万福玛丽亚

最近看过三部电影，表面上非常不同，却又不得不让人联系到一处。《万福玛丽亚》（Maria, Full of Grace）说的是哥伦比亚少女铤而走险，偷运毒品到美国的故事。 偷运的方法是将毒品包裹起来，吞下去，倘若不小心，毒品破裂，立即就会死人。整个过程几死几生，不过还好，最后有惊无险，马里亚留到了纽约，面向一个完全未知的未来，因为回头无岸，有的只是无边的绝望。

 

阿富汗电影《摘下面纱后的少女》（Osama）说了个真实故事：塔利班统治期间，一个女孩父兄都在战争期间身亡，母亲失业，可是在塔利班政权严禁女孩在无男性家属陪护的情况下出门，所以根本无法去工作。Osama只好女扮男装出去找生路，每天都走在死亡线上。孰料不久，就被塔利班征去参加军事训练，身份暴露，本应判死刑，最后这个还未成年的少女被赏给塔利班一个妻妾成群的小头目，从虎口走向了火坑。片中女性的绝望让人触目惊心。现实生活也差不多，饰演女主角的演员电影演完后，命运仍然没有得到多少转机。想来魏敏芝比她还要幸运得多，好歹还去上了大学。

 

最悲惨的是柬埔寨的影片《插田人》（Rice People）。片中说的一户人家，只有一个男丁，却在犁田的时候踩中刺中毒身亡。种植和养家的压力几乎是灭顶的，让这个守寡的母亲神志不清。最让人感叹的还是下一代的命运，一季水稻还没有插完，父死母疯，大大小小七个女孩在近乎绝望的环境下，以血肉之躯阻挡命运之轮对自己的倾轧。此片画面优美，但人物命运实在悲惨，让人感觉如同十八层地狱，一层层在面前打开。更可怕的是，这不仅仅是电影，它是很多贫困地区女性的写实。

 

三部影片都把镜头对准了在生活中挣扎的贫困少女。诚如鲁迅先生所言，悲剧就是把有价值的东西毁灭给人看。或是说，把美毁灭给你看。

 

相对于这些地方而言，普通中国人的生活如若天堂一般。只是让人无法心安的是，贫困地区的女性，生存仍然非常艰难。比如农忙季节，农村的妇女一般情况下非但要下田下地干活，回家还要做饭，清早还要洗衣，有的还要带孩子。她们几乎没有什么办法改变自己的命运，没有条件，没有机会，也没有人关注。她们不会来上网，也根本不会知道博客，她们没有声音。可是她们绝大部分人就如上面三部影片中那些女性一样，十分坚强，也十分乐观，不管多少压力，即便自己的生活四面楚歌，也要努力创造一个新的未来，送给自己的儿孙。

 

这样去看电影，不知有无问题。朱光潜老先生说审美就要保持距离，无距离则无审美。可是我等俗人，免不了还要把距离拉近，看看这里头的真实人生。这几部影片都在国际上有很高声誉，可是大家宁可不看这样的片子。世间少一奥斯卡，少一金熊，少一金棕榈，太阳照样升起。让一些人在绝望的深渊中看到亮光，则善莫大也！

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This is the harrowing story of a (not quite) typical mule: Maria Alvarez (Moreno), an intelligent and fiercely independent 17-year-old girl from Colombia who agrees to smuggle a half-kilo of heroin into the United States.

Walking out of the theatre, I found myself at a loss of words.

What struck me the most about the story was how un-exaggerate everything was. Let it be Maria’s job, her village, or her family. They were portrayed with moderation and care. The result was impressively real and honest. Maria’s job was not uncommon for a third world country’s village girl of 17. I’ve read far worse treatment and horror stories of factory workers in ShenZheng, China. The real evil was in the lack of a choice. All Maria had was the job in the flower factory. It was the only economic opportunity presented to Maria. It was what her family, even her entire village depended on. Sounds familiar? I thought of that British mining town in Billy Elliot.

Like all country girls who rebelled against their fate, Maria made a choice, the same choice all country girls in her shoes made, to go to the city. On her way, she was tempted away from the possibility of becoming a rich family’s maid; instead, she was offered an adventure. Traveling, America, and American dollars added together proven to be too big a temptation to turn down for a rebellious country girl. Was there really a huge difference for her, between pulling thorns off roses and swallowing cocaine pellets and carried them to America? Both were rich people’s merchandises, both were beyond her reach. She was one little link in the economy chain. The latter sounded a lot more exciting than the former, and it would take her beyond the depressing village outside of Bogota. She was, finally, presented a choice.

The subsequent story made me admire Maria’s intelligence and coolness. But it also chilled me to the bone to see how cruel and brutal the drug world was (is).

Would legalizing drugs clean up all these brutality? Would legalizing drugs prevent Maria and her fellow Columbian women from participating in this dark and ugly trade?

If so, then why wouldn’t any country take that step?

“Because drugs are evil and hurt people who use them. How could you legalize something so damaging to our very selves? How could any government give out any signal that drug abuse is ‘legal’, therefore, ‘ok’?”

Because not legalizing it made it worse? Because the huge profit margin is driving the drug trade into a frenzy, and it is killing poor people like Maria left and right? Cigarette is legal, isn’t it? It is harmful to people’s health, too. Why is that okay to endorse but not drugs? Since when human being became such innocent creatures?

“If you legalize drugs, then more people will become drug addicts. That would be disastrous and self-destructive.”

Okay. People have self-destructive tendencies. There are evils in these world, too many. People always have the choice of whether to become drug addicts, just like people have the choice of whether to smoke a cigarette. Are you saying that government has the right to make the choice for its citizens that the government knows what is best? What about education? What about the fittest survive? It is not like I don’t get drug offered when I walk down Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, it is not like high school kids don’t get drug offers in parties, at playground, on their way to school, anyways. It is happening right now. How much worse could it get? Besides, once it became legal, it could take away the “adventurous lure” it has right now to the rebellious type. Couldn’t it?

Drug abuse is part of modern societies already. We have to deal with it. But if legalizing it could take away the huge profit for the drug lord, then it could reduce their incentive to produce them. It could dry up so many money sources for terrorist groups and anti-government organizations. It could save Maria and girls like her the fate of dying on ruptured cocaine pellets that they carry in their stomach. It could save them from being treated like animals (”mule”), whose stomach was cut open so their cargo could be retrieved. Mule’s life was of no consequence. The dehumanization of Maria and her fellow mules was not caused by drug’s own evil-ness directly. It was made possible by the huge profit of drug trade, and its huge profit came from their illegal status. It was made possible because of human being’s own greed.

If government wants to do good to the society, then it could place the choice into everyone’s own hand. Take away the possibility to make people even more greedy than they already are. Don’t tempt them. Trust them.

In Chinese modern history, there was a much revered national hero, General Lin Zexu. Who initiate the fight against the British in 1840’s. He burned all the opium he could gather in a huge public display. His angry words are still recited in today’s Chinese elementary school classrooms, “Opium is evil, it weakened our people, our soldier, our country…” But the fact was, Chinese society was weakened from inside before opium even appeared. The closed society has been quietly rotten away from top to bottom for centuries. There was little outlet for real talent of the society. There wasn’t much progress happeneing for the society as a whole. Corruptions were prevalent. Opium provided an escape. A dying plant happened upon a killer disease. It was easy to blame the disease. Even though General Lin Zexu won his opium war, the final treaty between the British and the Qin Dynasty turned out to be the first of many humiliating treaties to come in China’s Modern History. Burning Opium didn’t help General Lin’s cause. Burning the entire country might. That was exactly what Chairman Mao tried over a century later.

There is a little analogy in gardening. When a flower attracted diseases, it was often because the plant itself was weak and unhealthy, either from lack of water, light, or too much water, etcetera. To prevent disease from happening, you either make the plant strong and healthy, or you try to shut down all disease sources. The latter has proven to be a harder path. Shutting down flow of air would usually cause more problems to the plant. Exposing the plant to the natural elements was usually more healthy for the plant. As long as the plant was healthy, often it could fight off many diseases using its own strength.

海报真是个绝妙的讽刺。天主教仪式中的无酵饼被一颗毒品取代。她为了拯救自己于贫困，于不甘、于落魄，她为了自己假想中的未来，她为了自己未婚先孕的小宝宝能在将来有资本接受良好的教育，不得以铤而走险选择体内贩毒，前往她根本没有去过的美国。
而我们都会相信影片里这个迫于生活迫于无奈的失业弱女子，是怀着善良的心向往着美好的生活的。

因为阿克毛，我想起了这部电影，以及李米的猜想。
最终执行贩运毒品的都只不过是这样的小罗罗。
他们多数迫于贫穷无奈。
真正的boss还不知道藏在哪个深山老林中。

究其根源，是因为经济发展的滞后、资源的失衡。
如果边境地区的人们能和较发达地区享有同样的经济、教育资源，
那也许不至于把生活逼上这条铤而走险的极端。

一方面要打击，
一方面也要建设，
而后者也许是解决问题的关键。

  今天看了《国家的常识》，讲到墨西哥那章，讲到毒品cartel，我就想到Uli当时打工时给我讲到的墨西哥的，和哥伦比亚的毒品交易。今天在中来大寝室搜搜，就想看这部电影。
  哥伦比亚，其实是一个很美丽浪漫的名字，西班牙语虽然让我觉得不如法语好听，优雅，但依然是很有味的语言。平静的小镇，只有剪玫瑰花的工作；而首都波哥大，只让我看到所有大城市的弊病，脏乱差，这可能在发展中国家表现得更明显，或者说，拉美给我的感觉就是这样的。
  看了电影，总是会觉得这个世界上的生活会有这么多不同，当我还在烦恼考英语，继续学习，追求degree的时候，有多少哥伦比亚，墨西哥少男少女在干着毒品的工作，在拉美，很多人就以此为生，不会觉得很惊讶。
  生活是残酷的，如lucy这样的，拉丁裔这么多人生活在美国，似乎也喜欢说西班牙语，让我想到亨廷顿的《我们是谁》，这是一些联想。