Mega Ghouls and a Society Of Lies

By tdf, September 2, 2015

Arriving at the Ian Potter centre with 5 minutes to spare before the seats were filled and the speaking began I was instantly taken aback by the seriousness and muscle of the security people. Who seemed more suited to ensuring the safety of Barons and Mega Ghouls than an arts event. Several of whom glared at me with unexpected menace as I threw myself into the great hall and stood still, allowing my rushing blood to settle, hoping Spindles would soon appear for I was a sitting duck for these monsters! Which thankfully she did soon after. Guiding me to comrade Ohyoung, a south korean who would surely hold a different interest and view on what we were to attend, given her heritage and experience.

The first lecture was focused on the findings of two ladies who had spent time in North Korea. Suki Kim had masqueraded as a teacher, translator and music journalist for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The other an australian film producer, Anna Broinowski, who had rubbed shoulders with the elite of North Korean cinematic propaganda. Both had written books of their experiences.

From the off it was clear that they were not bonded by even a modicum of professional respect, for the spy was openly hostile, refusing to even look upon her fellow speaker when responding to her interruptions. Instead addressing her with snarly opposition, towards the crowd. Which made for an odd scene thereafter.

Their stories were not inspiring nor particularly hopeful, yet their adventures had been rich and I was enthralled by their eye witness reportage of a whole society based on lies.

Suki spoke more of her disgust of the West alongside how pained she was in heart by her time in North Korea as a teacher for a school set up by Evangelicals, which was attended by the sons of the elite. Always in pairs, the same pairs, one watching the other, as everyone watches each other. Even from childhood. Attempts to introduce essay writing proved impossible, for the students could simply not grasp the idea of Introduction, Thesis let alone Conclusion. A chance arose for her to expose them to the West, as she was teaching them how to write obituaries. Explaining that the very laptop in hand was designed by Steve Jobbs, she was dancing into dangerous territory. Whilst the students, computer and science students at that, showed interest, the very next day they all, without exception, submitted work focused on the evil of the West, one after the other. A message had been sent. For she was of course watched as was everyone in what she repeatedly referred to as a society of lies.

Broinowski was garrulous, more playful, equally interesting yet spoke from a position and of experience which was less heartfelt. Whereas Suki seemed desperate to highlight the plight and the pain, her fellow speaker sought more amusement and startling wonder.

Kim Jong Il introduced cinema to North Korea through his own writing and passion for the industry. Even before arriving in the throne, the man who would become a figurehead for global dictatorship was busy preparing for his cinematic enterprise. Kidnapping not only South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and his former wife in order to have their expertise spearhead many of his own films over the ensuing years, before they managed to escape at a festival in Vienna.

Through his guidance cinema became a vital component of the propaganda machine still very much in place. With all productions glorifying the power structure and portraying the West as pure evil. Broinowski was kept away from any of the reality of the masses during her stay, whisked from film set to scenes hoped to be found as natural, yet everywhere she was shown seemed like just another film set, with actors smiling on queue, saying their lines, a sensation that to poke a finger in a wall would reveal it was made of paper not brick.

She regaled a meeting with blue eyed natives when begrudgingly cast in the role of an american wife to yet another Western villain, only to learn after proving so awful in the role that the boys vying for the position of her on-screen husband were children of former US soldier, James Dresnok. The gunman had returned home from the front lines to find his wife had deserted him so boots donned, barrel shined he headed back to Korea, to War. Facing charges for forging army documents Dresnok decided to charge across a mine-field separating the North from the South and was promptly captured, denied a move to Russia and forced into a life of acting the Yankee villain in a multitude of films which went down a storm with the locals.

Her flirtatious relationship with one of her newfound cinematic kin led to the briefest but most poignant moment of her trip. With the minder sat drunk at the table, clapping his hands to a rhythm which nobody could hear but he, she asked her friend of the gulags, and he nodded, expressing that perhaps she was correct and knew more of his country than she had previously intimated. He added that there was a ‘seismic change coming’. And I had desperately wanted to ask more on that point, but the lecture drew to a close without the mike finding my grubby paws.

I was left with swirling ideas of the Stasi, Pol Pot and Stalin. Wondering who wasn’t scared? Who didn’t lie? How did the elite enjoy their privileged station of opulence whilst the masses suffered? Mainly I found myself amazed at the common theme from both speakers regarding the absence of critical thinking. Especially so in the students. Are they so scared that they never allow themselves to speak freely? Or have they been so contained in a box of sorts that they have no idea what critical thinking entails? I believe that the human condition involves, from its very nature, the tendency and capacity to question our surroundings and our systems. Yet perhaps that is somewhat naive, for whilst our systems are more free and open, the masses of the West appear equally bereft of this very thing; critical thinking. It is the root of revolution and evolution, the cause of mass change, the core enemy of all power systems. Through brutalisation and propaganda we are all kept in our place.

Are we interested as a people in the plight of others around the planet? In some cases individually, yet not in the slightest in the numbers needed to demand we act on the global stage in an honourable, egalitarian manner. We go to war for profit, not to save lives and make a better world. And what profit could be drawn from invading North Korea? Their resources are scant, and they operate as a useful buffer zone between the East and West, which suits two of the major hegemonic axes of power in the region; the US and China.

I have long held a romantic view of the Mayans. Hoping that their power structure fell due to an uprising, due to a demand for better conditions taking hold in the heads and hearts and spirits of critical thinkers and those desperate for a better way, and much in the way that a star is born, the ideas attracted more and more of a similar matter, and once strong enough its brightness and momentum smashed the power structure. The marvel of the human spirit prevailed. The priests rule was ended, and rather than replaced, the people scattered, seeking their own Way wherever they could find it. Science paints a different picture, one opposed to my romanticism, and looking at North Korea I am bothered to at least take on board their argument. Namely that it was Nature which caused the end of the Mayans. Crops failing, savage storms, making the land untenable for the ultra sophisticated system which had been in place for many moons. Yet if that was the case, then rather than put it down to luck, I prefer to believe that Nature cares, for all of its creatures great and small, and if the only way to end mass suffering is an apocalyptic roar from its core, then it does so for its own survival and to end the pain of its children.

With chance for coffee and debate, we spoke of our reactions and thoughts. The flow of words was negative, yet common ground was found in terms of the reasons for the North Korean monster of a society. Where no truth is ever shared or allowed. Yet what of our own? Are we living in a realm which values honesty and truth? Are we really so much more liberated?

The second event we attended was focused on the us of story telling as a medium for communicating the cost of human conflict, not just in terms of war, but also within society. Lynn White is an editor who has published a series of fictional novels offering insight into the young ones caught in the maelstrom of oppression and warfare. The stories are based on real life accounts yet fictionalised, ranging from Somalia to Kashmir to Afghanistan. She came across as well meaning, serious, hopeful of how the series can inspire others in such realms who read them and gain hope for a better life. However, the writing which she read, whilst hard hitting in terms of its violence, failed to flow towards inspiration. Regardless, her enterprise was sound and wonderful. And I agree wholeheartedly that story-telling is a wonderful way to spread the word. To spread awareness. To encourage us all to play a part in demanding improvement, an end to suffering.

Sitting alongside the ageing editor was a slight figure with strangely intense yet soft eyes. His name was Kooshyar Karimi. As soon as he began to speak I was enthralled, and as his own story unraveled he quickly grew into that rarest of things, other than true love, a definite hero of our times. Growing in the slums of Iran, born of a jewish mother, muslim father who had failed to even notify his wife that she was the third or fourth or fifth (polygamy is legal in Iran), he had dreamt small, yet found himself thrust beyond his reckoning from an early age. His softness of heart and highly capable mind landed him in medicine and soon after in the highly dangerous venture of illegal abortions.

Iranian law is based on Sharia Law, a rather strict interpretation of the Koran with medieval punishments for many crimes which in the West we would find appalling. With marriages arranged plentifully, women often meet their husbands the day before the marriage, at best. If they have fallen in love beforehand, and engaged in sexual intercourse, then found themselves pulled by family into an arranged marriage, their lives are in danger. For a man expects a hymen on his wedding night, and if absent, violence ensues, often killing, by the family of the woman if not the husband. For she has brought shame to their name. Equally horrific are those women who fall pregnant before marriage or have any relations with men before marriage. The result again often leads to honour killings, where brothers and fathers beat their own flesh and blood to death. Failing which, the women themselves often commit suicide. Out of shame and fear.

Karimi offered an alternative. Through offering abortions and also repairing hymens. Which could have landed him at best in the tombs, at worst publicly hanged. Yet he simply couldn’t turn the women away. He also wrote. As a dissident. Giving the authorities ever more reason to hunt him down and drag him in for questioning, which led to torture, which led to forced and fabricated submissions of guilt in association with the activities of other Jews in Iran who had caused the government bother. At the end of his tether, he agreed to help them in exchange for his life. Spying on others, offering as little as he could to his minders, yet as was bound to happen, he came upon the day when his work led to the capture and likely ‘disappearing’ of jews he had befriended then reported upon. It was all becoming too much. And with the authorities realising his heart and head were against their cause, word was sent that he had 48 hours to flee the country. Or face his demise. Leading to a frantic flight to first Turkey, then finally Australia with his family.

He joked of his first wife’s excitement upon gaining acceptance to Australia, for the one thing she was desperate for was divorce, as if she had seen a gorgeous coat never before she could have afforded, and now she could, a toy, a trinket, such glee in her eyes! Which Karimi buffeted for a year or so then accepted.

Working as a pizza delivery driver, bathroom window fitter, body piercer and finally finding his way back into the medical profession, he sought work in rural regions where he met a nurse. His heart instantly found its home, and they have been together since. Her love is the greatest blessing of his life, and to mention such a thing put a gorgeous sparkle in his eyes.

Once more settled, finally Karimi began writing of his story, and recently released his second book, Leila’s secret, based on his time in Iran with a woman in desperate need of salvation. I was in awe of his story, his humanity, his softness and playfulness. Surely one of the finest souls I have ever come across, and to raise my hand, and find the spotlight baring down on me, mike thrust into my chin, eye to eye with such a wonderful creature, made me shake with nerves of happiness!

He couldn’t really answer my enquiry yet spoke at length in response, his gaze fixed on my shudders and nods. For I had asked if he felt there could be change, real change, for all those suffering in Iran. He found it hard to move past the centuries already passed when much of the rest of the world had changed, modernised, and moved a few steps closer towards equality (within their own borders), yet like me, he has hope. He is living proof, in a way, of hope manifesting in a human shaped hero whose kindness and bravery touched many hundreds of lives before he simply had to scarper. Hope may not amount to much for us, but to be able to offer hope to the hopeless stationed far closer to the conflict is a beautiful gift we can all try to give to the world, firstly to each other, then it will spread. Change begins with Hope and Love. The more of us brimming with such wonder the greater the chance it will spread, all the way from the bottom to the top of our societies.

I spoke with my comrades after the show. We were all touched deeply by the story we had been told. Our minds were a conjoined blur of the harshness and what could be done and why it couldn’t be done…even with any reckoning from our own societies. And for contrast we all share a mutual friend who is Iranian, who was not subjected to an arranged marriage, who met her future husband when looking for printer parts in a shop, and felt when their eyes met, a softness deep in her soul. She just knew….They dated, for a fair while, then married. Nothing arranged. It was true love found in a country where for others Love is a capital crime. How and why the difference? Entitlement through position in society? I must delve further, with politeness.

The afternoon was one very well spent. I am inspired to write, to attend more of these events which appear to be happening in Melbourne every single day, just a matter of seeking them out. After finally taking the plunge with the anti nazi rally I was thereafter encouraged to attend the anarchist book fair and now find myself scouring the guides for what new experience I can dive into next weekend.  There is clearly a steady under current of opportunity to not just learn but participate with others of my own heart, vibrant spirit and inquiring mind in this City. Onwards, I must continue the momentum and who knows, perhaps it will be me telling my story with my own books to sign in the future…

Since the dust has settled my thoughts have altered, or rather widened. For its all too easy to become blinkered when encountering something wonderful, and see nothing else but the wonder. With distance and time from the experience, the view can be widened, what was there to be seen in the shadows slowly comes into focus. The picture becomes more complete.

Karimi spoke of Iran with understandable yet also bothersome subjectivity. Make no mistake, I remain in reverence. Yet he spoke of a niche within a realm. For his sermon of agony was for not all, but some of Iran. From other first hand experience, close to me, today for lunch, I can tell you its an angle, one angle of many. And to view a land, a realm, a people, on the basis of a man who has sought refuge in foreign lands, been given a chance to make a new life, far away from his homeland, of which he found, caused him pain and grief and sympathy and horror, is…a grave mistake.

We always need to ponder, at the beginning and end of everything we are told, WHO GAINS? For there is more often than not, some gain for someone, for a government, for a group with an agenda. Given our governments stance of US guided opposition to Iran, would it not be of value to have Karimi’s story told? Would his story not play into their plans? Pluck at our heart strings? Validate their sanctions? Maybe that is not the case, but its definitely something worth pondering.

Cui Bono? Its the wise way of viewing any and all news. So when you are spoon fed, by which I mean, simply picking up a paper, or pressing a button on your TV remote, and find a report of the Canadian PM telling the world he will refuse Russia rejoining the G7 whilst Putin is their leader, do you automatically assume Putin is evil? Or do you ponder, in any way whatsoever, WHY is Harper saying that? Who gains?

When we are told that Ukranian separatists have taken down a civilian airliner, do you assume it is true, or do you stop to think ‘why the fuck would the rebels take down a civilian airliner??? It makes no sense…so who gains???…only those aiming to turn public opinion against the separatists’???

Do you learn of an uprising in Syria, of moderate rebels fighting the government, who we then arm, with our taxes, who start to lose the battle, and then…al-qaeda have suddenly vanished, and ISIS or ISIL have appeared, out of nothing, to fight against the very same government which the US and its vassal states wanted put down, and you read the headlines, watch the news and think Good on Ya Al Nusra???

I don’t trust proven liars. I trust those whose purity has been tried and tested. So when I come across a man whose story is likely real, yet must be taken with his own admittance that he shopped strangers to save his own skin, then found refuge in a country whose government is very much against his former homeland, I am governed by wisdom, when I take breath and take stock of his circumstances.