My Job is Ambiguous . . .
I’m still in the process of absorbing a lot of the films that the NFB is working on/has already made. There are a lotttt of movies to watch, and I’m sure for a few weeks this place will become some sort of a referral service to the films that I’m looking at. Don’t worry though, I have good taste, I think.
One of the films that is in the process of filming/development is really intriguing to me, but I’m not sure if I can post the name here. It is following the life of Joseph Kony‘s former favourite wife. If you don’t know you Kony is, you can read more about him at the Wikipedia link. Interestingly enough, there’s also some news on him today, as President Obama has begun a mission to hunt him down.
A Portrait of Joseph Kony
I’ve read the proposal for the project and it’s actually really interesting. Kony claimed that his actions were supported by the Ten Commandments, that his kidnapping of children for the Lord’s Resistance Army were the cost of setting up theocratic rule. Most of the preview is centred around meetings with his former wife, Evelyn. She talks about the days when he would sit down with her beside a river and tears would flow from his eyes. I’m supposed to feel like he’s a more human character, that he isn’t some kind of monster. He’s being sought for crimes against humanity, by the way.
Evelyn also used to be a powerful figure in the LRA, but she was kidnapped at the age of eleven and made Kony’s wife. She has since left the LRA and Kony’s side, but not before spending eleven years in the LRA. They had three daughters, and now everyone in Uganda wants Kony’s children to pay retribution for what he did to the country. They probably also want Evelyn to pay for what she used to be. When you are kidnapped, I’d say you don’t really have much of a choice in how you survive, let alone if you are also a child.
Nice vs. Good
So we have a portrait of a woman whose had a difficult life for reasons that were probably out of her control. The only problem is the undercurrent running through the film of “Good vs. Evil.” Without going into Evelyn’s story, she tries to paint for the audience her version of Kony, who was apparently sensitive and loving for many years of their relationship. It is supposed to confuse an audience that is accustomed sorting through people in a binary way
I think this whole concept is framed incorrectly though, probably because I no longer think that good or evil exist, they are too subjective. But let’s assume that they do for a second, shall we? Another metric of character that sometimes gets confused with ‘goodness’ is ‘niceness,” and those two do not always move in the same direction. There are probably some serial killers out there who are just bursting with charm and hospitality.
The portrayal of Kony as a man with two sides isn’t entirely accurate, because he has orchestrated the destruction of innocent lives through rape, murder, war, enslavement, etc. I guess this would make him “evil.” However, evil does not preclude someone from also being a “nice” person, which can explain Evelyn’s recounts of how candid and emotional and intimate Kony could be. It is possible to possess both qualities simultaneously.
Manners in Nanking
Too bad the quality of ‘goodness’ in a person is so ambiguously defined, eh? I guess my roots come from a culture of people who are on the surface, very rude. Don’t try to convince me otherwise! The Chinese, especially in China, are pushy, and loud, and prone to doing all sorts of things in public that North Americans would consider unhygienic. The Chinese are also considered incredibly miserly. From working in the service industry, I can tell you, we probably aren’t the best tippers, which is a constant source of my embarrassment.
The Japanese have a reputation for manners that is probably the opposite of the Chinese, especially internationally: Japanese tourists have often been voted the most polite, meekest tourists in the world. There is also social pressure to conform to norms which prevents all sorts of common acts in North America, such as vandalism or littering. This pressure also ensures that in public, the Japanese will go to lengths to avoid embarrassing themselves. When I had a table of Japanese tourists, the tipping was unreal, and this was probably out of a fear of undertipping. Needless to say, I wasn’t complaining.
Our reputations as “nice” and “not so nice” cultures did not stop the Japanese from finding brutal ways to murder hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Chinese civilians during the WWI, in humiliating and painful and creative ways. It wasn’t simply the conquest of a land; the torture of innocent men, women, and children, and their slaughter, can be considered sociopathic. It wasn’t enough to kill civilians, the focus was more on prolonging the suffering and degradation than anything else. The Rape of Nanking does not go over well in China; if you visit the south like I just did, you can still find an undertow of bitter resentment of the Japanese. This is only aggravated by the fact that there’s still nothing in the way of education of children in schools about what happened, or any sort of official government apology to the Chinese. I remember that I had to read about it on my own as a high schooler; and for weeks the images I saw would haunt me.
The Chinese have done some egregious things to repress people as well, but the point I’m trying to make is that a culture of manners and an outward projection of “niceness” does not stop a society from exhibiting the potential to act in “evil” ways. The two qualities are entirely unrelated to each other.
Which Matters?
Ultimately, if both existed, I would choose to be “good” over “nice.” I’m not a nice person, but I can fake it if an occasion calls for it. Faking “goodness” would get a bit more tricky. The more difficult problem is that my framework for “good” and “evil” has been slipping away from me for quite some time, and so I’m not even sure if I can be “good.”
Maybe I can’t be anything at all.
