The story is about a newspaper journalist (Ewan McGregor) whose wife leaves him for another man. To prove to himself that he's still a man, he decides to fly out to Iraq to seek adventure and show her how brave he is.
The film revolves around a reporter in Iraq but the basis of the story revolves around Commander Jim Channon (renamed Bill Django in the film, and played by Jeff Bridges), who famously wrote a book on how to get the US army to really engage in the process of peace-making. The book was called "The First Earth Battalion Manual", and can be downloaded as a PDF.
From what I remember of the Jon Ronson documentary about Channon, his strategies included: "Dropping Parachuters with bunches of Flowers" over enemy territory, spiking enemy water coolers with LSD, and utilizing charismatic guru-like techniques to inspire and overpower their enemies with love, also something about carrying little lambs and melting the enemy's hearts... comes vaguely back, and all of this is explored in detail in the film.
Well, thinking about it this evening, along with the other million thoughts that run through my head in times of personal emotional crisis (ie those annoying scenario roleplaying games one tortures oneself with), I wondered to myself why on earth the American military, and the UN for that matter, aren't bringing real Islam to the new generation of would-be extremists on the frontline in Peshawar.
It occurs to me that Islam, a religion that preaches tolerance and peace, much like Christianity, might be precisely the prescription that is needed to cure ignorance and extremism in places like Yemen, the Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Iraq.
I know, it sounds crazy. But Islam in prosperous areas of the east brings with it enlightenment and the arts. It brings knowledge in the form of reading and writing, and it brings divine inspiration. Much like all other religions, it fosters community and teaches morality. Why not then, arm our good soldiers with a message of Koranic love, which is understood and already accepted by the locals?
Surely the Taliban would have little to fight against, if the US, UK and UN soldiers weren't fighting their ideology but embracing it? Handing out new Korans to every household they visited?
Well, that wasn't the only thing I wanted to cover in this blog post, though obviously I hope the idea is taken up - I also wanted to cover the issue of drugs, especially since spiking the water coolers with LSD was the final and redeeming feature of this movie, a key plot point around which the whole thing hinged.
Folks, there's a new drug in town that's been around for a while on the 'underground' and which the UK government failed to successfully ban in their green paper concerning legal highs that passed into law at the end of 2009. It's called "Meow" and it is pretty damned deceptive.
Well kids, when they say 'Just say No!' - it turns out 'they' are right. Mephedrone itself is probably not that dangerous, but it can be unpredictable. Like Gregory Sams, the guy on acid who thought he could fly, if you're not careful, you might end up thinking you can do crazy things too, so whilst it may be easy to find on campus, you're probably wisest to keep well clear, however groovy you may think you are being!
Legal cannabinoids have mostly been banned in the UK, but designer drugs are always on the increase. Whether it's Alexander Shulgin's famous tryptamines and phenethalamines (2C-B, 2CT-7, 2C-i), or the more modern approaches to synthetic THC compounds (angel dust aside) being sprayed onto inert herbs for the purpose of smoking (Spice etc.), the innovation will always continue apace, regardless of the Government's efforts to illegalise anything that puts the average mind out of control, and so it should.
Hallucinogens will always have a special place in my heart, and in my life, and as a man who's done his first year without alcohol for the last fifteen years (as of tomorrow) I'm proud to say that I'd also been hallucinogen free all year too, until I tragically decided to break my fast and check into the fast lane again if only in the name of 'investigative journalism'.
But I guess as you get older the stakes get higher too (if you'll excuse the pun). You have more to lose, the old patterns are ingrained, the world expects more of you, so please, take a leaf out of my booklet at least in the case of 'Meow', and skip it. It's not worth the hassle, and you may end up losing that thing you value most because of it, namely, your sanity.
This is also what AA has been teaching me in the last year too: I've covered most of the 12 step program, and I've come to realise just how effective a philosophy abstinence truly is, even (and perhaps especially) when practiced in private and on a daily basis. But the philosphy of the 12 steps isn't just abstinence from substance abuse. It's a moral philosophy which isn't far off Channon's original vision in the First Earth Battalion manual (the halluncinogens notwithstanding).
Often-times, people say (my dad being a great example) that believing in God allows folks to blame someone else, or something else for their failures or their bad luck. He says that people want to believe in a higher power out of a fear of taking responsibility for their own actions, but my intuition tells me something which complements that view also.
Like Mos Def says:
"If you see or hear goodness from me
Then that goodness is from The Creator
[...]
If you see weakness or shortcoming in me
It's from my own weakness or shortcoming
And I ask The Creator [...] to forgive me for that".
In this way, people can separate the good in themselves from the evil. Giving credit to a higher force for their spiritual strengths, and accepting their faults as their own and asking for the spiritual strength to heal and forge a new relationship with the spirit.
Something else occurs to me on that subject too, that when you're out of sync with love (of any kind, and that can be God's love, or the love of your partner), and you're only thinking of yourself, your high, or your immediate gratification, you're really struggling to achieve something which has no inherent value to anyone else, it's a bit like the guy who drives a ferrari in the ghetto, showing off his worldly goods to those who have nothing.
But when you're striving for a higher ideal, or even a higher concept - something as simple as 'love' or 'god' or 'freedom', a universal thing in which everyone can share and take part in, then you put yourself in the hands of that higher ideal or that higher power and it will lend you eternal strength, if you can only subjugate your own desire and your own will entirely to it.
That's not to mitigate one's own responsibilty, as drugs do very much change one's spiritual perspective too, but there are levels of morality, and in my view whilst drugs and religion may help or hinder the spiritual process in different ways, ultimately what counts is one's approach to the concept of goodness in general.
One can't expect to blame one's own bad behaviour entirely on the effects of an unknown substance, one has to respect other people's rights and other people's property. One has to respect their foibles and weaknesses, and give them credit for their strengths and virtues, and if and when you forget any of those basic principles, admit your faults immediately, apologise and make such amends as you can make willingly.
That's what I've come to believe anyway, and it helps me when I've been or am being an idiot, not only to ameliorate my own self-loathing, but also hopefully, other's disgust of me too, and I hope it can help you, whoever you are.
So peace be with you mah brothers and sisters, may you walk in eternal bliss, and Allah be your guide, or Buddha, or Christ, or Jah or whomever you choose... but for God's sake skip the prophet Meow, as she's far from purrfect!
:)
Postscript:
Ewan McGregor is excellent as the rookie newspaper reporter in Iraq... inspires me to get writing, and chase that dream again, to which end, I've posted my original set of thirty documentary/feature ideas in the left hand column of this blog; the ideas which inspired me to take this journalism course in the first place, plus an extra one, which I'd all but forgotten about, but which led to inspire me into documentary-making in the first place, sort of.
Afghanistan and Iraq aren't on there, but The Sudan, Israel and Pakistan all feature prominently in the list of places I want to go to and that reminds me that I had better get used to practicing these principles in all my affairs, before I put myself in harm's way in a foreign country...
x
R
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