Fahrenheit 9/11: Hot Film for a Cold Indigenous History

Michael Moore clearly has his finger on the pulse of America!

--ryan

ICT [2004/07/09] Fahrenheit 9/11: Hot film for a cold indigenous history

Posted: July 09, 2004 - 10:44am EST
by: Brenda Norrell / Southwest Staff Reporter / Indian Country Today

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - While the major news media in America failed to respond to the questions raised by Fahrenheit 9/11, indigenous people from the tip of North America to South America joined the working class across America, pointing out that the U.S. media has been the Pied Piper to Oz and the war in Iraq is the latest in a long history of Conquistadors.

Allan Adam, Dene from the Densuline Nation in northern Canada, Saskatchewan region, responded to Fahrenheit 9/11 and the questions it raises as to the real masterminds of 9/11, corporate war mongering for profit in Iraq and the media-bloated war on terror.
"I feel bad for the First Nations people who were sucked into this by tyrant Bush. Who is the real tyrant here? Bush, Sadam or bin Laden? So what other stuff is Bush hiding behind. I’m glad Canada opted out of the crap down there," Adam said. He is active in uniting Dene and Diné youths and elders at gatherings in the north and south regions of North America.

Beth Olson, a teacher of Diné children on the Navajo Nation at Ganado High School in Arizona, questioned why her students, Navajos, are being sent to Iraq in large numbers and not the children of the nation’s elite. It is a question also raised by Moore in the film, as he asked Congressmen if their children will enlist in the U.S. military and go to Iraq.

Would anyone want their children fighting the war in Iraq? Moore questioned with the film focused on the White House.
Olson said, "I have seen Fahrenheit 9/11 twice so far, and I hope to see it again soon. Much of the video footage appears to be edited portions of news programs. Why did we not see this on CNN? I know why we did not see it on FOX. That’s almost all Bush propaganda. Just how stupid does the president think we are? The truth had to get out sooner or later.

"My biggest concern is the complacency of the American public. Why are there not more people asking questions about 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? And why are not the children of the elite over there fighting?

"Why is it my students from the rez are the ones who are sent in harm’s way? Why did we never hear details about the airplane that struck the Pentagon? Thank you Michael Moore for asking the questions the citizens of this country are either afraid or too ignorant to ask."

Roberto Mucaro Borrero, Taíno Indian living and working in New York, said he hopes Fahrenheit 9/11 will get Indians in the U.S. out to vote in 2004 and the issues raised will provide exposure of the true history of indigenous peoples. Borrero is on staff at the American Museum of Natural History in the Education Department and a long-time activist within the United Nations system concerning indigenous peoples.
"I would recommend Fahrenheit 9/11 to all people especially indigenous peoples in the U.S. who are considering not voting. Hopefully this film will stimulate those voters to the polls," Borrero said. "Despite the criticism against the film as ‘sensationalist and highly-exaggerated propaganda,’ it presents a side of the story the America public has not been afforded via the mainstream in quite some time."

If anyone should understand the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it should be indigenous peoples, he said.

"As Native peoples, we should fully understand the ‘HIStory’ paradigm and we should also be able to relate to the ‘vilification of the other’ - the colored other. This film speaks to both these important issues, issues that continue to affect us all as indigenous peoples throughout the Americas living in this aggressive climate of globalization."
As a final point, Borreo said it is important to note the religious overtones, which were not fully explored in the film.

"I feel the connection to the current ‘Christian Crusade’ in the Middle East and the crusade against the ‘Red Pagan Savages’ of the 15th century and beyond is quite apparent. If folks want a confirmation of this connection, I suggest they take a look at the 1493 Papal Bull, which has yet to be revoked."

Over the Fourth of July weekend, the majority of national radio news broadcast in the Southwest were silent about the film and the questions it raised over war profiteering and the real masterminds of 9/11.

While Americans who get their news from the Internet were not surprised by all of the information in the film, working class Americans who depend on their news from CNN and Fox were shocked. In Arizona, young and old, predominately white working class people, sat horrified as the truth unfolded on the screen during Fahrenheit 9/11.
In a coffee shop in Taos, N.M., one woman in her 50s from California praised a house party for the film in Taos, N.M. Had she heard of the accusations about 9/11, Bush and the war in Iraq before Fahrenheit 9/11?

"I’m sorry to say, I was in denial."
Richard Grow, in Berkeley, Calif., said finally there is an imbedded filmmaker in America, one from Flint, Mich.

Grow commented on one of the most powerful stories in the film, that of a mother, Lila Lipscomb in Flint, whose son was killed in Iraq. She remembers him crying in the hall at home before he left, not wanting to go, and later she took her grief to the lawn of the White House.
Grow said, "I feel Michael Moore’s work, and 9/11 in particular, is a grand step towards exposing the myth and the deadly effects of so-called objective’ or balanced journalism."

Across America, Republicans were going to the movies and the film attracted record numbers of moviegoers in towns with military bases.
"I was reluctantly dragged to see Fahrenheit 9/11, expecting nothing but a bad political diatribe and anti-government propaganda," Omar Chavez wrote in letters to Miami Herald. The media had given him that impression, but the movie changed his mind. "Michael Moore is a real patriot for having the courage and intelligence to release this film. Americans should applaud his efforts to shed light on one of the darkest periods in American history."

Critics of the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and the film are ready for a sequel, probing further the masterminds behind 9/11, which they say were not Saudis as many have come to believe.