Last night I saw the movie "Babel," and it was one of those that you had to sit through the whole thing in order to understand what it was all about. For about the first 75% percent of the movie I mostly saw four separate stories (which I figured had to tie-in together by the end) from three different parts of the world. As I was discovering the process of putting the stuff together I realized how it really underscored problems with American perceptions of this time (specifically this decade under the Duuh-ble-U Bush administration).
The first story highlighted a Muslim family in Morocco, and how the two sons were testing out a recently-purchased rifle's shooting distance on a passing bus. I'm guessing they both thought they missed it.
The second story was about a couple young American children who were baby-sat by a foreign guardian of sorts (turns out she was Mexican but I didn't realize that right away). They had gone to a wedding in Mexico (with another guy driving them), and had a little run-in with the border police on the way back that prompted him to strand the woman and children in the desert. This whole episode challenged the whole illegal immigration and deportation issue.
The third story highlighted an American couple on a journey through Morocco on a tour bus. The wife got hit in the neck from a bullet, and the whole search for a potential terrorist was on, thus challenging the whole American vs. Muslim nation relation issues.
The fourth story took me the longest to understand. I was able to connect the first three pretty quickly, but the fourth was set in an Asian country (I later learned it was Japan) where a deaf-mute girl had suffered from her mother's suicide. Even ten (?) years later she was still suffering, and she acted out in several different scenes trying to get attention. Apparently her father had recently sold a rifle to a Moroccan merchant, but I didn't really "get" that until about 4/5 through the movie.
Terrorism and immigration have been two problems that the US government has been trying to "fix" but without any success. I think the greater importance is to understand when and how to judge. I can understand the impulse to prevent an excess of immigration from Mexico (which is undeniably a huge problem), but it's too harsh to send back those who have become legal citizens. It is also understandable to search extensively for anyone who would try to harm tourists in North Africa and the Middle East but at some point we have to realize that sometimes these incidents were purely accidents, and it is not worth it to make an otherwise innocent person undergo torture for some mistake.
"He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly." Luke 1:52
I think Mary's song was also meant for those powerful and lowly in attitude as well as position.
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