There’s a new film out entitled “V for Vendetta”, and it has right-wing (i.e., pro-fascist) film critics like Michael Medved frothing at the mouth.
The whole theme of the film, V says that blowing up buildings can change the world. Is that really a message that we should welcome right now? We`re engaged in a war on terror. There are people who are exposing their bodies and their lives to terrorists every day to try to make us safer. Hollywood has yet to make a film about the heroic role of American counterterrorist activities. And yet they`ve made several films that express sympathy and in this case treat as heroic terrorist activity.
This actually could lead young people to vandalism at best and some real terrorist incidents at worst.
…V is for venal, vicious, vapid and verminous.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11857813/ (Interview with Medved by Tucker Carlson)
What’s the plot of this dastardly film? Why, it stars Hugo Weaving as V, a masked freedom fighter/terrorist (remember, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter) who blows up buildings (with people in them) as a way of fighting a fascist government that has seized control of a future Great Britian. V rescues a young woman (Natalie Portman) from the torture chambers of the fascists and enlists her aid in his ultimate plot: blowing up the British Houses of Parliament, which have become the centres of evil.
Well, the French Resistance used acts of terror to fight the Nazi occupation during World War Two. The Zionists used acts of terror (including blowing up the King David Hotel in Tel Aviv on July 22nd, 1946, killing 92 people and wounding 58) to drive out the British occupying authorities from Palestine so the Zionists could establish the modern State of Israel. And the Founders of the American Republic organised an army that killed British troops (and Hessian mercenary soldiers) by the thousands. And of course the Iraqi terrorists who are killing American and British soldiers, as well as their own countrymen in Iraq today, are called “freedom fighters” by some. The September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives, was condemned as an act of terrorism
Quite simply, what would you do if a fascist government seized control of your country? Would you fight “by any means necessary”?
Anyway, “V for Vendetta” is, at the end of the day, just a movie–and one that brings up an important question: when is violence an acceptable means to fight for freedom? Who defines and decides what is “freedom” and what means are moral?
My own answer would be: a freedom fighter targets the leaders of an oppressive government or occupying authority and uniformed soldiers–not innocent men, women, and children. When you start killing non-combatants, you cross the line from “freedom fighter” to “terrorist”. That’s why it’s state-sponsored terrorism when the US drops bombs on a city like Fallujah, knowing that those bombs will kill civilians…and why directing those two jet liners into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, was terrorism.
What’s YOUR answer?
