Munich

Munich and the Fear of God

By John Taylor; 2007 May 13

I am no movie critic but way back when after I saw Sean Connery in "The Untouchables," I formed a critical judgment. As soon as I saw it an adamantine opinion formed that this was the best film to come out of the 1980's. It has not altered, I still believe that in view of how severe corruption has become, this was the best film, on moral grounds alone. Similarly, yesterday when I watched Steven Spielberg’s "Munich" it was not yet over when I knew in my bones that here is the best spy film ever made.

The story of Munich traces actual events of the Munich Olympics hostage taking and fills in, using artistic license, the details of what little has become public knowledge about the subsequent undercover retaliatory response by Israel. Most of the time it is the usual spy-versus-spy action, of which I am a great fan, only this time the utility as well as the moral value of such activity is openly called into question by the characters, who are both assassins and victims. The film ends with a distant shot of the New York skyline, Twin Towers intact. The viewer suddenly realizes that those towers did not fall down all by themselves, they collapsed under what was just exposed, by yet another blow in the same reverberating cycle of covert and not-so covert payback among states and ideologies. It is in the statist propaganda machine's interest to pretend that terrorists are pure evil while spies have a legitimate protective function. As Zinn points out in his history, the interests of the nation are not our interest, they are not the same as human interest at all. As often as not they oppose, and then the blood starts to flow. The reality of spying is what we see in this film; the nationalist “security” apparatus constitutes the most rabid and best-financed terrorist machines the planet has yet seen.

Secrecy and lawbreaking are not means to a good end, they are the problem itself. The murders in Munich, the Iraq war, all are recent chapters in a long book of disobedience to the law of God. If there is any justice or hope for the human race, Munich may well turn out not only to be the best spy film ever made but also the last. As a consensus is formed that world government is the only legitimate way to run the world, the whole spy genre will surely be replaced by something new. Secrecy and law breaking will lose their cache and will seem like nothing but what they are, repulsive, contemptible and counterproductive. What will take their place? I will try to answer that another time. Meantime, consider this mock encouragement from satirist Scott Adams to sales personnel forced to sell what is called in the computer industry "vaporware,"

"In many ways the easiest product to sell is one that does not exist. Things that do not exist are not defective nor can they have bad word of mouth. In fact, nonexistent things are nearly always perfect. Sometimes you have to average out the defectiveness of your current version of your product by promising that the next upgrade -- the one that does not exist -- is perfect. When you combine defective and perfect, you get `pretty good,' and that is way better than what most of us are used to." (Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, p. 201)

I had this sardonic quote in mind as I watched Munich. These multiple murders were all done in the name of the nationalist equivalent of vaporware. My nation, be it Isreal or Palestine or America or Canada, my nation is perfect, it can do no wrong, so if I do wrong in its name how can I be wrong? It averages out, evil plus good equals "pretty good," which is more than we have a right to expect in this world, except maybe untinged good, and that would be hopelessly "idealistic." In this underworld of lies upon lies a spy never knows by any reliable evidence that what he is doing is what he thinks it is, whether he may not be a pawn in some other, even more secret game. This is enticing for a while, but as we see in Munich, when the spigots of bloodletting have been left on full throttle for too long, you tire of the whole thing. You start to think, this idea of being an Israeli or a Palestinian, or whatever is just a name. People are real, ideologies or nationhoods are just names that you give to people. They are vaporware, you think of them as being perfect or ideal but they are not, they have no substance and create only illusions that kill flesh and blood people.

The assassins realize early on that they are not just avenging on behalf of Israel, they are indulging in a form of advertisement. That is why they are instructed if at all possible not just to shoot the planners of the hostage taking, but to blow them up. Blow them up good. Blow something up and you get lots of publicity. You make a point. They see that they have become state terrorists. State terror is an ugly but still recognizable form of propaganda. Propaganda is advertisement on behalf of national interest in the same way that marketing is advertisement on behalf of corporate interest. Again, Scott Adams,

"Marketing would be nothing without their winged monkeys, the salespeople. Salespeople know that the human brain has several parts. One part of your brain -- the rational part -- thinks, `All I need is some food and shelter, maybe some sex, and I am good to go. That is all I need.' That part of the brain does not want to buy rubber hamsters that sing when you clap. The job of the salesperson is to deactivate that happy part of the brain and get to the part that thinks, `Unless I buy an unending stream of unnecessary merchandise, I will die.' The first task of a salesman is to make you miserable because happy people do not need anything. If there is nothing wrong with you, the salesperson will provide you with a problem." (Ibid., p. 198)

Companies make their points with an advertising behemeth that dominates and prostitutes our cultural life; they spend billions making their points, and where their viewpoint has no impact they shamelessly create needs where they did not exist before. Never doubt it, Google shot up to rival Microsoft by pretending to be an Internet software company but their prime business is advertising. They are among the biggest of the winged monkeys.

It is the same with nationalists. Their soldiers and spies are winged monkeys from a huge state propaganda machine designed to make a point, and to make that point persuasive by creating an atmosphere that will be receptive to that point. To that end they do whatever it takes, secrecy, robber, bombings, murder and mass murder.

In the case of the events depicted in Munich, it is all summed up in a Biblical "joke" that one of the characters tells early on. I did not catch every word and will paraphrase as best I can. When Moses releases the Red Sea and drowns Pharaoh and his army, God tells an angel, do not rejoice at the loss of so many of my children. It is a terrible loss. The angel says, "I should mourn, then?" And God says, "You should not rejoice but you can celebrate, for I did this to make a point. My point was this: Do not mess with the Jews."

Okay, the joke-teller in the film did not use the world "mess," but I quail to break Baha'u'llah's law against swearing, and especially to put such a word into the mouth of God, even in a joke. But still. "Do not mess with me." That is the stark essence of the terrorist's communication. And God does not seem to hesitate to use that ultimately repulsive message when that is all we will listen to. Think about the parting of the Red Sea. What else was God trying to say there? Not only the Red Sea drowning, terror and counter-terrorism was a big part of the entire mission of Moses. Do not mess with God, or anybody He chooses, or you will regret it. Fear. Respect. Fear is the first step to wisdom. Think I am joking? How's about the four times God states it in the book of Proverbs,

"The fear of Yahweh teaches wisdom. Before honor is humility." (Prov 15:33, WEB) "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." (Prov 9:20) "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; But the foolish despise wisdom and instruction." (Prov 1:7) "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. All those who do his work have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!" (111:10)

It says the same thing in the Psalms, the Book of Job, and for that matter the Writings of Baha'u'llah. And in Moses time, the unparting of the sea on the Egyptians' heads was not the worst of the terror. Later, under the direct leadership of Moses, there occurs in the Biblical history one of the earliest recorded acts of genocide. I will write about that in detail at a later time. Suffice to say that the brutality of the Jewish law is not just shocking to us, here and now. It provoked a crisis in the early life of Baha'u'llah. At around twelve years old He read of a bloody application of Mosaic law in early Islam. He was so repulsed that right then and there He made it His life mission to expunge the violence, if not the fear, in the Law of God. The fruit of His Mind, the Baha’i Polity, is designed to perform that extermination.