V for Vendetta

“But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.”

                Thus spake “V”.

This is how “V”, (Hugo Weaving), introduces himself to Evey Hammond, (Natalie Portman), in the movie “V for Vendetta”. Although the entire speech is quite a mouthful with the obvious “V” I’d like to walk the reader through what the speech, and the movie, is supposed to mean and how strongly it reflects in today’s time. Especially with regards to the “Information Network” (read; The Media), the murderers of the Rights of Man (read; Political Parties & Capitalists) and propagandists (read; The Media, again).

V in one of the scenes says to Evey about how the government institute (we shall not go into the storyline for the simple reason that I ain’t writing a review) treated him and says:

“What they did to me was monstrous.” To which, if the reader has seen the movie would definitely agree. Then Evey replies scathingly and says, “And they created a monster”.

 Then after hearing what Evey has to say the cock-sure audience does a quick introspection. He goes through the facts again. Reading and re-reading between the lines, he is almost sure that what he thought to be right was actually the wrong. But just before he mentally agrees with Evey he checks himself. Pulls himself upright and bellows out loud: What they did to him was indeed monstrous, but they did not create a monster. They invited it upon themselves for their hideous and outrageous acts.

The movie might be fictional but we all know how the powerful work. Or rather how they make everything else work in their favour. Manipulations galore. Every bit of penny earned is smeared in the boiling ruddy drops of millions of people. People who are daily fooled into submission, into believing things that they would ordinarily would never believe. But because they have so been presented with so much proof to the contrary that they’re totally overwhelmed. They’re lost in limbo. The situation is so rife with confusion that although there is a perfectly rational reason why 2 cannot, under any circumstance, equal 3; but at the same time there are perfectly sane theories why, under certain conditions, 2 can, and should, equal 3.

And, then comes a time when it is perfectly alright to believe that 2 can equal 3; that 2 will equal 3; that 2 has always equaled 3.

For people who have read (and re-read, I should add) George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” and Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” the concept of “Brain Washing”, “Selective Breeding”, “Eugenics”, “Conditioning” and “Intellectual Manipulation” is not at all new. These little idioms are rarely undertaken and understood in the true capacity in which they are presented to the reader. The reader sweeps through the pages, like a sack race. After finishing the book, he has won. But, victory was not his for the taking. I’ve maintained right from the beginning that the entire crux of “State of Fear” was the last few pages after the end of the book. Mr. Crichton, beautifully, summarizes the whole book into a few pages. The entire reason why he wrote the book was to get to those last few pages where he speaks of Eugenics and other things. Not only practiced but also supported by big thinkers of those times.

The reason its good is not because he speaks of Eugenics, which is nothing but selective breeding. It is great because it shows to the world what things have happened before us and might be happening around us even now. All the world might be lauding it but it might not really be a well merited thing to do. Why, it pissed me off to no end when I found out that people, the so called thinkers like Winston Churchill and Bernard Shaw were firm supporters of the “cleansing” of the human race. What was the difference between them and Hitler, I ask.

What difference indeed. Hitler chose to chuck people in burning furnaces while the intelligent, the so called workers, spent billions making formulae for slow extinction; sell it to blinded capitalists who use it in baby food and voila!!! A race is totally gone. No fireworks, no gross details, no fingerprints, no incriminating proofs. Poof. Gone. Annihilated.

There is a word for such people. It’s called murderer!!!

Now I am not the only one talking like a lunatic. From the same book, I quote:

 “But think. If it is not at all right to falsely shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, why is it right to shout “Cancer!” in the pages of The New Yorker? When that statement is not true? We’ve spent more than twenty-five billion dollars to clear up the phony power-line cancer claim. “So what?” you say. I can see it in your face. You’re thinking, we’re rich, we can afford it. It’s only twenty-five billion dollars. But the fact is that twenty-five billion dollars is more than the total GDP of the poorest fifty nations of the world combined. Half the world’s population lives on two dollars a day. So that twenty-five billion would be enough to support thirty-four million for a year. Or we could have helped all the people dying of AIDS in Africa. Instead, we piss it away on a fantasy published by a magazine whose readers take it very seriously. Trust it. It is a stupendous waste of money. In another world, it would be a criminal waste. One could easily imagine another Nuremburg trial – this time for the relentless squandering of Western wealth on trivialities – and complete with pictures of the dead babies in Africa and Asia that result.”

Do you remember the times when our fathers and grandfathers used to wait with pursed lips and wringing hands for the 8 o’ clock news? Well, now we have 24 hrs news channels. Notice that use the plural form. We are forced down with news even if we don’t want to. News with a difference. News with a bit of masala. News with hot news presenters. Now it’s not possible to stay away from the so called Media. Even the goddamn cellphone spews warnings every hour.

Another example. Just a few months ago I saw the documentary “sicko” and guess what. It made me sick. Some congress candidate approves a potential harmful drug to be used in a life saving medication even when he knows that it is, well, harmful. And the next thing we know is that he has resigned from the senate and is the CEO of the company. I don’t even know how many billions he made.

Another cackle from the geese. Haliburton Inc. is the company that supplies arms and ammunitions       to the American Army and the Israel Army. And who would like to take a guess about the stake holders identity. Dick Cheney and if I’m not mistaken its Colin Powel as well.

A hoot from the truth. An insurance agent cried on national television some years ago. She couldn’t take the immoral acts committed by the company in which she worked anymore and decided to leave. She said that the bonus and pay criterion in any Medical Insurance company is based on the number of claims you can avoid paying. The higher the number of times you stamp the words “NOT APPROVED” on the claim sheet the bigger would be you pay check. She said she couldn’t believe she actually sentenced so many people to death by not accepting their claims fully knowing that her wrong gesture would surely mean death to the policy holder.

Real good fun, isn’t it???

How much can a man take? How long before he is entwined by the lasso of these agents of fear. Where is the real thing hidden? Noam Chomsky says, “Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune”.

Well, Mr. Chomsky has so many real good things to say. I wonder how come my generation does not read his books. I wonder why Dan brown is 10 times more famous than he is. The way I see it, it doesn’t make sense reading a days paper. You need to read between the lines. You need to pick a pattern.

Till we don’t do that we’re happily getting brain-washed. I’ll end my article here even though I can go on and on and on. But before I end it I’d like to quote something more. I started with “V for Vendetta” it seems fair to end it with V. Don’t bother who X and Y are. Just read it, mull it, conserve it and let’s promise to pass it on to our kids.

X: I want to ask a question, Y. I don’t care if you answer me or not. I just wanna say this aloud… The question I want to ask is about St. Mary’s and Three Waters. The question that’s kept me up for the last 24 hours, the question I have to ask, is: What if the worst, the most horrifying, biological attack in this country’s history was not the work of religious extremists?

Y: Well, I don’t understand. We know it was. They were caught. They confessed. 

X: And they were executed, I know. And maybe that’s really what happened. But I see this chain of events, these coincidences… and I have to ask: What if that isn’t what happened? What if someone else unleashed that virus? What if someone else killed all those people? Would you really wanna know who it was? 

Y: Sure.

X: …Even if it was someone working for this government? That’s my question. If our own government was responsible for the deaths of almost one hundred thousand people… would you really wanna know?

I’d really love to know. Even though if my own people do it I might as well die. Someone said that the truth may walk around naked; it is the lie which needs to be clothed. I think that’s why we turn out faces from the truth. As who would want to see an old ugly, intimidating, dangerous, repulsive creature walking around naked…

– Written by Guest Writer: Fayesal Siddiqui as a run-up to my 2nd Blogoversary.