I caught the Kingdom today... like all the political thrillers i've seen recently, it affected me quite a bit. The plot was simple... a team of FBI agents go to Riyadh in the Middle east to investigate the bombing of an American facility. The acting was not even that fantastic. But the message of the film which was aptly shown in the last scene... I can still remember it so clearly. If u've seen it too, i'm sure u'll agree.
Sure the film is Hollywood, but i know it cant be that far from the reality out there. I've seen Musharraf's gun-toting soldiers in Pakistan before with my own eyes. Everyday news of bombings/kidnaps/troop movements from the papers catch our attention for maybe a few minutes, but somewhere out there, people are being killed while i go about doing my mundane tasks. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that we no longer live in a safe world. There are fellow humans like you and me who will not hesitate to blow up their own body into a thousand pieces just because someone managed to persuade them in the name of religion. Dont they have other things to live for?
Death does not differentiate between race or religion, it hurts just as much to an American soldier's mother as it does to a Saudi arabian boy who loses his father. I can only imagine how for every soldier's death that is greatly talked about on CNN, there are countless more deaths who will never make it to TV, lives unfairly ended ahead of their time, only missed by their families. People often go on at length about the sadness of losing a loved one to disease; death in war-torn or famine-stricken countries seems to have lesser impact. 3482 dead in suicide bombing? Just a number i'll forget by lunchtime.
There are indeed 2 sides to every coin, but the problem is, u can only see 1 side at a time. So what if we hate them? They hate us too. Just as how we blame them, they see the justice in what they do, which is why they will continue. Thats the scary and sad part. We can't grab their heads and knock sense into them, not unless we can be absolutely sure that we are the ones who are right and just and transparent.
Being someone who doesnt like to hear bad news or care too much about things beyond our shores, I like to believe that all problems can be solved amicably. I've always been a firm believer in the power of compromise, even more so when human lives and a nation's security are at stake. Pity the pig-headed big guys dont see it that way.
The world really has changed after 9/11.. it's getting increasingly harder to turn a blind eye and tell yrself as long as it doesnt impact yr daily life, it is of minimal importance. I dont think the office guy in the London train which exploded in the '05 bombings could have ever thought his day would end up like that. He was probably thinking about what to eat for lunch or nasty thoughts of his boss.
Ok i have to stop all this. Must be the effect of the movie and the expresso keepin me awake. Life is still good. I'm listening to sappy love songs and looking at my Hello kitty stuff/fashion magazines/purses/new heels. I literally touched them to make sure. My shallow world is still intact.
I know life goes on, and we do have plenty to live for. For every bad thing that happens, i'm 100percent positive that something good will follow. We are all fighters, keepers of some sort of faith; thats what we're here for.
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