 The awakening
Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"
Kamal H. Artin
July 7, 2004
iranian.com
Fahrenheit 9/11 seemed to me to be a moving piece
of art with documentary components than a neutral
documentary. Moore does a remarkable job to put
emotion, comedy, facts, and assumptions to stimulate
our minds. For unclear reasons, Moore has rather
avoided clarifying some important points. Every scene
might deserve praise and critique by professional
reviewer.
The purpose of this lay review is to share
my thoughts on some of the issues I found interesting!
Moore makes us feel and think. He makes us sad, when
he shows some poor youngsters joining the armed forces
to survive and not necessarily to defend and spread
human rights and democracy. He makes us angry when he
hints that some politician won't risk the live of their own significant
others for what they stand for. He makes us cry, when he highlights the sorrow
of the people who have lost their loved ones on 9/11 and in the war.
He makes
us smile, when he hints to the limited intellectual ability of some of the
politicians. He makes us laugh when he compares smoking out the
bad guy in Western movies
to smoking out fundamentalist terrorists from their caves. He makes us wonder,
how one with power in Washington, a major center of hope for democracy around
the world, could change official documents related to
politician's background to avoid political scrutiny.
He makes us question
why 7% of the country should be the property of some clan families in Saudi
Arabia. He makes us doubt if politicians would remain at
the side of the people at home,
who pay them a limited salary,
while Saudi's contribute Billions of dollars to corporations who have
close ties with them. Like all human beings, Moore also has shortcomings.
One might not detect class elitism in Moore's approach,
but he can not hide
his intellectual elitism. He suggest that a small country such as Costa
Rica might be weak for having no army; he does not argue maybe
Costa Rican people
prefer not to waste their limited resources on the military, when their
citizens have other basic needs. He falls for a general assumption
that
beauty
and intellect might not be compatible; he shows that a bearded, casual,
and heavy male artist has more compassion and intellect than
a beautiful, popular,
and
simple female singer.
As a Kurdish American, I also see another shortcoming
in the movie. Surpassingly Moore does not mention anything about the
Kurds. Moore
probably has heard that the Kurds have remained the most honest, ethical,
and welcoming allies of the US to support great values of the civilized
world, and
yet they are denied their basic human right of self-determination. He
might know that the Kurds have paid a tremendous price for the
corruption in the
world politics
for decades.
By not mentioning the Kurdish suffering, maybe his
goal is only to highlight the corruption, so the people push the
politicians
to correct
themselves and facilitate further progress. Maybe he did not detect
corruption in Kurdish
leaders, and therefore there is nothing to talk about regarding Kurdistan.
Hopefully it is not a conscious ignorance of Kurds in order to satisfy
those international
and national corrupted politician who deliberately avoid even mentioning
the worlds such as Kurds and Kurdistan.
 Regardless of its shortcomings,
the movie
is awakening. One could alter the names of characters in the movie
and put the names of many foreign politicians in their countries
to
see that the
scenes remain
similar. Most likely the movie becomes a classic, and therefore a must
see for everyone. Let's congratulate every American on Independence
Day, for
having
built such a country that its intellectuals are allowed to speak freely
and question the integrity of
its most powerful politicians. Bravo America!
Author
Kamal H. Artin, MD, is from the Kurdish-American
Education Society in Orange County, California.
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The awakening
