The 10 Commandments

Title: Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments

Author: Kent M. Keith

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton

In 1960s, Kent Keith, then a student at Harvard, had a crazy idea. He proposed that, while the world may sometimes be crazy, individuals could still act well and create change for the better. He called his manifesto the ‘Paradoxical Commandments’ and it was published in a handbook for student leaders in 1968.

More than 30 years on, his ‘commandments’ have reverberated around the world in many forms, from speeches to books and graffiti, to poems, bookmarks and greeting cards. Most of you would undoubtedly be familiar with them in their various forms.

The 10 Commandments are:

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Here in this book, Keith once again draws out his 10 Commandments and illustrate them with personal experiences. His are simple words to live by, but how much better a world it would be if we tried.

Mitra Themis

The battle that Suu Kyi lost

I find it hard to believe that a better biography of Aung San Suu Kyi – the Nobel laureate and Burmese voice of conscience – has yet to be written. It’s rare enough that we have the privilege of sharing a stage – or an age, if you like – with one considered by many of her people to be the single shining beacon of light in Myanmar (or Burma, if you still want to call it that).

But even more telling is that, despite all the international support and pages of press, she remains under house arrest in Yangdon, with only an aide to help her buy groceries and the occasional visit from her doctor to keep her spirit going.

Justin Wintle, in his new biography of the freedom icon, Perfect Hostage – A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (published by Hutchinson), posits an interesting question – is Suu Kyi, for all her sacrifices and personal courage (and there’s plenty to be had), actually doing her countrymen any good?

Has her non-violent approach to dealing with the military junta played into the hands of the compassionless rulers, when a more aggressive approach may have succeeded in pushing out the old guard?

In this he echoes the very sentiments that kept Mahatma Gandhi out of the 100 most influential people in history list. The author – Michael Hart – had argued, quite convincingly, that Gandhi’s non-violent partisan movement may have actually delayed India’s independence, and paved the way for all the communal headache and border disputes with Pakistan.

And while Gandhi’s “I won’t do what you want, so beat me, please” movement may have carried moral water among the white colonisers, Suu Kyi’s similar rant has had no effect whatsoever with her more brutal oppressors. If anything, the Junta has grown even more bold over the years, and the lack of an international trade blockade has meant they are able to carry out their plans with minimum encumbrances.

All this and more is discussed, or at least given cursory airing, in Perfect Hostage, which uses interviews with friends, colleagues, former teachers, refugees, as well as letters and speeches made by The Lady to fashion a piece of living history.

But to get to this, you’d have to wade through Wintle’s mostly prosaic and tedious retelling of the tumultouos history of Burma, through its blood drenched centuries of violent conquest and the eventual rise of a freedom movement shaped by Suu Kyi’s father, Boygoke (General) Aung San.

Aung San’s assassination paved the way for Myanmar’s nightmare without end, and his daughter, in her own way, has tried through the force of her personality to set things right. And so far, met with failure.

Still, it’s hard not to sympathise with Suu Kyi’s plight – having spent the better part of the last 15 years in Myanmar’s struggle for democracy, not to mention losing touch with her family, it would be a hard blow for the lady to accept defeat and shuffle off the stage she has so carefully crafted for herself.

It is not in her mindset to give up. And perhaps, it would be a sad day for all those who believe in freedom – true freedom to vote your conscience, to work for pay, to be free from harassement and threats – if she were to give up.



Mitra Themis

Pirates and the irrational mind

Dear Mr Verbinski,

Why can't the dead be allowed to rest in peace? Okay, they may be in their own personal vision of hell, but dammit, in life there is supposed to be some kind of karmic balance, isn't there? Good deeds should be rewarded, and bad deeds punished - in this life or another, blah blah blah.
But when scriptwriters keep resurrecting characters from the dead for no clear purpose, it shows a bankruptcy of ideas and a failure of will.

That in the end is what really bothers me about your latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which reunites the cast of Part I and II with a few additions.
Part II ended with Captain Jack Sparrow going down with the Black Pearl after being attacked by the Kracken and betrayed by Elizabeth Swann, who feels so guilty about it all, she insists on mounting a rescue with the aid of a sorceress and the late Captain Barbossa.

In this pirate adventure, Will Turner plays tag-along, albeit a bit reluctantly, his feelings in turmoil after catching his lady love smooching ol' Jack before he died. But Will's part is further muddied by his need to save his father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, from the claws of Davy Jones and The Flying Dutchman.

So begins an almost incomprehensible tale of betrayal, double dealing, lost love, greed, swashbuckling action and a real downer of an ending.

The loyalties of the characters turn at the drop of a pin - unsurprising, as this is a pirate movie - but what really worked in Part I (and to a lesser extant in Part II) was the chemistry between the main characters. But by keeping them apart for most of the movie, you and the scriptwriters force viewers to pay attention to the plot - which is so far past inane, it's worse than ridiculous.

Take for instance the matter of Calypso - the sea goddess who was bound into human form by the 1st Brethren Court with the help of Davy Jones. After such a major build-up over what she might unleash if released from her bonds, what finally transpires is a major letdown. Hey, where are your powers, Calypso? One big whirlwind and you're done? Centuries of subjugation and a very localized maelstrom is all you can do? Jeez!

If that's not enough, the most fearsome creature from Part II, the Kracken, is summarily disposed of without so much as a goodbye. Hello? If it was too great a monster for the characters to deal with, why introduce it in the first place?


SPOILER ALERT!!!!



Actually, the character that gets the most amount of screen time is Swann (played by Keira Knightly), who seems stuck with the unenviable task of holding this hodgepodge together. Oh she tries, but the lack of a happy ending for her and Will (even with the epilogue - don't leave your seats before the end credits are over) just leaves a sour taste.

SPOILER ENDS!!!


As for Jack Sparrow, Depp is reduced to rehashing his mannerisms honed from the earlier movies. That in itself is no bad thing; but he shines when he has new material to play off, especially the scene with his father (played by Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, whom he parodied) and the bit where he's stuck in Davy Jones' Locker, slowly going insane.

You brought in Chow Yun-fat as the Pirate Lord of Singapore for this movie, but he has precious few moments on screen before he is dispatched - certainly not enough to justify all the hype. Hell, Jack the monkey gets more action that Chow - a shame really, considering what he is capable of.

Really Sir, you should have sieved through the script a little more to keep things a bit lighter and on firmed ground. Too many plot points only serves to deaden the pace, even with the numerous set pieces thrown in for good measure.

Yet, on the sum of it, Pirates 3 is not a bad movie - it's just not on par with what we've grown to expect from Capt Jack and Co. It's still entertaining - the dialogue is snappy in bits, and the SFX is up to par. But with the obvious set up for Part IV, I can't help but think this ship is showing its age. So perhaps, it's time to decommission the Black Pearl and put her crew ashore. But that's my opinion anyway.

Till next time, your humble fan,

Mitra Themis