This was a strenuous movie for me and, knowing it, I avoided it for as long as I could. Much more when its production got awarded the Oscar for Best Picture of the year and the script, based on the book written by the main character of the movie (aka the slave) won the Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. It was going to be excruciatingly good so I braced myself and finally tackled the mission!
I watch a lot of movies and TV shows that include abuse, violence, murder and I don’t mind the sight of torture techniques, blood or dismembered bodies. These scenes won’t even make me blink. It’s easy for me to understand that there are very sick and evil people walking among us in this world, capable of harming others in the most creative ways without feeling any remorse. In my mind, I can reconcile the fact that alcohol transforms people’s behaviors, that rage momentarily blinds people to make them do the unspeakable and that greed can make others commit crimes for a penny or two. I can even understand how it is possible to hire a hit man to put an end to a given situation.
The reason why these examples are so easy for me to deal with is because they are outlaws and we all know it. The minute society catches them, they will pay consequences. Sure, any of them could get away with murder but still would be identifiable as a criminal, a bad person, a sick individual, a society’s shame. Even if poetically speaking when justice is not served, at least you will find society is reassuringly by your side.
In these cases, collectiveness work! But there is something about human rights’ deprivation that profoundly distresses me: collectiveness going nuts! The collapse… the impotence… the fear! I dread when society loses their reason of existence at the mercy of depraved humans who lost all trace of dignity for the specie.
“In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Rights cannot be taken for granted. Never! Whatever freedom you enjoy today and consider a given, think it could vanish at a twist of fate. Regardless of the cause, we must remain constantly vigilant and defend human rights at all cost. Surrendering in the hopes of getting your life pardoned it’s like selling your soul to the devil. Martin Niemöller said it beautifully:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”