Reflection #2: American Revolution

Watching the clip from patriot and analyzing the perspectives of the director was interesting.The director or producer’s chose to represent the motive for Mel Gibson’s violence to personal matters rather than political ones. Furthermore, the director chooses to mention that Mel Gibson doesn’t own black slaves; which is highly unlikely given the time and situation of the movie. I felt the producers of the movie were concerned about using ideas and themes that were commonly accepted, so that their audience reach would be larger. In a small way this makes you realize that “slavery” is an avoided and almost taboo topic in the US. The reason for this general discomfort with ‘slavery’ could be due to several factors such as:  it’s a sensitive topic to many African Americans who may still be able to trace their ancestors to those days, the horrific nature and cruelty by which slaves were treated could be provocative even today, many are embarrassed by it and most don’t want to accept it as part of their great history. A sense of denial is easily seen, similar to the Germans regarding the holocaust. In fact, in the wiki article the word “maafa” is used  to describe the transatlantic slave trade, which essentially means “holocaust” in Swahili.

Considering the large amount of slaves that were present during the US revolution, it would be interesting to know what the slaves’ perspective on the US Revolution. Were they involved in anyway with what happened? Were they forced to fight? How did they feel about it? Did this bring about any hope to them? Perhaps, a director willing to consider history for what it is, should make a movie on the life of a slave, from the slave’s perspective, and how different political movements affected him and what he thought of it. Wouldn’t that be really interesting?

I felt, one of the most important aspects of the US revolution was that everything was documented and written. This was never represented in the reading, and it is crucial in understanding not only the US revolution but also American society. This need for documentation distinguishes the US revolution from others, in its approach towards freedom. I believe the US revolution was neither radical nor conservative but rather very educated. The unique nature of the US revolution helped me understand the importance of documentation, and law, to the US culture. I thought it was important, and with the theme of the US revolution, for John Locke’s natural rights to be documented .The notion that you shouldn’t state the obvious, or that writing the natural rights may seem redundant can be understood; however, I feel redundancy is sometimes good in reminding and making a point. I understand how stating the obvious can give doubts, but I feel the natural rights have gained immense value because they were documented. In line with American thinking and history, would the natural rights have received as much honor and importance if someone hadn’t made an effort to spell it out?

It was easy to relate to the fate of the elite colonists and the whole concept of ‘all men are created equal” and how this worked against the elite colonists. The same thing happened in Nepal last year. The political leaders joined together to over throw the despotic monarch; after this was accomplished the notion of “we are all equal” remained in the nation. This led many people to question the authority of the politicians, creating a similar confusion for Nepali politicians as it did for elite colonists centuries ago.