-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Salo revisited
The incidents of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram may be shocking, but that absolute power corrupts absolutely is least surprising. The 1975 Pasolini film should indeed have served as a warning, writes MARIO RODRIGUES Every other month, news of new "torture troves" being unearthed in Iraq manages to filter out despite the routine narrative of frenetic bloodletting between the American invaders and native insurgents. Only a few days ago, there were reports of how US soldiers stumbled upon a basement detention centre in an interior ministry building run by their Iraqi collaborators in which were discovered 173 severely maltreated Sunni prisoners. "I have never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad," an Iraqi official stated. The discovery has stoked fears that Iraq has become a vast concentration camp where thousands of prisoners could be incarcerated in hundreds of jails across the country by the American-British "coalition of the willing" and their local collaborators. In the light of the Abu Ghraib experience, one would not be wrong to assume that torture and degradation may be a routine occurrence therein. Afghanistan is another chilling example of life under US occupation. A number of US soldiers have been indicted for abuse of prisoners. A report by Army investigator Lt General Anthony Jones has noted how the interrogation techniques in Bagram and Abu Ghraib have been "remarkably similar". The US Embassy and the military command have expressed regret at the latest outrage, saying such "mistreatment of detainees will not be tolerated." But considering that torture seems to have become an official though unadvertised instrument of US foreign policy under the direction of the Bush-Cheney- Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz neocon cabal, it only invites scepticism. The rule of law has totally collapsed in Iraq and not only are individuals being targeted but entire populations being exterminated by heavy duty bombardment and brute force in the campaign against rebel strongholds like Fallujah. US Vice-President Dick Cheney is on record saying the USA should use "any means at our disposal" to defend its interests, including to work through the "dark side" - an euphemism for free recourse to all sorts of illegality. Accordingly, the USA has, according to reports, taken to "outsourcing torture" to its military bases in client states with poor human rights records such as Egypt, Uzbekistan (this nation has now given the USA notice to vacate in a few months). In a recently published book, former US commander of the Abu Ghraib prison Janis Karpinski, while accepting her "share of the responsibility" has indicted her superiors, extending from the military commanders in Iraq to the summit of the civilian leadership in Washington. It is another matter though that only the lower level officers have been indicted over Abu Ghraib and similar incidents while the top bosses who have masterminded the implementation of this immoral policy has been left virtually untouched. The routine of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, the interior ministry detention centre in Baghdad, et al, epitomises the complete degradation of US power. When the "world's policeman" descends to the level of bestial behaviour that only criminals and despots were thought to be capable of, then something has horribly gone wrong. But none of this is utterly surprising. What the people of subjugated states like Iraq, Afghanistan and other redoubts of US imperialism are experiencing is the effect of unbridled power without restraining factors like a free press, judiciary and fundamental rights. The adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely could not be more true. Actually, what has happened in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, et al, has already been depicted on the screen three decades ago. Not that the Americans ever considered they would be charged with plagiarism, considering that real life and history is replete with similar glaring examples. Art often imitates life and life has often imitated art. And a graphic foretaste of these developments was unspooled in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), based on a loose adaptation of a Marquis de Sade novel. The celebrated late Italian director and litterateur, whose works grapple with tenets from Roman Catholicism and Marxism, scripted a "blistering critique" of fascism in his film. The film explores the relationship between absolute power and the perversion in its exercise, depicting the subordination and helplessness of the subjugated. Transporting Sade's infamous novel to the Nazi-controlled fictitious state of Salo in wartime Italy, Pasolini, who was murdered by his casual gay lover on a beach soon after the movie's release, depicts with brutal frankness the depredations of a group of fascists who commandeer a remote castle and enact their "unspeakably heinous fantasies" on a group of young captives, both boys and girls. As in the Sade book, the violence is relentless and almost unwatchable, the intention of the fascists being to instill fear and intense degradation among the captives. The relentless violence in Salo, laden with many repulsive scenes, has drawn comparison with the excesses in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Probably the two auteurs, though belonging to different eras, may have been consumed by a passion to inflict the pain of their victim/s on the collective consciousness of their audiences. Salo has been labelled as "the most disturbing and disgusting film ever made," "gruelling and a descent to hell," "one of the most notorious, soul- churning pieces ever produced" and so on, even though some acknowledge it as "a masterpiece of world cinema." The film provides "an unflinching look at the horrors committed by totalitarian regimes and their dehumanising abuse of power." In retrospect, Salo depicts with eerie prescience what has transpired at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, a parallel which has not escaped notice today. As one reviewer noted in retrospect: "It is shocking, but when you consider that the US Army and dictatorial regimes throughout the world are engaged in similar acts, the truth of the work becomes ever more uncomfortable. Maybe de Sade wanted the world to know the true heart of darkness that some individuals have so as to serve as warning for us to take care and be vigilant against it." Indeed, Sade, Salo, Abu Ghraib, et al, should have served as a warning! There are hundreds of petty and not so petty Salos still happening all over the world and not necessarily in the occupied territories, military dictatorships and other totalitarian regimes where the rulers are accountable to no one. Even democracies like India have had and still have their own Salos, both big and small (for example, the Bhagalpur blindings) where sadistic policemen and security forces unleash the most horrifying abuse on suspected militants, petty criminals, undertrials and all those who do not have the clout to be treated differently. While the American excesses deserve the strongest condemnation, it will not be right if we close our eyes to the petty Salos and Abu Ghraibs in our own backyard. --- Mario Rodrigues is a prominent journalist of Goan-origin and was born in Mumbai. He has been a journalist for the past two decades and writes for a host of publications on subjects as diverse as Goan music, Sports, China, the Church, and Media. He was recently covering IFFI 2005 in Goa for The Statesman. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&id=97100 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Goa - 2005 Santosh Trophy Champions | | | | Support Soccer Activities at the grassroots in our villages | | Vacationing in Goa this year-end - Carry and distribute Soccer Balls | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
