The Last King of Scotland

Themes: Reviews

Last night Emma and I watch The Last King of Scotland. A film about Uganda under Idi Amin during the 1970′s. It’s a remarkable film – tense, beautifully shot, incredibly acted – and it seems sadly relevant in light of the ongoing monster-parade of leaders that plague the developing world.
In the news at the moment we are hearing about the rioting in Kenya, rioting and instability in Pakistan. Countries that have a history of leaders who appear to believe that the good of their countries is best served by their own personal aggrandisement.

Perhaps putting it that way is too simplistic.

It cannot be denied that many of those leaders who have become notorious for their brutality, or corruption, or cult of personality, are (or were) people of great charisma and leadership ability. Often they are very urbane and intelligent people. Always, they come to power asserting that they seek the best for their people, things which only a strong leader can achieve.
It’s easy for us to ‘look behind’ this rhetoric and see nothing but irrational evil and self-interest. It may well be that this is the case, but I’m certain it wasn’t the reality that presented itself to the consciousness of the leader any more than the people whom he persuaded. What ever our beliefs about the causes of evil and the human capacity for free will. At a subjective level no one actively pursues evil, there are no Cackling Arch-Villains. That would be such a failure of logical consistency that it would render the person virtually incapable of normal function. Whatever evils people do, we do it because we have told ourselves, in some fashion, that they are good.
It seems to me, as an arm-chair observer, that leaders like Idi Amin, subscribed to a theory that the good of their nation was best served by their own personal good. For Idi Amin, as presented in The Last King of Scotland this was not in a tawdry, greedy sense. Rather, he believed himself the ‘Father’ of the nation. His personal strength was a measure of the nation’s strength, his personal wealth was a measure of the national wealth. Every aspect of national life was related personally to himself as leader. This led him to take every personal slight or threat as a national betrayal, which he would exterminate for the sake of the people.
I wonder if Hitler’s Germany didn’t operate along similar lines.
There is something deeply right about this way of thinking. The life of a people is intimately connected with the life of their leaders. This understanding is central to Christian faith.
What is deeply wrong with Idi Amin, and all the sorry list of criminal leaders who have blighted our world, is a failure to understand the sacrificial nature of leadership displayed by Christ.

This was revolutionary in the 1st Century, and remains so in the 21st. The good of the people will be served by the sacrifice of the leader. For a leader to seek the good of the people is not equivalent to seeking his own good. This Christian understanding of leadership is nicely expressed in our use of the term ‘Minister’ for our political leaders. The word ‘minister’ is a Latin loan-word meaning ‘servant’. Our Prime-Minister is the ‘First Servant’ of the people.

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Wilberforce – the Movie

Themes: History, Movies, Reviews

Well, the original motivation for all this writing about Wilberforce was the film Amazing Grace. It’s a new film that’s due for release on 26th July. Emma got invited to a media screening a couple of weeks ago and I tagged along.

So, What’s it like as a film?

To be honest, Amazing Grace would be a fantastic two part Sunday night feature on the ABC. It feels more like something churned out by the BBC period-piece Dickens/Austen mill, than a big screen affair.

The film opens with a fairly shameless ploy, Wilberforce’s carriage pulls up beside two (appropriately ugly) men who are beating a horse to death. Although Wilberforce is clearly ill, he is unable to turn away from the suffering of the horse and intervenes to stop the men…
…we get the point. Wilberforce is the champion of the oppressed.

And so, you are introduced to the greatest flaw in the film, it has a real penchant for cheese. It’s understandable, when you’re telling the story of truly heroic person it’s easy to touch it up with a golden dinner plate behind the head and plenty of Mozzarella.
But the fact is, really great people just seem greater when you tell their story warts and all.

Fortunately, the power of Wilberforce’s story overwhelms the defects in the storytelling.
There are some genuinely poignant moments: when Wilberforce boards a Slave Ship for the first time and is overcome by the smell; or when John Newton breaks down and confesses that he still hears the voices of the twenty thousand slaves he transported to the West Indies.
And its hard not to give a little cheer at the end when the House of Commons gives Wilberforce a standing ovation as the Bill to Abolish the Slave Trade finally passes into law.

Another positive is that the film doesn’t paper over Wilberforce’s Christian hope or minimise this as the central motivation for his determination to end the Slave Trade.
Which means that the best reason to see this film is to go away afterwards and have a good think about how when the gospel transforms individual minds its also begins to transform societies. Wilberforce was not a limp-wristed “social gospel” hippy, he was not even one of those who argue that we can best commend the gospel through acts of service. No, Wilberforce was a gospel-through-and-through-man. God’s word was at the centre of his life. As his mind was transformed by the words of God, his behaviour in the world was transformed to match. And that meant not sitting around while Africans rotted and died in stinking ships.
Wilberforce simply didn’t know how to live with the comfortable gap between belief and action.

So for all its flaws, go see Amazing Grace, and pray that God would give us more people like William Wilberforce.

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