A Lesson we should have learned 156 Years ago

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2009)

I happened to watch the movie today. It was exceptional in every way and the words are simply not enough to describe the experience. The only advice I can give is, if you didn't see this yet, go see it, for if you don't, you are missing a part in your life!
I do not give a general account of the movie as there are plenty of them around already. I'd like to explain something else instead.
The movie is an ensemble of genres – action, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. The movie, which has been portrayed as a fictional story that takes place in some period of time in the projected future, coincidentally, and most intriguingly, is an echo from the history.
The historic incidence takes place in the very country the movie was produced. Unlike the movie, in this incidence, the good guys get wiped out from the face of the earth and the bad guys go on and build a modernized civilization.
In 1854 March 11, a meeting takes place in Washington, called by Isaac Stevens – governor to the region, regarding the surrender or sale of the native land to the white visitors arriving to settle there. The following is an extract of the speech the leader of the native tribes (Red Indians) – Chief Seattle made in the event:
~~~~~~ extracts of Seattle's speech ~~~~~~
"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father...
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth...
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat  Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us  As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you"
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In the present day, we all know that we have not been able to understand what Seattle and the native Red Indians understood back then. And we are paying a heavy price already as we are facing the catastrophic consequences of the mistake - in the form the greenhouse effect, global warming and the myriad of accompanying environmental anomalies, in return for the irreversible damage we have done to our Mother Nature.
The Avatar, is a 'second-opportunity' for us - the 'modern - civilized world' to realize what we failed to realize back in the days where we should have.
The whole cinematic experience delivered by the movie opens up our eyes, minds and souls to a new dimension that Seattle and the Red Indians saw and lived in. Would we really be able to sense it and act is a question we don't have an answer in the horizon... yet...