Lawrence of Arabia: een legende nieuw leven ingeblazen

Wat een idee om een film als Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, VK, 1962) uit te zenden in de eerste dagen van 2012. De vijftig jaar oude film toont inderdaad meer dan een oppervlakkige gelijkenis tussen de biografie van de Britse officier die verwikkeld raakt in de vijandigheden tussen Arabieren en Turken tijdens een cruciale periode aan het in de Eerste Wereldoorlog in het Midden-Oosten en de gebeurtenissen die nu al een jaar voortduren in die regio. Het uitzenden van deze film op dit moment lijkt ofwel een slechte grap, of een ongelukkige poging een verband te leggen tussen de NAVO-interventie in Libië, enkele maanden geleden, en de rol die een jonge Britse luitenant speelde in de Arabische opstand tegen de Turkse bezetters aan het begin van de vorige eeuw.

Het is veel te gemakkelijk een parallel te trekken tussen de Arabische Lente in 2011 als een opstand (Hirak) tegen dictators en de Arabische Opstand (1916-1918) tegen een buitenlandse bezetter, en Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron en Bernard-Henri Lévy kunnen nooit worden vergeleken met de legendarische Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935). Ten eerste omdat de laatste geen leider was en niet handelde volgens het internationaal recht. Zijn acties, hoewel die binnen het kader vielen van de plannen van het Britse leger, waren niet wat de generaals werkelijk wilden. En zijn handelen naar zijn persoonlijke overtuiging veroordeelt juist zowel het hele hegmonistisch dispositief van het kolonialisme van een eeuw geleden als het neo-imperialisme van onze tijd.

Laten we teruggaan naar de historische context. Aan het eind van de Eerste Wereldoorlog waren de Turken, bondgenoten van de Duitsers, door de Arabische Sahara in de Shamregio (nu Syrië, Jordanië en Palestina) op weg naar het zuiden in de richting van het Suez Kanaal. Onderweg moesten ze zich ontdoen van alle recalcitrante Arabische stammen. De Arabieren, onder leiding van Prins Faysal, verdedigden hun land en begonnen wat de Arabische Opstand werd genoemd. De Britse militaire inlichtingendienst in Cairo wilde voorkomen dat deze opstand in het voordeel zou werken van de vijand en stuurde T. E. Lawrence, een specialist van de Arabische nationalistische bewegingen in de Turkse provincies, ernaartoe om te onderhandelen over een coalitie met de “Bedoeïenen”.

Wat hij deed was meer dan zijn superieuren hadden verwacht, en voor een groot deel wat ze nooit hadden gewild: hij verenigde de Arabische stammen tegen de gezamenlijke vijand. Volgens de film begon Lawrence met de Arabieren te helpen in hun strijd tegen de Turken, maar verdedigde hij hen vervolgens ook tegen iedere heerschappij van buitenaf. Dat druiste in tegen het Britse koloniale beleid in de regio, dus dat ging te ver.

Het grote verschil tussen T.E. Lawrence en degenen die nu interveniëren in de zogenoemde Arabische Lente, is dat hij een dichter was, terwijl het nu enkel politici zijn die het neokapitalisme dienen. Lawrence werd erop uit gestuurd om te onderhandelen over een coalitie, maar mettertijd werd hij verliefd op de woestijn en het land. Hij begon te geloven dat het noch aan de Turken, noch aan de Britten, maar aan zichzelf toebehoorde. Hij handelde niet uit naam van zijn trouw aan de Kroon als Britse officier, maar uit naam van wat hij geloofde dat juist was: de strijd tegen kolonialisme en hegemonie. Op de vraag van Prins Faysal : ‘Bent u niet trouw aan de Kroon?’, antwoordt hij: ‘Aan de Kroon en aan andere zaken.’

Lawrence had al geleerd, zoals elke Engelsman die bij Kargemisj (in het huidige Irak) werkte, hoe hij Arabische boeren en dorpelingen kon motiveren om archeologische opgravingen te verrichten zonder militaire discipline of koloniale autoriteit in te hoeven roepen. Daarom kon hij, toen hij eenmaal geloofde het recht van iedereen om zijn eigen land te bezitten, niet anders dan zijn overtuiging te volgen zonder één enkele concessie te doen. Na de oorlog, in 1919, ging hij naar de conferentie van Parijs om de zaak van de Arabische onafhankelijkheid te bepleiten. Dit valt echter buiten het bereik van de film, en het is waarschijnlijk ook niet de boodschap die de televisiezender wil uitdragen door hem uit te zenden.

Lawrence of Arabia was geen strijder zoals de strijders van nu: een vuurwapenmachine. Hij was een poëet wiens liefde voor een land de strijd voor vrijheid inspireerde. Zijn fysiognomie is niet die van iemand van daden, en dat was ook de indruk die hij wekte bij zijn superieuren. Maar toen hij de woestijn van Nefudh (tegenwoordig tussen Jordanië en Saoedi-Arabië) overstak om Akaba te bevrijden van de Turkse kolonisator, begreep hij dat zo’n land met die hitte en dat zand, niet kon toebehoren aan een man van zijn herkomst. Hij zag toen De Waarheid, als een mystieke openbaring: het onrecht van de ene man die het land van een ander bezet. Hij werd aan zichzelf getoond als mens, terwijl hij niet meer was dan een radertje in de grote kolonialisatiemachine.

Nog een ander verschil tussen Lawrences daden en de interventie in Libië, en waarschijnlijk ook die in Syrië, en die van het Britse leger in de Arabische opstand, is het ideaal dat de interventie is bedoeld als verdediging. Het Britse imperialistisch leger handelde uit naam van de verdediging van Arabische stammen tegen de Turkse invasie; de NAVO handelde in Libië onder de wettelijke bescherming van de VN-resolutie, die erop was gericht de burgers van Benghazi te beschermen tegen Khaddafi’s huurlingen. Geen van deze beide acties volgden de letterlijke betekenis van de missie. Achter de zichtbare waren er verborgen agenda’s.

Maar voor Lawrence heeft Trouw geen betekenis als het in tegenspraak is met de Waarheid. Net als Dostojevski’s Idioot, een fanaticus van de waarheid die hypocrisie afzweert, hield hij zich aan de letterlijke betekenis van woorden en maakte hij geen onderscheid tussen de Turkse hegemonie en die van de Britten. Als het eropaan komt te strijden tegen onrecht, doet het er niet toe wie erachter zit. Als de Turkse bezetting van de regio slecht was, dan was de bezetting door het Britse koninkrijk ook slecht. En als Khaddafi, Ben Ali en Moebarak corrupte dictators waren, dan zullen degenen die de NAVO van plan is aan te stellen, niet minder corrupt zijn. De missie van al deze pionnen is altijd dezelfde: het grote monster van het kapitaal te dienen.

Lawrence of Arabia: a rejuvenated legend

What an idea to broadcast a film like Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, UK, 1962) the first days of 2012. The fifty-year-old film has indeed more than a similarity between the biography of the British officer who got involved in the hostilities opposing the Arabs and the Turks during a key episode of World War I on the eastern front and the current events going on in the region for one year already. Broadcasting the film right now seems to be a bad joke or an unhappy thought trying to make a link between the intervention of NATO in Libya a few months ago and the role played by a young British Lieutenant in the Arab uprising against the Turkish invaders at the beginning of the last century.
It is much too easy to find a parallel between the Arab Spring in 2011 as an uprising (Hirak) against dictators and the Arab Revolt (1916-1918) against a foreign invader. Nicolas Sakozy, David Cameron and Bernard Henry Levy can never be compared to the legendary Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935). First of all because the latter was not a leader and didn’t act according to international law. His action, even though it was in the frame of British Army plans, was not what the generals really wanted. Acting according to his personal convictions condemns the hole hegemonic dispositive of colonialism one century ago and neo-imperialism in our times.
Let’s go back to the historical context. At the end of WWI the Turks, allies of the Germans, where heading south across the Arabian Sahara in the region of Sham (now Syria, Jordan, Palestine) in the direction of the Suez Canal. On their way they had to get rid of all the recalcitrant Arab tribes. The Arabs, lead by Prince Faysal, defended their lands and went into what was called the Arab Revolt. The British Military Intelligence Department in Cairo, willing to prevent this big advantage to the enemy, sent T. E. Lawrence, a specialist in Arab nationalist movements in the Turkish provinces, to negotiate coalition with the “Bedouins”.
What he did was more than what his superiors expected and mainly what they never wanted: he unified the Arab Tribes against their common enemy. What the film says is that, starting with helping the Arabs in their fight against the Turks, Lawrence went on to defend their rights against any hegemony; that is even against the British policy of colonisation in the region. But this has gone too far.
The big difference between T.E. Lawrence and those who now intervene in the so-called “Arab Spring” is that he was a poet while they are only politicians serving neo-capitalism. Lawrence was sent to negotiate the coalition. Meanwhile he fell in love with the desert and the land. He got the faith that it has to belong neither to the Turks nor to the British but to itself. He acted not in the name of his loyalty as a British officer to the crown, but in the name of what he felt and believed the right thing to do: fight colonialism and hegemony. To the question of Prince Faysal : Are you not loyal to the crown? He answers: To the crown and to other things.
Already, like every Englishman working in the British Empire at Carchemish (in present Iraq), he learned how to motivate Arab peasants and villagers digging archaeological sites with no help from military discipline or colonial authority. That’s why once he believed in this right for anybody to be in possession of his own land, he had to follow his belief without any concession. After the war, in 1919, he went to the conference of Paris with the duty to defend the cause of Arab independence. But this is not in the film, and also probably not what the TV channel by broadcasting it wants to say.
Lawrence of Arabia was not a warrior, unlike those of our times: a gun machine. He was a poet whose love of a land inspired the fight for its freedom. His physiognomy is not of someone of action. This was the impression he inspired in his superiors. But when he crossed the desert of Nefudh (between Jordan and Saudi Arabia currently) to liberate Akaba from the Turkish coloniser, he understood that such a land with its heat and its sand, cannot belong to a man of his own provenance. Then he saw The Truth, like a mystic revelation: the injustice of a man occupying another man’s land. He was revealed to himself as a human being while he was nothing else but a screw in a huge machine called colonisation.
One more difference again between Lawrence’s action and the intervention in Libya, and probably in Syria, and the one of the British Army in the Arab Revolt, is the ideal that the intervention is supposed to defend. The British Imperial Army acted in the name of the apparent reason of the protection of Arab tribes against the Turkish invasion. NATO acted in Libya under the legal coverage of the UN resolution whose aim was to protect the civilians of Ben Ghazi against Gaddafi’s mercenaries. Both of these actions didn’t follow the literal meaning of the mission. They had other agendas behind the apparent ones.
But for Lawrence Loyalty has no sense when it is in contradiction with the Truth. Like Dostoievski’s Idiot, a fanatic of truth who denounces hypocrisy, he stuck to the literal meaning of words and didn’t make any difference between the Turkish hegemony and the British. When it comes to fight an injustice it doesn’t matter who is behind it. If the Turkish domination of the region was bad, the one of the British Empire was also bad. And if `Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak’ were corrupted dictators, those whom NATO is planning to appoint will not be less corrupt. The mission of all these pawns is always the same: serve the big beast of capital.

And more on: http://www.eutopiainstitute.org/2012/01/lawrence-of-arabia-a-rejuvenated-legend/

You will harm regardless your good feelings

The culture of the so-called MENA region has never been so visible in Europe like it was during this year, 2011. Of course the reason is now admitted as nothing else but the “Arab Spring”. All festivals are programming films from Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria… All cultural organizations are organizing debates, symposiums and exhibitions. However, this phenomenon looks somehow ambiguous. That the world focuses on the culture of a region is certainly worthwhile whatever the reason is. But the fact that this same region is presented that way shows also how it was unfairly neglected. Very often there is a lot of arrogance in the behaviour of those who, without any authentic interest neither in culture nor in the region, are using its tragedy by walking on its corpses. Even worse, most of the time, these scavengers contribute to a historical misreading of events.
In a time of cultural budget cuts, a cultural program dealing with the Arab spring is a very relevant argument for fundraisers. Not only the policy of a lot of funds is to stick to the actuality, but it is also a fact that there is a real public expectation and curiosity awakend by the medias brainwashing during weeks and months. Use such a context to say the half of the truth or even to mislead and misinform the public is a moral and historical responsibility, if not an intellectual crime. A lot of people, even among activists, seem not to be really aware of it.
The work of a filmmaker who fought for each one of his films and paid of his blood nerves and even his life the price of his art cannot be presented to the public just for fun. If you don’t give a work of art the respect it deserves, you punish the artist for the second time. Syrian filmmakers like Omar Amiralay, Osama Mohammed or Mohammed Malas who were recently presented in the Netherlands are among the best filmmakers in the region. They suffered twice for their work. Their regime denied them any freedom and any decent material conditions to express their artistic talents. To the first frustration we should add that they were ignored outside their country, except perhaps for some circles of elites and cinephiles in the Maghreb or for some marginal European film venues.
To show these kinds of films now in Europe as a very special event, whether we are aware of it or not, is of some perversity unless we show them the respect they deserve. A film needs to be considered first as a work of art not as a pretext to talk about something else. A twenty year old film deserves to be screened in a film museum or in a retrospective in a film event. You don’t screen Battleship Potemkin (Sergeï Eisenstein, 1925) because you want to talk about the recent problematic elections in Russia. You don’t screen Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) because you want to analyze how Wall Street is pushing the worlds’ economy to collapse. Tunisian, Egyptian and Syrian filmmakers were denied their freedom under the dictatorship and their artistic status by the world’s mainstream. To show them now after months of uprisings and thousands of direct victims, not to mention those indirect, is unfair and inappropriate. The audience expects them to talk about the actual reality of their countries. Or their films are produced in a complete different context and talk about another reality. They used to talk in place of their people, now this latter is talking by itself, so it’s completely different.
This unfairness has different layers. The film is not considered as such but as a complementary element for a discussion with a guest who has nothing to do with films, like a politician, diplomat, economist, activist and so on… Moreover when the debate is hosted by a non specialist in film, the conversation shifts to anything but the reason why the film was made. It is also confusing for the audience who is invited to a discussion with a guest about the actual sufferings of the people not about the film. The other layer is that everybody is talking about the people while the latter is once again not given the possibility to talk for itself. In a way the world goes on not listening to the right voice at the right moment. Who listened to these filmmakers when they were fighting? The people are developing other ways of talking and claiming, but these ways are not given the possibility to meet the audience. We are missing the time and the space as well. The debate is biased in many ways.
In a debate about the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, some organizers would embellish the evening by inviting some artists from Morocco, Lebanon and Jordan. Most of the times they are based in Europe or in the US. When they come from the Netherlands it is perfect; there is a discussion about the revolution with a lot of “gezelligheid” and nobody gets bored. The audience is happy to meet a Jordanian choreographer even though he (or she) is not directly concerned by the events and never lived under the repression in Jordan and has probably never been in any of the countries where the riots take place. The only fact that he has a connection with a so-called Arab origin is enough to put him in a discussion about the revolution. Don’t be surprised then when the animator of the discussion asks him whether his art prepared the uprising in his county. He would laugh and say: “Oh! I don’t know but it is nice that you ask the question”.
These are couple a few examples of how cultural organizations in Europe are dealing with the actuality of definitely the biggest geopolitical change in contemporary history after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin wall. They are perversely part of an omniscient complot against any claim of freedom in the world. Or they are not aware of this and they are then victims of a very strong manipulation. In both cases they sell free conscience to the world at a very low price. It is not because some film programs, exhibitions and debates are organized that the world can relieve its soul and feel free of the guilt for what is happening not only for a few months but since the world decided to give all powers to a beast called capitalism which is deciding for everything; not only in the southern part of the globe but everywhere. Hélas not everybody is Jean-Paul Sartre or Franz Fanon aware that the fight of the African peasant is the same as the one who called to fight neo-capitalism and occupy its symbols: Wall Street and het Beurs Plein.