Oscar goes to … the Iraqi people

"The Hurt Locker," a low-budget independent movie, has stunned everyone by beating the much lionized James Cameron’s epic "Avatar" at this year’s Oscars to clinch six coveted statuettes.

Interestingly, Cameron, who broke his own box office record of the biggest grosser ("Titanic") with his widely admired and loved sci-fi offering, "Avatar," has been beaten at the game by none other than but his former wife, Kathryn Bigelow.

The filmmaker, who in her 50s still looks stunning, has become the first woman in history to win the Oscar for best director. The movie has clearly struck a chord with the critics, if not with the moviegoers who have so far plumped for "Avatar."

So what makes "The Hurt Locker" so special? The New York Times calls it the “best movie made so far on the Iraq war.”

The drama is based on the story by U.S. journalist Mark Boal, who was “embedded” alongside the U.S. forces and a bomb disposal squad in 2004 in Iraq.

The film revolves around the maverick bombs disposal expert staff sergeant William James and his comrades who have to defuse eight to 15 bombs or IEDs (improvised explosive devices) all in a day’s work.

Bigelow, who shot the movie in Jordan in the summer of 2007 in extreme weather conditions, explained after she collected six Oscars: “I wanted to put the audience into the shoes of not only the reporter, but also the soldier on the ground. I wanted to give the audience a real, boots-on-the-ground, you-are-there look at what it would be like to have the world’s most dangerous job.”

I haven’t seen "The Hurt Locker," but it seems Bigelow has been more than successful in what she set out to do: Taking a close look at one of the most contested, debated and pointless wars in history from a U.S. soldier’s perspective.

But then what’s new? This is how it has always been like. As Churchill said, history is always written from the victors’ perspective. The coverage of the war in Iraq – like all conflicts in the Middle East – has always come to us from the victors’ or Western perspective. All the war flicks from the Hollywood stable – from "Apocalypse Now" to "Platoon" to "Black Hawk Down" to the "Flags of Our Fathers" – have been a narrative offered by the victor to the vanquished.

This is how it has always been, even when the Western forces are not fighting clearly defined enemies on the battlefield.

From Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action-packed "True Lies" to "Collateral Damage" and Kiefer Sutherland’s forever Muslim-bashing television series, "24," the world is turned upside down and reality is twisted and distorted to suit and please Western sensibilities. No matter what historical facts and realities on the ground are, it’s a perennially us-versus-them perspective offering what Western audiences want to see, read and hear about the “Islamic extremists” and “Muslim terrorists.”

So what’s new if "The Hurt Locker" only shows the hurt and pain of America’s brave men and women as they put their lives on line to bring “freedom and democracy” to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The movie, as Bigelow says, looks at the war from the perspective of an “ordinary U.S. soldier” who negotiates and experiences the horror of war and death every moment of every day.

But what about the people whose country these soldiers have invaded and occupied? Does anyone ever wonder or care what an ordinary Iraqi man or woman thinks of this war or how he goes about his daily life thanking his/her lucky stars every moment for surviving another day in his/her own land?

Today, amid all these back-slapping celebrations over the Oscars and successful and peaceful elections in Iraq, it is easy to forget how much the people of Iraq have suffered and continue to suffer for the delusions of grandeur and Oedipal complexes of one man.

I never liked Saddam Hussein. His oppressive regime gave the people of Iraq and their neighbors nothing but tears and a great deal of suffering. Iraq is better off without him. But what the Western coalition has visited on Iraq after removing the Baathists is even worse.

Four years ago, independent British medical journal Lancet estimated that at least a million Iraqis had died since the invasion in 2003. That was way back in 2006. Those killings continued long after that report. Who knows how many more innocents have paid with their lives for the “freedom and human dignity” that Bush promised?

Millions of Iraqis fled their homes to take shelter in neighboring countries, and they are still out there. Some semblance of peace and order may have returned to Iraq, but it’s still a country on the brink.

Innocent people continue to die in sporadic attacks and bombings caught as they are between the occupiers and terrorists.

So Gordon Brown has some cheek defending this disastrous war before the Iraq inquiry commission last week. He wasn’t in the saddle at the time, but with a critical election looming ahead, Brown is clearly playing to the gallery. It seems every Western leader loves a "good war" and his share of reflected glory.

What gives you hope though is the irrepressible spirit and resolve of the Iraqi people. It was curiously exhilarating and heart-warming to see them defy bomb attacks and bullets to turn up in huge numbers to vote for their candidates.

While polls with 90 to 97 percent turnout are all too familiar across the Middle East, this is perhaps the freest and fairest democratic exercise in the region’s history in a long, long time.

The credit for this goes not to the so-called champions of democracy, as many pundits in the U.S. and Europe suggest — some of them even getting nostalgic about W. – but to the people of Iraq. They deserve a clutch of Oscars, and all the other laurels and trophies out there, for braving the nightmare of the past seven years and coming out with flying colors. For being to hell and back and yet retaining their sanity and humanity. For not giving up hopes and aspirations for a better tomorrow and defeating all attempts to divide them as Sunnis and Shias. The Iraqis couldn’t have chosen a sweeter revenge against their tormentors, and those who wrecked their great country. The Oscar goes to the people of Iraq. No one is more deserving of the honor than the Iraqis. Give it up for them, people!

*Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times. Write to him at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com