We're Gonna Kill 'em All

Well, this is gonna be my first narrative blog after all this time.....

I just watched "The Kingdom" starring Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper. At first, I thought this movie was just another simple war-action movie involving army and desert and gunshots... yeah, sort of an injection of adrenaline that i need to refresh myself between my routines all day at work. But well, the movie did involve army and desert and a lot of gunshots. But what came to my surprise was that it turned out to be NOT just another plain action movie, at least for me.

This movie intrigued me, made me ponder and reminded me of something that i have been forgetting for quite a long time: love, care, hate, revenge, forgiveness and all they got to do with life and living. It painted a very clear picture of living in fear as the consequence of living in hate. It showed, so vividly, several mass suicides and some even more destructive acts (so horrible and so painful to swallow...) executed by the Arabians (read: the so-called terrorists) because of their hates towards Americans. And all those hates were then just given back so equally by the Americans towards the Arabians.

There were actually two scenes that made the most stinging ending of the movie. One is at the beginning of the movie, in which a popular and loved-by-everybody American (FBI) agent was killed in a suicide bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On this incident, Jamie Foxx gave a comforting whisper to Jennifer Garner who was one of the agent's close friends. OK, I will stop there (so that I won't be called a spoiler, LOL) and then jump to the second scene at the end of the movie, in which the head of the terrorists, hanging there by his last breath after shot, also gave another comforting whisper to his crying grandson. (wait, is this a spoiler? Ups, sorry.... but nevermind)

Those two whispers formed a very deep message to the audience, actually. At the very closing scene of the movie, those two whispers were revealed by each parties. The whispers had carried comforting messages to the ones who were grieving and to our surprise (and to my regret), those whispers actually did carry the same message, a message full of hate: "Don't worry, we will kill them all....." And the movie credits started to roll....

Yes, to me it was a very sharp conclusion that answered all the thoughts that were flying in my head during the movie: what's wrong with this world? what will end this? who began this? Can I live in this movie? Will I be able to bear all the fear living like this?

I believe that all this movie was trying to say was that hate was born from hate. When you let one hate live in your heart, then you are giving birth to another one of hate in another heart.

But, in the end there is still one question left unanswered (and I can't even answer it myself either): Will hate cease?

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Well, here's just another quote from another movie about hate and bigotry (because instead of having the answer to the above question, all I can do is just quoting):

Every good people said that we LEARNED prejudice,
that bigotry wouldn't exist if no one taught us.
I believe hating is something we were given to OVERCOME,
We just don't seem willing to admit that ourselves.
We seem to always concentrate on our UNCOMMON GROUND.
More puzzling, it's often our COMMONALITY that we choose as the borderline.
Two men can love God equally,
but if they worship DIFFERENTLY, they're enemies.
If devotion to a higher power turn neighbors into strangers,
how can loving each other be any less trouble.