His ground breaking and often controversial documentaries have been the template for an entire generation of reality drama, most keenly felt in Paul Greengrass’ work on “United 93.” Now Broomfield seems to have once again found a subject that will divide the public and tap into the collective zeitgeist of the moment.

His “Battle for Haditha” is the true story of a small engagement between a Marine patrol and two local men who have been paid 1000 dollars by al Qaeda to detonate an IED. The chaos that ensues after the explosion which kills a Marine Captain quickly develops into a massacre of the local population by the surviving Marines. In all 24 people died, but this is no crucifixion of the U.S. forces or a condemnation of the insurgents, but rather an even-sided account of one terrible day.

In fact, “Battle for Haditha” is an internal struggle of conscience for all concerned; Marines, civilians, and insurgents alike.

Broomfield develops a Truman Capote “true fiction” account of life in Iraq. His documentary style is present and correct but he is also adept at opening this canvas wider through his excellent use of music; most notably the thrash metal soundtrack which constantly accompanies the exhausted and bored Marines through their daily lives.

The young Marines are played by ex-servicemen which further ads to the personal tragedy of the film. Corporal Ramirez, our main focus, is devastating in an emotional scene where he breaks down shortly before the massacre takes place. It is all the more poignant because we know Elliot Ruiz has experienced this battle fatigue for real, he knows Ramirez because Ramirez is him and every other Marine.

Broomfield also picks up on the class and background of the young soldiers. Ramirez is from Philadelphia, “the murder capital of America” and has traded that place for “the murder capital of the world” as one Marine puts it. It is as if America has a ready trained multitude of urban warriors to send into 21st century war zones, and perhaps this is their government’s grand design: not to develop those inner-city projects so men will enlist and kill foreigners, rather than each other. “Battle” could well be a companion piece in this sense to the documentary “Rampage,” which featured a young soldier from Miami returning from Iraq to his equally violent American city.

However Broomfield’s film also dwells upon the local population. The bomb planters are small businessmen, one sells DVD porn to the very soldiers he will attack, and the other drinks alcohol and has to hide this fact from al Qaeda who pay them to attack the Americans. Perhaps the greatest irony is that al Qaeda pay them in dollars, thus funding a capitalist society they wish to eradicate, and using the very symbol they so despise.

The most gut-wrenching scene is where the initiators of the violence stand with an al Qaeda member watching the carnage unfold beneath them. They realise too late what they have unleashed on their own people, only for the al Qaeda representative to calmly explain how it will be used for propaganda. Later back with his family, one of the insurgents collapses in grief, the audience in no doubt of the hideous burden he has brought upon himself.

The massacre of the civilians is a stunning piece of film making. Their homes are attacked with military precision and it is that professionalism of arms which leaves the audience spellbound when seeing its effect on defenceless women and children. Once the Marine attack is finished we are lost for words but also at a loss for whom to blame.

The Marines are the obvious choice, bred on a diet of al Qaeda propaganda DVDs and pounding music, but then again is their leadership to blame for not allowing Ramirez to see a doctor when he was clearly suffering from post traumatic stress disorder? The insurgents planted the bomb but they were at the mercy of al Qaeda. Or were the civilians to blame as they did not reveal the IED to the authorities even though they saw it being planted?

“Battle for Haditha” is the first remarkable film about the unique situation in Iraq and it will take some beating, such is its emotional depth, and scope of its intelligence.

Further reading: “Battle for Haditha” premieres in Dubai.

I recently got asked a bunch of questions by someone from a past life currently writing a book that includes a chapter on creativity, cinema, Palestinian and Arab independent production among other topics. After a few emails back and forth, the writer popped the question: “Do you mind if I include you in the chapter on Palestinian (as opposed to Jordanian) cinema?” I replied that that would not be true nor accurate to me personally and professionally and proceeded to dissect my life in an email back:

“I know that you’d like my answer to be the ideal story, but to tell you the truth, it’s not.

On identity – I am Jordanian. I never felt Palestinian nor can I relate to that part of me beyond the wider family meaning. It’s not how I grew up and the lifestyle I led allowed me to look way beyond borders of origin and just be a citizen of the world who happened to be from Jordan and from a family of Palestinian origin from Nablus. I did not grow up in a home that was Palestinian at all and did not receive that kind of awareness from my Jordanian-born father and Lebanese mother as we lived in 7 different countries around the world and I attended 8 schools during 12 years, speaking four languages and learning about the religions of the world through social studies and not ‘religion’ class.

My father was a politician and I hated politics – and still do. It’s not a strategic, conscious choice about being this or that, it’s who I am and what I am as a result of my life. And that may not be good news for your angle on Palestinian identity issue/unity/origins/rights, but it is my reality and works for me, end of story.

On film, you mention that I’m probably attracted to being Jordanian and not Palestinian from my professional perspective due to the pioneering position/entrepreneurial/being first – in truth, I could care less about all that. I’m so much more concerned about continuity and raising the bar and delivering outputs and maintaining perpetual movement. Being the first is nice for about two seconds, but it’s nothing and deserves no glory if it doesn’t become part of an industry that grows forward – and for me, that is the creative industry that happens to be in Jordan and will hopefully have a vast horizon.

Why film you ask? I’ve always loved the movies. I enjoyed my school video club, home movies, and over time I wanted to make films that entertain in a way that reflect things in my life or the life I can relate to. Most of my entertainment was American and some European and I couldn’t relate to some of it although I was always entertained by it and would seek it out. On the other hand, I’ve been bombarded with crappy Arab productions that are insulting and far from entertaining on one end (with a handful of exceptions of course), and on the other end there’s a barrage of ‘preaching’/cause related films/docs most of which I find repel more than they engage; or they are simply ‘good to know’ and didn’t push me to any kind of activism. So all I’ve had was foreign audiovisual which was extremely entertaining but did feel borrowed at times.

In 1990 I interned at a Jordanian production house. Back then they were successfully producing series for TV (and still are), most of which I could not identify with. I had no means to produce independently, so I started making TV commercials at that company. I liked the idea of creating little stories for products, I also made some corp docs to train myself and for the money (which paid very well). I started getting interesting assignments just because I spoke English, could present and pitch and develop creative concepts – stories. A couple years later I got offered a great job both in scope of work and salary at a regional ad agency which I took and worked with full-time for 4 years, making TVCs and creating stories for commercial clients, one of whom wanted to put a real-estate newsletter online in 95, and so I did that with Khaldoon Tabaza (founder of Arabia Online, which does not exist anymore, and is current chairman of Riyada Ventures) and got a taste for this little Arab digital city he was creating with a wonderful small group that was years ahead of the community around them as they built Arabia Online.

That year we were hacking test accounts to connect to the web, or dialing long distance to the UK or Israel, using a free ISP account to connect to the web. The agency client paid JD5,000 to put online 12 newsletter issues which for a few months in Jordan he could only access thru that expensive convoluted long distance way before the ISPs launched in Jordan. I was immediately hooked on the online world and tried to get the agency to embrace it, but it was too early and they shrugged it off. I got restless, and left, and dabbled with Arabia. At first the thrill of building the portal was great and I soon realized the ‘cool’ content that could be created freely, away from censorship and the hassle of the industry status quo and how it was reaching a wider audience, anywhere. At Arabia I often struggled to find or help create new original content and after we built the monster I started realizing that it won’t happen by force as people are not used to ‘creating’ and it just had to evolve gradually.

While in Dubai I felt the time was right to start making content, I considered staying in Dubai and producing, and did the rounds with some production companies, but they were mostly doing TVCs and programming for pre-sold television and I didn’t see myself there again at all. I’ve been a huge fan of mobile – in 97 I was roaming on my very expensive Fastlink line on the first Nokia Communicator/the brick, checking my Arabia mail and looking at the few portal pages on a small B&W screen – paying hundreds of dinars monthly to do that. And no, there were no sites formatted for mobile or small screens then.

So consuming media on my mobile and laptop in small format is innate and attractive to me. I figured it would be easier to start something from scratch in Jordan. So I came back and was actually looking into making snackable media for small screens, because I believed people would want to consume entertainment and information quickly and on the go. In 2003 I spent an entire dinner talking with an investment banker friend about making entertainment for small screens, and he mocked it all night saying there could not be a business model as people would never be willing to consume media that way.

At that same time I was also developing two production projects with friends, one was a docudrama about an ancient lost land, and the other was a sitcom script I started writing in English about a bunch of Arab friends living and working in Arab cities – the genesis of which was my life really. While in development, the intent was to pitch the doc to European funds. But at the same time the Film Commission in Jordan had just been announced and I knew some of the board and the exec commissioner, so I went to them to pitch my doc project hoping they had some money or resources to tap into. They had just started to build a team and were about to start exploring what to do, so after my presentation they asked me what I needed to take the project forward, I told them and they said they wished they had the means to do all that but don’t at that point.

A couple days later Samer Mouasher ( Commissioner at the Royal Film Commission, entrepreneur in ecotourism & film production) asked me to help put together a set up that would do just that so we could jump-start parts of the industry. It was a good opportunity for me to get to know the local market, and what better way to do something right than to structure it out of need. I told them I really wanted to produce and that the RFC job would be a temp thing I would help with thinking I could do it over a few months and then go out and produce. Well, nothing in this part of the world gets done that fast, so I stayed with the RFC 2+ years and developed some amazing capacity building programs that included multimedia literacy as well as the specialized filmmaking ones.

Then I was finally very ready to produce, and when I left, I walked out into a beautiful space that had various resources I could bring together. Finally I was ready and found a community around me that had kicked in. But the real tipping point was the access to the digital filmmaking tools that were becoming mainstream, allowing us to sidestep celluloid film, labs, specialized skills, etc – all of which did not exist in Jordan, and never had to. We could do digital production which made things easier, cheaper, braver, faster – allowing us to experiment and explore and do it our way – whatever that was going to be.

It’s been a totally organic progression, and now, with multiplatform distribution, I love the producing space at this point in time because it’s possible for me to pull into it everything I’ve always loved and all I’ve learned through my rich experiences.

You [the letter-writer] mention Elia Suleiman’s views on “Palestinian identity: the one which was born in the 70s based on human values, freedom and justice for all.”

Surely human values, freedom and justice for all belongs to Homo sapiens in general, not just Palestinians. It’s nice to say all that, and I get this view, but I don’t see how that differs from what any other nationality wants or aspires for. It’s the basic requirement and rights human beings seek anywhere, is it not?

The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is extremely unjust and outrageous and most of the time I find the events surreal. Maybe shame on me for moving on with my life, but in that same breath I say shame on the world that continues to enjoy its spectator status on this issue! But I also remember growing up thinking the same about the Native Americans when I learned about them in social studies while sitting in a multicultural class which included Israelis, and I thought the same of slavery in America, about South Africa, and the Maoris, and the Dalai Lama, and the Indian caste system, and, and, and…

I will not apologize for not fitting into the Palestinian mold while holding a name like Toukan, rooted in Nablus. I am proudly the product of the life, learning and cultural awareness that nourished me over the years as I lived around the world, and I cannot turn back time and don’t wish to either. When asked about my nationality, identity, where I’m from, the answer is Jordanian, without hesitation. I am fully aware that my roots/larger family is originally Palestinian, but to me that’s a detail of lineage that I don’t identify with in my present.

I was recently Facebooked by a young Toukan – a total stranger who messaged me because of our last names. When I asked him about himself, he said he was a twenty-something Lebanese.

You may find this tragic, but it’s a reality I embrace.”

More About Nadine Toukan: With an insatiable appetite for adventure, living in Tripoli, New Delhi, Beirut, Belgrade, Tehran, Rome, Muscat, Dubai, Washington and Amman while playing everywhere else was never about the air miles. It’s always been about the stories. Over the years, I’ve produced stories for advertising working with Horizon, FCB, for online communities working with Arabia Online, and for multiplatform with aspiring Arab filmmakers through my work setting up the Capacity Building Division at Jordan’s Royal Film Commission.

Today, as an independent producer based in Jordan and passionate about the convergence of artistic hearts, tools,storytelling and the power of collaboration, I’m working with filmmakers in the region to bring new entertaining stories from the middle of the east to interested audiences anywhere. Why? Because I believe that good, well made stories that entertain have and always will change our world. And because I believe that the industry of filmmaking and other arts enables us to engage in a wider progressive global dialog, transforming our attitudes and economies….and because I like the quality of my life when I’m creating with beautiful people.

As the festival wound down, I found myself needing an injection of Hollywood, and Susanne Bier’s “Things We Lost in the Fire” was the ticket. Well, maybe. Susanne Bier is actually Danish, and this movie is somewhat unconventional. I’m not sure if it’s going to get a wide release in the Middle East, but I’m not holding my breath.

The one consistently terrific thing about this film is Benicio Del Toro and his brand of awesome. I’m not exactly sure how he manages to take the familiar role of a recovering heroin addict and transform it into something this charming and unpretentious, but I like to think it has something to do with being charming and unpretentious in real life. Either way, this is one performance any self-respecting Del Toro fangirl or fanboy cannot possibly miss out on, no matter where you are.

The rest of the movie oscillates between genuinely grounded, thoughtful material and occasionally coma-inducing melodrama. Halle Berry’s turn as shell-shocked widow Audrey is solid, but her obligatory moment of meltdown and surrender felt as thought it could have come off a check-list. While Del Toro’s heroin withdrawal scene has similar overtones, his inventive facial contortions alone create something original to watch.

David Duchovny, the dead husband who is the link between Berry and Del Toro’s characters, has some potential, but he disappears halfway into the film. The story is fragmented (much like a grieving person’s mind – which I thought to be a nice touch overall), and Duchovny’s character is seen in flashbacks. But the flashbacks just stop all of a sudden, and the film is the poorer for it. We understand that Brian was a righteous dude unjustly taken from his family in the prime of his life, but aside from the great dynamic he has with his drug addict friend, we don’t really get to know him as a human being.

The deadpan John Carroll Lynch is a source of comic relief as a weird but good-natured neighbor, but it’s a bad sign when you realize his character is actually more likeable than Brian’s.

Bier is drawing a fascinating parallel between addiction and grief however, and she does succeed in raising serious questions about the way human beings deal with both phenomena. Grief is seen as more “respectable,” but in modern-day life there also seems to be very little in the way of social tradition in regards to dealing with it (Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking has made the claim that today’s Americans see grief almost solely in terms of “moving on,” rarely addressing its actual dark nature). Audrey understands that Brian’s hapless friend Jerry needs rehab, for example, but Jerry in turn sees that Audrey is in a similar position. The old saying – “it takes one to know one” – certainly applies here.

Bier and the screenwriter, Allan Loeb, also have a handle on life’s cruel little sense of irony: Audrey worries that her husband might get shot while visiting his junkie pal in a neighbourhood that seems composed solely of other junkies, but tragedy comes at her sideways. Brian is killed, but not while slumming it with various “unfortunates,” far from it, in fact.

I do take issue with the fact that too many films that closely explore human emotion take place in opulent households. I understand that a bleak storyline can be offset by a gorgeous background to startling effect, but come on, poor people grieve too – and their lives are not devoid of beauty either. Beauty, after all, is more than a stately home full of expensive doodads.

Well, the time has come to separate the best from the rest. For me, the festival peaked with the world premiere of “Captain Abu Raed” – the first Jordanian feature film in a rather long number of years.

Let me tell you, all those decades upon decades were certainly worth the wait.

Director, writer, and producer Amin Matalqa described this film as a “fable,” which is probably as close as one can get to its essence without giving too much away. The hero of the story, portrayed by veteran Nadim Sawalha (you’ve seen him everywhere from “Syriana” to “The Nativity Story” as of late), is a janitor who gets mistaken for an airline pilot on account of a hat fished out of the trash in Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

Abu Raed is an older man who leads a quiet life, having conversations with his dead wife’s portrait and spending his evenings with only a cup of tea for company. This is a man who had dreams once; you can still see something of them in his kind, keen gaze, alongside past calamities and defeats, all equally ground down by the thievish passage of time.

It is the exicted attention of his humble neighborhood’s children that inspires Abu Raed to assume the role of storyteller and sage; as he recounts tales of the fictional adventures of the man he might have been, we discover that the man he is is not a whole lot different. Abu Raed can still be a hero, janitor’s uniform and all.

Thanks to the editing of obscenely young Laith Majali (who is also one of the producers) and the brilliant cinematography of Reinhart Peschke, the movie has a lush, gorgeous look: the light alternates between laving like honey and casting inky shadows on faces and streets. The city of Amman exists as a separate character here, a living landscape transversed with human lives.

This is a family-friendly (I hate that horrible adjective, but there it is) film that nevertheless deals with the darker side of life. Domestic abuse, classism, societal pressure, and senseless tragedy figure heavily in the plot. Not all characters are redeemed, and not all loose ends are tied up with pretty bows. While neither edgy nor gritty (more adjectives I despise), this movie lingers with you like a beloved childhood story whose undertones continue to unfold in one’s mind long after the original encounter.

If great books cannot be read, only re-read (this is according to Vladimir Nabokov, a good authority on the subject), then great movies ought to be re-watched, and “Captain Abu Raed” is no exception. This movie will open in Jordan in February of 2008, and it will make its way to Sundance earlier next year as well. I’d love to chase it all over the globe, but will have to sustain myself with memories in the meantime.

If you need a point of reference, I would say this movie is a bit like “Monsieur Ibrahim” – only more engrossing. It’s an urban romance both humourous and melancholic, and a great antidote to pretentious art-films and sickly-sweet family dramas combined.

It is also hopefully the start to a new era of Jordanian filmmaking. Enough of Jordan being solely the backdrop to foreign-made films, I say. While “Captain Abu Raed” is a standalone achievement of tremendous magnitude, it could also be the start of something equally terrific.

It’s good news all around, at last.

Nick Broomfield’s “The Battle for Haditha” has not yet gotten enough press. In some ways, this is understandable. Despite the explosive subject matter, this is a low-key film. There are no big-name actors, no enormous budget, and, most importantly, the picture’s stylistic elements tend toward a stark, bare-boned simplicity. Nevertheless, this is a film to see.

Broomfield cast many amateurs for key roles, among them some ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, and this is both good and bad. There is a definite air of authenticity surrounding the film, yet the acting occasionally appears forced. Some of the dialogue struck me as contrived- although this may have something to do with the subtitles. I do not speak Arabic, but having been accompanied by an Arabic speaker at the screening, I discovered that the subtitles are not as good as they could have been.

This movie is earnest, but, in some scenes, it also comes across as didactic. Do we really need to see the chief insurgent character, a disgruntled former member of the Iraqi army, spelling out the message with lines such as: “The Americans created the insurgency by dis-banding the army”? Does the chief insurgent furthermore have to opine stiffly on the future of Iraq, noting (in a manner that suggests that he is channeling Fukuyama) the bleak possibility of the country inheriting a new leader, someone who will be a helluva lot worse than Saddam?

Yet in spite of a few missteps, this is a haunting picture. I can’t get it out of my head, and I probably won’t for a long time. Broomfield captures the comings and goings of the residents of Haditha, people whose lives are about to be shattered, with intimacy and grace. I was floored by the character of Rashied (Duraid A. Ghaieb), a young man besotted with his pregnant wife (Yasmine Hanani – who attended the screening alongside the director, and ex-Marine actors Elliot Ruiz and Eric Mehalacopoulos), keenly aware of the growing danger of staying with his family in Haditha, and yet unable to do much about it.

Alongside U.S. Marines and Iraqi civilians, Broomfield dares to portray the members of the Iraqi insurgency as human beings. These people are not just fundamentalist foreigners, they are also ordinary locals who are infuriated with what has happened to their country. This simple truth is about as inconvenient as anything Al Gore can come up with, and is bound to make American audiences squirm in their seats.

At the Q & A afterwards, Broomfield pointed out that the massacre at Haditha has been extensively researched, and the script was an attempt to stick as faithfully as one could to real-life events. The movie was shot on location in Jordan, and grim anecdotes were related: apparently, one of the Iraqi families featured in the film wanted to pack up and leave in the middle of the shoot, highlighting the adversity of refugee life for the crew and the rest of the cast.

The audience, meanwhile, was happily irreverent. People expressed their anger with the U.S. occupation of Iraq with ease, blunt questions were asked, awkward pauses were observed, and the entire occasion had a fresh, unscripted feel one so rarely gets in similar settings in the States. Kudos to the festival organizers for this, honestly.

One woman asked if “The Battle for Haditha” would get past “censorship” in the States, a question which reminded me of misconceptions people hold about the U.S. film industry. In the U.S., the real censorship lies in trying to find a distributor for a potentially controversial film. The MPAA can cripple a movie’s chance at being distributed by issuing an NC-17 rating, but such ratings are usually tied to graphic representations of sex. “Battle for Haditha” has secured a U.S. distributor and will, hopefully, be seen by at least a fraction of the people who need to see it most: those among us who continue to defend the ongoing, blood-spattered mess that has been made of Iraq.

The best moments of the film have to do with the peculiar duality of wartime violence: how it is both personal and mediated, vicious and strangely, grotesquely casual. It is the antithesis to all life, and yet it can make its perpetrators feel alive. No amount of theorizing can ultimately reveal its true nature, and Broomfield understands this. Sometimes, all you need to do is watch.

I’ve had it with the deceptions of the media. Perhaps my face doesn’t show it, but I am pissed-off angry. And here, for once, I’m not talking about the political side of things. I’m not talking about how docile news organizations in the West capitulated to their governments and, without a shred of resistance or an atom of intellectual integrity, accepted the barrage of blatant lies that linked Iraq to WMD’s and to Al-Qaida, thus facilitating the most unprovoked and unforgivable invasion in modern history. I’m not discussing how these misinformation organizations let their political leaders literally get away with murder of hundreds of thousands of people so that a few multinational corporations can add billions upon their trillions of ill-gotten wealth.

Let’s leave all that aside for now – along with the uncontainable mayhem coming out of the Pandora’s box that was irresponsibly opened in Iraq. In this episode of my road chronicles, I’m referring to other more mundane, yet equally irritating, aspects of the daily bombardment of lies and half-truths that I am subjected to every single day by an advertising industry gone berserk. Whether it’s when I’m out soaking up one billboard after the other, or sitting peacefully at home reading a magazine or watching TV, I am fed up with being taken for a ride.

Don’t get me wrong, I think advertising is a sacred right of every business. But what was supposed to have been a marketing vehicle to convey the qualities of products and services to otherwise not so well-informed consumers has mutated beyond recognition. Ever since Saatchi & Saatchi first handed Margaret Thatcher her 1979 landslide victory, the genie had been unleashed out of the bottle. Spin-doctoring was born, baptized by the high priests of logos and rationalized by the revered gurus of brands. The art of creating a parallel reality where truth is a marginal detail that has to be either ignored or avoided at all costs became one of the most lucrative supporting industries in the capitalist economy. This new world of make-believe and multi-purpose propaganda will soon rent out the space underneath our eyelids in order to keep us on message. George Orwell is already turning in his grave.

Gradually but consistently, the business of unashamed manipulation and distortion of facts has elevated itself to an absurd dimension that knows no bounds when it comes to misrepresentation of the truth. And the purpose is not always to actually sell; that takes place anyway thanks to the global cartels suffocating the market. The aim is now to make us see a compassionate face where none exists. When image has become paramount, the spin-doctors have turned into virtual plastic surgeons. Take the oil industry as an example. The richest polluters in the universe and the greediest usurpers of other nations’ natural resources have been granted the invaluable opportunity to portray themselves as the Mother Theresa of all money-making enterprises. A soft voice that would otherwise whisper a Christmas parable to your kids would now come out on CNN telling you that grabbing every last drop of oil from this earth is not as important to these companies as protecting that last cute Panda in the forests of China or saving that lonely whale off the coast of Japan. Sometimes you don’t even realize what is being advertised at first and imagine the ad to be for a charity helping lepers in Calcutta until you read the name of the giant war-mongering, tax-evading conglomerate at the end. Just keep repeating it and people would believe it, goes the motto. Just get Morgan Freeman to say it, and it will magically sound so humane and selfless. These obscenely profiteering empires are not actually trying to sell you, me or our governments anything in particular. They just want us to believe that the welfare of your little cat is what drives them, motivates their research and keeps them up burning the midnight candles. Now what kind of four legged morons do they take us for?

I have a different bone to pick with the advertising methods of the automobile industry. Actually, it is not the advertisers I have a problem with – the ads are usually very amusing works of art – but it is the hypocritical governments that allow them to run who drive me crazy. Most of these car ads should be against the law because they do not point out to the consumer that not only will driving the car in the same way they do in the ad will end the driver up in jail in every world jurisdiction (save for a few autobahns in Germany), but it will almost certainly result in a very violent and painful death for all the passengers – especially if you do actually race down that curvy, snowy mountain, blasting your car stereo with that stupid grin on your face. Hell, why do governments even allow cars to be manufactured with speedometers ranging from 200 to 400 km/hour if the highest speed limit in most countries does not exceed a lousy 120 km/hour? Isn’t this like allowing Airbus and Boeing to manufacture airplanes and then pass a law that prohibits all forms of aviation above two thousand feet? Think about it. Is this some sort of a trap to get our driver licenses revoked and generate more income for the government coffers in fines and penalties? Is there a secret understanding between car manufacturers and governments to continue making cars that break the speed limit once you switch to second gear so that a police patrol can wait for you around the corner to drag your ass in court?

And that’s not all. The dichotomy between the boundaries imposed by the law of the land and the exemptions allowed for ‘Big Business’ has definitely crossed the line of sanity in the fashion industry – with the not so fashionable insinuation that hard drugs can positively contribute to the way you look. Each time I hear the expression “heroin chic” I ask myself how on earth did a grossly unhealthy and skinny look for women that was evidently the result of needle abuse come to be so glamorous – and legal to promote? Can the words “heroin” and “chic” actually be used in the same sentence by the trendsetters and providers of garments to our spouses and daughters? Silly me, I always believed the intravenous taking of the serum derived from the opium poppy had health consequences beyond its dietary benefits. Perhaps lawmakers in the vice and drugs corridors of western governments could finally make up their minds about whether these substances are good to abuse or not? Is it going to be a “just say no” or “just do it” policy, can the sloganeers please explain?

These confusing contradictions between permissible reality and unattainable fantasy may have actually started in Hollywood, the guilty culprit we all love to hate. The movie industry, for example, has been the unchallenged pioneer in promoting the triviality of gun violence – despite the late emergence of a small trend within the industry calling for gun control and repenting by making movies in that vein. But it was not until Steven Spielberg spoiled the fun in Saving Private Ryan that we truly visualized what it means to be shot in the leg, arm or groin, screeching in fear as you watch your limbs depart your body. Until then, we all grew up watching digestible scenes of bullet wounds that were always dry, neat and perfectly sanitized, the recipients of which simply fold on the ground painlessly, silently, and spotlessly – if they were the bad guys, of course. As for the good guys, generations of kids were made to believe that dodging a salvo of close range bullets from an Uzi submachine gun was doable as long as you were moving, ducking, or screaming “let’s go”. Not only that, but if you happened to receive multiple gunshot wounds anywhere except between your eyes, then instead of bleeding profusely to death as you normally would, you could still continue to run, leap from rooftop to another, fall from the fourth floor on a hard surface, land on your back as you cushion the fall by the garbage container positioned by chance to receive you, get up again, fist-fight and overpower six other armed guys who shoot at everything but you, jump from a speeding car only to grab the rails of an airborne helicopter with one hand, bring it down, and then passionately kiss your lover while a small band-aid will take care of your wounds. OK, I agree, there’s nothing wrong with some harmless fairytale action; we all enjoy an adrenaline rush every once in a while, and we don’t always try to do the same at home. But to those well-meaning anti-gun Hollywood icons I say this: you should not take your grievances against companies like Colt or Smith & Wesson. These entities merely manufacture the guns, while it is the same Hollywood studios that are making you rich who have actually been doing all the free marketing for assault rifles and pistols throughout the years until these weapons have become household items today. Let’s see you boycotting these studios if you are serious, because they are the ones fuelling the demand for these deadly products ever since Dirty Harry glamorized the .44 Magnum with his classic one-liners back in 1971.

Apart from the frivolous use of guns in the movies, what really makes me laugh is the message against authority we have been indoctrinated to believe counts as the next best thing to actually being Robin Hood himself. Isn’t it a farce that in all these movies the good policeman is always the one who has absolutely no regard whatsoever for due process? You know what I’m talking about. The likeable hero is always that good Samaritan cop who is held back by the tedious restraints of that bureaucratic waste of time they call chain of command and protocol, the one who needs to hand over his weapon to his boss and lose his badge in order to do the right thing – before he is finally vindicated and decorated by his department after he operates outside the rules. Yes, you’re getting the picture. It’s that detective who has a stubborn allergy against arrest or search warrants who is the role model to follow because he believes the police code invariably works in favor of the bad guys. Ironically, in the gospel according to Hollywood, it is this protagonist that angers all his superiors up to the President himself who eventually ends up saving the world because breaking the rules is the only path to justice. So, here we are, saturated from an early age with all these quasi-educational narratives – the ones inspiring us to defend the underdog by resenting useless procedure, rolling up our sleeves and being the vigilantes and the whistle blowers of our respective environments – only to find out that it is not always he who rebels against authority who rides into the sunset with the pretty girl. On the contrary, we go out to the real world, and what do we discover? Just try smoking in a non-smoking area in New York. Worse even, try skidding your car in a London street or overtaking the cable car in Geneva – even if you were trying to save a life. Then try to explain to the judge that you saw the same thing happen in a car ad on TV or in a Mel Gibson movie. And by the way, if they do lock you up, the last thing you want to tell your cell mate is: “Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”, unless you do have that same .44 Magnum Clint Eastwood was flashing stashed under your prison trousers. Otherwise, keep those trousers up and the belt tightly fastened. Trust me, there will be no Shoshank Redemption for your sorry ass if you don’t.

Take care, and if you ride, do it safely.

Forgive me, Ernesto, for helping myself to this undeserved title of which I am grossly unworthy. I ask permission not only because I’m so unlike you in that I cannot believe in a single earthly dogma for the salvation of mankind so as to dedicate my whole existence to fight and die for it.

This noble, but often blinding, human trait is only part of the abyss that demarcates your fearless soul from mine. What really sets us apart here is that my inconsequential motorcycle expeditions will not leave these pages, whereas your celebrated treks are already grand history. And so are you. From t-shirts to boxer shorts, your portrait is a cult image more recognizable than most Hollywood celebrities. Alas, the only portrait you’re likely to find of this author is a Swiss police mug-shot for some serious traffic violations, but we won’t get into that. So Comandante, you still rock!

After getting this healthy bout of exaggerated self-deprecation out of the way, I have to say that I wouldn’t be seen dead on that Norton 500 piece of junkyard crap you were riding. What were you thinking, comrade? And what am I doing talking to a dead man anyway?

But they say that everything happens for a good reason. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I know that where it happens has a good reason too, and that Che Guevara was meant to have his revolutionary baptism observing the social inequities in South America, and not anywhere else. This theory of ‘geographical destiny’ was first relayed to me a few years ago by my brother-in-law, Sami, when in a unique moment of revelation he understood why, out of all places, God chose to send Muhammad to the smoldering deserts of Arabia.

We were driving in my car up to a restaurant near Megève in the French Alps one beautiful summer day when the angel of lucidity came unto Sami. Surrounded by an orgy of colors amidst breathtaking scenery and waterfalls coming out of rocks, he saw God’s wisdom in the choice of venue 14 centuries ago. He theorized that Muhammad, peace be upon him, would have preached on deaf ears had he promised the locals of this magnificent landscape that awaiting them were luscious gardens underneath which rivers flow. That’s why it had to be the unforgiving terrains of Hijaz where the vision of Heaven and Hell would resonate the loudest (his ‘theory of relativity of Paradise’ continued on the questionable allure of beautiful ‘Huris’ for the faithful French males, but you got the idea).

Likewise, I would say, had Che Guevara wandered in the Utopian Swiss countryside instead, he would have probably lived on to become a good doctor, had a wife and a few kids, maybe a Labrador named Fidel, two weeks of holiday per year, a station wagon, and a mortgage – with no destructive grudges against capitalism or any other ism, and not even a small footnote in history. Whose face would have then adorned the walls of students’ rooms the world over? Mine? I doubt it. Thus, everything happens for a good reason.

I think the reason communist regimes in Europe collapsed like a house of cards has something to do with Sami’s theory on God’s sticks and carrots. Communism failed not because capitalism is necessarily a good thing, but because communism is so much worse. The tyrannical apparatus of Soviet rule deprived people of the natural human yearning for earthly pleasures without giving them any metaphysical incentives in return; there were no afterlife rewards as compensation because communists did not believe in God. And since life under the Soviets sucked anyway, the people who were starved of both material and spiritual satisfaction realized what raw hand they were dealt and embraced capitalism in droves.

What will come next is anyone’s guess, as humanity is yet to witness the next level in the evolution of liberal democracies. Take that, Fukuyama, for a world view from a bike. The end of history? Far from it; it’s only just begun.

I would say that if capitalism does have any virtues, then one spectacular aspect has to be the marvelous invention of William Harley and Arthur Davidson (if Che had tried one of today’s models, perhaps he would have softened up a little on his legacy of uncompromising rage, which apparently he owes to being able to ride the capitalist product in the first place). It is indeed a matchless experience, an almost spiritual journey, to roam the wilderness in these machines. Perhaps it’s the only chance one can find these days – unless you own an airplane – to escape from the rat race and meditate about the meaning of life without having to sit still in a yoga position (maybe because one is closest to instantly becoming minced meat on a motorcycle that this contemplative feeling of walking on the edge of life is omnipresent during these rides).

Perhaps that is also why religion tops my list of subjects during such reflective moments. For example, I always found the fundamental Christian notion of the Trinity to be profoundly mystical, yet not readily self-explanatory. Christians themselves do actually concede that it is not the easiest concept to explain or comprehend. Yet, never has understanding this philosophical matrix presented itself more urgently in my mind than during watching the Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s superbly executed masterpiece.

Since the first sign of agony appeared on the face of Jesus, I could not stop asking myself countless questions about the role-changing mechanism within the Trinity between the Father and the Son. Not allowing these questions to ruin the pleasure of this great movie, I just kept wondering when is James Caviezel’s character a helpless, overpowered human Jesus, screeching in agony – and when can he become an almighty God, capable of infinitely miraculous deeds? For example, when can Jesus decide to use his Godly powers to cure and heal wounds (as he miraculously did to one of the disciples during Jesus’ violent capture by the Romans), and when is he incapable of healing other wounds, or even comforting his own devastated mother and stopping the flood of tears pouring down her face?

In other words, who sets the mode, as it were, for this Clark Kent/Superman transformation? I craved to find out during the movie because, like all viewers compulsively immersed in the tragedy, I just wanted Jesus to use any powers he had to stop or ease the unspeakable suffering inflicted upon him by these sadist torturers. Most pressing of all, I wondered whom was Jesus addressing when he cried out from the Cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”? If Jesus is the Lord, who had forsaken whom?

I ask these questions not to belittle or undermine the faith of billions of people; far from it. I do so, first of all, in a sincere attempt to understand. But second and more important, I ask because I can, for I learned from experience that Christians are more tolerant when it comes to debating the pillars of their faith. They go out of their way to make you understand. So, knowing that I will not have my head chopped off, I figured, surely the God of mercy who forgave the crucifiers of Christ will find it in Him to tolerate the harmless ponderings of a curious biker.

Out on the road, such fleeting reflections are in any case frequently interrupted by the salutes of fellow bikers. For the uninitiated, this is one of the most intriguing traditions amongst the community of motorcycle owners. Whenever and wherever they cross each other’s paths, bikers invariably make a subtle saluting gesture with their left hand as a greeting signal. At first, I felt awkward, somewhat childish, waving to complete strangers on the road. But in no time it became second nature, even protocol, to join in with this most fascinating phenomenon. I personally find it to be as such because here you have people who’d never met before, but who have nevertheless developed a remarkable code of friendly etiquette that makes them identify with each other in a refreshing spirit of pride and comradeship. We are not talking here about Hell’s Angels or other organized groups, but simply anyone riding a motorcycle, be it a racing Ducati or a cruising Harley. The fact that even I, to whom closed fraternities were never appealing, now enthusiastically do it proves how humans have a predisposition to want to belong to something, to be part of a tribe, a political party or a sports team, and how easy it is to get them to conform to certain rituals distinguishing their group from the rest. When you think about it, it does sound silly, but at least it is completely harmless and does not involve any secret handshakes or further Masonic connotations. Better a group of road users who unassumingly greet each other than suspicious ones who curse and use other finger gestures, don’t you think?

I have to say that I owe my navigational familiarity around the most scenic rides in the Geneva wine country to my friend and fellow biker, Walid, who was able to convince me, with some hardship, of the motto, “it’s not the destination, it’s the ride”. Now I’m taking this maxim to new levels, as wandering aimlessly and getting completely lost never felt so gratifying. I seriously never thought I would ever derive so much pleasure from actually reaching a junction in a road and taking the exit I never took before, the one which I have absolutely no idea where it would lead. The thrill is in finding out for yourself. And speaking of wine country, it is charming to observe on these escapades just how much land Europeans dedicate to the industry of intoxication. Passing each vineyard selling happiness to the world, you imagine each bottle, each toast, each cork, each anniversary, each dinner, each celebration, and of course, each hangover that came out of these grapes, you can almost smell the tipsiness oozing from these generous lands.

Actually, one of the main delights of these directionless, open-ended rides is indeed the incredible varieties of striking aromas that you come across while breathing air that had not passed through human nostrils before. In the same sense that listening to certain old songs or tunes often takes you on a trip down memory lane, I discovered that certain scents have a more powerful effect of evoking specific moments in your past and bringing them back as if they were reenacted right before your very nose. Some of the memories you will vividly recognize, others will smell so familiar, yet remain enigmatic, like an odorous déjà vu if you like. They remind you of something but you can’t tell what it is. The human mind is after all a very complex database of stored memories, and the sense of smell is one of the most effective recollectors of these buried archives. My friend, Muthanna, aptly demonstrated this fact one day when he spotted an orange tree in a garden shop outside Geneva, blossoming on the first days of spring. As he drew his face close to its flowers, he closed his eyes and sniffed, “now I am in our orange grove in Tulkarem. I’m in Palestine”.

We had to get there, sooner or later I suppose, as all Arab roads lead not to Rome but to Palestine, the land that nothing will be left of soon except for, literally, whiffs of smoke and gunfire, or fragrant memories of orange blossom. The only thing that was missing during Yasser Arafat’s death in November 2004 was the voice of Edward Said, to put everything in perspective and make sense of the nonsensical as he so accustomed us to doing. Arafat spent his career grooming corruption and stifling integrity, surrounding himself with unscrupulous characters, while in the process, gradually deforming and debasing one of the most righteous causes in history. When he was finally killed by a mysterious blood platelets disorder that, according to his personal doctors, can only be caused by sophisticated poisoning, none of his supposedly loyal entourage cared to even seriously investigate the cause of his death. But the ultimate scandal took place before he died and was too much to bear. His closest henchmen were supplying cement to build the final tombstone of the Palestinian struggle, the catastrophic separation wall that isolates farmers from their lands, families from their backyards, and children from their schools. I always tell people that this cement story is so inconceivably disgraceful it is like imagining David Ben Gurion supplying bricks to build Auschwitz. Arafat hand-picked these merchants of depravity, empowered them, set them loose and covered up for their immeasurable corruption. When he was finally betrayed and killed, they lacked the honor to even ask who killed him. But they were his own stubborn choice. Did I already say that everything happens for a reason? May he and all of us rest in peace.

What a journey it had been. Take care, and if you ride, do it safely.