I set aside the first Tuesday of August as a working day in the knowledge that this was likely to be the poorest weather day of the week. It was difficult to getting going as I was still affected by what had happened as I approached my home on the previous day. The working was slow when I commenced and I played games against the computer at every opportunity. I am still running at 99% of the 1500 games of hearts, in fact losing only 4 games by pressing the wrong key and ending games when I had intended to reverse moves. With Spider Patience, the percentage is 97% of some 700 or is 800 games, I must make a note of position. The reason for the lower percentage is that I sometimes, lose patience, hee hee, if I get stuck late at night and end the game rather than continue to look for a solution. The less said about level four chess the better at the moment where the win percentage is less than nine out of every ten games on the 200 played so far and the best run is only 40. The worst feature is the number of times I have been checkmated by the computer, but I take it on the chin as being good for soul.
Talking of being good for soul I watched three programmes on the BBC i player yesterday evening, one film Red Dust and episodes 4 and 5 of the original Wallender series with sub titles which are being shown on Monday nights on the BBC’s channel Four. All three had their harrowing moments
I have seen the film Red Dust before but it remains a fresh and moving statement about the possibilities of people who have hated each other coming together. In South Africa amnesty was offered to white racists officials who had participated in the war against the non whites, on the basis that they revealed the truth about what had happened and their role in the torturing and killings that took place during the years of Apartheid.
The film is a fictitious account of the visit of the Truth Commission to a community where a local police official was seeking amnesty from his 14 years imprisonment and was being opposed by a local ANC leader who had become a Member of Parliament and member of his Party’s executive committee. He had been beaten for three days and tortured for 28 by the policeman who was trying to obtain information about local collaborators with the insurgency.
This was in effect a story within a story as the lawyer who was appointed to represent his position had also lived in the community. She had been a rebellious teenager who had been arrested and spent the night at the police station when aged sixteen for having gone to a black dance with a young man who had disappeared at the same time as the activist was being held in custody and tortured. As she had been taken into public care and her mother ostracised for allowing her daughter to have such associations. The young woman was now living in New York, U S A where she was a practicing lawyer and had only returned to her homeland because she had the opportunity to try and find out what had happened to the young man, having been retained by his parents.
It is possible to view the film as a court room thriller where in order to gain the amnesty the policeman is forced to reveal information which leads to finding the body and implicating the policeman directly responsible for the death and who then finds himself prosecuted and seeking amnesty. However this is a film about reconciliation that is possible only when the truth has been established. Before the truth can come become fact and accepted by the public at large the individuals directly involved have to come to terms with what they have done, or have not.
I could only find two reviews of the film from its distribution in 2004 and Wikipedia has only a brief note with a request that someone will expand. It is possible that white racists in the USA were successful in restricting the distribution, especially as the film ends with the possibility of a long term relationship between the white lawyer and her black client, and if so then they have continued to win because this is a film which explores the realities of violent tribal conflict and how difficult it is for wounds to heal, and reputations to remain untarnished,
Those who fight in war know that everyone is afraid and cowardly at times and heroic at others, and that there are no clear cut goodies and baddies on one side with everyone getting their hands dirty and is marked by the death and injuries they cause, as well as those inflicted on their comrades and perhaps themselves. Both sides make mistakes which can sometimes cause more harm to bystanders than has been done to those supporting one side or the other.
In the particular instance of this film the politician is accused of having broken and betrayed his comrades but is able to remember where he had hidden the list of local volunteers, and in the court room all but one of those listed is able to stand up to establish that he was not betrayed at that time and lived to tell the tale. However what the politician is forced to disclose is that the badly beaten body of his friend was brought to him and that he was unable to resist when a policeman had raised his hand to point to the already dying young man who had been dragged into the room by the other officer and demanded that he confirm that his prisoner was an insurgent. For a brief period the former comrades of the politician turn on him and in one incident the politician demonstrates the reality of what he had been through and admits to the lawyer that he was once a torturer for his side.
The breakthrough comes when under questioning the policeman admits that the interrogations had not taken place at the police station but at an isolated farm and this leads to locating the body and incriminating evidence which leads to the arrest of the other policeman, who has left the force and established a private security business which continues to provide an above average life for his family. When the two men come face to face, the police man points out that the other man probably killed more people than himself and that he wants to be able to join his wife and daughters who have been unable to stay in the country since his arrest and conviction. Through the experience both are able to admit the truth of what they did and did not because the politician had felt he had not just betrayed his friend but been the instrument for his death, when in fact the young man was half dead already,
I have bored many for decades by advising that what we do and say lives with us, and others for all time.
This suggests that it is wise to take into consideration how others view what we do and say, at the time and subsequently and what effect out words and actions may have on others, however good our intentions.
We need to have the ability to look at our reflection in the mirror over the rest of our days and nights although sometimes we need others to reveal that the mirror has been cracked.
Talking of being good for soul I watched three programmes on the BBC i player yesterday evening, one film Red Dust and episodes 4 and 5 of the original Wallender series with sub titles which are being shown on Monday nights on the BBC’s channel Four. All three had their harrowing moments
I have seen the film Red Dust before but it remains a fresh and moving statement about the possibilities of people who have hated each other coming together. In South Africa amnesty was offered to white racists officials who had participated in the war against the non whites, on the basis that they revealed the truth about what had happened and their role in the torturing and killings that took place during the years of Apartheid.
The film is a fictitious account of the visit of the Truth Commission to a community where a local police official was seeking amnesty from his 14 years imprisonment and was being opposed by a local ANC leader who had become a Member of Parliament and member of his Party’s executive committee. He had been beaten for three days and tortured for 28 by the policeman who was trying to obtain information about local collaborators with the insurgency.
This was in effect a story within a story as the lawyer who was appointed to represent his position had also lived in the community. She had been a rebellious teenager who had been arrested and spent the night at the police station when aged sixteen for having gone to a black dance with a young man who had disappeared at the same time as the activist was being held in custody and tortured. As she had been taken into public care and her mother ostracised for allowing her daughter to have such associations. The young woman was now living in New York, U S A where she was a practicing lawyer and had only returned to her homeland because she had the opportunity to try and find out what had happened to the young man, having been retained by his parents.
It is possible to view the film as a court room thriller where in order to gain the amnesty the policeman is forced to reveal information which leads to finding the body and implicating the policeman directly responsible for the death and who then finds himself prosecuted and seeking amnesty. However this is a film about reconciliation that is possible only when the truth has been established. Before the truth can come become fact and accepted by the public at large the individuals directly involved have to come to terms with what they have done, or have not.
I could only find two reviews of the film from its distribution in 2004 and Wikipedia has only a brief note with a request that someone will expand. It is possible that white racists in the USA were successful in restricting the distribution, especially as the film ends with the possibility of a long term relationship between the white lawyer and her black client, and if so then they have continued to win because this is a film which explores the realities of violent tribal conflict and how difficult it is for wounds to heal, and reputations to remain untarnished,
Those who fight in war know that everyone is afraid and cowardly at times and heroic at others, and that there are no clear cut goodies and baddies on one side with everyone getting their hands dirty and is marked by the death and injuries they cause, as well as those inflicted on their comrades and perhaps themselves. Both sides make mistakes which can sometimes cause more harm to bystanders than has been done to those supporting one side or the other.
In the particular instance of this film the politician is accused of having broken and betrayed his comrades but is able to remember where he had hidden the list of local volunteers, and in the court room all but one of those listed is able to stand up to establish that he was not betrayed at that time and lived to tell the tale. However what the politician is forced to disclose is that the badly beaten body of his friend was brought to him and that he was unable to resist when a policeman had raised his hand to point to the already dying young man who had been dragged into the room by the other officer and demanded that he confirm that his prisoner was an insurgent. For a brief period the former comrades of the politician turn on him and in one incident the politician demonstrates the reality of what he had been through and admits to the lawyer that he was once a torturer for his side.
The breakthrough comes when under questioning the policeman admits that the interrogations had not taken place at the police station but at an isolated farm and this leads to locating the body and incriminating evidence which leads to the arrest of the other policeman, who has left the force and established a private security business which continues to provide an above average life for his family. When the two men come face to face, the police man points out that the other man probably killed more people than himself and that he wants to be able to join his wife and daughters who have been unable to stay in the country since his arrest and conviction. Through the experience both are able to admit the truth of what they did and did not because the politician had felt he had not just betrayed his friend but been the instrument for his death, when in fact the young man was half dead already,
I have bored many for decades by advising that what we do and say lives with us, and others for all time.
This suggests that it is wise to take into consideration how others view what we do and say, at the time and subsequently and what effect out words and actions may have on others, however good our intentions.
We need to have the ability to look at our reflection in the mirror over the rest of our days and nights although sometimes we need others to reveal that the mirror has been cracked.
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