I Came to Testify and Pray the Devil to Hell film review - Essay Example

Maitha Qambar Adina Friedman SIS-308-001 March 05, Question I Came to Testify: Pray the Devil to Hell Humans have been always in conflict with each other. Conflict primarily occurs when a person seeks their needs and rights or feels that their honor and dignity has being harmed by others. The other party could be a sibling, parent, or any person who lives in society. A persons character is shaped based on the values and the norms that represent the culture he or she was raised in and the religion beliefs that attached him or her to these values and norms. The two films, I Came to Testify and Pray the Devil to Hell, illustrate one conflict in two different areas of the world. The first film is in Fuca while the second film is in Liberia. However, both films present a similar issue of conflict between gender and the role of religion and culture in shaping conflict. The film I Came to Testify, based in Yugoslavia, showed a conflict in Fuca between Muslims and Slovaks that stemmed from the death of the President of Yugoslavia. The Muslim group wanted to create an independent state, while the Slovak group wanted to go back to the old days and focus on their ethnic morals. A civil war occurs in a state when each group attempts to control and lead the state by changing the laws and rules based on their beliefs. This change is often based on either a political or ethnic view, and the majority group does not care if it opposes the other groups beliefs (Jabri, 31). The Slovak group was more powerful than the Muslims and started to use their power to torture Muslims by destroying their houses, mosques, killing Muslim civilians, and changing the name of the city to a name related to the Slovak identity. The most harmful torture to the Muslims was of raping their women and children. Slovak men had the power to rape Muslim women and harm them in front of their own families. Indeed, Slovak men had the agency to create their own choices and use their own power to reach what they needed, even when their agency was used in a wrong way that could harm or affect other people (12). Indeed, Slovak military men took Muslim women and raped them consistently. In fact some men used women like their property and locked them away and raped them every day. Muslim women were powerless and fearless. This case did not differ a lot from the film Pray the Devil to Hell. Women and children was also raped in front of their families and sometimes even killed. But what was different is that women did not only fear the power of men and the military; their main fear was from their president, who they viewed as the main source of corruption in their country. In both conflicts women were used as a tool to destroy the enemy. Women were raped and harmed in immoral ways that made them feel powerless among men, as they could not protect themselves or their families. Both Muslim and Liberian women could not achieve basic human needs, such as being safe, protected, and having access to food and shelter. This caused the violence to escalate and created war between them and the other side (*). According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the social contract is an agreement between the people and the state. This agreement is where people give up their freedoms in order to protect their properties instead of killing each other. Indeed, this freedom that is given by people allows the government to set rules for people to follow and hand down punishments for those who do not follow the rules and laws. I believe that when the government does not provide people with their basic needs, such as protection, violence and corruption can appear in a state (*). In addition, people will start acting against the rules and taking the freedom they give to the government back since they are displeased with how their state is being governed. Also, in the film Pray the Devil to Hell, Liberian women not only could not receive their basic needs but were also ignored. They worked hard to get a chance to negotiate with the president, as they kept protesting for many days in order to be taken seriously. If both parties in Liberia were able to negotiate and listen to the others needs and understand them from the beginning, it would decrease the number of people being murdered and women being raped. Both conflicts in the two films were influenced or created due to cultural and religion reasons. In the film I Came to Testify the main reason of conflict was mainly because of religion, as the Slovaks were against the Muslims. Indeed, the Slovaks tried to harm Muslim culture by destroying the places that shaped the Muslim identity, such as their homes and mosques, where they practiced their beliefs. Also, the Slovaks tried to change the name of the city and make it related to their own identity and less so to Muslims. The Slovaks used their hands when protesting by pointing with three fingers as a way to ask Muslims to leave them. On the other hand, in the film Pray the Devil to Hell, religion was the main motivation for Liberian women to stop the corruption and the violence in their state. They started expressing their ideas and feelings through church and then unified with Muslim women, who made them feel stronger in their faith. Also, when Liberian women first started to protest, they started by removing their makeup and wearing traditional clothes that represented their identity. More so, one of the women leading the Christian group got angry and removed her headband, which was a symbol of anger and a way to insult others in that culture. In both films women were harmed in the same way, by being raped in front of their families; this has the knock-on effect of making their husbands or male guardians feel powerless. Culture and religion are very important elements that contribute in shaping a persons identity and way of thinking. Indeed, they work as a weak point for a person, as harming that person by insulting his or her culture or religion can create violence and hatred not only between you and the person that you harmed but also between whole societies. Culture is similar to religion in that a group of people share the same values and beliefs. It also represents their identity and makes them different than other groups (Avroch, 5 and Avroch, 58). Understating a persons culture is important in the field of conflict and resolution because it helps to understand peoples behavior and ways of thinking; this can be an effective tool in international negotiations (Avroch, 59). Also, by understanding ones culture, negotiators will know how to request their needs from the other side without insulting them or crossing any red lines that can disrupt peace and create conflict. Gender differences also play an important role in increasing and decreasing conflict. In both movies women were used as tools to harm the other group, especially when they were raped in front of their families and also in public. This makes women feel worthless; also, their families would feel shame too. Any male member of a raped womans family would feel powerless because he was not able to protect her. From a personal standpoint as a Muslim, women are viewed as valuable in society, the culture, and the religion. It is the males job is to be a hero and protect his female relatives from harm. By seeing a female relative get harmed in front of him, and without being able to defend her, a male would feel useless as his power and masculinity would be undermined. Misunderstanding or misusing the idea of religion, culture, and gender in any state can create conflict and war; however, knowing, understanding, and respecting each other can help in creating peace and trust with other states. Thus, religion, culture, and gender can be harmful and useful tools at the same time in conflict and resolution. Read More