Utah Bar Journal

The documentaries are where, for me, the film festival really makes a difference. Last year it was Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” making the case that we cannot wait to address global warming; two years before that it was “Deadline,” the story of the then-Illinois governor coming to the decision to commute the sentences of all death-row prisoners because of his conviction that the guilt of all could not be assured; and of “Home of the Brave,” the story of the attempt of the family of Viola Luizzo, a white Chicago housewife who was killed in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights demonstrations, to come to terms with what happened to their mother.

This year is the year of exploring man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man, a fitting theme while we are in the midst of a brutal war, and should be asking ourselves how we can, in the 21st century, still accept the premise of, and detritus from, war.

As I saw the following films, I was left with two main thoughts: what does it take to treat another human being the way the aggressors in each case did/do, and what does it take to stop them. How can there be among us those capable of such heinous acts, and at the same time, on the same earth, those selfless individuals dedicated to standing in the way of such acts? Some may appease themselves by referring simply to the existence of evil and good, or the devil and god. There is, for me, no simple answer for the lopping off of limbs of children while they are still alive. Devil or no devil.

The first of this year’s memorable documentaries was “The Devil Came on Horseback,” a documentary chronicling the genocide in Darfur, one person’s close-up view of it, and his response to that view. Marine Captain Brian Steidle accepted a post in Sudan as an unarmed monitor of the “peace process” working for the African Union. While there, Steidle saw unimaginable things, things that we saw, too, due to his dedication to filming them, and subsequently transporting that film to the states as witness to the atrocities. Initially, Captain Steidle had such faith in his country, that he testified in his journal of his belief that United States officials needed only to see what he saw, and it would all be ended in one week. That was over two years ago. The United States knows, as well as the global community, what he saw is still occurring in Darfur.

Captain Steidle was thrown in the middle of a conflict in the western Darfur region that has claimed 400,000 lives, and displaced 2.5 million people. He took pictures of traveling bands of “Janjaweed,” Arab-African murderers essentially commissioned by the government to burn the refugee villages of Black Africans, and annihilate all residents. All residents. Men, women and children. And from the pictures we saw, from the pictures the American government has seen, none of the killings were gentle; none were humane; all defy belief.

How is it that we can do these things to each other, and how is it that knowing that such things are being done, we can allow it to continue? Is this not a question the world has asked before, but, seemingly, always too late?

“Nanking” is another such story, and another of this year’s documentaries. “Nanking” is the story of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, and the resulting murder of two hundred thousand Chinese men, women and children, and rape of tens of thousands of Chinese women. There, too, we see archival footage of the villainy – of babies bayoneted alive; of heads chopped off – of one living victim whose head was only partially chopped off; of people set on fire while alive and who lived through it. Words cannot deliver the impact of the pictures, but I attempt to paint the horror because of the question it elicits – it begs: Who could do such things?

Finally, I also saw “War Dance,” a documentary chronicling current events in northern Uganda, in which rebels (the Lord’s Resistance Army) have been at war with the government for 20 years. Many children have become the victims of this war, as over 30,000 have been abducted by the rebel army, forced to become rebel soldiers, and, thus, forced to kill – sometimes their own families. Yet they are still children, and, in this documentary, are part of a refugee-camp school’s participation in the national music and dance competition. This film tells the story of three of the participating children, one of whom reveals on film for the first time the details of being forced to kill – or be killed. For these children, the trip to the national competition in Kampala was thrilling not simply because they had the chance to compete, but because they had the chance, as one put it, “to see what peace looks like.”

The evil would be unbearable were there not accompanying stories of true heroism. Heroism defined as individuals who had the choice to walk away, but did not. Individuals who chose to risk their own lives in the attempt to save others. Individuals who would refuse the appellation because for them there was no choice.

Captain Brian Steidle, who continued recording the history, and who has dedicated his life to ending the horror that is Darfur.

The group of expatriate westerners – missionaries, doctors and businessmen – who stayed when others fled, and created the safety zone in Nanking that saved so many.

Those who chronicle and attempt to alter the fate of children in places like northern Uganda.

Which are we today? As a country? As communities? As individuals? Do I stare in the face of evil and become blinded by it? Do I, blinded thus, walk away and see it no more? Or do I look at these acts and resolve that I will never see them again, not because I walk away, but because I will do my part to refuse to allow them to happen?

www.savedarfur.org
www.shineglobal.org
www.global-alliance.net