Trump and Netanyahu have not seen Panahi
Three weeks ago, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with A simple accident, A film we haven't been able to see here yet, but which has reportedly been described as a plea for "humanity and compassion," something that, fortunately, can be said of most of this great filmmaker's films. It's important to remember that Panahi must shoot his films secretly, as they deeply displease the ayatollahs' regime. You can see some of them on the Filmin platform, such as Tehran Taxi, Three faces or the recent one No bears: all of them have a tone that oscillates between humor, tenderness, and melancholy, somewhere between Moretti, Cassavettes, and Kaurismäki. Other Iranian directors whose films we have seen are good or excellent, such as Asghar Fahradi, Majid Majidi, the sisters Samira and Hana Makhmalbaf, their father Mohsen, or their friend and mentor, Abbas Kiarostami, allow us to get closer to the reality of a country rich in natural resources, a drastic decline in the freedoms and rights of its citizens, as well as a worsening of their living conditions, under the iron fist of an ultra-religious and conservative government. We briefly talk about cinema and leave for another day the extremely important Persian literature, with its 2,500 years of tradition.
It's obvious that the butcher Netanyahu and the tainted Trump haven't seen any of Panahi's films, and if they had, they would hardly understand the delicacy, the often ironic, and certainly compassionate gaze with which he views Tehran and the people who live there. Netanyahu shoulders the dirty work of stopping the Iranian government from launching a nuclear challenge to the rest of the world, but at the same time, he continues his own headlong rush (he must meet the demands of his governing partners, a group of religious fanatics as undesirable as those of the regime, and keep him away from the corruption charges hanging over him), even if it comes, for a change, at the cost of the lives of innocent and defenseless civilians (including the Israeli population, which suffers firsthand the ferocity of Iran's response). As for Trump, the fires he's causing in his domestic politics (including the militarized repression of civil protests) make it clear that he's not in a position to play the role of world policeman traditionally attributed to the U.S.
The liquid world that Bauman anticipated was a world gone mad. That's why another despot, Turkey's Erdogan, may be right when he refers to Netanyahu as a leader comparable to Hitler, whom he hopes will not end up like Hitler, but rather answer for his crimes before an international tribunal before he leaves this world. So may all the criminal rulers who make the world this ugly place.