Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
© All copyright and publishing reserved to Princess Basma
Each week, I go to the movies with my children, who I might add, are not children anymore. They are quite grown up, even the youngest of them who is fourteen but sounds to me like he could be forty – full of wisdom and business plans.
He already has had his first encounter with the real world – if that is the right word – or perhaps the ‘YouTube’ world. I found out that he has created his own video clips of wrestling, and is ready to sell them to other wrestling fans. Quite fascinating I must say, to see this generation launching themselves into the game before their time has even begun.
Anyway, we saw the movie ‘The Hunger Games’, a fantasy-thriller with a dystopian view both on reality television and the future, where the distinctions between sport and violence are blurred. I was mesmerised during the whole movie, by the theme, script, ideas, and implications. I felt that the film was very simply stating the facts about what is really going on in the world we live in, particularly among the upper classes who live in a bubble, where everything is a game. Theirs is rather a dull life, so they have to invent scandals on a daily basis to keep themselves entertained.
On the other hand, you have the underdog, who suffers under the abuse as their adversary enjoys the game and does nothing to change it: so the underdog lives his life in anger, going round and round in circles of abuse, addiction, and ignorance.
We place ourselves between two sets of classes and species: the elites, and the ordinary people. Between the two, some enterprising people are trying to save the world, but to no avail… So the battles continue. The first battle – the revolutions – was won, but there is no better equilibrium as a result. Whether a meaningful shift has begun, we have yet to see.
On a similar theme but in a completely different way, we see ‘The Ides of March’ movie, where the American style of politics is depicted.
Personally, I think regardless of the systems, all politics continue to feature the same thing: corruption on the grandest scale. These are hunger games where everybody is hungry either for power or money, while billions are suffering around the world. Only the elites enjoy the privilege of setting the rules of the game.
Hollywood is doing us a great favour by revealing the truth in a theatrical frame, keeping our adrenalin high (but their pockets full). In the end, who is going to profit from the scenario?
We are going out there to start something that will make us feel human again, unburdening history for the generations to come. This is instead of joining the masses in the hunger and other games that have ruined humanity’s deeper meaning, now devoid of its essence and purpose, drowned out by the games that distract us from the real issues in life.
What really matters in the end is to protect what we have left, and plant a new seed in this moment of history, spreading honesty and authenticity rather than just selling ideas to the masses and creating unobtainable dreams.
But we will always have to believe that words and thoughts will prevail, not hard power or swords. The pen is mightier than the sword.
*Saudi writer
@PrincessBasmah
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