Urban Grind

Just finished watching a movie called Machuca. It was recommended by Karen as one of the movies that we could be lending out from the shop. In itself the movie was great. I am no movie reviewer so all I can really say is that I think it was really well made. What stuck me about the movie was the theme of hatred. It is not the first movie to depict such racial/political/class/etc hatred but this time I thought I might blog my thoughts on hatred.

Besides Internet Explorer I pretty much don’t feel hatred for anything or anyone these days. I used to feel a lot of hatred though, once upon a time - for people mostly. It made me feel powerful even though I know now it was a power that was born in fear. It was an illusionary power that was week in nature and never prevailed. It did not serve me in the end. So to a degree I can understand it when a person hates, but when a culture hates I can’t identify with that on a personal level.

I guess that I am lucky to have never had hatred for another culture instilled in me although in recent times there have been attempts. And just so my government knows. I don’t buy the scare campaigns. I will decide one by one my trust for another person and should a person do me wrong, I will not condemn a whole culture for it.

So in the movie there is this cultural hatred that escalates into violence and ultimately a military coup. And I think to myself for a minute that I am lucky to live in a country where there may be racism and cultural hated but it is mild and it is kept to oneself mostly. I quickly call myself a ‘Sheltered Wanker’ to start with, because I bet there is plenty of cultural hated out there that is affecting people in real and damaging ways everyday. Either I am fortunate or I don’t see it because I am not contributing to it. Then I remember Detention Centres - I do see it, it is just too easy to forget.

But here is the point I am trying to get at. From good soil good food grows. From poor quality soil that is laden with toxic chemicals things still grow, even things that look pretty much the same as things that grow healthy but they are not healthy. Hitler was a plant growing in a soil that let him be the person he was. And there are many other examples like this one. Is the soil to blame? That is, are the people to blame? I am going to go with Yes. But I say it with empathy. I heard it explained once that Hitler’s ‘emergence’ can be traced back along a chain of events. Unchecked sledging that becomes ok on a day to day level makes small things that should not have been ok, ok. And once the small things seem ok it makes the bigger things seem ok too, and on and on until no one remembers how it started. What kind of soil are we? What kind of leaders will emerge from us? Sorry for the long winded analogy - emergence is the key word. Responsibility belongs to us.

I don’t understand all of the details but someone suggested to me once on this topic that Pauline Hanson was Australia’s test and we passed. Maybe, not sure. You might know better - use the comments. I do like the idea though that for all our superficial cultural hatred, if called on it we would walk the other way.

By the way, in the soil analogy there is usually a farmer…