Indigo Jo Blogs

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Just back from seeing Fahrenheit 9/11

by · 9th July, 2004

This evening was the first I have spent at the cinema for many years - I haven’t been since I became Muslim (in 1998), and I don’t think I did for some years before that either. I don’t care much for the movie industry and the big money and other evils in it. I very nearly went to see Rabbit Proof Fence, about a mixed-race Australian girl who was kidnapped by the government to train to be a domestic skivvy, and escaped back to her home by following the rabbit-proof fence. (But her own daughter was kidnapped as well.) But I decided against it, because I didn’t care for the impotent rage these types of stories often produce in me (especially since that particular scandal has now ceased, along with the orphan-slavery the British perpetrated in the colonies by shipping out kids from care homes). Since this film is a documentary (or, as its detractors call it, a “crockumentary”) about how nasty Bush is, I decided I’d go and see this one. The film started with a sequence about the notorious Florida election affair, including a bit we didn’t hear much about here, in which a series of Afro-American (Democrat) congressmen and women objected to the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the objections could not be entertained because no senator had signed it (and only one senator needed to!). The last of them to be shown objecting said she didn’t care if no Senator had signed the objection, but Al Gore, who was chairing the meeting, replied that the rules did care.

I wasn’t really impressed by Moore’s coverage of what Bush did when somebody told him of what had happened in New York on Sept 11 when he was reading to a class of schoolchildren in Florida. It’s possible that he could have thought “My God, what are we going to do?”, but it could just be that he thought that maybe we really should be rushing off, but we don’t want to disappoint all these little kids. He could have been thinking anything. The grooming scenes we are shown really don’t prove much either. I’m sure the Democrats he wants elected later this year have their own groomers and make-up artists too. So what?

He does document the considerable links between the Bush family and the Saudi establishment, including the Saudi ambassador Bandar (nicknamed “Bandar Bush”) and the Bin Laden family, with one well-known exception. The successive failures of Bush oil businesses followed by buyouts are mentioned, and the suggestion is made that Saudi oil money is involved; essentially it is suggesting that Bush’s loyalties lie far closer to oil interests than to the country he is supposed to be serving. He also correctly pointed out that, despite the numerous arrests of Arab and Pakistani immigrants and the harrassment of people from such backgrounds on planes for months afterwards, a large group of Saudis (including Bin Ladens) were escorted out of the USA immediately after the attacks with no questions asked, while nobody else was able to fly. The report that the Bin Laden family have not entirely cut off their links with their wayward brother is not really relevant, because Islam does not allow the total severing of family ties. The fact that they still talk to him and visit him from time to time certainly does not mean that they approve of whatever he might be doing.

The biggest strength of this film, however, is its depiction of the war as the exploitation of poor Americans, whose jobs have been disappearing across the country and who find that the only way of getting a decent education is by joining the Armed Forces. The recruiters are shown deliberately avoiding wealthy areas of town in favour of poor districts, and offering youths the chance to see the world. Even here it is hard to pin this just on Bush, because he has only been President for two years and a half. Did Clinton’s two terms contribute absolutely nothing to this problem? Moore was reporting from Michigan, and the term “Rust Belt” predates Bush junior’s presidency by several years. Even so, I tend to agree with Moore’s contention that the people relied on by those in power to keep the system going are those who benefit least from it, if they even survive. (I don’t agree with anyone who accuses Moore of exploiting the grief of the mother who lost her son in Iraq. Moore is a well-known figure and I’m sure she knew what his politics were.)

All in all Fahrenheit 9/11 is a powerful film, and it starts off humourous and is emotional and serious towards the end. There are plenty of jaw-droppers, like the bit where bush talks of the people around him at that moment as the haves and the have-mores, and calls them his “base”. There is also an unnecessary hint at a cultural stereotype in the use of banjos when discussing southern issues, such as the Florida vote count. (Then again, this reviewer in South Carolina didn’t notice, and gave the film a mixed review.) Not everyone down there is a right-wing redneck, and both of America’s last two Democrat presidents (or was it three?) were from the south, as is Kerry’s running mate. As for myself, I can’t say I recommend this movie although it’s not extremely bad - it’s not just an extended party-political broadcast. As Brits we have our own reasons to be anti-Bush, and especially be against our country getting itself unnecessarily dragged into his campaigns. It’s the Americans who have to decide whether to get rid of Bush, but we cannot blame him for the fact that our politicians tag along with him. We really have only ourselves to blame for that.

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