I’d only heard about McCarthyism from my father, and from school history books. I learnt about his specific brand of justice, of control. I witnessed it today, almost first-hand, in this George Clooney-directed movie.
Chronicling the true events in the 50s when television presenter Ed Murrow of CBS decides to call on the pink elephant by taking cudgels at McCarthy’s all-too-sweeping anti-communism campaign, Clooney makes no bones in illustrating that too ignored lesson – that history repeats itself. Parallels are chillingly obvious when Murrow’s restrained incense at the unfair treatment of Milo Radulovich is quietly communicated to his producer Fred Friendly ( played by Clooney himself ). It’s a feeling we’ve all felt too often these days just watching the news.
Clooney drives the point more by stripping the movie of regular Hollywood add-ons; there is no contemporary background score. All you hear is period jazz denoting the various moods of the movie, sprinkled intermittently between recordings of Murrow’s See It Now episodes. Otherwise, silence and starkness rules the screen, letting the film’s issues highlight its drama. A slow zoom out of Murrow, pounding on his typewriter in his office, empty but for a dozing Fred, is unforgettable.
But the main gasp-inducer is none other than McCarthy himself, played by himself straight from the grave. All shots of the Fear Senator is original footage, mouthing concepts not too different from today’s politicians - talking about a similar doomsday, but only an alternate route to it. Communism then, terrorism today.
I come away from the screening a trifle frazzled. It doesn’t augur well for me to know that history repeats itself because we don’t learn its lessons. Clooney’s theme of reacting to the fear of the unknown resonates within the Western world today, as it did in Malaysia, my country of birth, in the Nineties.
In 1998 I was a student poring over Law textbooks, when the Anwar issue broke out. People outside Malaysia called it a political scandal. Anwar supporters called it a Revolution. The rest of us called it The Fall of Order.
The Internal Security Act (ISA) in Malaysia in the Nineties was as real as the brick on my wall and as feared as McCarthy himself, who came up with it in the Fifties. People were arrested under the Act and imprisoned without trial, indefinitely. We knew it happened, but we didn’t know who. Or why. And it was in our interest not to talk about it. And as it usually happens in such circumstances, rumours flew about, each more lurid than the other, both about Anwar and Mahathir, till it was hard to discern who was the patriot and who the traitor.
Matters came to a point when a bunch of hooligans, disguised as party supporters, forced themselves into the inter-city commuter train I was on one lazy afternoon. I was returning from the library, the sole occupant of my coach. I witnessed them get on the third coach from me, sticks and belts and knives in hand. They proceeded through each coach, yelling only “Yes or no?” I failed to hear the answers of the passengers in the din of the train - which was the right answer that merited a grunt, and which the wrong one that resulted in punishment? As they progressed, they beat up less and less people, presumably because the passengers learnt what the right answer was by hearing their non-beaten up neighbour’s response. I had no such ally, and not the faintest idea whose supporters these hooligans were. They reached the coach just before me, and asked the first person sitting next to the coach door. It was a middle-aged lady in a Muslim head cover. “Ya ke tak?” one of them asked. Yes or No?
I stared straight ahead at my reflection on the window opposite, straining to hear her response. I couldn’t, but I knew it was the wrong one, since I next heard a blood-curdling scream.
I felt the shadows of their shapes loom larger as they approached; at the same time, the train slowed. The door at the far end of the coach opened just as the train stopped at a station. The supporters ( of whom, goddammit ) ambled in as the exit doors hissed open. I flew out like a shot, spiralling down the stairs, not once looking back, and didn’t slow down till I was out of the station, across the street, and safely ensconced in a mall.
Reaction to the fear of the unknown. Today the ISA is being bandied about in my country of adoption, Australia. It’s being examined, inspected, put forth as an ideal vehicle for deterring terrorist activity. Probably a leaf or thousand has been taken out of the ISAs of Malaysia, of America. Shut things down before they start. Put out the fire before its ignited. Hole up those who ask too many things. Control what’s going on. Control the madness. Control the fear.
Because isn’t that the best way to protect a people who denounce Indonesians as barbaric because they sentenced media-friendly-faced Chapelle Corby? Australians who to my face, have called Singapore barbaric for hanging Van Nguyen – a sentence that’s been there since the 80s, and passed on a proven guilty criminal? A bunch of beach culture youth, ignorant enough to react to inciteful text messages with terminology not heard since the 70s? And that woefully misled anonymous texter himself? Reaction to the fear of the unknown.
When I wanted to migrate to Australia, my mother was very upset. I’m an only child, and to her Australia was just too far away. She tried to be supportive and positive, but I could see right through her. When it came to the crux, my father stepped in and was vehement that I should go for it. I was surprised by the 100% backing, and we had a little conversation about it.
“When I was growing up,” my father said, “Malaysia was the place to be. To us Indians, it was the land of opportunity, milk and honey. You could come here and be anything. And my father did exactly that. There was a stable government, the focus was on increasing prosperity, development. And we all saw it. And celebrated, and went to each other’s homes for our respective festivals.” He paused. “It’s no longer that. It’s no longer that place that promises things. Not the country anymore, where a Muslim will dine freely with a Chinese or an Indian, drink from the same jug of water.” Here he looked straight at me. “This is not the place of the future for people like us.”
Looking around at the fear I see in the eyes of my fellow Australians today, I wonder about the place for ‘people like us’ in the future here. I wonder if I will tell my child the same thing.
Reactions to the fear of the unknown. It’s not in control. It’s not in pushing away what we cannot comprehend. It’s not in ISA. It’s not in McCarthyism.
I pray everyday for a better solution.
Good night, and good luck.
