Best laid schemes of mice and men... Often go awry.

I was watching the movie "Good Shepherd" where the protagonist quotes to his son from Robert Burns. The best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry. It reminded me of my mental state. And so i fished out from my trunk, an old copy of Collected poems by Robert Burns. I had not read Burns for quite some time. I turned the pages to "To a mouse" from where the line was quoted. It read,

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain: 
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, 
Gang aft agley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 
For promis'd joy! 

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! 
The present only toucheth thee: 
But Och! I backward cast my e'e, 
On prospects drear! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 
I guess an' fear!

The words are not perceivable for some "attu guy from an attu college". (This has been specifically addressed to somebody i know, so other readers, do not mind). It means the words are tough as they are in a dialect of old english and cannot be easily understood by a mediocre person like me. So I had to search for meanings in a compulsive way as the verse had caught my attention and i had to do it.

The peom is about the poet ploughing his land and comes upon a mouse holed up for the winter. All the grain amassed have been turned over by the plough and the mice has nothing left to see him through.

When one starts to understand the meaning, he/she would definitely notice the despair and sadness of the poet in writing the poem. He says, O mouse, you are not alone. Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men go awry and leave nothing but sadness and grief in place of the promised joy. Surely, these are the most truthful lines which is applicable to all mankind. The bitterness in the words are not easily understood if somobody has not known how awful it is when ones dreams, dreamed after much contemplation, and supported by logic, goes awry. A suitable consolation can be found in the proverb "Do not count your chickens before they hatch". Thats a lesson for the future, though.

The next stanza is even deeper in despair. I can feel the despondency of the man who wrote this since it is exactly what I have been thinking all through the last few months. Atleast, the mouse is blessed because  he can see only the present touching him. But I have the curse of the gods which makes me turn and glance into the life lived and so I am sad when I see the prospect that have gone in vain. And I look into the future and i am afraid of the things to come. I cannot glorify my past and expect the future to be as good as my fantacy.

Robert Burn, you are not alone. There are several voices crying out in the wilderness like you. 

The Battle of Algiers.

It has been quite a long time since i had written a blog. Maybe it was the heartbreak or distance from technology or sheer disinterest. Or is it a myriad combination of all? Maybe. So during the sleepless nights i spent in the last six months, it was hard to read a book or watch a good movie. These activities were my idea of living a quality life. But in the sheer madness of a frustrated man, the ideals got lost. So finally i decided to do something better and last night, I watched Gillo pentecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers".

I heard of the movie recently after i got hooked to the music of ennio morricone. (Morricone has composed a bit for this movie too) It is a 1965 french film covering the fight between the nationalist FLN guerrilas of Algeria and the French government. It is in black and white which gives a shade of reality to the movie.

The whole film is built on acute analyses of the moral complexities and contradictions that a guerilla requires. There are scenes where kids shoot policemen, women acting as couriers to carry weapons and bombs being planted in public places. One of the most famous scenes follows three Algerian women as they leave the Arab quarters carrying bombs to plant in three different crowded locales of the city. Each looks around at the men, women and children they are about to kill. The camera tells us that each is aware of the implications of their actions. Pontecorvo then shows each explosion and its hideous aftermath. The movie clearly brings out the phases of Insurgency as taught in Counter Insurgency training schools. A member of the FLN's executive bureau Ben M'Hidi says "Acts of violence never win wars. Neither wars nor revolutions. Terrorism is useful as a start. But then, the people themselves must act. It's hard enough to start a revolution, even harder to sustain it, and hardest of all to win it. But it's only afterwards, once we've won that the real difficulties begin." (This is what the insurgent groups in Manipur fail to understand. There is no more a cause except for money making.)

When the attacks and bombings in the streets of Algiers increase, the french government responds by declaring martial law and sends in para troopers. When i watch the movie as a soldier, my favourite scenes are the ones which describe their operational efficiency. The most remarkable of them is when Lt Colonel Phillipe Mathieu, played by jean martin is introduced. He walks tall at the head of a coloumn. It is a show of strength. "Mathieu Phillipe, born August 5th, 1907 in Bordeaux. Rank. Lt Col. Campaigns. Normandy and Italy. Member of an Anti Nazi resistance movement. Expeditions. Madagascar and Suez. Wars. Indochina and Algieria." He says that information is the key to success. Yes, for the military part of dealing with an insurgency, it is. But the most troubling scenes are that of torture to extract information and sadly, the techniques are followed to this day by most armies. But if i watch the movie as a civilian, i would loathe the character of Mathieu. I would fail to understand the complexity in his role. I would see him only as a brutal commander. But fail to see him as cultured, articulate, politically astute and realistic about the limitations of violence.

In my view, what the french failed to do was when they cut the head of the tapeworm by arresting/eliminating the executive bureau, they should have followed it up with "winning hearts and minds". My training as a counter insurgency operative would clearly ring a solution in my head. The french goofed up the end game. After the military objective is achieved, it the task of the bureaucrat and the politician to bring in development. But this faded in the Algerian question as it was not a part of france but a colony. So even after military successes, the Arabs wanted freedom and they got it.

It is a study on how not to fight an insurgency if you are to have strategic rather than tactical success. The classic political-thriller gets more important with each passing year, providing as it does fascinating insight into terrorism, guerrilla warfare and state control. It is a must watch for anybody who is a cog in a machinery that is fighting to maintain control over a state.

Defeat and me, a dangerous combination

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.

From Defeat by Khalil gibran