T.V’s Promised Land is a stunning montage of images, video clips and documentary footage that Nick Dembowski put together in order to depict the inconsistencies of US politics and reality as well as the disparaging of Arabs in the media. Although it promised that one would find humor in the ridiculousness of how the US politicians incriminated themselves, I must say that I felt many things but humor was not one of them. It is a journey of the discrimination of a race not only between the years 2000- 2003, but through time as seen with the native Indians who suffered the loss of their lands when Europeans settled in the US. It is also a depiction of the legalization of injustice through the media and involvement of politicians.
The film focuses on Jerusalem as the “promised land” that God promised to the Jews, and showing the US’s justification of why they support Israel. It then brings us back in the past to the US’s justification of settling in America as the “promised land”. This brings me to question the idea of the promise. Whether one believes in the Bible or not, one cannot conceivably make it the cornerstone for international politics, especially politics between nations of different religions to whom the Bible’s promise means different things. This being the case, politicians such as George Bush have made themselves agents of God in a bid to secure this land for the Israelis against what Bush calls “the Axis of evil”[1] (implying that his side is where the good guys are), just as the early American settlers made themselves agents of God by claiming America as their promised land. This is especially ironic for a country like the US that steadfastly claims a distinction and separation of state and religion. This therefore makes the promise not so much the land that was being conquered, nor does it have anything to do with religion, but rather the political motives of the countries involved. Watching T.V’s Promised Land left me with the feeling that the promise was all about political purposes of countries masquerading under the veil of religion.
The film is very good at showing the inconsistencies in American politics. It shows scenes of American politicians’ declarations of support for Israel that made me question the reality of the supposed long-standing friendship. As I kept watching Bush declare how America has “always” stood behind Israel, and how it is because they are a common people with America, sharing western ideas, religion and democracies, I kept thinking of the hypocrisy of it all. After all history has numerous accounts of Jews’ discrimination in America and at the hands of fellow Americans. According to A Concise History of Anti-Semitism in America “Quotas and discrimination kept American Jews out of jobs, education and housing just as they kept Eastern-European Jewish immigrants out of America”[2] It bears saying that this was during the 1920s and through the 1940s when Hitler was doing pretty much the same thing only on a grander scale that was easier to condemn than the quiet segregation of Jews in America.
Seeing these facts of history then looking at Bush’s declarations of America’s zealous support for the Jewish cause one skeptically questions what prompted the change. Maybe it might have been when the promised land was being doled out by the United Nations after World War 2 so as give Jews their own place to belong while also strategically placing a bit of Western influence smack in the midst of all those troublesome Islamic nations. Or maybe even the discovery of oil along with the threat of terrorism.
More than anything I was shocked at the animal imagery that perpetuated not only the news and various forms of media used in the film, but that was voiced by the people behind the media, the average American woman who was shot saying “they are not human like us, they have no souls” and the American politician like Bush. Throughout the film, the Arabs were called mosquitoes, rats, dogs, rattlesnakes and pigs amongst many other animal images. It seemed as if somewhere along the line the supposed war against terrorism had become an ethnic cleansing against Arabs who, as far as these American speakers were concerned, were no longer worthy of human status. Having been degraded to animal status it was acceptable for terrorism experts like Steve Emerson to say “killing somebody there is not the same as killing someone here”[3] as well as to call this honorable fight against terrorism “Operation I hope we don’t offend you but we are gonna kill you anyway”[4]. In this case, Arabs had been effectively stripped of their humanity and therefore their being killed was justifiable, at least to these people.
Although the film does a great job in showing the inconsistencies of American politics, it must be criticized that a greater majority of its footage came from Fox News and shows such as The O'Reilly Factor which are very conservative in nature. Even though Fox news is the nation’s most watched news channel, it does not depict every American’s attitude nor does it mean that all news channels also shared this pervasively negative attitude towards Arabs. By basing most of his footage on this conservative side, it becomes easier for Dembowski to condemn American media. There is no balance of views throughout the film and it does not show the other side of American media that might have been a bit more tolerant to Arabs such that it lacks a little in objectivity.
The absence of Dembowski’s voice as narrator or any other narrative for that matter, though being truly remarkable, does not preclude his influence on the film. It is there in the build of the film, in the carefully interspersed images of the Native Americans’ struggle against white people and the Indiana Jones clips. It is there in the background voices of American politicians declaring that they are fighting terrorism on a scene of an Arab civilian being tortured by soldiers. Though his narration is absent, his influence on the turnout of the film is there in its layout and progression. This therefore means that the film is not totally objective because in his editing and compilation, Dembowski has a motive which then transfer onto how the film turns out.
I did not find any of the politicians or Bush’s proclamations funny because their words of fighting against terrorism were side to side with images of them killing, starving, bombing and knocking out infrastructure belonging to normal Arabic civilians and people like O’Reilly reduced the Arabic plight to words like “Let them eat sand”[5]. It was many things; indecent of the politicians and O’Reilly, shameful for Americans, unjust for Arabic civilians, hurtful in the man who was being tortured and the woman and child dying of starvation, shocking in the pervasiveness of the hatred of Arabs, yes for me it was many things, just not funny.
Despite these criticisms I cannot run away from the fact that Dembowski does a splendid job in relating the story as it was being told by western media. No matter how his influence came through in the compilation, it does not take away from the fact that the compilation is based on the truth of what the average American was being fed via TV during this time span. His film brings to mind how fake the “promised land” is and how people would hark on religion so as to pursue their political ends. It challenges one’s stance on the war and depicts a reality of who the war is affecting like nothing many Americans have seen.
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