September 21, 2003

Waiting For Spielberg By MATTHEW ROSE

Unlike most urban legends, the one about the Iranian exile stuck at the Paris airport for 15 years is true. Surrounded by a mountain of his possessions near the Paris Bye Bye lounge at Terminal 1 in Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Merhan Karimi Nasseri is still there after all these years — a celebrity homeless person.

Planted on the 1970’s red plastic bench he calls home, and surrounded by stacks of newspapers and magazines, Nasseri, also known as Alfred or ”Sir, Alfred” (title and comma appropriated from a mistake in a letter from British immigration), has organized his life’s belongings into a half-dozen Lufthansa cargo boxes, various suitcases and unused carry-on luggage. On a nearby coffee table spotted with aluminum ashtrays, Nasseri’s universe includes a pair of alarm clocks, an electric shaver, a hand mirror and a collection of press clippings and photographs to establish his present and his recent past. He seems both settled — and ready to go.

To the pilots, airport staff, fast-food merchants and millions who have passed through the terminal on their way to somewhere else, the 58-year-old Nasseri has become a postmodern icon — a traveler whom no one will claim. Little do they know that he is on his way to becoming a Hollywood icon, too. Inspired by Nasseri’s intriguing tale of lost identity, bureaucratic limbo and persistence, Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to his life story as the basis for the new Tom Hanks vehicle, ”The Terminal.”

”I realize I am famous,” Nasseri says in his soft, almost giggly voice, a gravelly mix of his native Persian, the airport French he’s picked up from the loudspeakers and the cigarettes he’s always smoking. As if to prove his fame, he pats a briefcase stuffed with his press clippings. ”I wasn’t interesting until I came here.”

Nasseri’s story is difficult to piece together. Over the years, he has claimed many things about his origins. At one time his mother was Swedish, another time English. Nasseri’s effectively reinvented himself in the Charles de Gaulle airport and denies these days that he’s Iranian, deflecting any conversation about his childhood in Tehran. (”He pretends he doesn’t speak Persian,” his longtime lawyer, Christian Bourguet, says. ”He was interviewed by Iranian journalists and made believe he didn’t understand.”) When we first met two years ago, he insisted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was attempting to locate his parents in order to establish his identity. But a spokeswoman for the agency dismissed the assertion as ”pure folly.”

Early on in his saga, Nasseri maintained that he was expelled from his homeland for antigovernment activity in 1977. According to a number of reports, Nasseri protested against the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi while a student in England, and when he returned to Iran, found himself imprisoned, and shortly thereafter exiled.

He bounced around Europe for a few years with temporary refugee papers, alighting finally in Belgium, where he was awarded official refugee status in 1981. He traveled to Britain and France without difficulty until 1988, when he landed at Charles de Gaulle airport after being denied entry into Britain, because, he contends, his passport and refugee certificate were stolen in a mugging on a Paris subway. Nasseri could not prove who he was, nor offer proof of his refugee status. So he moved into the Zone d’attente, a holding area for travelers without papers.

He stayed for days, then weeks — then months, then years. As his bizarre odyssey stretched on, Bourguet, the noted French human rights lawyer, took on the case, and the news media piled on. Articles appeared around the world, and Nasseri became the subject of three documentary films. (Oddly, apparently none of his friends or relatives have attempted to contact him.)

ike any number of Samuel Beckett characters, Nasseri has redefined the concept of waiting. But he remains busy, and during office hours when he’s not meeting filmmakers or members of the press, he collects McDonald’s soda tops and endlessly considers his situation in a sprawling, 1,000-plus-page diary that chronicles his journey to nowhere. These rambling handwritten notes recount his encounters with just about everyone he’s met, reporting faithfully everything from the details of his paper chase to some of the witty things he’s said (”I’m not Henry Kissinger”). Nasseri also asks most visitors to sign his journal.

An effete, balding man, Nasseri is well groomed (he washes daily in the men’s room and sends his donated Marks & Spencer clothes to the dry cleaners) with finely manicured fingernails. He smokes compulsively and is forever reaching for his pouch of Pall Mall rolling tobacco. At one point during our interview he coughs, adding with his characteristic sly humor, ”Maybe I caught SARS here in the airport.”

In an eerily Warholian relationship, Nasseri’s closest neighbors at the airport are a photo booth and a photocopy machine. Unlike most movie types, Nasseri does not have a cell phone, and he eats regularly at the McDonald’s in the food court 100 feet away. (”I like the fish,” he says.) The only green in his immediate environment is, ironically, the Sortie (Exit) sign.

In the Spielberg film, which begins shooting this month, Hanks is transformed into a refugee whose country disappears in a diplomatic wink of an eye. As chaos ravages his homeland, Hanks is rendered stateless, his passport turned into an eBay collectible. He’s grounded: a stranger in a strange New York airport. But Hanks is cured of his airport disease and soars to new heights (and, who knows, perhaps another Oscar), thanks to the Hollywood bombshell Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Hanks’s love interest, a flight attendant. Nasseri has had no such luck with the ladies and complains that there are no nightclubs in his airport. ”There’s no pleasure,” he says.

While Bourguet confirms that Spielberg’s company, DreamWorks, has in fact bought the rights to his client’s life story, Spielberg himself would not discuss ”The Terminal,” its plot nor Nasseri’s contract. Marvin Levy, a DreamWorks spokesman, confirms that a financial agreement was signed. However, he cautions, ”Mr. Nasseri’s story was an inspiration for the original treatment for ‘The Terminal.’ The film is not his story.”

Rumors of a $275,000 fee for the rights to Nasseri’s life story and certain consulting duties have circulated. ”It’s less than $1 million,” Bourguet says, adding that the money hasn’t changed the predicament of his client. ”While he became a bit richer, Alfred is extremely paranoid and confused.”

Certainly, Nasseri may well be one of the only people on the planet not to have seen a Spielberg production. Asked what he thinks of Hanks, Nasseri replies straight-faced, ”Is he Japanese?”

Regardless of whether Hanks manages to capture the refugee’s deadpan delivery, the Hollywood retelling of Nasseri’s odyssey will undoubtedly include a first-class ticket to the American dream.

Nasseri’s real-life ending, however, is still up in the air.

”Alfred himself will have trouble leaving the airport,” says Glen Luchford, a fashion photographer cum director whose 2001 mockumentary, ”Here to Where,” attempted just such a scenario, with the director, played by Paul Berczeller, failing to tempt Nasseri beyond the concrete gardens of Charles de Gaulle.

”Alfred has to accept that he’s free,” Luchford says sadly. ”But with freedom comes responsibility. He represents people’s worst fears — the idea they might be procrastinating all their lives and end up being rooted to the spot.”

asseri cannot be forcibly moved or repatriated. He is protected by a number of international refugee statutes. According to Bourguet, he is legally free to leave the airport. All Nasseri has to do is sign the identity papers the French provided him in 1999. But the papers identify him as Iranian and don’t recognize his adopted name of Sir, Alfred. And so he can’t — or won’t- sign them: a testament to either patience, or madness.

Nasseri is doubtful about attending the premiere of ”The Terminal,” although his face lights up at the prospect. ”I would probably have technical problems with my papers in Los Angeles,” he says, before adding that he’ll likely leave the airport ”in September or October.”

If he does decide to finally exit the departure lounge, Nasseri could go to any number of places in the world. He says Florida has invited him, and, yes, why not New York, when ”I take over DreamWorks”? (The company is based in California.) And what of the plastic red bench, which has served as his de facto home for the last 15 years and must by now be a collector’s item?

”I’ll take it to DreamWorks,” he says with a smile. ”And send it by FedEx .”

Matthew Rose is a writer and artist living in Paris.

When I hear someone saying something so fervently, I’m often moved to believe that the person they’re really trying to convince is themselves. Here’s a great thread.

-Ian.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dan Lowe > Date: Wed Apr 2, 2003 9:05:48 AM US/Pacific
> To: “‘Ian Andrew Bell'”
> Subject: RE: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
> Seems strange how you like to shift the argument when it does not suit
> your
> needs? This will be my last email because it sounds as if you are
> incapable
> of reasoning with. You are right Ian, Iraq has not attacked us
> directly,
> but they are in violation of a truce treaty they signed 12 years ago.
> Besides, how many more ties to Al Queda do you need to see? Do you
> honestly
> believe that Sadaam is above having a relationship with Al Queda? One
> final
> question, have you had a father, grandfather, or even great grandfather
> serve in the military to protect the freedoms you enjoy today? What
> you and
> all of those countries and their people fail to recognize is that there
> would be no Belgium, no Switzerland, no france, no Venezuela, etc. if
> we did
> not exist. These countries are only sovereign because of us and the
> threat
> that we pose to world conquering dictators. So brush up on your
> chinese,
> russian and arabic speaking abilities if your ideology becomes the
> opinion
> of the majority in this counrty.
>
> Oh wait, next you are going to tell me it is about oil. Lets end this
> one
> right here and now. Oil companies have already stated that they would
> much
> rather negotiate deals with a sanctioned oil for food Iraq then a
> democrtatic Iraq which command a higher price at the bargaining table.
> Also, why did we leave Kuwait if it is all about oil. Did we stay in
> France
> and Germany to pilage them of their resources or did we prop up their
> governments economic system to help them get back on their feet after
> WW II?
> We are not conquerors we are the defenders of liberty – our liberty
> and that
> of others.
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:32 AM
> To: Dan Lowe
> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
>
> Sorry… I wasn’t aware that IRAQ had attacked the US.
>
> -Ian.
>
>
> On Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 06:47 AM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>
>> You want to talk about a REAL abuse of authority. Let’s see, how
>> about a
>> comparison between homeowners associations in the Houston area telling
>> homeowners that they can not put a ‘Support the Troops’ sign in their
>> window
>> or put a flagpole in their front yard compared to radio station
>> managers who
>> conducted online polls from their audience on whether or not to
>> continue
>> playing the Dixie Chicks in which the respondents in cities all across
>> the
>> country voted overwelmingly to take them off the air. I call it
>> democracy
>> in action. If you libs aren’t careful, we will begin to pass
>> legislation
>> approving public displays of patriotism. Why can’t libs join
>> conservatives
>> in the fight with OUR common enemy – rogue states intent on
>> threatening the
>> civilized world with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?
>> Dan
>>
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 5:52 PM
>> To: Dan Lowe
>> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>>
>>
>> You clearly refuse to listen to that which you do not currently
>> believe.
>>
>> Tell me, how did you come upon my email message in the first place?
>>
>> -Ian.
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, April 1, 2003, at 03:01 PM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>>
>>> oh excuse me for thinking everyone in your entertainment industry was
>>> driven
>>> by ratings and what the people want. So now the argument has changed
>>> from
>>> ‘a violation of the dixie chicks freedom of speech’ to ‘contractual
>>> obligations’. ‘Abusing of authority’ as it relates to bad cops, over
>>> zealous security guards, the Presidents of France, Russia or Germany
>>> is one
>>> thing, but that is a mighty long reach to say that radio station
>>> managers
>>> who listen to their audience and act appropriately are ‘abusing
>>> authority’
>>> is normally. In fact, I see no abuse of authority. Instead I see
>>> Patriotic
>>> Americans! Freedom of speech is a 2 way street, one who makes
>>> millions from
>>> being in the limelight must also be aware of the repurcussions of
>>> their
>>> actions.
>>>
>>>
>>> —–Original Message—–
>>> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 4:46 PM
>>> To: Dan Lowe
>>> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>>>
>>>
>>> Go for it… be mad, be pissed off. Call the radio stations and
>>> state
>>> your platform … fill your boots! But when programmers at radio
>>> stations take them out of the rotation they are abusing their
>>> authority
>>> and eschewing their responsibility as broadcasters on spectrum that
>>> all
>>> of us, Canadian or American, pay to administer.
>>>
>>> -ian.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, April 1, 2003, at 08:59 AM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>>>
>>>> ian,
>>>> you can let all of your dixie chick buddies know that the only
>>>> organized
>>>> group I belong to is called the United States of America. You guys
>>>> can’t
>>>> stand the fact that this many people are disgusted by the comments
>>>> of
>>>> the
>>>> singing idiots, and think there has to some kind of conspiracy going
>>>> on. In
>>>> all actuality, 8 out of 10 support Pres. Bush and the troops and
>>>> think
>>>> her
>>>> comments were out of line with the majority of Americans whom she
>>>> thought
>>>> incorrectly that her statements more closely resembled. And another
>>>> thing,
>>>> I believe most concert ticket sales took place before the comments.
>>>> Somebody better put a muzzle on natalie or they will end up an
>>>> overseas act
>>>> exclusively like Madonna. Why the double standard? If Natalie is
>>>> free to
>>>> open her mouth and say what she thinks then why aren’t we free to
>>>> voice our
>>>> displeasure with what she said. Nobody is trying to lock them up
>>>> and
>>>> throw
>>>> away the key. They are still being shuffled around in limos, living
>>>> in posh
>>>> hotels and being treated like little queens by their pamperers, so
>>>> why
>>>> can’t
>>>> the public be outraged and active in their outrage because it
>>>> disgusts
>>>> them
>>>> so.Why can’t we?
>>>>
>>>> Dan Lowe

> From: “DM”
> Date: Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:19:29 AM US/Pacific
> To: “Ian Andrew Bell”
> Subject: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
> And a little more on the Dixie Babes…
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Subject:MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
>  
>
> Subject: THIS IS SCARY – The Dixie Chicks – Who Are The Fans? (A
> Conspiracy!)
>
> Simon Renshaw, the Chicks’ manager, requests that this get forwarded to
> you, since he doesn’t have your direct E-mails.
>
> Dear All,
>
> The last couple of days have been very interesting, why does an artist
> exercising her rights of free speech create such a firestorm of media
> attention, and why are the “fans” responding the way they are? Sure,
> these are difficult times ? but the response from the fan’s seems far
> too extreme
> – that was until I received the following email from our contacts at
> Lipton, who had received it from a concerned citizen -  please read > on:
>
> Subject: Regarding Chicks – DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED
>
> Hello
>
> You should know that your company is being targetted by a radical
> right-wing online forum.  You are being “FReeped”, which is the code
> word for an organized email/telephone effort attempting to solicit a
> desired response. Please go to
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/864728/posts
> and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/863398/posts
>
> for evidence of this.
>
> www.freerepublic.com claims over 30,000 members.
>
> The opinions on this forum are often racist, violent, and homophobic.
> I hope you will not feel pressured by them to change your policies.
> Keep in mind that they are very active and will give the appearance of
> a widespread reaction when in fact it’s limited to their isolated
> group. These are not people you want to cater to, as you will see if
> you spend a little time observing them. And don’t feel bad. Besides
> you, they are boycotting Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico,
> Belgium, and 3/4 of hollywood.
>
> They are so petty that they research goods they believe are produced
> by these nations and list them for boycotting. The dumb thing is they
> get it wrong half the time.
>
> I will be very dissappointed with Lipton if it tries to appease these
> radicals. I would continue to buy Lipton regardless though 🙂
>
> When we went to the site it was clear what was going on, this
> organization had not targeted Lipton for their campaign, they had
> selected the Chicks for “FReeping.”
>
> As we reviewed the site we came across a whole area that was devoted
> to the Chicks, and more specifically the activities of the campaign
> against them, check it out:
>
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/keyword/dixiechicks
>
> As you move around this area and start to look at specific threads you
> will see that these people have actively manipulated radio polls, and
> how proud they are of their handiwork.
>
> Here’s some of their exchanges regarding their specific attempts to
> manipulate radio polls, notice the advice given on trying to ensure
> that their manipulations remain disguised:
>
> To: webfooter
>
> Cat Country in Harrisburg has a poll on whether they should stop
> playing the Chicks. They attribute the quote to Natalie.
>
> Current vote is 5 for and 5 against.
> I would recommend only locals vote, but you FReepers can do what you
> want.
> Shalom.
>
> To: webfooter; LindaSOG; Kathy in Alaska; radu; bentfeather;
> southerngrit;
> Bethbg79; All
>
> One of the country stations in my area is boycotting them: Here’s the
> link! Please freepmail them thanks! I have done so already!!
>
> WCMS
>
>
> 38 posted on 03/13/2003 1:52 PM PST by MoJo2001 (God Bless Our Troops
> and Allies!!)
> [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
>
> To: All
>
> LOL!! Um, email them! Don’t freepmail them! My bad!
>
> 39 posted on 03/13/2003 1:52 PM PST by MoJo2001 (God Bless Our Troops
> and
> Allies!!)
> [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies ]
>
> To: MoJo2001
>
> FReep Natalie Maines’ hometown country station! Natelie Maines’ home
> radio station (KLLL.com) and email address of the DJ’s. Just in case
> anybody wants to drop them a friendly email about boycotting the
> Chicks. As a bonus, pappa and the family live here too, so you are
> sure to get noticed.
>
> And here are the emails:
> mailto:jonsteele [at] klll [dot] com (Jon Steele)
> mailto:Rgilbert [at] klll [dot] com (Rick Gilbert)
> mailto:sjames [at] klll [dot] com (Stacey James)
> mailto:tony [at] klll [dot] com (Tony Alexander)
> mailto:info [at] klll [dot] com (Jay Richards)
> mailto:kgreene [at] klll [dot] com (Kelly Greene)
> mailto:tommy [at] klll [dot] com (Tommy Duncan)
>
>
> The above is the tip of the iceberg,  you need to read it all, to
> believe it.
>
> It is interesting that as I review the comments being made across
> bulletin boards hosted by ourselves, country radio stations, and by
> CMT, the similarity of the style of the invective ? vitriol cloaked in
> patriotism, very much what you will find on this site.
>
> Let no one underestimate the power of this group, yesterday our web
> site was totally overrun and had to be closed down, our publicist’s
> servers and telephone system failed under the weight of the calls.
> This is an extremely active and well organized group
>
> As always the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” and these weasels know
> how to squeak.
>
> Consider a radio station that receives 1,000 calls and emails from
> listeners demanding that they boycott the Chicks music, they ignore
> the fact that 17,500 fans have bought tickets to a show in a couple of
> months and seem to think that these 1,000 calls/emails are somehow
> reflective of their audiences’ wishes. Yet, the box office at the
> local venue receives only 3 calls regarding the show and wanting to
> know if they can arrange to return the tickets! Now the authenticity
> of the 1,000 is in question!
>
> I am shocked by what I see, I trust you will be too.
>
> Best wishes,
> Sr
>
> Simon Renshaw
> The Firm
> 9465 Wilshire Blvd
> 5th Floor
> Beverly Hills, CA 90212
> Tel: 310-860-8205
> Fax: 310-860-8128
> Email: srenshaw [at] firmentertainment [dot] net
>
>
>
>
> RadioPro (TM)
>

Wednesday, 24 July, 2002, 01:19 GMT 02:19 UK UN says democracy is at risk

The report calls global inequality “grotesque”

Rising inequality and corruption around the world are putting the recent spread of democracy in many countries at risk, the UN says in a new report.

Of 81 countries that have moved toward democracy in the past 20 years, the report says, only 47 are still considered full democracies with the necessary checks and balances on power.

The warning comes with the UN’s 12th annual Human Development Report, which ranks 173 countries for their quality of life, using indicators such as life expectancy and income per person.

Norway again ranks first, followed by Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Australia and the United States – but the bottom of the chart is dominated by African countries.

Sierra Leone is last, and the bottom 24 countries are all in Africa.

The poor performance went hand-in-hand with a relapse in many places to authoritarian rule or conflict, especially in sub-Saharan African, where the report says that one in four countries saw the military intervene in politics.

“Around the world, there is a growing sense that democracy has not delivered development such as more jobs, schools, health care for ordinary people,” said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the UN report’s chief author.

Stability

But the report argues that moving toward democracy actually makes for more stable societies – rebutting an argument made by China, Pakistan and other countries that a slower shift to democracy is necessary to maintain order.

“The desire for stability often leads to the notion that non-democratic regimes hold out the prospect of greater public order and faster economic development,” the report’s author said.

“History and academic research provide no evidence that authoritarian regimes are better at promoting economic and social progress.”

In addition, democratic countries are far less likely to go to war against each other, the report says.

HDI rank 2002 LifeEXp InfantMort/1000 GDP$percapita AdultLit% 1 Norway 78.5 4 29,918 99%* 2 Sweden 79.7 3 24,277 99%* 3 Canada 78.8 6 27,840 99%* 4 Belgium 78.4 6 27,178 99%* 5 Australia 78.9 6 25,693 99%* 6 United States 77 7 34,142 99%* 7 Iceland 79.2 4 29,581 99%* 8 Netherlands 78.1 5 25,657 99%* 9 Japan 81 4 26,755 99%* 10 Finland 77.6 4 24,996 99%*

Who are America’s real enemies?

To find out, just go and see the new Tom Clancy blockbuster movie

John Sutherland Monday July 8, 2002 The Guardian

The Guardian is furious about it. The Dutch Guardian (De Volkskrant) that is. About what? The American Service-members’ Protection Act, otherwise known as “The Hague Invasion Act”. You can read the legalled-up version, as passed a fortnight ago, at www.nrc.nl/Doc/ASPA.pdf. The long and short of it is that America will use military force against the Netherlands to free any of its nationals held by the international criminal court (ICC) at the Hague.

The ICC got up and running on July 1. Running might be in order. How would Tom Clancy pitch it? Opening shot: Jack Ryan Botox-faced at CIA/HQ Langley. Clear and Present Danger. Operation ScrewDyke is authorised. Soften the target with Stealth bombers from RAF Wittering (Dubya’s got Tony’s pecker in his pocket). Insert a Seal extraction team. Bang, bang, bigger bang. Bring our guys home and kick some cloggie butt in the process.

Our Netherland neighbours are not amused (are they ever?). As one MP indignantly put it, “We’re not Panama”. I asked a Dutch colleague what he thought about the HIA. “Bush is a dickhead,” he replied dourly.

President Dickhead approves, but the idea was hatched by the geriatric senatorial bigot Jesse Helms (come back Caligula’s horse, all is forgiven). It was Helms who put in an amendment to the Defence Department Appropriations Act of 2002, sanctioning the bombing of Holland.

Helms was not primarily worried about American soldiers – he and his colleagues have, after all, blithely let 5,000 of them rot with gulf war syndrome. It was the international big-game hunters that alarmed him. Belgium’s moves, for example, to indict Ariel Sharon for genocide (until the ICC, Belgium was the only country to sanction prosecution for war crimes committed by non-nationals outside its borders).

America is nervous. Not just about where the next attack might come from but who its real enemies are (apart from al-Qaida and the LRB). All of which is reflected in the strange and fearful career of the latest Tom Clancy movie, The Sum of All Fears.

Current industry wisdom is that you can’t lose money with a Clancy scenario. The novel was published in 1991 and features an anachronistically young Jack Ryan (played, anaemically, by Ben Affleck; come back, Harrison Ford, all is forgiven). The film was in the can well before September 2001.

The McGuffin is that some Israeli plutonium gets into the hands of Palestinian extremists who use it to detonate a dirty bomb at a super-bowl game in Baltimore. Their dastardly aim is to fool the US and Russia into launching the third world war.

The studio tried the film out in sneak previews in October 2001 and got reassuring feedback. They prudently tweaked out from the explosion scene skyscrapers resembling the World Trade Centre. And they added a health warning to the trailers about horrific “disaster images”. Backsides were covered.

Or were they? While making the movie, Paramount had been under fierce pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations not to demonise Arabs. Clancy’s Muslim villains were dropped.

The film’s Osama was recast as an Austrian neo-Nazi (played by Alan Bates in a false beard – at his own insistence, one imagines). But this got the film-makers into another bind. If they let their European evil-doer rant about the Jewish world conspiracy they would be slammed by the Anti-Defamation League and possibly sued by Jorg Haider. The J-word never passes the villain’s lips. Decaff fascism.

There was worse to come. The film’s release in America at the end of May coincided with Jose Padilla (aka Abdullah al Muhajir) being arrested on charges of plotting a dirty bomb explosion on American soil. They should have stuck with Clancy’s version. Hollywood is now under ferocious attack (led by the Jewish World Review) for “downplaying the obvious connection between international terrorism and fanatical Islam”.

Weak knees never won wars against terror. And, to cap it all, because of the anti-European theme (and all that fuss about the ICC) they can’t foresee a time when it will be safe to release the movie over here.

Even a super-power can’t win, it seems. Unless, that is, you pick on a seven-stone Dutch weakling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/arts/09MASH.html

Spreading by the Web, Pop’s Bootleg Remix By NEIL STRAUSS

The song may sound familiar at first, thanks to the unmistakable guitar riff from Nirvana’s classic “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

But, suddenly, the recording changes course when, instead of the gravelly voice of Kurt Cobain, the smooth R&B harmonies of a Destiny’s Child hit appear on top of the grunge music. As the recording moves on, it is clear that the song is neither fish nor fowl; it is a crossbreed that neither band ever intended, or even dreamed of.

It is something that is completely different, often illegal and, thanks to the Internet, becoming explosively popular.

Songs like this one, which combine different hits without adding any original music, may represent the first significant new musical genre to be lifted out of the underground, developed and then spread, mostly via the Web. The songs, called mash-ups or bootlegs, typically match the rhythm, melody and underlying spirit of the instrumentals of one song with the a cappella vocals of another. And the more odd the pairing the better.

The music industry has greeted them with mixed response. A radio station in London playing a popular mash-up with Christina Aguilera belting her hit “Genie in a Bottle” over the retro-rock of the Strokes was served with a cease-and-desist order by Ms. Aguilera’s publisher, Warner-Chappell.

On the other hand, in Britain last week, Island Records released a legal mash-up, which entered the pop charts at No. 1. It combines music from three different artists ‹ the new-wave icon Gary Numan, the R&B singer Adina Howard and the girl-pop group the Sugababes.

The music ‹ there are hundreds of such recordings ‹ is particularly popular in Europe, where D.J.’s play mash-ups at parties. But through the Internet it is spreading not only there but also in the United States. There are so many bootlegs using Eminem and Missy Elliott songs (Missy mixed with the 80’s group the Cure, Eminem with the fey pop of the Smiths, and Missy with the heavy metal group Metallica, for starters) that some practitioners refer to making a bootleg as “doing a Missy” on a song.

The growing scene is a result of two technological forces that have been revolutionizing music-making and the record business: cheap computer software, which makes it possible for a teenager with no musical knowledge to create professional-sounding productions at home, and Internet file-sharing services, which provide a quick way to gather and share music. Naturally, the music industry is concerned about this, because in most cases the tracks are being used without permission.

But, today, when the Internet seems to loom larger in many music fans’ heads than lawyers’ threats, bedroom musicians on both sides of the Atlantic are undeterred. All they need to do is download or buy software programs like Acid (which automatically synchronizes the rhythms of different tracks). Then they can scour a file-sharing service for a cappella versions of songs, which record companies sometimes include on promotional singles for club disk jockeys. Using a program like Acid, they can combine their source material into a new song.

Afterward, the creators upload their musical patchworks back onto the same file-sharing service they grabbed the source material from.

The mark of a good bootleg, fans say, is that it doesn’t sound at all like one song superimposed on top of another, but a new song in itself. Among the most popular bootleg artists are Freelance Hellraiser (responsible for the Aguilera mix), Osymyso (who combines more than 100 songs in one mash-up), Kurtis Rush and Richard X. The more popular acts create their music through sampling their own records and then spread the mash-ups through white-label (i.e. anonymous) singles or playing them on the radio. But the music can also be accessed on file-sharing sites like Kazaa and Audiogalaxy.

“If you take two or three or four great records and mix them together, you should end up with a superior product,” said Steve Mannion, a co-editor at Boom Selection (www.base 58.com), a Web site dedicated to documenting the do-it-yourself remix, bootleg and sampling movements. “The best bootlegs don’t sound like bootlegs; they work at a profound level, and actually sound like they are the original record.”

Completing the circle back to the record store, an illegal CD collecting the years best mash-ups, “The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever,” recently appeared on the shelves of some underground music retailers in England and the United States. It was created by profiteers who simply downloaded the songs from a file-sharing service and then burned them onto a CD. “It is a case of bootleggers bootlegging bootlegs,” said David Dewaele, who, with his brother, Stephen, make up one of the most accomplished and long-standing teams, known alternately as 2 Many D.J.s and the Flying Dewaele Brothers.

Last year, the Dewaele brothers, Belgians who also play in the popular rock band Soulwax, created a legal mix album, but not without a lot of difficulty. It took the brothers two weeks to make the album, released as “2 Many D.J.s: As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2” ‹ there is no Part 1 ‹ but nine months to license the music (which includes songs by Dolly Parton, Sly and the Family Stone, and many others). And, even then, they were only able to clear the music on the CD for release in Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland.

Pirated copies of the album have been circulating in the United States, and some music executives who have heard it cite it as not only the remix album of the year but the best album of any kind released so far this year.

“It’s my favorite record of the year so far,” said Steve Greenberg, a former Mercury Records executive who now runs the independent label S-Curve Records. “It looks at music in a fresh and original way, and breaks down walls in ways that are particularly exciting considering how categorized and fragmented music is at the moment.”

One of the Dewaele brothers’ first mash-ups was a combination of the rapper Skee-Lo’s light-hearted “I Wish,” Survivor’s anthem “Eye of the Tiger,” and the Breeders’s rock song “Cannonball.”

>From the opening track of their album, there is a distinct style and
aesthetic at work. Often, the songs are cut up by computer, so that an introduction can be shortened, a verse removed or a section repeated to maintain the set’s fast pace. “It has to be something that has some sort of edge to it, something weird that makes you go, `What is this!’ ” said David Dewaele.

Making new songs out of existing works, of course, is nothing new. There are precedents in everything from 20th century classical to cartoon music, and it is the cornerstone of hip-hop, be it early pioneers like Grandmaster Flash or later innovators like Dr. Dre. In the 80’s and 90’s, avant-garde sound artists like Plunderphonic, Negativland and the Tape-Beatles (as well as the pop pranksters the KLF) challenged copyright law with collages made of everything from found sounds to top 40 hits. But many musical observers trace the official beginnings of the British bootleg scene to the Evolution Control Committee, which in 1993 mixed a Public Enemy a cappella with music by Herb Alpert.

Today, there is a glut of such artists, and Mr. Mannion said that his Web site, Boom Selection, may receive as many as dozen new ones a week. Does that make it a fad or something here to stay?

“I dont know what will happen next,” Mr. Mannion said. “When people hear this stuff so much, they can get bored of it. But to me, I’ll never get bored with this stuff, because that’s like getting bored of music itself.”

Black Hawk Down: Shoot first, don’t ask questions afterwards

In October 1993, 18 US soldiers died during a botched mission in Mogadishu. The incident is the subject of a new film, Black Hawk Down. But, asks Alex Cox, why have the deaths of the Somali civilians been forgotten?

12 January 2002

In the 1970s and 1980s, Somalia was ruled by a corrupt president, Mohamed Siad Barre. It was a familiar story ­ an unpopular, despotic nutcase (read, Pinochet in Chile or the Shah in Iran) who suppressed popular dissent and did what the US government, or US-owned multinationals, told him to do.

By his last days in power, Siad Barre had leased nearly two-thirds of Somalia to four huge American oil companies: Conoco, Chevron, Phillips, and Amoco (the story presumably involves British business interests also, since Amoco is now part of BP). The land was believed by geologists to contain substantial quantities of oil and natural gas.

In 1991, unfortunately for the oil giants, Siad Barre was overthrown, and he fled the country. Somalia ­ as a functioning nation state with which they could do business ­ fell apart. The oil giants’ exclusive concessions to explore and drill were worthless in the absence of a viable government to enforce their claims.

In the early 1990s, there were various humanitarian disasters also deserving of urgent intervention. For the United States to spearhead a United Nations mission to Somalia was, from a humanitarian viewpoint, capricious. But, citing famine in Mogadishu and in the southern part of the country, and an urgent need to restore order, President Bush I sent in the Marines.

The United States meant business in Somalia: this was obvious from the location of the American embassy, established a few days before the US marines arrived in Mogadishu, in the Conoco corporate compound. The Los Angeles Times reported that Bush’s special envoy to Somalia had used the Conoco compound as his temporary headquarters.

The marines ­ along with their United Nations “partners” ­ settled down to their tasks of guarding American oil men and disarming the unruly populace. It didn’t go well. On 7 May 1993, the Canadian press reported that elite Airborne Regiment Commandos in Somalia had tortured and murdered a civilian teenager, Shidane Arone. Other reports of murder by Canadian peacekeepers followed.

As for the Americans, having encouraged the ambitions of a Somali general and clan leader, Mohammed Aideed, they decided (shades of Osama Bin Laden!) that Aideed was their enemy. Half-a-dozen “United Nations” missions were dispatched to capture him. All failed.

On 3 October 1993, a team of so-called “elite troops” ­ Delta Force Rangers ­ tried to capture Aideed again, in central Mogadishu. Aideed wasn’t there, but the American troops became confused. Shortly after, they were surrounded by angry crowds. In the massacre that followed, between 500 and 1,000 Somalis, many of them women, children, and old people, were killed. Eighteen Americans also died.

Of course, it is the American deaths, and the TV image of a couple of American bodies being dragged by enraged Somalis, rather than guilt over the massacre of hundreds of Africans, that haunts the popular-American-media mind. There wasn’t a massacre. There was a firefight. Only Americans lost their lives.

In the aftermath of 3 October 1993, various articles appeared about the shootout/massacre, including internet postings by Mark Bowden and pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1999, Bowden’s book Black Hawk Down appeared.

It’s interesting to observe how the story was re-told over that time. An article by the former Independent correspondent Richard Dowden the previous year makes the clear point that US troops killed unarmed men, women and children from the outset of their mission: “In one incident, Rangers took a family hostage. When one of the women started screaming at the Americans, she was shot dead. In another incident, a Somali prisoner was allegedly shot dead when he refused to stop praying outside. Another was clubbed into silence. The killer is not identified.” Dowden’s original articles contain these horror stories. But his book does not. Instead, Black Hawk Down gives us lashings of extraordinary heroism in the face of blah, blah, blah. Rolf Harris singing “Two Little Boys”. Sanitized and deodorized Death From Above.

The author of Black Hawk Down is aware of the problem with these “elite, superior, special forces”: they are all white. But he doesn’t deal with what that elite whiteness means, or where it leads. The American elite forces couldn’t perform their central role in Somalia ­ to protect the oil business ­ because they were white racists, untrained and unable to relate to a humanitarian mission in Africa, even when corporate money was involved. The House Armed Services Committee laid the problem on the line the following year, 1994, in a comprehensive report on the state of racial affairs within the US military ­ An Assessment of Racial Discrimination in the Military: a Global Perspective, 30 December 1994, US Government Printing Office.

The committee sent investigators to 19 military bases at home and abroad, where they interviewed 2,000 randomly selected GIs. They found that overt racism was “commonplace” at four of the bases, and that inadequate training in racial awareness was a widespread problem.

Another task force, which investigated organised racism in the US Army, said the problem was particularly serious in all-white, so-called “elite” and “Special Operations” units. Such racial separatism could lead to problems, its report warned, because it “foster[s] supremacist attitudes among white combat soldiers”. (The Secretary of the Army’s Task Force Report on Extremist Activities, Defending American Values, 21 March 1996, Washington DC, page 15.)

The Somalia mission ended in disarray. The Americans and the “United Nations” allies left. In the aftermath of the massacre, Canada, Italy and Belgium all held enquiries into the excesses of their troops. Canada put several “elite” white soldiers, who had tortured and killed Somalis, on trial. The US has never held any public investigation or reprimanded any of its commanders or troops for what went on in Somalia.

Now the US prepares for another mission to Mogadishu. It may take the form of bombings, or of a poor Somali academic, harassed by the State Department and CIA into offering himself up as sacrificial prime minister in another doomed governance experiment. It involves a substantial propaganda angle. The oil business is all powerful, and must be obeyed.

Not that I’m suggesting that the forthcoming film of Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott, is anything so crude as that. I’m sure that it will be even-handed, and depict its protagonists exactly as they were in life, skin pigment and all. And I look forward to the sensitive handling of Ewan McGregor’s character: elite, white GI John “Stebby” Stebbins, renamed as Company Clerk John Grimes in the film, who is now serving a 30-year sentence in Fort Leavenworth military prison for raping a 12-year-old girl. Massacres and rapes are horrible things. No one would stoop to glorify, or justify them, would they?

The current US military doctrine is something called “Full Spectrum Dominance”. It is the brainchild of several other mighty corporations and the Pentagon. Consisting of putting weapons in orbit in outer space, it will mean the US is an even greater, more unstable, military power ­ in heaven as here on earth. It ­ along with anti-ballistic missile systems and the murder of prisoners of war ­ is currently illegal under international law.

If British politicians go along with the next war, on Somalia, or on Iraq; if they loan the country to the US for their Star Wars and Echelon; if noted British film-makers like Ridley and Tony Scott (coming soon! Top Gun reality TV!) do devote themselves to burnishing the image of an elite US military in films like Black Hawk Down, perhaps it’s time for a debate in Britain about what America’s “Full Spectrum Dominance” really means.

Alex Cox has just completed ‘Revengers Tragedy’, a British film, for Bard Entertainments and Exterminating Angel.