family are staying. Along the way, he runs across a run-down concourse where a few dead bodies lie from both sides of the fighting. A high angle wide shot shows Jack jogging across, while a person in civilian clothing hacks into the body of a dead policeman with a club or an axe. It shocked me because I cannot imagine the amount of hatred that civilian could harbour, that they would continue to axe, club, mangle and absolutely demolish an already dead body. I cannot imagine the bloodlust that would consume someone to drive them to continue to beat an already dead body.
Coming in a close second is an image from the firefight itself, where the authorities and the mob have engaged and are in close quarters combat. A few of the shots are in slow motion, such as one which shows a group of civilians in the midst of fighting; they’re angry, shouting. The camera pans down to one of the authorities sent to disperse the mob, on the ground, trying desperately to defend themselves. The civilians continue, beating the person. It is not shown whether that particular person dies or survives, but the implication is that they die by beaten to death by their own people. Again, I find it difficult to imagine the extent of the hatred harboured by anyone to keep beating a person when they’re down, to carry on regardless of their cries of pain and surrender.
What angered me most, to the point where I thought I would have to walk out of the cinema, was a scene where Jack, Annie and their daughters are hiding in a civilian’s garden. An old man has hidden them there, after seeing that they are no threat to him. A number of rebels break into the garden and begin to search for them. Jack leaves the safety of their hiding place to try and get hold of a gun he sees lying on the floor, but Annie jumps out of the hiding place to create a distraction and save Jack when she thinks one of the rebels has seen him. The rebels grab Annie and lie her down on a stone pillar. They catch Jack and do the same. With Annie, they rip open her shirt and beat down once on her stomach, winding her. In the process, her skirt moves to reveal her bare legs. While the rebels force Jack to watch, the lead gang member grabs Annie’s ankle and looks pointedly at Jack. At that moment, there’s an interruption from another character, the gang is dispersed and the family reunited me, but I found the implication of rape pretty horrific. I am aware that rape is rife in war-torn countries and often used as a weapon in war. But seeing it on screen drove the reality home for me. It angered me that such an atrocity could be committed in such a desperate situation. Unless especially violent, rape isn’t necessarily fatal. It isn’t used to kill people. It’s used to humiliate, to terrorize, to spread fear. [1] The humiliation aspect got me. The fact that women are so dehumanised in war, that they’re seen as pawns. They’re so worthless, they’re not even worth killing to add to the tally of enemies dead. They’re bargaining chips, pawns, objects to humiliate the enemy.
I’m not ignorant to the fact that male rape is an issue (specifically in war for the purposes of this article.) But the fact is that is it not as widely documented, or in fact, committed in war. We are lucky in this country that we haven’t experienced an invasion in many, many centuries [2]. The rest of Western Europe is also fairly peaceful in this respect. The type of war, civil unrest and political uprising that is depicted in No Escape occurs mainly in developing countries, especially in recent decades. I’m not an expert on war and I don’t want to go too deep into the reasons that war happens, but one big factor is poverty and it’s far reaching implications. And often in these less developed countries, the role and view of women is very different and they don’t enjoy the status we have in Western countries. No matter how white feminists complain about cat calling and the like, we don’t have it half as bad as women in developing countries, who are often seen as property, ‘bought’ and ‘sold’ in marriage, beaten and raped by husbands and used as pawns in war. Respect for women in these countries is not high. In some communities they are seen as inferior, and virtually worthless except for being the carriers of a man’s child.
It’s a bleak picture and in war, poverty, hardship, financial, economic and cultural problems are nearly always enhanced by the desperateness of the situation.
It’s because of human nature. All of the violence and wars in our world can be contributed to the fact we are a fallen, sinful race who have strayed far from God. We are imperfect, flawed and prone to following our most primal and base desires, whatever they may be and whatever form they may take.
It is a feeling of mine that poverty will never be eradicated. As long as there are power-hungry and money-hungry people who feed their greed without thought to those without, there will be poverty, no matter the score of people who give monthly to Oxfam. As long as there are those who give into their darkest, most violent nature and are swayed easily by the crowd, there will be civil unrest, coups and riots. It’s the result of human nature and human nature cannot be ‘solved’.
Sounds even bleaker doesn’t it?
So what, if anything can one person do to help? What is the point of giving two pounds a month to Oxfam or sponsoring a child in Ethiopia or buying from charity shops if it is only a drop in the ocean of our problematic world?
I’m not saying that any of those things are worthless in and of themselves, but as I have thought of the futility of trying to help and organisations who work (seemingly in vain) to alleviate poverty in the worst affected areas of the world, I have to wonder if it’s actually working.
The scope of the world’s problems is vast and we are all caught up in it to some degree. War is just one facet of it. When I think of all the evil in the world, all the injustices, all the hate, shame, violence, twisted abuses of legalisation, authority and power, I can’t help but feel I’m up against a wall, if ever I wanted to do anything to stand up for myself and stand against it.
When faced with the impenetrable wall of wrong in the world, I stagger. I trip and fall. I can’t even think of beginning to scale it. It seems to have no handholds, no way to get a grip and start to climb. It’s sheer, smooth, shiny. I beat against it with angry fists, but all I do is bruise my hands.
But then above this wall, higher than me, higher than buildings, this wall that reaches the sky and I can’t see the top, above this wall…I see Jesus. And I know that He knows. He knows the pain and humiliation of bonded labour, he knows the agony of poverty, of hunger, of thirst, he knows the horrors of war, the desperate lengths people will go to to protect their family and themselves, he knows the injustices that happen in corrupt governments, behind closed doors. He knows because He’s experienced it all Himself and He sees it. He sees His broken world operating in this way and He is still in control of all that goes on.
You are greater, Jesus you are greater.
Than it all, than it all.
That brings great comfort to me.
God loves that His children want to help each other, fight for justice, peace and prosperity for each another, but ultimately it’s not up to us. God hasn’t left us on our own, saying ‘Right now church, you’ve got a job to do. It’s up to you to fix the rest of humanities’ problems.’ No. We are a flawed, broken race and we are going to fail far more than we succeed. That’s the human condition.
But God loves it when we have a heart full of compassion to see justice reign in this world. He loves it when we get close enough to Him to know what breaks His heart, so we can act on it and try to change it.
[1] From Women Under Siege Project, accessed 13/9/15
[2] Note: I’m not ignorant to the hardship and struggle that Britain faced during First and Second World Wars, but the truth is Britain hasn’t seen an invasion since 1066. That’s just shy of a 1000 years ago and it is to this type of war I refer, where soldiers from an opposing side gain unlawful access to a country and thus exploit it. For the purposes of making a point about rape in war, 1066 is possibly the most recent time where rape could have been used as a weapon against Britain in war, as the Normans’ had the opportunity to commit it when they sailed over from France.
[Picture credit: Primer Magazine]
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