American Progress.

The painting by John Gast of American Progress should be looked at with the advantage of hindsight and situated in its historical context. Note the way in which the barbarity of civilisation is externalised onto the Native Americans. You can see Winthrop's Protestant claim of America as a 'shining beacon' converging with the technological innovations of nascent capitalist society. The white settlers laid claim to both faith and reason in their colonisation of the New World. Significantly, when Native Americans first encountered white settlers they regarded them as just another rival tribe to be bartered with. There was no recognition of the encroachments into the New World that the process of settler-colonialism would necessitate. The tribal pluralism of Native Americans may have held them back from seeing the threat for what it was. It was easy for the settlers and backers in Britain to divide and conquer the indigenous population and expand ever westward. The push for independence only came in the Thirteen Colonies after King George III had tried to slam the breaks on expansion in 1763.

The millions of Africans kidnapped and transported were members of a variety of tribes. As David Roediger has noted the slave ships were incubators for black identity in that the people imprisoned aboard them were wrenched, brutally, from the context of tribal life. Paradoxically, it was the inhuman conditions of slavery which created the basis for Black nationalism and pan-Africanism to emerge. This is not to defend slavery or settler colonialism, but to acknowledge the immense contradictions in the anfractuous passages of history. Since it first was an outpost of British power, America has seen not just one but two revolutionary ruptures. The most obvious one was against the British Empire and the second came in the form of the Civil War between industrial capitalism and slaveocracy. The Civil War brought a period of primitive accumulation to an end in the South, furthered capitalism and significantly centralised the state. Then came the first imperial adventures (to cross saltwater) in the late 19th Century.

In coming decades there will be much more scepticism shed on America's founding point as its imperial hegemony begins to go into decline. The growing criticism may well be further facilitated by the technological advantages that we enjoy today. Unlike the British Empire the first cracks of scepticism are already visible in the American ideology, almost pre-emptive of the breakdown.

Founding a State.

The news of an outbreak of violence in Gaza with the Israeli Defence Forces was not much of a surprise for anyone. It mobilised some to protest outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, while others joined the counter-demonstration further down the road, the vast majority of people probably languished in passive ignorance to the history of the crisis. The wars waged to establish and expand the state of Israel surprise no one with a modicum of knowledge of the history of the nation-state. Like childbirth the memory of the founding of a state is repressed precisely because it’s so traumatic. The majority of states in the world were either founded in violence or have been perpetuated through violence in some way. So it should surprise no one that the state of Israel was founded out of a theft - what Palestinians call the Nabka - in which 700,000 people were expelled from their land and their villages were destroyed to make way for a new country. And we can safely say, in retrospect of six decades, that expansionism is inherent to the state-founding project.

Expulsion from the land was the only way that the state could be established. It was necessary given that at the time Mandate Palestine consisted of a population that was 95% Muslim and Christian Arab. Today the millions of descendants of those Palestinians who were first displaced in 1948 are scattered around the world. The largest concentration outside of Israel and the occupied territories is in Jordan, where Israeli nationalists argue the Palestinians really belong. Part of the problem is the ambiguity of where Israel’s borders actually end. If the international borders are disregarded (which they are inside Israel) then the eastern frontier of the country reach across the Jordan River and that would mean Jordan can be absorbed as well. This is the irony of the nationalist line that the Palestinians should go live in Jordan. Originally the border was meant to be at the Alawi River in the middle of Lebanon. Until the borders are clarified and set at the internationally recognised limit, which is at 78% of what was once Mandate Palestine, then there won’t be peace.

The UN vote to bestow non-member observer status on Palestine demonstrates that the Palestinians are hungry for a peaceful settlement. Incidentally, Palestine now shares the same status of statehood as the Holy See. This is contrary to the picture that the Israeli Right put forward of murderous rabbles of Arabs too bloodthirsty to settle for anything less than the demise of the Jewish state. Yet it is the Israeli government that won't budge on the question of settlements and 60% of the West Bank already consists of Jewish settlements. That's a major obstacle to a two-state settlement if Palestine is meant to be constituted by 100% of the West Bank. Then there's the wall of annexation that has been extended around arable land and resources in the West Bank. This wall is called a 'defensive barrier' in Israel, which is what the Berlin Wall was called in East Germany. It gets even more absurd, in the US media the wall is called a 'fence' and it's longer than the Berlin Wall.

This is somewhat appropriate as the US was itself born out of a revolt on America's East Coast only for the colonies to expand westward into Indian territory. It isn't often discussed that there may have been as many as 18 million, possibly even 25 million, people living in North America when European settlers first arrived. The fact that the US would consist of a narrow slither of land if it weren't for genocide, war and slavery was long suppressed by historians. This denial of these origins was nothing exceptional. In the same way that the trauma of childbirth is suppressed in all of our minds, the horrors of nation-building are quickly wiped from the national memory. What follows then is the creation of a national mythology, the shibboleths of American exceptionalism were crafted by English colonists quite early on. Ronald Reagan liked to describe America as "a shining city upon a hill"; well it was Puritan colonist John Winthrop who coined that phrase in 1630 and along with it the notion that America is a nation with a divine purpose.

The new world was a venture first pursued to escape the horrors of European nationalism and in a way Israel was a similar project. Yet it would seem as though the nation-state, a European invention itself, has brought with it all the destructive tendencies of the old world with it. This isn’t just the violence inherent to the project, it’s racism as well. Not just towards Arabs, who are victims of discrimination on all fronts. In May race riots broke out in Tel Aviv a Likudnik at the Knesset commented that black immigrants are a ‘cancer’ on the Jewish state. Keep in mind the black immigrants are Sudanese refugees fleeing the slaughter in their own country. Racism is never too far from nationalism, wherever it hangs its hat. The violence of founding states pukes it up almost automatically. Now Bibi Netanyahu has made it clear he is running with Avi Lieberman – a man who believes in segregation and loyalty oaths – at the upcoming elections. We can take all of this as a sign that Israel has yet to really finish its ‘founding’, and that means this could go on for much longer.

This article was published at the Heythrop Lion on December 11th 2012.

The Strong Silent Type.

"Pain and truth? I'm a fat fuckin' crook from New Jersey." - Tony Soprano

Tony Soprano often refers to Gary Cooper as the consummate American male, strong and silent, focused and not emasculated by confession. Tony says in one therapy session that Cooper "wasn't in touch with his feelings, he just did what he had to do". Cooper was a staunch anti-communist and was famed for playing cowboys, an imitation of the mass-murderers who led a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Native American population. He equates the identity of the American male with unaccountability. The genocide of the Native American tribes was not confronted in American society until the 60s and 70s. It is made clear throughout the show that the characters prefer to focus on the subjective violence - violent acts committed against them - and do not confront the objective violence - the violent acts which they are responsible for, as a way of sustaining their life styles. After watching all the episodes of The Sopranos it is clear that murder is just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the human suffering that these mobsters are responsible for.

In a flashback to the early 1970s, Tony watches as his Uncle Junior and father Johnny Boy take Francis Satriale into the back of his pork store, there his father chops Satriale's pinkie off with a meat cleaver. This act of extreme violence is aesthetically symbolic of castration - with all of it's Freudian connotations. Later on in the episode, Tony has a conversation with his father, explaining his reasons for cutting off Satriale's finger, the music playing in the background is reminiscent of the Westerners of the late 1960s. The prepubescent Tony later suffers his first ever panic attack, as his father cuts up the pork before his eyes, just after seeing his father dancing with his mother. He once confides in a therapy session that he was told that he was as a child, that his father was in Montana living as a cowboy, when in fact Johnny Boy was in prison. Tony experiences great existential despair and anxiety as he has such enormous "shoes to fill". At the same time, he experienced impotence as his father handled the meat cleaver so swiftly.

In the first episode of the second season, we see Tony driving along in his SUV and listening to heavy metal music. Along the way he passes dilapidated warehouses and rundown buildings, obliviously, as if Tony does not want to acknowledge the destruction his "journey" has brought upon the community. But when his car's radio begins to malfunction during this journey Tony becomes enraged and begins hitting the dashboard, he eventually suffers an anxiety attack and passes out, crashing his car. Tony was overwhelmed by feelings of intense rage triggered by a minor disruption in his journey. As if it were a desperate attempt to avoid facing the destructive consequences of his actions - his true responsibilities. These responsibilities Tony has avoided since childhood, as his father had done before him, which was expected of him as he chose to follow in his father's footsteps.

It is often said that The Sopranos brings us to fall in love with character whom we would find totally abhorrent if we encountered them in reality. Tony Soprano is one character in a long line of fat working-class lovable oaths, like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, that American popular culture has produced over the years. It is his many flaws that make him so human and what helps the audience sympathise with him. This is why we constantly put up with his despicable behaviour, as does Dr Melfi and most of his loved ones. It could be down to the Judeo-Christian values which remain dominant in Western society generally - which set a low standard for human nature - and as a consequence of them we generally do identify with flawed characters.

Perhaps, such characters appeal to the parental instincts of the audience. Fat, helpless, unable to resist gratification, these are much like the features of babies, which are innocent and in need of guidance. It could be our desire to protect and guide the weak of this world that is behind our shared compassion for such oath-like characters. There are allusions to this during the course of the show. Gloria Trillo referred to a guerrilla in the zoo as looking "innocent" like a baby, since the term "guerrilla" has been used as a euphemism for Mafia thugs in the past, this may be an insight into her, as well as our own, fascination with Tony and other men like him. In the episode Amour Fou, Carmela is at an art gallery with Meadow where they view The Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which depicts Saint Catherine kneeling down and kissing the hand of the Baby Jesus who is being held by the Virgin Mary. Meadow comments "She's marrying a baby. Good luck." to which Carmela replies "We all do." But does not just imply Tony is a "big baby", it puts him in the place of Christ - a martyr.

In his sessions with Dr Melfi it is revealed that as a sociopath Tony mimics empathy by showing affection for animals and babies. Melfi later concluded that Soprano, due to his sociopathic personality, was an untreatable case after reading The Criminal Personality, a particularly damning case study. Though, Tony had previously summed it up, we just didn't want to listen, "Pain and truth? I'm a fat fuckin' crook from New Jersey." This effectively ended the fantasy of Tony redeeming himself and becoming a reformed character, it effectively ended the hopes of the audience. But on an even deeper level it is as if this realisation, is a recognition of the "con" played against the audience. The therapy sessions provide what the show lacks, narrative, Dr Melfi is the presence of the audience in the show. She is fascinated with Tony Soprano, a gangster, like the audience and like the audience she is ultimately "conned", charmed by a sociopath and the tricks he's mastered over the years.

The Shining and the Slaughter.

The Genius of Kubrick.

The 1980 film The Shining, adapted from the Stephen King novel, directed by Stanley Kubrick  is a cinematic masterpiece of psychological horror. Today tales of madness and isolation, telepathy and the supernatural, are commonly churned out of the Hollywood machine in such a manner that it can only be put down to the profit motive. But The Shining is one of few great films in the horror genre that has not been diluted by the "invisible hand" that pushed out The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then squeezed out as many sequels as possible, before resorting to remaking the entire bloody saga. Though it could easily be asserted that The Shining is of a superior standard of art and film, by comparison the slasher flicks of that era appear exploitative and devoid of the intelligence which refined King's story into a classic that stands the test of time. Even 30 years after it's release, the film can be watched and appreciated on many different levels due to the polysemic nature of the story.

To the displeasure of Stephen King fans everywhere, Stanley Kubrick altered the plot of the story, cutting away a great deal of back story, and in doing so diminishing the themes developed throughout the novel. For instance, Jack Torrance is a much more sympathetic figure in the novel and has a moment of redemption as the plot concludes. Whereas, Kubrick's Jack Torrance is devoid of such qualities and in that respect may have more in common with Alex DeLarge of A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps this is indicative of the pessimism often associated with Kubrick's films. Though similar arguments have been made regarding Kubrick's preceding adaptations, notably A Clockwork Orange and Lolita, but the completed projects were some of the most innovative and enthralling contributions to modern cinema. Though there is another side of The Shining that is often overlooked, no pun intended, the political themes and messages in the film that most horror films are simply devoid of.


What should not be ignored is the way in which Stanley Kubrick littered his films with socio-political messages. For instance, in 2001: A Space Odyssey the HAL 9000 computer represents IBM. Each letter of the acronym "HAL" is one letter ahead of the letters that make up "IBM". But there are other references, towards the end of the film while HAL is being dismantled the computer begins to sing 'Daisy Bell'. The first ever synthesised computer speech was produced by an IBM 704 computer which first sang 'Daisy Bell'. It was at a lab in Urbana, Illinois that this demonstration first took place in 1962. While being dismantled HAL makes reference to this historic event by naming the same location as the place of which HAL was built. The scene in which HAL cheats during a chess game may imply that Kubrick distrusted and was suspicious of IBM. Kubrick had good reason to be, IBM had devised a traffic management system, centred around punch-cards, for the concentration camps of the Third Reich.

Sins of the Nation.

If we accept that the work Stanley Kubrick is typically littered with politicised symbolism and messages, it seems highly likely that The Shining also carries such symbolism and messages. The idea that The Shining could be interpreted as commenting on the slaughter of Native Americans is nothing new. It goes back to an essay written by Bill Blakemore and has recently been explored in great depth by film analyst Rob Ager. Today this is still a commonly neglected interpretation of the film and is no doubt an interesting view of the story. Arguably, the major political theme of The Shining is the suppression of a violent history. At the time, Kubrick was planning to make a film about the Third Reich and the Holocaust. He would later abandon the project after Schindler's List was released in 1993 and the overwhelmingly depressing research that he had undertaken in pursuit of his goal. It could be that Kubrick focused on political themes relating to war and ethnic cleansing in his films, like Full Metal Jacket and The Shining, out of an obsession with producing a film about the Holocaust.

The way in which the United States was "created" is often described in semi-biological terms which distort the magnitude of the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans, what is understood in terms of genocide and ethnic cleansing today. The genocide of Native Americans was downplayed for over 150 years, while Hollywood capitalised on the slaughter by churning out dozens of Westerns featuring the typical "Cowboys-and-Indians" dynamic. It wasn't until the 1970s that there was even a real debate on the issue that there was once an advanced civilisation consisting of over 80 million people, around 95% of the Native population had been exterminated by the mid 17th Century. It was following the American Revolution that Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of assimilation and acculturation of the Natives, first proposed the idea of an "Indian Removal Plan", a precursor to the Indian Removal act of 1830 which Andrew Jackson put in place and used to drive many tribes to west of the Mississippi.


As Rob Ager points out in his analysis of the film, there are numerous references to Indians and settlers throughout. The music, as Jack Torrance is making his way to the Overlook Hotel by car, is at one point reminiscent of Native American chanting. Jack and Wendy are informed by Ullman that the Overlook Hotel, itself riddled with Native American artwork and symbols, was built on an Indian burial ground and a few attacks by tribes had to be "repelled" to complete construction. In the car, with his wife and son, Jack tells a story about a group of settlers who get lost in the wilderness and resort to cannibalism to survive. The Hotel is littered with art that appears to be Native American in origin, the paintings above the fireplace for instance are Native American sand paintings. The 'Gold Room' is the place in which Jack goes to get away from his wife and first encounters the mysterious bartender. The room is a clear reference to the days of the gold rush which motivated many to head west in search of prosperity.


The twin girls, who were killed by the caretaker Grady, have parallels in Navajo folklore in which twins were used to depict the duality between "father sky" and "mother earth". There is also symbolism which suggests that Wendy is representative of a Native American wife. The way she dresses and braids her hair is very similar to that of a Native American woman. Many Native American women had to marry white men to gain citizenship in the US. But also many slave women were exploited sexually by their masters, which is a reason that many African-Americans have white ancestors. So it is possible that Wendy represents either a Native American woman or an African-American. The river of blood that rushes out of the elevator could quite conceivably represent the blood of Native Americans that the Overlook Hotel was built upon. The colours red, white and blue are seen in several scenes, on clothing worn by Wendy, Danny, Jack and Ullman. These are the well known colours of the American flag, which also appears in several scenes and carries patriotic connotations and indifference to the ethnic cleansing that the Republic was built upon.


The character Dick Hallorann may represent the Otherness, composed of both African and Native Americans, which was destroyed. Hallorann is juxtaposed with a can of baking powder that has a stereotypical "Indian Chief" as its logo. It could also be argued that Hallorann is resembles a Native American in terms of his facial features. As Jack is talking to the phantom bartender and sipping a glass of bourbon he refers casually to the "white man's burden", a reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem on imperialism. It isn't until Jack meets Delbert Grady that the implicit racism of the characters spills out onto the floor for all to see. It is done so  suddenly, Grady casually drops the deeply repugnant slur "nigger" with a look of complete hatred about him. Interestingly, the conversation takes place in a gentleman's toilets which is decorated entirely in white and red, the toilets are also immaculate. This reflects the decades of white supremacy that the US went through and the blood that it was predicated on. Hallorann is later murdered by Jack with an axe, he dies on a floor made up of tiles with a pattern similar to fabric seen in Native American culture. 


Delbert Grady describes the killings of his daughters and wife in terms of doing his "duty" and "correcting" them. Presumably, Grady believed the duty to protect the Hotel outweighed his responsibilities as a father and husband. Similarly, Jack rants at Wendy about his "responsibilities" and emphasises the importance of the "contract" which he signed freely and in doing so accepted such "responsibilities". This is just after Jack caught Wendy looking through what he has been working on for so long. The idea of a "social contract" was a liberal idea associated with the philosopher John Locke. Locke's work inspired many of the ideas expressed in the US Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence. In this sense, it could be that the "writing project" that Jack Torrance was working on for so many months was symbolic of the Declaration of the Independence. An implication of this may be that Jack represents Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, who had a relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave who bore him a child.

 Time to Shine.

The Shining was released in March of 1980, which would place it in the limbo nearing the end of Jimmy Carter's time in office just before the "Reaganite Revolution" that heralded a new era in American politics. Carter was elected as a figure of "hope" in the aftermath of the scandalous Nixon era, which decimated the public belief and trust in politicians, but disappointed and left largely a failure after just one term. This led the way for the Reaganite zeitgeist of 1980s America to fill the void left by the perceived failure of "liberal politicians" in the 1960s. This is the source of the prevalent disdain of liberals on the American Right and the demonising of liberalism that has taken place in the US over the last 30 years.  But on the back of the failure of Democratic administrations under the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the Republicans have continued to reinvent themselves and have led populist "rebellions" against the "liberal elite" who want to destroy the American way of life.


It could be argued that the story of The Shining is indicative of this transition from liberal disillusionment with politics to reactionary anti-politics. Jack Torrance is a hard-working blue-collar guy and the primary breadwinner in a nuclear family. The reason Jack took on the job as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel is to find the time and seclusion he needs to complete a novel. The inspiration for the story came from the months Stephen King spent writing in isolation at an almost totally empty hotel.  Though the risk posed to his son Danny and Wendy's instant reaction, to get Danny to a doctor as soon as possible, are obstacles to Jack's writing ambitions. In a sense, it is his self-interest that he sees blocked by the interests of his family. This is much like the clash between conservatism and liberalism in America, the latter representing individualism and the former being social democracy. What should be kept in mind is that conservatism and liberalism in the US differ greatly from the traditions of conservatism and liberalism.


Perhaps Jack's murderous rage and delusions of a glorious past represent the most vicious and reactionary tendencies in what is commonly referred to as "conservatism" in the US today. A precursor to the angry white men who emerged in the early 1990s, at first it was to seize the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats. But a much more ugly side to this phenomenon has emerged, the oldest example being shooting sprees targeting civilians. A more "modern development" is the killing of abortionists being primary examples. Let alone the thousands of private armies, commonly mislabled as "militias", who are preparing to take on the Federal Reserve, the UN or the Devil. The culmination of years of neglect that led to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, an act of terrorism perpetrated by men with extreme right-wing views and sympathies with the militias. Today it is the Tea Party Movement, which is another figment of the angry white male phenomenon, and is doing it's best to stifle the moderate changes proposed by the Obama administration.

Significant Links:

The Shining analysis by Rob Ager Part 1 
HAL = IBM

Noam Chomsky Meets the Pioneer Spirit 
A People's History of the American Empire  
Noam Chomsky on "anti-politics"