Domination and Patriarchy

Rating: 8/10 (17 February 2010)

I very nearly did not finish watching this movie as it is very hard for me to stomach bullies, lynch mobs, rapists, torturers, and other thugs, especially when so realistically portrayed. I was glad I stuck with this film, however. The most moving part for me was when the scene of harassment at a farmhouse, including lining people up against walls, from the beginning of the movie is repeated nearly identically near the end - only the perpetrators the first time are the British forces, now it is the Free State Irish forces.
The lesson of the movie is simple, don't let your "ideals" - religious, political, or whatever lead you down the road of doing violence in order to dominate other people - your neighbors, your friends, your family. It is so easy for us to just accept that something political or religious, like a country, is worth dying for, and somehow that makes it worth killing for. I say it is not.
It makes perfect sense that the Irish State that replaced the British State is doing well financially. As illustrated in the movie, financial interests drive wars. The British and the supporters of the IRA both had commercial interests in the war. Economics fueled the American revolution, the Irish revolution, the French revolution, etc. The ideals sold to the actual fighters, often by the church, are not the point, and never seem to win out in the end. See the "improvements" to the status of women in Iraq and Afghanistan that are among the first things to be discarded in negotiations for "peace." The ideals keep the cannon fodder going, and are useful negotiation chips, but they are not the reasons for war.
The real battle is to avoid the brainwashing and just love your neighbor.