"From humans, Koba learnt hate and nothing else"...it was just a line made up for a movie plot but it stuck in my heart. What a sad indictment if hate is really the only thing humans are capable of teaching. As I sat through The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with apes spilling all over the screen, strangely I felt like I wasn't watching intelligent apes but humans aping around. There were chimps, orang utans, gorillas running, jumping, swinging, growling all throughout but to my mind, they were really parodies of human nature on display.
Caesar, who mouthed that profound pronouncement, was obviously star of the show and King of the pack; strong, authoritative, wise like all great leaders should be, retaining just that right touch of vulnerability to trust even those who had brutally hurt and tortured his kind. His son personified the yet-to-grow-up uncertainty of youth trying to flex muscles and blundering through rash decisions. And there was Koba, the perfect archetype of a hate-filled rebel whose war-cry is revenge at all costs. The rest looked suspiciously like humans of the mob-mentality kind simply following the megalomaniac who brandishes a weapon and shouts the loudest, either because they are deceived by the posturing or they fear being branded as traitors to their cause or they just fear. Of course there are a minority who still retain some semblance of loyalty but these who dare to stick to principles suffer a price - they get caged up like animals. What a delicious irony. Now just who is the animal and who is the human?
Actually I felt sad as I watched the showdown unfold. The story was about apes attacking humans. But the way the apes carried on was exactly the way humans carry on. When trust is betrayed. When wrong things are done in the name of science (substitute that with religion, presumptions, assumptions....) When anger is stoked by emotion, justified or unjustified. When deep-rooted prejudices of 'we' vs 'them' surface. When revenge over past unresolved issues boil over. When power is the name of the game. When might becomes right. In the finale when a dangling Koba pleads "Ape not kill apes", Caesar looks him straight in the eye with a final rejoinder of truth before letting him fall to his death, " You (Koba) are no ape..." I wonder did anyone catch the implied meaning alluded to - that Koba wasn't fit enough to be considered an ape, rather he was behaving like a human, and a lousy one at that. Ouch. Not very complimentary is it.
But if we are honest with ourselves, isn't that how we are? Humans are humans' worst enemies. We are the only species who kill each other - and it's not even over survival. We can even kill for fun. And we can kill without any weapons - words can do the job equally well too. We raise up invisible walls of division to protect 'our' religion, race, rights, whatever. Even if we don't outrightly condemn, we look down on others silently in our hearts. We rail against people whose opinions differ from ours. We always assume we are superiorily right and all others automatically wrong. We are ever so quick to castigate, recriminate, and remonstrate.
We can be such superficial creatures, thinking some nicely-drafted acronyms are all that's needed to unite everyone as 1 big happy family. We don't want to deal with the deep underlying fissures that's engraved into our psyches for centuries, because well, it's easier to just organize some colorful parade of everyone smiling and cutesy pictures blown up on billboards. Throw in some jazzy songs about unity and a couple of heart-stirring adverts come festival time to get us all 'in the mood' till the next festival comes around and we trot out some more of the same old nostalgic stuff.
Call me a cynical wet-blanket, but really, after all that is said and done, are we any nearer to loving each other as ourselves?? Are we willing to forego our precious rights for the sake of preserving peaceful co-existence in the midst of differences? Would we back down and turn the other cheek when provoked? Can we be like Caesar who cares so deeply about home, family, future, all the things that are dear to his heart, but yet he would rather not fight? Or are we Koba; giving rein to baser instincts of violent retaliation because the enemy is something only fit to be annihilated, not reconciled with. How fitting that Caesar should conclude, "Koba still in a cage".. we are prisoners of what's in our hearts, whether it be love or hate, forgiveness or vengeance, peace or chaos. And it's by our own choice.
The movie wasn't about apes, it's about me, and you. At the end when Caesar remarks, "It's too late, we apes started it..the war has begun", I was thinking how true, it's humans who start wars. More than 2000 years ago, Apostle James already put his finger on the pie, when he penned this in the Bible, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight" (James 4:1-2).
He was talking about humans, not apes. Do we have what it takes to put down the beast in us?
(Published Malay Mail Online 22/7/14)
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