Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

It may only be the 14th of January in 2010, but I think I’ve just seen the best film of the decade. If I see another film that is better than this in the near future, I will be amazed.

‘Mugabe And The White African’ is a documentary following one white farming family as they try to take the Mugabe government to an international court to dispute the legality of the Zimbabwean land-grab programme of the last 10-15 years.

Whilst Mugabe and the farmer never meet face to face, Mugabe’s influence is felt heavily in their everyday life, from intimidation tactics by his war veterans to delaying tactics in court by his lawyers. The documentary uses voiceover excerpts from Mugabe’s speeches over the years to illustrate the sheer power that the man wields in the country.

Shot covertly and under major threat of being discovered, this truly is a harrowing tale of how a country can be absolutely destroyed by the megalomaniac tendencies of just one man.

I’m usually not one for hyperbole when it comes to reviewing and describing films, books, TV shows and the like, but this film is genuinely the best thing I’ve seen in many, many years. I’ve not felt an emotional connection to a film like this before, and I spent at least the whole final third with tears in my eyes and running down my cheeks.

It’s a film about bravery, about stoicism in the face of absolutely soul-crushing hatred, and about being prepared to sacrifice everything in order to fight the good fight. It’s also a film about family, about love and about love for one’s homeland.

Whilst I’ve learnt a lot about Zimbabwe over the last few years from the girlfriend and from getting interested in the subject, this film really did open my eyes to the levels of racism and strife that are being fermented in the country. The racism is something else, and for someone who has grown up in a multi-cultural society and doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, it is horrifying.

It genuinely blows my mind that people can base any kind of decision purely on someone’s skin colour, but Mugabe and his supporters have done just that for over 30 years. The white farmer(s) in the title aren’t old-school colonialists; they’re all born and bred Zimbabweans, trying to work a farm in the country.

They employ and support a community of over 500 people, and it’s the effect on these kinds of people that the land-grab scheme just does not think about. The land is given to some friend of the government, and then left to ruin. Not only are the white family forcibly evicted and basically kicked out of the country, but their employees and their families are left to ruin.

The whole (tiny) cinema was sniffing and crying throughout, with some scenes truly disturbing and heartbreaking, but necessary. It doesn’t pull any punches, but at the same time it doesn’t dwell on the negatives more than it has to.

If it is on anywhere near you, track it down and go see it. Get the DVD, download it, watch it on TV. This is an important film, one which truly displays the lowest lows and highest highs of human nature.

I could go on about this film for many more paragraphs, such an impact has it had on me. I’m still seeing the faces in front of me, hearing their voices and living their story.

This film needs to be seen. It needs a bigger audience and it deserves one.

Man, I could sit here for hours and write about the BNP and its appearance on Question Time tonight, but it’s already 1am, and I’ve probably churned out over 2,000 words on the topic. When I get angry, the words flow

Much appreciated if you bothered to read my ramblings, especially if you disagreed. I’ve tried to put across a coherent train of thought, and I think there aren’t too many internal inconsistencies.

Oh, and for the Yanks, just remember what the dashboard looked like for non-Americans this time last year…

As a result of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, the girlfriend and I had a pretty heated debate about whether or not he should have even been allowed on the programme and given a platform on which to express his racist views to a national, prime-time audience.

She was firmly of the belief that he should never have been given the opportunity to even be on the programme, because he is racist, and because his political party is racist. She said that to be racist is a crime in the United Kingdom, which it isn’t*, but I can see where she is coming from.

I fully disagreed, saying that you have to give a political party a voice, no matter how much you disagree with it. In a modern, liberal, democratic society, the only way to defeat views is to prove them wrong through debate and reason; censorship is not the answer.

To provide a bit of context, the girlfriend grew up in 80s and 90s Zimbabwe, as a white person, and so has experienced racism against herself personally. This doesn’t mean that she is automatically prejudiced against non-whites (far from it, I couldn’t imagine a more inclusive person than her), but she knows how it is to see racism up close and personal.

I think this was her driving force behind stating that racists of the BNP ilk should be neither seen nor heard in mainstream political coverage, no matter how many actual votes they garner. To be racist, in her view, is to forgo such political niceties as equal coverage with normal parties, and in fact it is to forgo coverage altogether.

My view is that you cannot deny a voice to these people, no matter how foul we find their opinions, especially when nearly a million people have voted for them in the last round of elections. It doesn’t matter that they are racist, communist, fascist, liberal or illiberal, they must be allowed to be heard.

I said that we can defeat these opinions by proving their falsehood, whereas the girlfriend believes that by giving them a platform their message is going to be heard further and wider. I can understand that, but at the same time it is also clear that the BNP is able to defeat itself by its appearances on this kind of programme.

We don’t need to censor the BNP when it does a perfectly good job of hoisting itself by its own petard.

Both of us became pretty heated in voicing the opinions and reasons behind our viewpoints, and I think we both came out of it appreciating why the other felt the way they did. I really enjoy having political debates, but it takes some kind of extremity/extremist to get me thoroughly worked up and giving my opinions room to breathe.

• It’s a crime to incite violence based on race, and racial motives are an aggravating factor in any crime when it comes to sentencing, but to be racist or spout racist views is not a crime.

The girlfriend and I got back home just after the start of Question Time tonight, but sat on the sofa absolutely enraptured by the political theatre taking place. Nick Griffin of the BNP was digging himself ever deeper holes whenever he was actually allowed to speak, and I was impressed by the sheer venom of the audience whenever they were given an opportunity to directly address him.

It makes my heart sing to realise that the vast, vast majority of the British public is vehemently opposed to the racist, scaremongering and patently false policies which the BNP promotes, and can see through the paper-thin veneer over the inherent racism beneath.

Griffin managed to diminish whatever credibility he had prior to the programme by his sheer lack of ability to provide any backing whatsoever for his theories and policies. He failed completely in his attempt to convince the voting public that the BNP is a viable political party.

Of course the BNP has its supporters, just as the Communist and Monster Raving Loony parties do. This doesn’t make them right. I just hope that a few people who previously voted for the BNP will realise next May that they have been wrong and vote for someone whose policies are more in tune with the general public.

A couple of other opinions on the BNP’s performance on Question Time tonight:

• Good on the BBC for taking this on, I reckon. Griffin is, unfortunately, a “politician” (read: racist), and if we are to stick by our freedom of speech and expression that democracy holds so dear, then an opportunity to appear on Question Time is what Griffin should have. jessie-estella

• He is a class A prick but let the fucker speak. If we didn’t have to freedom to speak, we’d all be fucked. pensivebaboo

• When Nick Griffin comments on Jan Moir, Twitter might turn inside out. @jonswaine

• I really wish he’d learn a bit about early human migration before saying ‘indigenous’ Brits. @brilliantology

• I want to hurt Nick Griffin. @kapi

• Definition of mixed feelings: The Mail is attacked for telling lies. By Nick Griffin. @badjournalism

• Watching Caddyshack. @kapi

To be fair to Nick Griffin, in the ten minutes I’ve been watching he has taken an absolute hammering from the audience and other panel members without being allowed a response.

I genuinely want to hear what he has to say, because I expect that the content which will come out of his mouth will show him (and his party) to be the racist to that they truly are.

To deny the BNP its ability to speak is so much worse than letting them speak and trying to promote their ideals. If you look at any evidence whatsoever, their points are rendered false.

We don’t need to deny them the platform to state their opinions. We need to defeat them through reasoned arguments.

In a bit of a random coincidence, I’ve seen two African productions this week. One in the cinema, District 9, and the other on stage, Zambezi Express. Whilst both being African in origin, they couldn’t be further apart…

I thought District 9 was a tremendous film, particularly in the execution of the visuals and audio. It’s a pretty obvious, yet still powerful, allegory of apartheid in South Africa, but instead of a clash between blacks and whites, the subjugated party in the film is a society of alien refugees who arrived in Johannesburg 20 years ago.

The plot revolves around attempts to move them from their cordoned off slum on the outskirts of Johannesburg to a new [concentration] camp 200km away, but quickly moves off on a tangent and follows the new path for the rest of the film. It’s a satisfying plot, but anyone who’s seen a few thrillers and action films won’t be thrown off by any unexpected twists.

All of the human actors are South African, and you get used to the accent within minutes. The main character in particular has a very strong accent, and his pronunciation of “fuck” as “fook” is amusing the first time, but you barely notice it by the end.

The aliens are a revelation, both in CGI and animatronic forms. Their movement is a joy to watch, and even in the jerky, documentary-style camerawork you struggle to find any false moments or totally unrealistic images. Up close, they’re equally impressive, although the filmmakers have relied upon scraps of clothing and symbols to really make each one stand out from the crowd.

The alien speech is subtitled, although the humans in the film can understand them. I’d love to believe that their language is consistent throughout, and that certain geeks are already putting together a dictionary for it, like Klingon or Elfish.

It’s a very beautifully shot film, somehow making the slums of Johannesburg look quite beautiful. Heavy use of sunrise and sunset shots helped that out, along with the aforementioned mockumentary camerawork.

The film strikes me as being a little unsure as to whether it wants to be a strong political satire, an action gunfest, or just a commentary on apartheid as a whole. It does all three, without really excelling at one or the other.

I’d recommend seeing it, if only to see just how far Peter Jackson’s Weta special effects company have come since Gollum in LOTR. The integration of the aliens in their surroundings is truly remarkable.

Tonight, however, I was at Hammersmith Riverside Studios to see Zambezi Express, a musical performed by a dance troupe from Zimbabwe.

Admittedly, the plot was paper-thin and could be summed up in less than a tweet, but it wasn’t really about that anyway. It was about the music, the dancing, the singing, the sheer energy of it all.

As the strapline on the programme cover puts it, this is “the happiest show on Earth”. Yes, that’s a little Disney-esque, but it’s more from pure enthusiasm than any really cynical marketing ploy.

The singing and acting was in three languages, pretty much randomly dropping in and out of each one as they went. Obviously, I only understood the English bit, but the girlfriend speaks some Shona, and could tell that the other was Ndebele. Apparently the lyrics and words were the same across all three anyway, and to be honest the plot barely needed any real explanation vocally of what was going on.

The passion of the music and dancing were what hooked me though. It was relentlessly upbeat and fast, with groups of dancers coming off and on stage constantly. It struck me that African dancing (or at least dancing of this kind) is very highly charged, sexually. They really don’t mess around when it comes to thrusting hips, bums, chests, groins or anything that can be thrust.

It was a really enjoyable evening, and a high-class production. You can tell that it’s a dance/performance troupe doing a play, rather than a cast assembled for a musical, but that doesn’t detract from the impact and cultural experience of it all.