CET OBSCUR OBJET DU DESIR…

Many years ago, I was a devoted fan of French cinema, and most especially the films of French auteur Luis Bunuel. Living in the heady revolutionary locale of Berkeley (CA), it was almost axiomatic that the community’s Northside Cinema would specialize in films of a decidedly leftist nature. The typical Friday PM undergraduate outing usually began with a large pizza, complemented by a pitcher of imported German beer, and it ended with a viewing of whatever masterpiece of French cine noir happened to be playing nearby. 

French film has always had a certain quirky flavor to it that was, if analysed in an unsober, non-academic manner, heavily influenced by a regular Heinz-57 mix of confluent elements that included existentialism, Dadaism, the Bohemian intellectual tradition, and not last or least, elements of social reactionism and the European leftist tradition that so perfectly suited my own People’s Republic of Berzerkley.  

Not infrequently then, Luis Bunuel’s classic productions were featured at our local cinemas, one of the most popular being his famed Un Chien Andalou (1929). Another of Bunuel’s later films, Cet Obscur Objet du Desir ( ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’, made in 1977) was a particular favorite of mine, for aside from the fact that it dealt with a universal nuance of human romantic affairs, it seemed to me at that time to form the nucleus of all gender conflicts and romantic attachments.  

The film deals with an aging, but wealthy Frenchman and an impoverished but sexually ravishing Spanish Flamenco dancer of 18 years whose relationship is characterised by a severely dysfunctional and sometimes even violently interactive association. In present day America, the central premise of an older man pairing off with a vastly younger women is almost inconceivable (e.g. “Euuuuw! Gross!”), given the unhealthy emphasis of American youth culture corporate comerce that dotes obsessively on marketing to the puerile population at the exclusion of nearly all other age groups. Back in earlier decades of European culture, such pairings were a reflection of perfectly normal social attitudes towards life throughout the age spectrum. Intelligent young women who lacked means often had relationships with older, successful men who could provide them with the material comforts and luxury of a bourgeois lifestyle. There was certainly no ageist prejudice extant that excluded those over the age of 50 from having normal sexual needs and desires (like everyone else). 

Sitting here at my desk and reflecting upon all of this (pausing for a moment to remove an unnaturally long Siberian Husky hair that has somehow lodged in the matrix of a Frankensteinian monster of a cookie I am eating) I am struck with how far removed such reflections are from the awareness of most people in contemporary America. As regards Hawaii, cultural nuances of this sort are about as distanced from common thought as the planetoid Pluto is from our sun. Gazing briefly out over the hale’s lanai towards the ocean, it doesn’t take much imagination to put that cultural conundrum into perfectly logical focus, for who could ever think like a Bunuel while watching the Pacific seas heave and roll in through all those beautifully languid coral reefs and littoral protrusions of pyroclastic origin? 

At any rate, the title of Bunuel’s late film is just one aspect of its fascinating component content, for regardless of any geographic anomalies of locale that might preclude intuitive contextual Hawaiian understanding of French cinema, we all know what ‘that obscure object of desire’ is, don’t we? Hawaiian men comprehend it as the figurative and highly elusive allegorical cephalopod (read: ‘squid’) that hides in the figurative tide pools of female life force, instinctively resisting efforts to poke it, but ultimately uncoiling and consuming the invading object with tentacled absorptive strength that could suck the petals off a rose. In Bunuel’s ‘Obscure Object’, the young woman (Conchita) steadfastly refuses to allow her older French paramour (Mathieu) physical access to her own ‘obscure object of desire’, while simultaneously driving him to a frenzy of sexual frustration by encouraging his efforts to do so with a deftly erotic skill that would sorely try the self-control of any normal male. Ho! Mathieu one bodda’d bruddah, garans! Auwe! 

So what, you ask yourself, is my point here? Descriptions of historical French film are all well and good as far as being reflective ruminations are concerned, but does this connect with some larger, philosophical theme...or are these just the rummy old meanderings and disconnected musings of an old kane who fondly recalls his own romantic frustrations of youthful times past and promptly forgets why. The short answer is neither; the long answer follows. Keep your seat belt fastened and don’t get your malo (that's 'underclothing' to you haoles) in a bunch as we progress. 

Today’s Honolulu Advertiser (the on-line version) carried a story about what seems to have been a random attack on an off-duty, plain-clothes police officer by a drug addled ‘chronic’ in the Oahu West Shore (also known as the Lee Shore), since it lies on the leeward side of the island) community of Makaha. 

As the story developed, a 25 year old local kane named Kiha Silva assaulted an off-duty Sheriff’s Deputy named Sgt. Keith Marini at a Makaha 7-11 convenience store, as the latter sat in his unmarked car, having just left the 7-11 store with a cup of coffee purchased a few minutes earlier. According to the HA story, the attack against the deputy was unprovoked and the assailant started punching the deputy without warning through the open driver’s side window of his vehicle. Per the official news release statement, the deputy, who is a 21 year veteran of the department, took some serious blows to his face and head and felt he was on the verge of passing out. At that point (so the report continues), he drew his service pistol out and fired at the assailant several times, hitting him at least once.  

The story continues that the assailant then made off in a white car with three others, but was stopped a short while later and taken into custody. Transferred to a hospital for gunshot wound treatment (and surgery), he appears to have given evidence of being under the influence of substance (likely methamphetamines, of course, given its commonality in such situations) and came out of the anaesthesia in a combative mood, such that several people were required to restrain him. 

Locals who know the Makaha area commented on this story by almost uniformly pointing out that that particular 7-11 store in reference is a dangerous place to be around at all hours of the day or night, since violent attacks and physical violence are almost a daily occurrence there. The area in Makaha is locally known for its hangers-on who are drug users, technically ‘homeless’, and those afflicted with various degrees of mental illness. 

Decades earlier, the Lee Shore of Oahu was a far different place, consisting of small kauhale (communities) of locals who lived a very basic and traditional material life (in an economic sense), but which still maintained strong ‘ohana (family) values and retained some degree of familial integrity. With the discovery of the North Shore and West Shore surfing venues by mainlanders and outsiders in the 50s, and later still with the influx of wealthy mainlanders and investment real estate developers from other areas (Japan included) in the 70s, the chronic joblessness and marginal economic viability of locals worsened markedly. As the drug trade started penetrating the area, most recently with the massive introduction of methamphetamines (particularly in the form of ‘ice’, which is the favored drug of local choice), the concurrent social misfortune of local kauhales simply worsened until today, life in these parts of the island of Oahu can be downright dangerous for those of the wrong color who step beyond their protected enclaves and delineated areas of propriety. 

The misfortunes to be found there, of the type that recently involved Sgt. Marini, are attributable to a number of factors, not least being the resigned attitude of many locals to simply stop fighting their impoverishment and embracing it co-dependently with a sort of Japanese style fatalism (‘shi gata ganai’, as the Japanese saying has it: ‘It simply can’t be helped’). With the economic sustainability of the fringes areas of the Oahu coast being as dire as they are, nothing short of a massive infusion of state funding AND a proportionate effort to resume responsible control of the kauhales will throw off the present status of ragged discohesion and economic chaos that currently obtains in these parts of the island of Oahu. 

Many of these substance-ridden individuals are younger locals who have passed over the fine line between so-called ‘recreational’ substance abuse into full blown addiction and much of it is justified via the usual rationalization mechanisms that victims often employ to explain away their disadvantaged circumstances to themselves. The synergistic interactions between mental illness, extreme poverty, abuse of substance, and other deleterious factors can be and often are extremely hard for all but the most resolute and strong-minded to resist.  In most cases, strong community, family, and state support mechanisms are virtually mandatory if any sort of turn-around is to be reasonably anticipated. 

In the case of 25 year old Kiha Silva, although I am only guessing, the combination of poverty, low social intelligence, and easy availability of methamphetamines is virtually an insurmountable handicap to overcome. The result being, of course, violent acts such as his assault on Officer Marini. Other similar instances of seemingly inexplicable acts of arbitrary violence is the past weeks on the islands have shared these causative circumstances. All have involved younger local male individuals who were strung out on drugs at the time of their criminal assaults upon others. 

While everyone deplores the impact of drugs on contemporary Hawaiian society (at least on the surface), far too many do not react more than reflexively and even then, only in a minimally reactive manner. The larger point that substance abuse MUST be controlled and stopped cold if a turning point is to be reached in the progressive decline of island life, seems to be conveniently lost in the press of daily events and concerns over the larger economic problems being reflected from the mainland.  

Sadly enough, those who are left of center advocate dealing with these severe problems by perpetual enactment of stringent legislative proscriptions (“Let’s pass a law against…”), when in fact ‘legislating’ social behavior has never proven to be an efficacious approach to modify morality in the longer term. What is most needed is cohesive and comprehension consensus within the ‘ohana and kauhales to deal with these problems directly. In Hawaii, this is frustrated by the high degree of marital associations that obtain within the kauhales. When the many members of any local community are mostly all related by marriage, this fact acts against the possibility that that community will willingly and enthusiastically attempt to police its own social offenders, simply due to the fact that no matter how ‘bad’ the individual, no one wants to be responsible for turning in a relative. Sadly, that is exactly what is needed, however, and although the talk of ‘vigilante style’ justice is usually anathema to the more upstanding members of society, that is precisely the sort of cohesive mutual action that would most effectively deal with the problem.

Additionally, if kauhales could look upon LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) as partners in an effort to control socially deviant individuals, rather than as antagonist ‘outside’ intruders, things might well start to change in Hawaiian communities. Sadly, LEOs are often viewed more as an instrument of imposed haole malihini culture (by communities), rather than cooperative partners in community efforts to control crime and anti-social acts. Perhaps as more locals join the LEO ranks of individual police and sheriff’s departments, some measure of change will occur, but communities must recognise and assume the mantle of mutual responsibility to a certain extent before even small changes can take place to offset present levels of social deviance. 

Another point to consider is that the substance abusers themselves are codependent in the process of social disintegration as much as those who supply them. The present extreme social violence in Mexico is largely blamable on users in the United States who underwrite the drug providers, and many overlook the fact that by simply refusing to use substance, the problems with substance associated violence will dramatically disappear. As long as there is a market for illegal substances, the problems will never fully come under control, nor will the associated criminality abate. Thus, the ‘ohana and the kauhale absolutely must act in their own best interests to stem the problem. 

An interesting parallel to this problem may be found in the Vietnam War of the late 50s, 60s, and 70s. During that war, direct military offensives were shown to have far less impact on changing the status quo in terms of getting the South Vietnamese to resist ‘cultivation’ by the North than covert ‘black’ and ‘psy-op’ ("Hearts and minds") efforts carried out from within the communities themselves. Thus, indirect internal attempts to catalyse the South Vietnamese communities through co-optive resistance proved far more beneficial in the long term than the application of massive amounts of outside armed force. Using this model, local kauhales would receive internal support from outside agencies to help them deal with internal problems themselves. If this appears to smack of ‘vigilanteeism’, it is an unfortunate interpretation, since what would be more appropriate would be civilian extensions of the legally designated LEOs.  

In mainland communities, due to the fact that there can never be enough LEOs to address all the criminal activity effectively, a major benefit to law enforcement agencies has been what are termed ‘civilian auxiliaries’ of the sheriff and police departments. In the same manner as ‘Neighborhood Watch’ groups help control criminal activity in mainland residential neighborhoods, these LEO auxiliaries could very realistically help control drug use and violence increasingly associated with it in the greater community. However, before a program of this sort could be effective, a massive infusion of Federal and State money would have to be made available to cover such factors as training, manning, and logistic planning within the community. So far, these funds have either not been forthcoming or the amounts have been token only, and hardly sufficient to the task. 

Given the severe economic effects that are now rippling through the world, like the seismic waves of a sub-oceanic quake, it is unlikely that anywhere near the amount of money needed will be made available in the near future to the State of Hawaii. Thus, the problem we currently have with illegal drugs promises to get far worse before it gets any better. At least on Oahu. On Molokai we still have meth problems of a significant magnitude, but we also have extreme right of center proponents of ‘law and order’ vigilanteeism like the East End’s George Peabody. George is the publisher of the Molokai Advertiser News (MAN) and a strong pro-gun lobby proponent that advocates stringent action against the substance abuse culture, while simultaneously campaigning against Federalism (and its DEA elements). Interestingly, Molokai also has one of the rare Hawaiian gun shops, owned and operated in Kaunakakai by local Mel Chung.  

As for that obscure object of desire alluded to both in Luis Bunuel’s classic 70s cinema, seen within the context of the above problems with violence and substance abuse excesses, it would have to be not what Bunuel insinuated it to be (poke squid wi’ lani wahine, eh!), but the restoration of social, familial, and kauhale harmony within the Hawaiian Islands culture of today. Despite the extraordinary challenges posed by typically culturally diverse interethnic familial ties that so effectively frustrate group action against the drug culture found in the islands, the problem may yet be addressed reasonably. It will, however, take much soul-searching, much less abnegation of familial responsibility by Hawaiians, better external funding support, and a proportionate reestablishment of integrated social and cultural cooperation throughout the ‘new’ Hawaii.  

At least, that is the ‘desired object’ here. Malama pono. Aloha kakou.