New
Internationalist 374
December
2004
New
Internationalist 374December
2004
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Good
morning, night Good morning, night is based on real events – in 1978 the Brigade captured Moro, after killing his police escorts, and held him for eight weeks. It’s not a thriller or an action movie – the kidnapping happens off-screen – but something more resonant. It simply focuses on how the group and their victim react to their close confinement and wider political events. The operation is a political disaster, mobilizing wider support for the Christian Democrat Government. Moro, more valuable as a martyr, is abandoned by his own party. His captors are idealists, holding to their principles, but shaken by events and their affection for Moro, a sad, dignified old man. Mariano, the leader, spouts abstractions but allows Moro to keep a diary and write letters to his family. Chiara dreams about him, freed from his cell, wandering the apartment and examining their books, even walking free. But there was no way out, not for Moro, not for the kidnappers. Bellocchio has a track record. For 40 years he’s made films attacking Italy’s social institutions – church, army, state. His point here is simple. To change the world you need to act with humanity, not repress it. Rating
The other Israel: voices
of refusal and dissent Here we have the undiluted opinions of some of Israel’s most respected activists, journalists and academics, some of whom have been featured previously in the NI. The spirit of Israel’s dissidents emanates from the testimonies of Refusenik soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories to the anguish expressed in celebrated Israeli author David Grossman’s depiction of a people living in a ‘kind of latent death’. Despite the deep despair that many of the writers feel, there is also the simple hope that, through their actions, they might be able to dismantle the ‘checkpoints of arrogance’ in Israeli society. They all share a hope that one day, we Israelis will be able to ‘let go of our fear enough to find a way forward’. This book is urgent reading if only to remind us that the real battle for Israel’s soul is being waged not on the streets of Gaza, but within its borders. Rating
Another world is possible if... Idealism needs realism. The huge energy of hope, expressed at such events as the annual World Social Forum, needs to be harnessed to practicality. ‘It’s all very well,’ as the author writes, ‘to have inspiring watchwords, no political movement can live without them; but the moment we abandon rhetoric and become cooler, more critical and analytical we must ask under what conditions is another world possible? Is it just another phrase to keep up the morale of the troops or is it a serious proposition?’ With extraordinary clarity, this book signposts us through the seemingly complex thicket of economic globalization – and the resistance to it. True to her promise, George amply suggests what we must do to make sure that our lives are not ruled by the whims of corporations and financial markets. Her proposals range between levels – from international tax reform to tips on how best to organize a public meeting. Some of her views will stoke controversy within the movement – her insistence that Europe can and should provide a counterbalance to US power, for example. Or her scathing critique of the ‘guilty consumer’ syndrome (Everything would be okay if only we, as individuals, consumed ethically. It would not, says George. The structures that endlessly feed the greed of the rich and powerful, need to be dealt with.). Lucid, intelligent, inspiring – Another world is possible if… deserves to be high on your reading list, whether you are novice or old hand. Its wisdom and humanity make it especially welcome. Rating
Burrow Tapan enters a subterranean world – the secret city within the city – moving between squalid safe houses and exploitative jobs. His twin enemies are the Immigration Department surveillance squads and the informers, the ‘rats’ who betray illegals to the authorities. Throughout it all he is sustained by a network of activists and comrades who manage the complex system of evasion and subterfuge. Chief among Tapan’s protectors are the militant Sundar Mia and his cousin Nilufar, a rebel against the strictures of her family, who becomes Tapan’s lover. Eventually, Tapan’s life as a ‘mole’ becomes unsustainable and he makes a decision to surface that will have profound consequences for himself and those around him. Burrow is a sometimes uneasy mixture of gritty realism and outlandish fantasy, including a bizarre plot to tunnel under the Tower of London and ‘reclaim’ the Koh-i-noor diamond. Nevertheless, this is an absorbing account of those forced to live on the margins of society; lives that politicians and social engineers would much rather we failed to notice. Rating
The
Rough Guide to Rebétika Rebétika (or rembetika) is the Greek equivalent of the blues: a marginalized music that to some extent reflected the difficulties of a developing Greek state. The Rough Guide’s 22-track compilation traces rebétika from the raw vocals of Eskenazi or her chief rival, Rita Abatzi, of its first recordings to the slicker production values of revivalists such as Mario and Glikeria. What strikes first are the wavering microtones: bouzoukia, fiddles and hammer dulcimers locate rebétika in a Middle Eastern sound world, and the older the songs are, the more this is so. But beyond this, the song is complete unto itself: no love songs these hasiklidhiki (hash songs), where any sudden interruption to the reverie of a smoking session could be met with sudden violence; yearning is heard only in the songs of a lost home – and these songs are aimed at the displaced populations following World War One and the emigrations to the New World that ensued. The album touches on the political issues that rebétika reflected: while some singers were banned by the Metaxa dictatorship in the 1930s, it’s questionable how much of a threat the form represented to an established order. This Guide is an excellent starting-point to make one’s own enquiries. Rating
Sciopero (Strike) Piedmont’s Yo Yo Mundi have plenty of ideas and it’s their riveting music that ensures that, in their hands at least, Eisenstein gets a more sympathetic treatment. Sciopero – in all its hanging harmonies, upbeat militancy and haunting accordion solos – is a supple and emotive soundtrack that is worthy of Enrico Morricone himself. Nevertheless, the Italian quintet didn’t choose an easy film. Strike, Eisenstein’s 1926 silent film, has a leaden plot: set in 1912, an innocent worker is driven to suicide by unjust accusations; his comrades strike for decent working conditions; the bosses, in league with crooks and the army, march against them; slaughter ensues. It’s easy to hear the passages of escalating tension: the band ratchets up the tempo; drums, guitars and voices chanting ‘Scioperi!’ press in on the attention. Like waiting for a cloudburst, the floating sound wafts until the band, dominated by its wonderfully melancholic accordion, takes up the tune again. Rating
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| © Copyright
2004 New Internationalist Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Looking over an apartment for rent, Chiara and Ernesto seem distracted
and tense. Primo and Mariano, who help them move in, avoid being seen.
Primo, a carpenter, builds a wall across a back room, with a tiny entrance
through a bookshelf. They are all members of the Red Brigade, and are
planning a kidnapping. The wall hides a prison cell – to hold Aldo
Moro, Italy’s prime minister.
Much is
made of this book’s condemnation of the occupation and
the Israeli Government. But after reading The other Israel, one feels
that challenging the occupation and Ariel Sharon is only part of what
this collection of 26 Israeli writers offers. In many ways, it does
what few books critical of Israel have been able to do, and that is
to speak
directly to an Israeli audience and to pro-Israel supporters around
the world.
That two-letter
word – ‘if’ – attached to the
popular slogan of the worldwide social justice movement, makes Susan
George’s intention clear from the outset.
Manzu Islam’s admirable début novel is set in London in
the 1970s, on the frontline of confrontation between the immigrant communities
and the thugs of the National Front. In this world of Anti-Nazi League
rallies, Rock against Racism concerts and street battles in Brick Lane,
Tapan Ali, a student from Bangladesh, is brought face to face with the
fragility of his circumstances in Britain. When his marriage of convenience
to Adela, a fellow student, fails, he is reported to the immigration
service and becomes an ‘illegal’ – a failed asylum
seeker, in today’s hideous argot. 
Roza Eskenazi,
captured here in all her creeky wonder, was discovered in a tavern
in 1929. What her family made of her hymns of praise to the
pleasures of hashish isn’t on record, but, as any rebétika
fan knows, hash and low-life Greek taverns were a marriage made in heaven – and
anyone who tried to sunder the two was asking for big trouble. 
Composing
new soundtracks for existing films has become a vogue in recent years.
Philip Glass writes elegantly framed chamber operas (La belle
et la bête; Dracula); Asian Dub Foundation finds new drama in The
Battle of Algiers; and Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is torpedoed
by the Pet Shop Boys’ lacklustre electronics. If you’re going
to make a new soundtrack, you’d better have some ideas. 