The Wind That Shakes The Barley

It's easy to know what you are fighting against. It's an honour to know what for.

It's easy to make a simple comparison of the present hegemony that is America and the havoc it is wreaking in the middle east with the Britain, then Great, that is portrayed in the movie and the illegal occupation that took place in Ireland after the Easter Uprising in 1916. More specifically the Irish War of Indepence that took place from 1919 to 1921 when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed.

Ken Loach (my first Ken Loach's film, sadly) is not interested in the epoch changing events that took place in Dublin. Instead, it is in the county of Cork that this movie is focused on. The characters are fictional but I am given the impression that the storyline is spliced with composites of real stories told by word of mouth and perhaps anecdotes shared by those who've experienced the events leading to the formation of the Irish Republic.

The story is loosely formed around the two O'Donovan brothers. Teddy, older and was in the resistance earlier than younger Damien who was going to London to study medicine but the situations he witnessed turned him around and he too joined the resistance. Following a tragic sequence of events where ideals and realities are challenged, Teddy commanded the firing squad that executed Damien.

I felt a sense of despair while I was watching the film. A professional armed force against a largely civilian uprising. Impossibly overpowered in the conventional sense. Illegally occupied because of economic demands and resources. Outmanned and outgunned, yet the resistance prevailed because of shared ideals and nobility of cause. Guerilla tactics are adopted because there is no chance of victories, however minor, when battles are fought conventionally. A nation's countrymen are torn apart when faced with decisions that eventually lead to a civil war. I'm not talking about Iraq. This is the reality of Ireland in post World War 1.

The despair is from the current reality. The absence of WMD found in the aftermath, the non UN-sanctioned invasion of another country, the continued threat made all over the world from Iran to North Korea, the loss of civilian life, the media play on who's right and who's wrong....etc etc...

This movie does not glorify terrorism. What it does instead is to provide an alternate definition of terror. An alternate image of terror. Terror is not always carried out by those who wear balaclavas and use improvised explosive devices. Terror is not always eliminated by those wearing uniforms and executing sanctified actions.

Those who lose their lives in a conflict are usually pawns of the real terrors. Ultimately, these real terrors may or may not be exposed as such. But what we, as free people, or so we like to deceive ourselves, should be aware and wary of at all times is to recognise terror at it's cause. And not be dazzled by the consequences.