Almost Breaking the World

         Luis Buñuel's 1962 satirical film "The Exterminating Angel" has been refreshed this year by Thomas Ades' operatic version at a time when the plot seems pointedly allegorical.  It tells of a group of elegant guests who attend a formal dinner party then discover they cannot leave at the end of the evening. They bed down for the night but in the morning, inexplicably, they are still unable to leave. Days pass, desperation grows, one man dies, a young couple commit suicide. Near the climax a herd of white sheep and a wild bear break in. The guests are freed from their terror only after they figure out how it all began.

        This nightmare is recognizable in the Syrian, Iraq and Afghan wars. As described concerning Syria by the UN High Commissioner for refugees, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein

"we have seen every conceivable atrocity being committed by most parties to the conflict... and it started from a severe violation of human rights and the rights of children. And from there, we have a crisis that is almost breaking the world in a very real, real sense."

       There is nothing more painful than the struggle of Americans to cope with their entanglement in this nightmare, for instance in Raqqa, where ISIS was embedded and where a report from the Washington Post tells of 11,000 to 12,000 buildings destroyed or damaged under U.S.-led airstrikes, where "the sentiment...is increasingly that the U.S. took part in this destruction, but is not taking responsibility for fixing it, for cleaning it up."

    

        As metaphor "The Exterminating Angel" pushes past our familiar historical landscape that documents the marriage of religion and political power, or the dominance of the wealthy one percent who define it as their godly reward. Even though millions of Americans have disabused themselves that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq made any sense the barriers to the next step seem to trap present generations, inexplicably blocking a path to find an alternative to mass destruction of the innocent.  

       This palpable pain and anxiety over the absence of a way forward has many sources that need uncovering if people are to find a way back to health: a toxic mixture of Protestant utopianism, tribal self-interest, Catholic atonement and Silicon Valley-style comfort is deeply embraced as a subconscious revealed secular religion: that the main purpose of societies is to accumulate and prosper against all others, usually understood as our enemies.

       After the guests are set free in The Exterminating Angel," they decide to attend a Te Deum in thankfulness for their freedom but find they are trapped once again inside the cathedral as chaos breaks out everywhere and finally the same flock of sheep enters the Cathedral as gunfire is heard. 

        In this surrealist drama let us say that the sheep represent the world's innocent who perish all around us; and let us say that because our pretty services and solemn assemblies are not focused on these millions in desperate need around the world, that it is not surreal at all to realize our world is breaking, and on a local and global scale. The answer is that a new mobilization never seen before is now necessary to break new paths of life and freedom for all.  That will mean a new era of consciousness-raising among us to clarify that the lies and illusions that demand our devotion must be dashed in pieces.