Paradise Now

Recently, I saw a very interesting movie called ‘Paradise Now’. This Arabic/Palestinian film is the story of two friends who are recruited for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. The film touches upon a number of crucial issues - the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the logic of suicide terrorism, and more importantly, it challenges us to think about rightful resistance.

Khaled and Said are the protagonists who metamorphose into their opposites overnight, when their first aborted mission allows them to think harder about their actions. As one of them runs through the war-torn streets of the Gaza Strip with a bomb attached to his body, the backdrop of the movie narrates a story larger than the two protagonists. This is a story of failed modernization, oppression and nationalism. I felt the movie was brutally honest. It portrays the suddenness of recruitment, the ideological cloaking of the mission as a step towards Islam-endorsed martyrdom and it also describes such resistance as predominantly masculine. The female protagonist, Suha, is the voice of reason and rationality. The daughter of a freedom fighter, she argues against the logic of suicide terrorism. Her character is the curve ball thrown at the impasse between the two sides of resistance – violent resistance versus collaboration with the oppressor.

In a world where neo-imperialism is steadily becoming strident, I believe there is a grave need to resuscitate the debate on rightful resistance. It is easy to believe that ‘resistance is futile’. In the process we end up sacrificing norms of equality, dignity and the right to self-determination– the ideals Khaled and Said are fighting for. Paradise Now might be a movie specifically about Palestine, yet it speaks in the universal language of dissent. Many have criticized the film as being sympathetic to suicide terrorism. I believe the film is the angst-ridden voice of the subaltern who is denied political attention on the world’s stage. The film is an attempt to articulate the disarticulated and extraverted. Its political logic lies in its description of current conflicts as more than a conflict between tradition and modernity. The film challenges Huntingtonian logic. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the film says, is not a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between oppressors and oppressed, where the oppressed is forced to don the garb of the oppressor to be heard. Paradoxically, Israel and Palestine are both oppressors and victims. Each mimics the other’s political discourse and in the process their respective discourses lose the power of secession, dissent and resistance. This process leaves only a number of human casualties on both sides.

Khaled and Said are part of a mission to tame the oppressor, yet their means are questionable. By using the language of the oppressor they forfeit the right to claim a moral victory for their side. In this sense their resistance is not ‘rightful’. They are not changing the conflict into a Gramscian ‘war of position’. Instead they are causing the conflict to acquire and internalize the element of perpetuity.

Paradise Now is one in the new wave of movies from the Middle East and Afghanistan. It can be placed alongside the Afghanistani movie ‘Osama’ and the Palestinian (I think) movie ‘Wedding in Galilee’ as a genre that has devoted itself to an analysis (or at least an honest portrayal) of political conflicts in the Third World.

Definitely a ‘must see’ for the politically minded!