Road to Guantanamo

Road to Guantanamo is a film everyone should see, but not many have.

I wasn’t sure what to expect before putting this film into the DVD player tonight. I picked it up on the strength of an interesting synopsis:

Part drama, part documentary, Road to Guantánamo focuses on the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge.

Little did I know how disturbed I would be by this film about young Muslim Brits who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Here’s the trailer:

Upon further reading I found out that the MPAA deemed the film’s poster ‘inappropriate’ as it shows a disturbing image of a mistreated prisoner. You can see for yourself. I’ve given you a choice, just click the link if you want to have a look:
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Taken in the context it is meant to be seen in the poster is nothing but appropriate.

What did this films show me? It enlightened me as to how naive I was in 2001, blinded by anger and fear after what happened in New York city. It took me back to exactly how I felt then and that to me, action, however it came, was justified. I’m embarrassed to say that I was wrong.

Yes, the suicide bombers of September 11, 2001 did a horrible thing and the Taliban sound like nasty folk too. I’m not questioning that at all. I am questioning what ‘we’, and by we I mean the countries in the coalition that invaded Afghanistan, did in response to those acts. I’m not sure how more death and the abuse of the rights other human beings sets right those wrongs.

Perhaps we should treat everyone by the standards we ourselves would expect if in similar circumstances. The biggest one is the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Where the hell is that for those being held at Guantanamo? It doesn’t appear to apply in these cases.

Why haven’t more people seen this? I try not come off like a conspiracy theorist so I won’t even go there, but there has to be real reasons why. Perhaps it’s a case of the truth hurts. If you don’t see it it isn’t there. Right?

The box office was tragically low as per IMDb at only $316,694 (28 July 2006). When films like Eddie Murphy’s Norbit (panned by critics) are opening to box office counts of $34.2 million in a single weekend and films like this one are going unnoticed I have to ask myself what is wrong with this world.

What a yucky feeling.

Here are some links from the film’s web site to help you ‘Get Active’:

amnestyusa
ACLU
witnesstorture.org

For we Canadians:

amnesty.ca
human rights watch is good too.

To close, here’s a little trivia about the film:

Two of the actors (Riz Ahmed and Farhad Harun) and two of the ex-detainees were detained temporary and interrogated at the airport by the British police when they returned from the Berlinale-festival where the movie got the Silver Bear. According to BBC-news Ahmed said he was asked if he intended to make any more political films.

Disgusting.