The Man Inside the Suit, or how I learned to love 'Star Wars' after all

I’m currently watching all six Star Wars movies on DVD - in chronological order of events, not of release. Having now reached Part III, I’m now less dismissive of the series as an over-simplistic cowboy fantasy in space. ‘Revenge of the Sith’, as well as perhaps the most visually spectacular, is also quite subtle psychologically (yes!), contains a timely commentary on world events, and is imbued with a sense of tragedy that was hinted at in the previous film, and makes it clear that the whole series is about Anakin, his seduction, corruption, fall and ultimate redemption.

It’s also stunningly beautiful. The opening shot, before which all previous memorable opening shots in the series pale in comparison, is incredible, with golden sunlight flaring in space and a dizzying battle which is exciting, humorous and yet already contains a sense of tragedy. The two friends are fighting together; they will end the film fighting each other. And the visuals, as they do throughout, are not merely spectacular (any video game can do that), but expressive of mood. The golden sunlight in this opening scene suggests that the sun is setting on the Republic – and indeed it is. By the end of the film the Republic will be no more – as will the strained but nonetheless deep friendship between Anakin and Obi Wan. This is the darkest Star Wars movie by far – something that could never have been imagined over thirty years ago, when we all poured into the cinemas for Part IV, the film that we now know as ‘A New Hope’ after the Republic’s (and the hero’s) fall.

Both falls, the personal and the impersonal, are depicted with some subtlety. In the second half, all the threads of Palpatine’s machinations are drawn inexorably together as democracy is destroyed – it’s all terribly believable. The Chancellor’s controversial ‘emergency powers’ are just one allusion to the War on Terror; no politician ever wants to give up temporary powers, which is why the piecemeal giving away of our freedoms is so dangerous. Natalie Portman’s Padme (sadly with less to do here than in the previous film) asks Anakin if he’s stopped to wonder if they’re fighting on the wrong side; if they’ve become as bad or worse than the enemy they’re at war with. And there’s a chilling reminder of the year 2001 when Obi Wan, desperate to help Anakin and avoid having to kill him, is told by his former apprentice “if you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!” Donald Rumsfeld spoke almost the same words at the start of the War on Terror. “Only the Sith talk in absolutes” replies Obi Wan, and in another sense he’s right. Darth Sidious, enjoyably chilling and creepy throughout, is the only purely evil character in the whole series. Anakin is portrayed with far more subtlety, and also quite movingly, by the much-maligned Hayden Christiansen.

It’s his transformation into Darth Vader, his betrayal of the friendship with Obi Wan and his relationship with Padme, which is the tragic heart of the series. Christiansen expresses Anakin’s fear, despair and conflict quite convincingly, and even at the end is far from simply ‘evil’. After rescuing Palpatine and causing the death of Windu, he collapses and cries “what have I done?!” And even after massacring the Jedi children, he stands alone (utterly alone) on the volcano planet with a tear streaming down his face. While Darth is destroying the Republic, Anakin is asking him from the back of his mind “What are you doing?” All this makes his final mutilation and transformation, from his burning at the edge of the lava flow to his encasement (imprisonment) in the famous suit, all the more upsetting. I found this scene distressing, as well as a little morbidly fascinating: what did the young Darth look like inside his suit? At the end of the movie, Anakin has lost everything. His is the real tragedy of the films, just as he remains, ultimately and despite his fall, the Chosen One. He does restore balance to the force, he does destroy the Sith! It just takes him six movies to do it.

The acting throughout is good. Ewan McGregor is really starting to look like Alec Guinness, the supporting cast are excellent (I’ll include the CGI Yoda in that!), and Natalie Portman portrays Padme’s heartbreak – well, heartbreakingly. She’s also astonishingly beautiful; I can see why Anakin fell in love with her!

I haven’t yet mentioned the humour. At times it’s a funny movie, and if dialogue is always claimed to be George Lucas’s weakest point, he’s not bad with the one-liners. “Not to worry – we’re still flying half the ship!” says Obi Wan before their impossible crash landing following the space battle. And R2-D2 is as engaging as ever (I didn’t know he could fight like that before!) But there’s even a sadness in the humour. R2 will not always be helping Anakin, and many of the jokes arise from the tense friendship between Obi Wan and Anakin. By the end of the movie it’s not longer a joke. The last words screamed to Obi Wan by the burning, mutilated Anakin are “I HATE YOU!!!” To which his heartbroken mentor cries “you were my brother! I loved you!” Full marks to both of these actors, who worked hard both on the fight scenes and on the psychological aspects of their relationship throughout these two films. It’s a moving and upsetting climax.

It might be said that I’m taking the film all too seriously. I would have said the same when Parts IV-VI were all I knew, but now I’m a convert. And the whole Star Wars saga was conceived and written during the Vietnam War, whose parallels with the War on Terror have been remarked on by Lucas himself. It was noticed also by right-wing politicians in the US, some of whom called for a boycott of the film after its release because it was ‘liberal’ and against the Iraq War. Which of course, is as excellent a reason as any for going to see it!

One wonders if Tony Blair will one day find some kind of redemption, as Anakin does in Part VI. Now that is hard to believe.

Breathworks

Another review of mine, also published in the latest edition of 'Pain Matters'. This is of the latest series of guided meditation CDs by Breathworks:

CD1: Body Scan
CD2: Mindfulness of Breathing (2 CDs)
CD3: Kindly Awareness (2 CDs)
Available from www.breathworks-mindfulness.co.uk.

Several years ago, Breathworks brought out a series of three guided mindfulness meditation CD’s with an emphasis on working with chronic pain and illness. I’ve loved them since I first heard them, finding them wonderfully helpful and with a calm, spacious quality which is very special. I felt a flash of disappointment when I realised that these new CDs are re-recordings, but it didn’t last because each meditation practice comes in several different versions, and these are essentially new CDs. In fact, I like them even more than the originals!

For anyone unfamiliar with it, mindfulness meditation is a practice of being aware, non-judgementally, of whatever is happening in the present moment, whether physical, mental or emotional. It includes practices such as being aware of the breath, or focusing on sensations in each part of the body in turn, and gently bringing the mind back to the present-moment awareness each time we notice it’s wandered. Such meditations have several benefits for those of us living with pain. For instance, they can often produce a calming effect, bringing us gently away from the thoughts cascading through our minds and coming home, over and over again, to the body. Also, focusing on different kinds of sensations, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, can help us to recognise that pain is only one part of our experience, and while listening to these CDs I have often realised that my pain was not as bad, more bearable, than I thought it was. All experiences, whether physical sensations or thoughts, change and pass in a gentle state of flux. Becoming more aware of this can help to reduce the ‘secondary suffering’ resulting from our agitated thoughts and feelings about our pain – which as I’ve learned myself through difficult experience, only makes the pain feel worse and can greatly prolong flare-ups.

The meditation practices on these CDs are led by the founders of Breathworks: Vidyamala Burch, who has long experience of coping with severe pain, and her colleague Sona Fricker. The Buddhist roots of mindfulness are not explicitly apparent here; the CDs are secular in feel although both leaders are Buddhists. They also have beautiful, calm voices which contribute much to the feeling of spaciousness, and in fact their leading sounds even more relaxed and fluid than before. They are very gentle with the listener, reminding us that it’s OK if our mind drifts; it’s normal, and we can simply bring it back again each time. But the real bonus of the new CDs is that they contain extra meditations; ‘Mindfulness of Breathing’ and ‘Kindly Awareness’ now have two CDs each. Each has a longer and a shorter version of the meditation, as well as a choice between fully-led practices and ones with only minimal guidance. I like the fully-led ones the best, as the voice seems to act as an anchor, helping to bring my mind back from its wanderings, but I know people who like to have the space to meditate without the intrusion of a guiding voice. So it’s wonderful that listeners are provided with such choices here, and the sound quality of the new CDs is more beautiful too.

Of all the CDs, my own favourite is ‘Kindly Awareness’. Here the practice involves first of all focusing on our own sensations and feelings, and then gradually including other people, extending from a friend to a neutral person to someone we have difficulty with, and finally to the whole world. The beautiful thing about this is that, perhaps even more than the others, it fosters a sense of acceptance and kindness, both towards oneself and others. So often we can feel alone, isolated and frustrated with our pain, and all these feelings simply increase secondary suffering and make our condition harder to live with. Kindness, which is at the heart of mindfulness, helps to foster acceptance of all our experience, both painful and pleasant, and the Kindly Awareness meditation also encourages kindness to others: a sense of our kinship and the universality of suffering and joy. This can be quite liberating. The pain is no longer an enemy; it’s simply an experience which others share and which we can be tender and caring towards.

Discovering the original Breathworks CDs has been a revelation to me, and I can also recommend Vidyamala’s book and CD, ‘Living Well with Pain and Illness’, which with great clarity and compassion provide a further exploration of mindfulness and some useful extra practices. I frequently still find meditation a challenging practice, but it does help to reduce my pain and anxiety levels, and has been shown to do the same for many others. And the experience of clarity, calm and acceptance, when it comes, is a worthwhile and beautiful thing. It’s mirrored in the quality of the CDs themselves, in the leaders’ calm voices and in words and phrases that help to foster that clarity and calmness. In Vidyamala’s memorable phrase:

Body like a mountain…
Heart like the ocean…
Mind like the sky…

Reversing Chronic Pain

A review I wrote for the book‘Reversing Chronic Pain: A 10-Point All-Natural Plan for Lasting Relief’, by Maggie Phillips. It has been printed in the latest issue of Pain Concern's 'Pain Matters' magazine, and I thought I'd share it here.

The book is published by North Atlantic Books, and available from www.maggiephillipsphd.com, or from www.amazon.co.uk

I’ve just read this book during a big pain flare-up, my first for a couple of years. I felt instinctively that I was going to like it, and it didn’t disappoint. This is a really comprehensive, structured presentation of contrasting and varied techniques for managing pain, and it gave me comfort, encouragement and hope.

It starts with the best and clearest explanation of the groundbreaking ‘gate’ theory of pain that I’ve ever come across. It was a relief, in my flared-up state, simply to feel that I understood more about what was happening to my nervous system, and why exactly pain is such a distressingly emotional experience. The gate theory suggests that there are points (‘gates’) along the spinal cord that let messages from the peripheral nerves through to the brain, where they are registered as pain. The messages arrive at three separate areas of the brain: the sensory cortex, which processes physical sensations, the limbic or emotional centre, and the ‘thinking’ frontal cortex. Hence the way that our experience of pain is influenced by our emotions and patterns of thinking.

The comforting aspect of this is that pain messages can be blocked, either through techniques that ‘close’ the gates to stop messages getting through, or by dealing with the messages that have already reached the brain. An example of the latter is any technique that boosts levels of pain-relieving endorphins, such as humour, exercise, or listening to music. An example of the former is massage or any pleasurable or neutral physical sensations; these travel along the nervous system up to seven times faster than pain messages, and thereby block some or all of the pain from reaching the brain – in effect, ‘closing the pain gates’.

Understanding this theory, for me, not only gave me encouragement and hope that I could reduce my pain through ‘natural’ means; it also made me aware that I have some control over my pain. Chronic pain, especially during flare-ups can be such an overwhelming experience, that we can feel as if we have no control over our bodies and our lives. Understanding brings the potential for more choices in how we respond to the pain. I’m very grateful to Maggie Phillips for explaining this so clearly, and for helping me to identify my own most effective ‘pain blockers’, which I am now starting to utilise much more regularly.

The theory of pain is just the start, however; the book explains far more than that. The coping techniques presented include breathing, visualisation, mindfulness meditation, exercise, ‘energy therapies’ and addressing past traumas and the emotional context of pain. It includes a great number of varied exercises and skills to practise; so many, that ideally I’d like to spend a week on each chapter, adopting the book as a kind of ten week course. I think I’ll do that before long, but Phillips does emphasise that the reader can choose to adopt the exercises they most relate to or find helpful, leaving the others to take on if and when they feel ready. My own favourites include a beautiful ‘lovingkindness’ mantra; finding a ‘safe place’ within my body; and some of the visualisations, some of which are very comforting, while others sounded quite bizarre until I actually tried them. The ‘brain’s pain relief centre’ one is even entertaining, like a mini-action movie in the body, where you can be director and actor at the same time!

There were parts of the book I felt resistant to or didn’t understand well. The spiritual element in the mindfulness chapter seemed unaware that many chronic pain sufferers might be atheists, but on the other hand it certainly wasn’t organised-religious either. And I could not relate to the chapter on energy therapies; for personal reasons, I have a strong emotional resistance to anything that includes phrases like ‘energy flow’. The chapters that most resonate with me are two near the end, which deal with the role of trauma and loss in chronic pain. As a recovering anxiety sufferer as well as someone with neuropathic pain, I’ve increasingly wondered if the two conditions are related, and lately feel as if a build-up of grief and tension from unresolved losses and traumas in my life has contributed to the physical and emotional difficulties I’ve had over the past few years. So far my thoughts are just beginning to touch on the issue, but with the help of Maggie Phillips’s book and the exercises and insights it contains, I think I’ll be exploring in far more depth and hopefully will gain a deeper understanding and acceptance of my pain. Will this lead to a reduction in pain and a more active and fulfilled life? I don’t know, but it seems there’s nothing to lose by trying.

In short, this is an admirable and very helpful book, at times a little too ‘Californian’ for my taste, but one which I know I’ll return to again and again to help me manage and understand my pain. I think most chronic pain sufferers will find at least some of the exercises beneficial, and for many it will be a breath of fresh air that brings the hope, comfort and support that those of us with pain so often, and so dearly, need.

Living Peace

Yesterday a friend gave Angie and me a late Christmas present, and obviously knew what we needed. It's a CD called 'Living Peace' by Gael Chiarella, and it's really beautiful.

Gael has a lovely, gentle American voice, and leads you through four deep relaxations. They're based on practises I've encountered before, such as yoga and mindfulness meditation; the latter is something I practise every day. Having listened to them all, I've found that they encourage a state of appreciation of my surroundings and the good things I have, as well as a balanced observation of the impermanence and changability of things, including sensations which I label unpleasant, such as pain. And they also do something which is important for chronic pain and anxiety sufferers: they seem to help 'slow down' the nervous system. Helpful for anyone in these stressful and fast-paced times, it's also something that ambient music can do. So every night once we're in bed, Angie and I relax and doze to Brian Eno's 'Music for Airports', present almost at the edge of hearing, like a musical soft light or perfume!

The music on this CD is less distinctive than Eno, but beautifully calm and not mixed too forwardly, so it doesn't intrude too much. The sensation of listening to these tracks is a bit like sitting in the courtyard of some Tibetan monastery, witha deep blue sky above and the Himalayan peaks catching yellow sunlight all around. Which is not a bad place to be, if only in your imagination.

I can recommend this CD highly. You can obtain it and other CDs by Gael at Amazon, or by visiting her website at www.yokibics.com.

Namaste!

Changes

Hello again after a long absence! I've changed the title of this blog, because I no longer see myself as a peace activist, having reluctantly given it up due to its effects on my emotional and physical health. I may still post occasional 'political' entries, but also I'd like to try and find a new focus for my blog, with a greater emphasis on personal experience than before. So its character is changing, but what precise direction it will take is something I'm not sure of, yet! I'll just see if it evolves into something a bit different from before!

In my personal life I've been struggling recently with health problems; none of them 'serious', but quite debilitating. I hope I'm learning though, and will come through as I have before.

To help keep me positive, I've been creating a new ebsite for my photography, which at present you can see at: http://michaelbentley.photium.com/ It will have a proper domain name in a few weeks once I start paying for it, so I'll post the new link when I have it. Meanwhile, if you like photographs of landscapes, animals, flowers, architecture and anti-war marches, I hope you enjoy browsing!

Bye for now, and peace to all.

Michael

'Prolonged Detention', and the Grey Lady of Bagram

Dr Aafiya Siddiqui is a neuroscientist from Pakistan who lived and trained in the US. She left America for her home country in 2002, saying that it was hard to live as a muslim in the post 9/11 climate. The US claim to have arrested her in Afghanistan in 2006 – with ‘dangerous substances’ concealed on her person - but she went missing four years earlier, and numerous reports from ex-detainees (including Binyam Mohammed, who was imprisoned at Bagram before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay) have confirmed her repeated statements that she was held and tortured for a very long time at the US prison in Afghanistan. Detainees say that they frequently heard her screams and cries for help, and Binyam reported that when he saw her she seemed at the edge of insanity. It appears that she was indeed the long-unknown ‘Grey Lady of Bagram’, and it would be hard to think of anyone who has suffered more than Aafiya at the hands of the US in its self-declared ‘war on terror’.

Aafiya is still imprisoned, this time at a Detention Facility in the US. She is a physical and emotional wreck, but still holding to her heartbreaking story. You can read more about her case at the Cageprisoners website, here:

http://www.cageprisoners.com/prisoners.php?id=1367#

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=29714

You can also write to Aafiya with cards or letters of support. She loves nature and has said that she would like to receive books on the subject. She will need all the support she can get, because the situation does not look bright for many of those held in indefinite detention in the US. Some Guantanamo detainees may be transferred to Bagram (reportedly far worse than Gitmo) or to prisons on the American mainland. In a recent speech, Preident Obama criticised the Bush system ad-hoc system of indefinite detention, before proposing one of his own: ‘Prolonged Detention’. Under this system, the US will be able to hold prisoners essentially indefinitely, even if they have been legally acquitted of committing a crime, simply because someone thinks they ‘may’ commit one in the future. This is an incredible proposal from the leader of any democracy, let alone one that claims to promote democracy around the world, which wanted to ‘liberate’ the Iraqi people from a totalitarian state in 2003. Obama is beginning to look like Bush in nicer and more intelligent clothing. And what he is proposing is as Orwellian as anything the preceding administration dreamed up.

Watch excerpts from Obama’s speech, and Rachel Maddow’s commentary on it, here. Maddow’s analysis is scathing, but cuts through the doublespeak and is good viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB8WZyiX5Po

All this means that people like Aafiya, and the ‘last Londoner in Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, may still not be released for a very long time, if at all. Shaker has never been charged with a crime and has long been cleared for release by the US authorities, but he has still not been returned home to the UK, and has been tortured and held in solitary confinement for most of his years in Gitmo. He is on hunger strike and being brutally force-fed every day (survivors of this ordeal have described it as a form of torture in itself), but is rapidly losing weight and may be close to death. If you want to help him, email the Foreign Secretary David Miliband (at private.office@fco.gov.uk) and ask him to ensure that Shaker is brought safely home to England as his predecessors have been. You can read more about Shaker’s case at: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/shakeraamer

You can also write to Shaker in Guantanamo by contacting Reprieve at http://www.reprieve.org.uk/ Whenever I write to detainees I am never sure if the letters actually reach them, but we know that in many cases they do and are a very gratefully received. If you do not feel able to campaign actively against these abuses in the ‘war on terror’, which you can do by joining organisations like Reprieve, CagePrisoners, or the National Guantanamo Coalition, please consider writing to people like Aafiya and Shaker, even if it is only by sending a card. I cannot find the address for sending to Guantanamo detainees, as Reprieve have re-furbished their website and I’m still finding my way around. But if you want to write to Aafiya, the address to send to is:

AAFIYA SIDDIQUI #90279-054
MDC BROOKLYN
METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER
P.O. BOX 329002
BROOKLYN, NY 11232
AMERICA

Please consider writing to her, or to one of the other detainees. They need your support, to know that they are not alone and that well-wishing people are thing of them. It seems to me that there is no longer Change We can Believe In, and perhaps there never was from the Obama camp. The Leader of the Free World is continuing to slide outside of the rule of law and into barbarity. Aafiya and Shaker are just two of the real people who have suffered, and are continuing to suffer, more than we can imagine. Perhaps one day the real Change will come, and they will all receive justice and an end to their years of pain and despair.

To save succeeding generations...

The most recent peace plaque at Beachy Head in Sussex, which local activists paid for, installed, and in some cases, wheeled by foot all the way from Brighton, is a year old this week. Here's something I wrote for my Facebook blog a year ago

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The following was written for the installation ceremony of a new peace memorial at Beachy Head, Sussex, on 24 May 2008. In the event I decided not to say it, but the mayor of Eastbourne was present on a very blustery evening and made a fine speech. (Not as long as this one is…)

The idea of the plaque was to provide a focus for peace for the many local peace groups, and to be a kind of alternative war memorial - one which reflects the fact that since 1914 civilian casualties in wars have increased exponentially. It is now, overwhelmingly, civilian populations that suffer the heaviest casualties, particularly through aerial bombardment, and we wanted the memorial to remember them as well as the military deaths.

What made the day all the more remarkable was that the six-kilogram plaque was brought to Beachy Head on foot, by several members of our local peace group, all the way along the coast from Brighton (some twenty miles away). This was some achievement, particularly in view of the undulating Seven Sisters cliffs and the fact that two of the walkers were senior citizens. A heroic achievement, and a day which is vividly recalled to me every time I see the plaque in its prominent position opposite the visitors centre.

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The Second World War, whose end gave birth to the United Nations and the UN Charter quoted on our plaque, was fought partly in the skies above Beachy Head. The town of Eastbourne was bombed, like many others, and had its own civilian and military casualties amongst the millions killed by the war’s end. Since then, despite the UN Charter, dozens of wars have been fought around the world, and more millions of people have died as a result.

We are now only a few years into a new millennium. We have a symbolic chance for a new beginning of peace, justice, toleration and the rule of law, but so far the lessons of the past hundred years have not been learnt. This plaque stands as a memorial not only to the casualties of war in the twentieth century, but to all those still being killed in wars across the world. Respect for international and humanitarian law, even by the world’s most powerful countries, is in serious decline, and millions have already died in the years since 1 January 2001.

This plaque, brought to Beachy Head through the heroic physical efforts of local peace activists and generous donations from the public, stands not only as a memorial to those killed but also as a symbol of hope - for a better, more tolerant, law-abiding and above all PEACEFUL world in the years to come. Let’s hope that by the time the chalk cliffs have eroded this far and the plaque will either be gone or moved further inland, that world will long since have arrived.

Meanwhile, in its small way, the installed plaque will be something tangible that supporters of both organisations have achieved, and its presence by the Beachy Head UN Peace Path a lasting memorial to the millions who have died in war, and a reminder of the UN Charter which MUST be reaffirmed as a vital document for the safety of the world and ALL its peoples. This is reflected in the wording of the plaque, which says:

IN MEMORY OF

ALL WHO LOST THEIR LIVES

IN THE WARS OF THE

LAST HUNDRED YEARS, WHATEVER

THEIR GENDER, AGE OR NATIONALITY,

MILITARY OR CIVILIAN

SPRING 2008

EASTBOURNE UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION

EASTBOURNE FOR PEACE AND LIBERTY

...WE THE PEOPLES OFTHE UNITED NATIONS

DETERMINED TO SAVE SUCCEEDING

GENERATIONS FROM

THE SCOURGE OF WAR

CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS

JUNE 1945, IN SAN FRANCISCO