BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE...

I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine'. I thought it was a very good documentary, although in the end, Moore raises more questions that what he answers. But he make an excellent attempt to delineate the problem and its possible causes. Moore has been criticized of being 'unrealistic' in his portrayals, but I thought much of what he showed was as 'realistic' as things can get, and made a lot of sense. In general, I like Moore's documentaries because of their simplicity; he asks people extremely simple questions which nonetheless frequently strike at the heart of the matter (sometimes through the people's inability to answer them)

The big question of course is "Why is there so much violence in the US, especially gun violence?". The backdrop is the tragic Columbine high-school massacre of 1999, in which two teenagers walked into the school loaded with ammunition and guns, and went on a shooting spree killing 12 people, before turning the weapons on themselves. Moore can empathize; he hails from Flint, Michigan, where in a similar unbelievable incident, a six year old shot and killed his classmate, a little six year old girl. Are these just freak incidents, or is there an underlying thread? Moore compares anuual numbers of gun deaths in many developed countries. Most are a far cry from the US: 11, 000 compared to a couple of hundred deaths in Germany, the UK, France, and Japan. Then he tries to analyse various factors which people and politicians have quoted to explain this disturbing trend. Among these are (not surprisingly); violence at home including poor family structure, the influence of violent TV, video games, and movies, a generally poor and indifferent social makeup...and Marilyn Manson, the transvestite like looking psychedelic heavy metal performer.

Moore dissects each one of these factors and tells us that none of these factors is really unique to the US. In Japan, for example, video games are extremely gory, but violent crime is apparently much less. In one of the more amusing parts of the film, he interviews Marilyn Manson, the freakish looking performer. Surprisingly, Manson sounds not just extremely sane and reasonable, but also educated and well-read. In a telling instance, he says that at the same time that the masscare took place, the US was bombing Kosovo and killing hundreds of innocent civilians. So who is to blame? The president who pursues a belligerent and violent foreign policy, or Marilyn Manson??

Since none of these factors can really account for the glaring differences in violent crime, Moore finally turns to some of the more central factors, including the ready availability of guns in the US. But here too, there is confusion, because it turns out that in Canada, guns are as easily available, and yet many parts of the country are so safe that citizens don't even lock their doors. So no, that's also not an unambiguous cause. So what is it?
At this point, Moore launches into a recounting of the 'culture of fear' that exists in the US, a fact that has been increasingly brought into the forefront by leading intellectuals. And to a large extent, I agree with his assesment. Americans seem to be unusually afraid people (given their secure existence and high standard of living), and the media and the government are largely responsible for inducing that fear. All the time, the media is bombarding the US with news of some form of impending doom; serial killers in your neighbourhood, killer bees from Africa, mutagens in your food, and bomb making terrorists in your backyard. Unfortunately, as is the case with a lot of propaganda, no matter how vulgar, there is a shred of truth in all of these scares. But what the government does is to use and exaggerate these to play on people's emotions and keep them afraid. Because afraid means subdued and ready to listen to what the government is saying.

Why are Americans so afraid? Even Noam Chomsky cannot provide a conclusive answer, but rightly says that the reason is deeply rooted in American history. To try to answer this question, Moore shows us a revealing cartoon film for a few minutes, which explores Americans since Columbus. The main reason why many Americans came to America was religious persecution in Europe. Then there was fear of the Indians in America, then the British, then the slaves (which continues to an irrational extent in the form of fear of African Americans to this day). So Moore seems to say that since time immemorial, Americans have always been afraid of someone or something (he is primarily refering to white Americans), and this fear never went away inspite of massive improvment in standards of living and 'equality' among the populace. That is why, Moore says, Americans have come to rely on guns as a means of keeping them safe. Ironically, they have made them more unsafe than ever. In fact, there are many Americans who have loaded guns in their house, just to 'feel safe' even if they live in a safe neighbourhood and have never had any safety issues.

One of the people whom Moore interviews is 'Moses'- Charlton Heston, who is President of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I have to say that after watching Heston speak, I have lost a lot of respect for him. The man is not only indifferent, but not even articulate. He is as hazy about answering Moore's questions as anyone could be. After the Columbine incident, he had the cheek to hold an NRA convention in Colorado. There, he flashed a letter from the Mayor of Denver in front of the audience, in which the Mayor had requested him to cancel the convention in light of the tragedy. I expected Heston to at least make an arrogant excuse for the event. All the inane man could say was "This is a free country...we can travel wherever we want and hold a convention there". Appalling! He was completely stupid, and totally missed the point. Later, Moore interviewed Heston at his palatial mansion, and there too, the man was clueless and completely indifferent. He would not even acccept the little girl's picture. After a few minutes, he simply walked away. No wonder Heston became the President of the NRA; toting a gun does not need a shred of intelligence after all.
More inspiring was when Moore took two survivors of Columbine to K-mart, where the killers had bought their ammunition. Surprisingly, after appeals from Moore and the survivors, that branch of K-Mart promised not to stock any more ammunition for guns in their store.

What's my take on this? I don't doubt that Americans live in a culture of fear. The reasonable and sane Americans among them apparently don't seem to make a big difference in attitudes. Apart from the aforementioned reasons which I agree with, I think there are a few other things. Americans, especially in the last two generations, have enjoyed an immensely high standard of living, and also immense security as such. Because of this completely secure existence, I think that many of them cannot distinguish between real and perceived threats. For them, every threat is a real threat; a belief which makes a field day for the government and media to exploit. After all, what better way to deflect people's attention from the issues that really matter, than by keeping them always under fear and preoccupied with things that are never or rarely going to happen? It's a classic model of thought control and propaganda. People who have actually faced problems of safety learn to recognise really dangerous situations. Secondly, Americans, at least until now, have been able to isolate themselves from knowing about world affairs, again because of the high living standards and internal security which could afford to keep them preoccupied. This makes them ignorant about what is really happening around them, leading to further confusion that can be exploited in the form of fear.
The social structure is definitely to blame. The mother of the six year old worked a seventy hour week making fudge and milkshakes, in a restaurant owned by the 'the oldest American teenager', Dick Clark. Because of this desperate run to make ends meet, she could hardly meet her son. It would be premature to draw a direct connection between this fact and the son's violent act, but I strongly believe that a supportive and loving family can make a world of difference for troubled individuals, especially children. Dick Clark, as expected, refused to comment.

It is definitely true that guns are very easily available in the US; the more important fact is that many of those guns which are easily available, are far from being hunting weapons. They are quite distinctively weapons that would be used for killing people. It's extremely important to keep these out of the hands of everybody and anybody. Why on earth are you compelled to own an M-16 assault weapon to hunt deer? Simply invoking the second amendment (right to arms) as an excuse to buy such a gun is nonsense. There should be a demonstrated need to purchase such a weapon. Bur for that, Americans, including Heston, should first curb the paranoia to keep loaded guns under their pillow, and also should curb the hubris that makes them quote and abuse terms like 'amendment' and 'freedom'. This is really a sad existence they are living, especially if there is no threat. Heston, ostensibly the President of the NRA, could cite absolutely no reason why he kept so many loaded weapons in his house (except the marvelously stupid reason, "I do, because I can. I have the 'right' "). I was also shocked when James Nichols, the brother of Terry Nichols, one of the Oklahoma bombers, quipped that citizens should posses guns to 'overthrow brutal governments'. When Moore asked him why it cannot be done in Gandhi's way, the ignorant man said, "I am not familiar with that" after a long pause. We rest our case.

On a different note, these days, many authors and bloggers are quoting ad hominem attacks on people like Moore and Chomsky. The fact that Chomsky has a private trust fund, or that Moore actually purchased Halliburton shares, are made a big deal of. However, that does not suddenly preempt the work they have done, their personal flaws notwithstanding. Gun violence is a very serious matter, and an amalgamation of all the factors listed is responsible for causing it. The least we can do is take cognizance of them and think about them.