Essay: Characters Moral Identity in Pre-Determining Moral

Actions in Shooting Dogs

Every man is given the key to the gates of heaven, the same key opens the
gates of hell, a Buddhist proverb that makes the opening scene of Shooting
Dogs, a film directed by Micheal Caton-Jones. Such quote encapsulates the
2005 film, a condensed historical movie that seeks to convey Rwandas 1994
genocide, projecting the events mainly through the eyes of two western
Europeans. The proverb provides a heavy significance to the movie as it
projects the decisions made by the main characters when they were put in a
situation of evil that surrounds their setting. This movie may be the directors
attempt to portray historical events by reconciling part-fictionalised events with
a light documentary style matter-of-fact tone, but through the eyes of
sociology, the film has many underlying themes that either goes back to the
genre or creates a new ground for sociological discussions. The review
wishes to discuss the varied actions taken by the characters, even as they
were in the same situation altogether, each tend to take it their own way. The
chosen theme is the characters moral identity in determining actions they
have taken. Writer aims to explore this theme from the perspective of
sociology, by examining how the movie deals with different moral identities
amongst the so-called protagonists and they evolve throughout the scene.

This essay will compare the battles of moral identities between two main
characters and a supporting character that acts as a control variable for the
comparison. Their names are Joe Connor, Christopher and Capitaine Charles
Delon. Each presents themselves as a western European member, entering
Rwanda as a person of goodwill, giving knowledge, advocating faith and
upholding a mandate to monitor the countrys peace respectively. This
attributes then however gets distorted after the sudden assassination of the
president, and the majority Hutus are blaming the Tutsis massacre ensues.
When the need for moral action to take place, the preserved moral identity
embedded in each character surfaces and as they contemplate on their
actions, writer sees either a little or no shift in their moral identities in doing so.

Drawing upon the first theory, moral identity is defined as the self and an
identity. The self is reflexive, the individual has the ability to respond to itself
as an object, to evaluate itself, to take account of itself and plan accordingly
about future states. (Stets and Carter, 2002.). Taking into the account of the
first character, Joe Connor who is an idealistic yet nave young English
teacher sets his foot in Rwanda to perform an altruistic act and aid someone
elses education life. Joe mentioned to Rachel over a conversation, I had
everything that kid can want. And..its just me trying to say, Thank you I
guess. Trying to make a difference. This proves Sets and Carters notion that
individuals are self-regulating characters whose goal is to validate their
identity, and subconsciously Joe would believe that his moral identity is being
enhanced as his teaching days progressed in Rwanda. Joe also takes the role
as a Male provider or protector, loosely based on the fact that he probably
grew up very close to his mother and being the ideal Western gentleman, a
man must learn to take care and and respect women rightfully. It is depicted
through the phone call scene during a rush hour at the town in Kigali. He said
to his mother, Listen to this. Those are sounds of rush hour in Kigali. I sent
you a package last week I hope your knee is better. Those lines affirm
Joes close-knitted relationship with his mother and his desire to let her know
what is happening at his work place. Altogether with his rushed attempt to
call his mother right after the assassination happened, we can further decide
he grew up in a caring, motherly-role environment. Through it we could see
how he channels his protective concerns mainly towards his Tutsi female
pupil, Marie Motagoma. He offered Marie and her father his room so she
could feel much more comfortable staying at the school even though the
father politely refused so. Joe then proposed an exchange for Maries instead
of his when the French came. The moral identity as developed here, is rooted
in sociology and identity theory (Stryker and Burke 2000). Given the
examples, the focus is not on how knowledge criteria motivate moral action,
but on how the self, which is multifaceted, complex, organized, and is
embedded in the social structure, facilitates the moral conduct. Even so, we
could see a shift in his moral identity when situation starts to get out of control.
As stated before Joe mentioned that he always had everything that a kid
could have and that statement sees Joe as someone who could not validate
his identity by doing something that is beyond his confidence. In this sense,
his level of confidence is not able to make him stay and possible cause him to
lose his life. Being a young person, Joe is probably still constructing his own
sphere of moral identity and risking his life is probably a bit too far fetched. His
life expedition in Rwanda is probably his first; hence he would not go further
than risking life, surely he is still trying to find himself in the society. Being a
foreigner in a contrasting country makes it harder for him to take a leap of
faith and stay. Blumer (1969) asserts that social narratives symbolises youth
as dependents, devoid of pro-social goals, direction and purpose. Symbolic
interactionist theories exude from sociology and social psychology and hold
that individuals seek to explore and confirm a sense of self through
interactions in proximal settings, and that behaviour is acknowledged by self-
conceptions and representations.


The discussion will move from a point to another in comparison to the next
character. Father Christopher is a Catholic priest in charge of the school
called Ecole Technique Officielle, located in Kichukiro, Kigali. As a man
whose duty is to perform sacred rites of the religion, administer religious rites,
and above all advocating the encounter of man between God, Christopher is
bound to settle in a major dilemma as he contemplate on his own faith and
choices. Towards the beginning of Shooting Dogs, a government official paid
a visit to borrow some hurdles, which are lent by Christopher unbeknownst to
him that they are to be used as roadblocks at Interahamwe checkpoints. But
the hostility in the questions thrown at him renders Christopher to spend the
bulk of the film becoming increasingly antagonistic towards the Interahamwe
and increasingly cynical about his own faith in the face of such atrocity. He
was clearly against Capitaine Delons strict mandate-operating rules and tries
to convince him to take action every now and then, but to no avail. Soon
enough, after seeing they couldnt hold and take care any more refugees in
the school, he became quite ambivalent and skeptical over Joes ideas and
attempts to save the Tutsis in hiding. He began to think that it might be a good
idea to just stick to his own job and stop interfering with the troubles that
surround them. It can be underlined by his conversation with Joe, Listen,
theyre doing a really good job outside, organizing themselves, but theyre
gonna need some stuff from us. Fine. Ill see to that after Mass. I am priest in
a catholic country, Joe. This is what I do. Its in the job description. He also
told Joe to pack up his bags, as he couldnt answer Joes question on the
amount of pain a human can take, which tells us his signs of defeat. But it
might be discouraging to quickly make a conclusion on his moral identity, as
his religious stead shifts his identity to another level, or so theories might say.
The relationship between religiosity and morality is complicated and
controversial. According to Walker and Pitts (1998), they did find the moral
traits identified in their study central to what it means to be a highly religious
person (p. 408). Because moral identity is presumed to reflect widely
endorsed moral ideals and principles that may partially overlap with certain
religious values, there might be a way to say that a religious person might
have a stronger moral identity. Before the climax of the scene as Joe jumped
into the truck, he found Christopher standing static amongst the restless Tutsi.
It was his faith that told him to stay. You asked me, Joe, where is God in
everything that is happening in here, in all this suffering? I know exactly
where he is. He is right here with these people, suffering. His love is here
. More intense and profound than I have ever felt. And my heart is here,
Joe. My soul. If I leave I think I may not find it again. This then brings in
Augusto Blasis (1995) suggestion that moral identity is also deeply rooted in
moral commitments that allows cognitive motivation for moral action to spring
from this sense of fidelity to oneself-in-action. He views it as a tendency
toward self-consistency, which is seen as a cognitive motive for objectivity
and truth. From the commitment in the moral identity that is so deeply rooted,
the idea of betraying these commitments is also one way to betray the self.
Compared to Joe, Father Christopher has been in Rwanda for nearly 12 years
(Ive set Mass every Monday with that convent for 12 years..) and it has
clearly enhanced his moral identity and added a level of nuance to this binary
view of agency. His presence in Shooting Dogs indicates that not everyone is
powerless in the face of such trauma, but that heroism bears great costs. As
the UN prepares to leave, however, upon finding a truck left at the ecole he
instructed them to load the truck with Tutsi children and smuggled them out of
the school. Unfortunately, Julius, a medicine shop owner, murders
Christopher at an Interahamwe roadblock as he attempts to buy time for the
children to run into the forest and flee, saving at least one life (Maries).

Moving on to the final character, Capitaine Delon is perhaps the uniquely
paralyzed among the characters in Shooting Dogs and should act as an
interesting control variable to the comparison of latter characters. Unable to
obtain a mandate to use force to intervene from the UN, he is left in the
increasingly absurd position of peacekeeper as he is forced to watch
genocide occur. The only was he could show his disagreement towards the
issue was to kill the stray dogs that have been eating the dead Tutsi bodies.
Unable to force the UN to act, he attempts to prevail upon the French
commander to save Rwandan refugees. When the French commander insists,
I am here for the French! Delon pushes: You are personally responsible for
all these refugees! This exchange highlights the dramatic conflict between
military responsibility and moral imperative. Inevitably, there are orders and
bureaucracies that need to be followed; hence all soldiers are deported
leaving a vast majority of the refugees in the school killed. Erikson (1964)
denotes that being authentic to oneself in how one behaves as another aspect
of identity. This argument implies that people with a strong moral identity
should strive to maintain consistency between conceptions of their moral self
and their actions in the world, as shown by Capitaine Charles Delon. In the
eyes of audience we might see him as a coward, a man without compassion,
but through a sociological perspective, it is just another way of seeing a
persons moral identity as it is, not as moral reasoning or moral thought. It
does not isolate an individual from his or her social context, and sometimes,
moral identity can be tightly bounded by it (Aquino and Reed, 2002).


The definitions of moral identity proposed in accordance to the theme implied
in movie shows that they are deeply linked to a persons self-conception, and
it will turn to be stable over time, unlike Joes. However, this does not mean
that moral identity is a personality characteristic. It can be activated or
suppressed by contextual, situational, or even individual-differences variables,
like other social identities that make up a persons social self-schema. Writer
believes that the stronger is the self-importance of the moral traits that define
a persons moral identity, the more likely it is that this identity will be invoked
across a diverse range of situations and the stronger its relations with moral
cognitions and moral behavior.
AMAL HAZIQAH HASANUDDIN
S130447032 2084 WORDS




References

Aquino, K. and Reed II, A. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity.
Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), p.1423.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism. 1st ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
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Erikson, E. (1964). Insight and responsibility. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton.
Shooting Dogs. (2005). [DVD] Kigali.
Stets, J. and Carter, M. (2006). The moral identity: A principle level identity.
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