The tragedy of the partition of India
August 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Seventy years ago this month, the British rushed through the partition of India to create new two states: India and Pakistan (which is now Pakistan and Bangladesh). In the resultant ethnic violence and migration, perhaps a million people died and up to 15 million people were displaced.
Why did this happen and where does partition leave us today? In today’s “Observer” newspaper, Yasmin Khan addresses these issues in an illuminating article which includes a map and a timeline.
She concludes her piece:
“This world of more fluid identities and cultures was gradually dismantled throughout the 19th century under British rule and then smashed by partition. It becomes ever harder, today, to imagine the pre-partitioned Indian subcontinent. In the south Asian case, the historical conflict is now acted out on a different, international stage. India and Pakistan stand frozen in a cold war, with nuclear missiles pointed at each other.
At least one billion people living in the region today were not even born when partition took place and south Asia has many more immediate and far more pressing problems: water supply, environmental crisis and adaptation to climate change. Nonetheless, a sense of shared history, and a more multidimensional understanding of what happened in 1947 is also vital for the future of the region.”
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A review of the new Christopher Nolan film “Dunkirk”
August 5th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The last time we saw Dunkirk in a film was in Joe Wright’s “Atonement” which featured a staggering five and a half minute Steadicam shot of a hell on earth beach scene. Now, thanks to the supreme talents of British director Christopher Nolan, we have an entire film devoted to the miracle of May/June 1940 that enabled some 340,000 British and French soldiers to be rescued by the British Navy and a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 small boats.
Nolan is what film studies call an auteur, someone who stamps an individual style on every work that he produces. In fact, Nolan is a most unusual auteur because his films are commercially successful (most notably his “Dark Knight” trilogy). But he often makes his viewers work hard because frequently he likes to use a non-linear narrative (most dramatically in “Memento”, “Inception” and “Interstellar”).
In this sense, “Dunkirk” – which he wrote, produced and directed – is classic Nolan in that there are three storylines: one largely set on land and covering a week, another located mainly at sea and occupying one day, and the third taking place in the air and filling just one hour. The three narratives intersect and finally converge temporally at the end of the film. It is as well for the viewer to know this before seeing the work for the first time and it means that a complete understanding of the timelines probably requires more than one viewing.
The unusual narrative structure is not the only distinctive feature of “Dunkirk”. Visually and aurally it is a striking film and I viewed it in IMAX which was a stunning experience. Whether it is the vast expanse of the beach with thousands of soldiers lined up or the claustrophic bowels of a crammed ship or a close-up of a pilot in his Spitfire fighter aircraft, whether it the whine of bullets or the explosion of bombs or the howl of a Stuka dive-bomber, this is a work which is almost overwhelming. When one factors in the astonishing soundtrack from Hans Zimmer, the movie becomes a heart-pounding experience.
There is a roster of familar talented actors – notably – Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy (although we barely see his face) – but Nolan deliberately cast young, newcomers to the screen in many of the soldier roles. In many ways, this is a minimalist movie: a simple plot (if complicated timelines), comparatively little dialogue, very few women characters, no German faces at all – just an unrelenting focus from the opening scene to the closing minutes on that strip of sand and the tens of thousands on it. The end sequences teeter on the edge of jingoism, but overall this is a masterclass in moviemaking.
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There’s nobody in the world of cinema to compare to Clint Eastwood
August 4th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Regular visitors to this blog will know that I am a lifelong fan of cinema and see quite a lot of films, all of which I review on my website. There is probably nobody who has starred in and/or directed more of the movies that I’ve viewed over the last six decades than the legend that is Clint Eastwood who is now aged 87 and still working. I don’t share his politics, but I believe that he is an outstanding talent, especially as a director.
A new box set of 40 of his films has been issued by Warner Home Video and today’s “Guardian” newspaper marks the occasion with a feature by Joe Queenan which notes:
“Eastwood, with whom the public has had a love affair for the 59 years since he debuted as high chaparral stud muffin Rowdy Yates in the TV series ‘Rawhide’, has probably had the most amazing career in motion picture history. There are bigger stars and there are better directors, and there are other stars who have become accomplished film-makers, but none of them can touch Eastwood for the breadth and quality of his work, for his success at the box office, and for his ability to never go out of fashion.”
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A review of the novel “Alone In Berlin” by Hans Fallada
August 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This remarkable novel was first published in German in 1947 and I read an English translation by Michael Hofman published in 2009. It is a long work – almost 600 pages – but the translation is excellent, the narrative compelling, and the text is divided into 72 chapters, so that it is a compulsive read.
It tells the story of a couple in their early 50s, living in Berlin during the Nazi era, who choose an idiosyncratic but immensely dangerous method of protest by leaving anonymous handwritten postcards around the city attacking the regime and the war. Otto and Anna Quangel commence this campaign in 1940 when they learn of the death of their son. But how long can they survive undetected and what impact can such a protest really have?
The story is populated by a series of generally unsavoury characters, led by the Gestapo detective determined to track down the Quangels: “Inspector Escherich was firmly convinced that he would find a knot of secrecy and deceit in well-nigh every German home. Almost no one had a clear conscience.”
Fallada – drawing no doubt on his own experience – describes a claustrophic world in which: “The air was thick with betrayal. No one could trust anyone else.” And yet the prisoner Dr Reichhardt can assert: “We live not for ourselves, but for others. What we make of ourselves we make not for ourselves, but for others.”
Hans Fallada was the nom de plume of Rudolf Ditzen who took the name from two characters in Grimm fairey tales. He was a sad individual who suffered from alcoholism and morphine addiction. He remained in Germany throughout the Nazi period and had a a complicated relationship with the regime, neither an eager collaborator nor an active resistor.
Shortly after the war, Fallada was enouraged to write this novel by an official in the post-war Soviet military administration who drew his attention to the real-life story of Otto and Elise Hampel who left handwritten missives around Berlin between 1940-1942 before being detected and executed. Amazingly Fallada drafted his novel in around a month and then died before it could be published.
There are many similarities, but significant differences, between the story of the Quangels and the reality of the Hampels, some of the changes literary licence by Fallada and others the result of Fallada not being shown all the Gestapo files. The Quangels are portrayed in ultimately heroic terms whereas sadly the Hampels were more flawed characters.
“Alone In Berlin” has been made into a film starring Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson.
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A review of last year’s film “Snowden”
August 2nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The eponymous Edward Snowden is, of course, the former CIA contractor who in 2013 revealed to the world the massive and unauthorised surveillance operations carried out by American (and British) intelligence services.
Documentary maker Laura Poitras was at the Hong Kong hotel when he passed on his information to the “Guardian” newspaper and this meeting was the centre-piece of her work “Citizenfour” (2014). In “Snowden” (2016), Poitras herself is one of the many real-life characters in Oliver Stone’s film which opens in that hotel room but constantly flashes back to show how Snowden learned these secrets and came to the decision that he had to expose them. The two works complement each other neatly.
The casting for the Stone movie is well-done. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Snowden and, as well as having a passing physical resemblance to his subject, portrays convincingly the nerdiness, intelligence, passion and anxiety of the mother of all whistleblowers.
Snowden’s partner Lindsay Mills, who barely appeared in “Citizenfour”, has a major role here and Shailene Woodley is excellent as the understanding and loyal girlfriend. Gay actor Zachary Quinto plays gay investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. Other familiar faces include Nicolas Cage and – at least for UK viewers – British actors Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans and Joely Richardson.
Only occasionally does Stone become carried away with overly-dramatic visuals. For the most part, this is a balanced and informative narrative, with good use of location shooting and some high-tech sets, in a film that underlines both the immense threat to our civil liberties and the huge price to be paid for exposing that threat.
You can see the Wikipedia page on Edward Snowden here.
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What was happening in Britain and the world 50 years ago?
August 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, my professional commitments are light, so I sign up for a number of short courses at the City Lit further education college in central London. My fourth such course of this summer was delivered by a lecturer called Alison Appleby and it was titled “Fifty years ago today: the world in 1967”.
I was 19 in the summer of 1967 and it was about this time that I started my lifelong interest in politics and current affairs, so I remember the events of 1967 well. During the course, the lecturer pulled out selected topics and I was struck at how so often the events of 1967 resonated with events in 2017.
In Britain, in 1967 there was a Labour Government struggling with the economy and forced to devalue the pound by 14%. Today, one year after the Brexit referendum decision, the pound has effectively devalued as you will know if you’ve been abroad recently. British politicians saw the longer-term solution to our economic problems as membership of what was then called the Common Market. In 1967, we made the second application to the Market which was vetoed by de Gaulle who saw the UK as effectively a Trojan horse for the Americans. It took us three attempts to get into what we now call the European Union and, after four and a half decades of membership, we are now negotiating exit.
Still in Britain, 1967 was a time of progressive change with the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act, decriminalising most homosexual activity, and the Abortion Act, making it much easier for a pregnant woman to obtain a termination. Both pieces of legislation were promoted as a Private Members Bill – by Labour MP Leo Abse and Liberal MP David Steel respectively – but the then Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins provide the government time that enabled the Bills to reach the statute book. Today attitudes to homosexuality have been transformed with the availability of gay marriage (although there is still prejudice), while abortion rights remain terribly restricted in Northern Ireland.
Of course, there were lots of important developments worldwide in 1967.
In the USA, the first African- American (the Republican Edward Brooke) was elected to the US Senate and the first African-American (Thurgood Marshall) was nominated to the Supreme Court. Could we imagine then that in 2017 the first black President would complete eight years in the White House to be followed by the most bigoted occupant in living memory?
In 1967, the Vietnam War was escalating with American and South Vietnamese troops conducting the largest airborne operation of the conflict (Operation Junction City). Today America is still struggling against insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Again in 1967, there was the Six Day War when Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a pre-emptive strike. Today, Israel remains in occupation of the West Bank and a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict seems as far away as ever.
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How close are we to stopping Alzheimer’s?
July 31st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is the question posed at the head of a very short six-part feature currently on the BBC’s website here.
I was particularly interested in the section on the special role of sleep which states:
“New research by Professor Maiken Nedergaard at the University of Copenhagen suggests that regular, good quality sleep throughout life may powerfully prevent the accumulation of amyloid in the brain.”
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A review of the new rom-com movie “The Big Sick”
July 30th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is a romantic comedy that follows the traditional rom-com narrative: boy meets girl, boy loses girl – well, you know the rest. But much else is a fresh approach to the genre.
Above all, the lead characters are not traditional fare. The family of stand-up comedian Kumail (played by stand-up Kumail Nanjiani) are Pakistani migrants to Chicago, while (white) Emily (Zoe Kazan) – as the title forewarns – has some health issues. The script, by Nanjiani and his wife Emily V Gordon, is based on their real-life experience together as underlined by some photographs at the beginning of the credits.
So this is an original twist on a very familiar genre and it works a treat. The characters are utterly believable and we root for them – not just the young couple but also her very different parents, ably portrayed by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter.
The humour is understated but sharp, not least in its observations on Muslim families and in a brief discussion about 9/11, and there is much inter-racial and inter-generational contrast in a world where everyone wants what’s for the best but often disagrees on what that is. In short, the film is a gem and highly recommended.
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The rise of populism: causes and consequences
July 28th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, my professional commitments are light, so I sign up for a number of short courses at the City Lit further education college in central London. My third such course of this summer was delivered by an American lecturer called Dale Mineshima-Lowe and it was titled “An introduction to populism: a view of America and Europe”.
This was an all-day course that was stimulating and engaging. It was new to the college’s programme and the lecturer was pleased with the involvement of the students.
What is populism? It is a reaction to and rebellion against established political parties and structures. It usually expresses the view that there are elites working against the interests of the common people and it is not rooted in any one part of the political spectrum.
Populism can be Right-wing (as with Trumpism in the USA) or Left-wing (as with Syriza in Greece) or even Centrist (as with Macron in France). It does not represent a political ideology so much as political style.
What are the causes of or triggers for populist movements? Factors include:
- The economic recession of 2008 with unemployment and insecure employment plus declining real incomes and tough austerity measures
- Growing inequalities of income in societies with the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer while the middle-class is hollowed out
- Unprecedented numbers of migrants arriving in a country over a prolonged period causing worries about control, culture and identity
- A sense that the establishment has not been listening to the concerns of citizens but simply pushes its own agenda and interests
- A breakdown in the trust in established political parties and figures and a weaking of traditional ideological commitment to such parties
- The arrival of a charismatic leadership who offers a simplified vision of what needs to be done and demonises marginalised groups and political opponents
Our lecturer gave us a number of interesting articles on populism. In one of these, Professor Cas Mudde of the University of Georgia argues that: “populism is pro-democracy, i.e. popular sovereignty and majority rule, but anti-liberal democracy (democracy plus minority rights, pluralism, and rule of law)”. He suggests that: “Populists often ask the right questions, but provide the wrong answers”.
In an another article, Yascha Mounk – a lecturer on government at Harvard University – asserts that: “We’ve made real progress in understanding the nature of populism, moderate progress in analyzing its causes, and barely any progress in identifying its potential remedies”.
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Why is there nothing as good as “Madam Secretary” about British politics?
July 26th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
OK, it’s not as superlative as “The West Wing”, my all-time favourite television series. But “Madam Secretary” is good television. Like “The West Wing”, it deals with political issues that have a real-life basis and it represents politicians as basically honourable and trying to to the right thing. And women both originated the series and fill the eponymous role (Barbara Hall and Tea Leoni respectively).
This evening, on Sky Living, the final episode (number 23) of the latest series (number 3) of “Madam Secretary” was broadcast. It dealt with the role of NATO in the face of a resurgent Russia attempting an invasion of Bulgaria. There have now been a total of 68 episodes and I’ve seen them all. I’m pleased that a fourth series has been commissioned and I look forward to it.
But why is there no British fictional series that treats politics seriously and politicians as basically decent?
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