FINAL PROOF OF DISCREDITED IDEAL
Final proof of discredited ideal
WATCHING the first 25 minutes of Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan within a month of Omagh, I couldn't help thinking of the real atrocity. Both depicted a similar nightmare vision: flames and fireballs engulfing the victims, shrapnel piercing into flesh and bodies dismembered.
Yet one was real and the other a fictional presentation. The full horror of the Omagh bomb was shielded from us by the media, yet we can go and see Spielberg's film. Does it serve as a lesson in the cruelty, viciousness and futility of violent conflict? I think not.
It is in reality a cheating and manipulative movie the message of which is contradicted within itself"
The opening sequence on the Omaha landing is as most reviewers have indicated, a brilliant portrayal of the awfulness of war. War is hell, it clearly says, but the rest of the film conveys something different: namely, that it is also heroic and entertaining.
The final protracted battle scene tries to suck us into the conflict, to persuade us to take sides, to see the enemy as inhuman and it even entices us to goad the troop's coward into killing one of them.
I am convinced that American film makers are incapable of making effective anti-war movies. The reason is clear: their whole cinema culture thrives on violence and the glorification of gore.
And when any culture is built upon such ambivalence, then it doesn't think twice about firing cruise missiles at civilians in Africa or Afghanistan. Or bombing Enniskillen or Omagh.
What Saving Private Ryan effectively says is that war is obscene and inhuman but is nevertheless a "cruel necessity" if your cause is just.
In the wake of Omagh, we heard much from nationalist politicians about the absence of support or even "sneaking regard" for the "war" waged by the breakaway republicans.
The Irish people spoke for peace in the referenda and therefore the bombers had no justification for their action. This is irrelevant: the act was wrong and barbaric in itself.
Let us not forget that Omagh was only the latest in a long line of similar massacres of the innocent. None of them - not La Mon, not Enniskillen, not Shankill, not Omagh - could ever remotely be sanctioned by any cause.
At least in Spielberg's film it is largely soldiers who inflict horrors on other soldiers. In Northern Ireland, the republican war has been largely waged against civilians.
The Omagh bomb ought to have been the final proof of a discredited ideal and all those who have succumbed to its poison should now be hanging their heads in shame.
BRIAN McCLINTON, Secretary,
Ulster Humanist Association, Lisburn, Co Antrim.
WATCHING the first 25 minutes of Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan within a month of Omagh, I couldn't help thinking of the real atrocity. Both depicted a similar nightmare vision: flames and fireballs engulfing the victims, shrapnel piercing into flesh and bodies dismembered.
Yet one was real and the other a fictional presentation. The full horror of the Omagh bomb was shielded from us by the media, yet we can go and see Spielberg's film. Does it serve as a lesson in the cruelty, viciousness and futility of violent conflict? I think not.
It is in reality a cheating and manipulative movie the message of which is contradicted within itself"
The opening sequence on the Omaha landing is as most reviewers have indicated, a brilliant portrayal of the awfulness of war. War is hell, it clearly says, but the rest of the film conveys something different: namely, that it is also heroic and entertaining.
The final protracted battle scene tries to suck us into the conflict, to persuade us to take sides, to see the enemy as inhuman and it even entices us to goad the troop's coward into killing one of them.
I am convinced that American film makers are incapable of making effective anti-war movies. The reason is clear: their whole cinema culture thrives on violence and the glorification of gore.
And when any culture is built upon such ambivalence, then it doesn't think twice about firing cruise missiles at civilians in Africa or Afghanistan. Or bombing Enniskillen or Omagh.
What Saving Private Ryan effectively says is that war is obscene and inhuman but is nevertheless a "cruel necessity" if your cause is just.
In the wake of Omagh, we heard much from nationalist politicians about the absence of support or even "sneaking regard" for the "war" waged by the breakaway republicans.
The Irish people spoke for peace in the referenda and therefore the bombers had no justification for their action. This is irrelevant: the act was wrong and barbaric in itself.
Let us not forget that Omagh was only the latest in a long line of similar massacres of the innocent. None of them - not La Mon, not Enniskillen, not Shankill, not Omagh - could ever remotely be sanctioned by any cause.
At least in Spielberg's film it is largely soldiers who inflict horrors on other soldiers. In Northern Ireland, the republican war has been largely waged against civilians.
The Omagh bomb ought to have been the final proof of a discredited ideal and all those who have succumbed to its poison should now be hanging their heads in shame.
BRIAN McCLINTON, Secretary,
Ulster Humanist Association, Lisburn, Co Antrim.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0439
Published Date: 26-Sep-98
Related Images
There have been no images archived for this article.