There he is looking out of an advertisement in the pages of the Guardian: James Bond, a public schoolboy with a machine gun in his hands advertising Barclaycard and Aston Martins. Was he once a member of the Bullingdon Club too? Probably. But where can we find an alternative James Bond, the heroic and stylish story of a hard-wearing sophisticated hero of the left?
How about Dale, Dr Dale T McKinley? As a youth he moved to the US from his native Zimbabwe, where he trained at Ranger school, the US equivalent of the SAS. He went on to get a PhD in Politics and while he was studying for it he travelled to El Salvador where he was with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and used his military skills to defend village communities. Back in North Carolina Dale became incensed when he heard the CIA were recruiting at his university. He had seen the CIA's Felix Leiters at work in Central America and hated them. With colleagues he hunted them down and physically threw the recruiting agents off campus. Later, the Ku Klux Klan put out a death warrant on Dale after a demonstration where he and colleagues torched the Confederate flag in the face of the Invisible Knights.
In the 1980s Dale went to Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Kashmir where he was an active observer of the political conflicts taking place in those countries. In the early 90s he went to Mozambique to assist villagers in the countryside who were under constant threat of attack from the bloodthirsty RENAMO, the Magnificent One.
Dale is lithe and well-muscled, his skin has turned nut brown from the African sun. In fact he looks like a very dashing young version of George Galloway. Whenever I see him he has a beautiful woman on each arm; but thinking, independent minded, high achieving women, not Bond bimbos.
Recently when the Zimbabwean immigrants were under attack in South Africa, Dale joined communities gathered in the Anti-Privatisation Forum to to protect them. Together, they rescued the Zimbabweans from rampaging mobs.
Dale's philosophy is rather more inspiring than Bond's:
"We are all human beings. Our main challenge as humans is to overcome and transcend all the various constructed 'identities' (national, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc) that create and sustain conflict/violence, greed/ inequality and artificially divide us. The struggle we must wage is one to universalise our human commonness of basic needs and desires and in the process free ourselves from the bondages of self-constructed economic, social and political/ideological exploitation and oppression. We can change ourselves and all the worlds we live in only if we believe we can."
Now that is my kind of man of Action, no Barclaycard, no machine gun, no tailored City boy suit. Shame about the Aston Martin though.
* * *
Some of the responses on the Guardian Comment is free website were amusing:
SpeedKermit said,
Well, when I called Dale a few months ago, he basically said, "Phil I don't have time to talk we are organising a defence of the immigrants." And he rushed off.
I cut off awkward calls like that all the time - "Can't talk now darling, I'm involved in a high speed pursuit with a Mercedes and the front seat passenger is shooting at us [affects crackling noise indicative of driving through tunnel]"
In one incident Dale and his friends found 400 immigrants inside a town hall with a mob outside. Dale didn't start shooting, he and his friends went to the local police station where the police were lounging around refusing to answer calls for help and they turned them of the station and took them to the scene of the potential tragedy and the people inside the church were saved. There were other incidents.
Hackney has really gone to the dogs hasn't it?
I used to live in Hackney. It wasn't that bad, SpeedKermit.
How about Dale, Dr Dale T McKinley? As a youth he moved to the US from his native Zimbabwe, where he trained at Ranger school, the US equivalent of the SAS. He went on to get a PhD in Politics and while he was studying for it he travelled to El Salvador where he was with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and used his military skills to defend village communities. Back in North Carolina Dale became incensed when he heard the CIA were recruiting at his university. He had seen the CIA's Felix Leiters at work in Central America and hated them. With colleagues he hunted them down and physically threw the recruiting agents off campus. Later, the Ku Klux Klan put out a death warrant on Dale after a demonstration where he and colleagues torched the Confederate flag in the face of the Invisible Knights.
In the 1980s Dale went to Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Kashmir where he was an active observer of the political conflicts taking place in those countries. In the early 90s he went to Mozambique to assist villagers in the countryside who were under constant threat of attack from the bloodthirsty RENAMO, the Magnificent One.
Dale is lithe and well-muscled, his skin has turned nut brown from the African sun. In fact he looks like a very dashing young version of George Galloway. Whenever I see him he has a beautiful woman on each arm; but thinking, independent minded, high achieving women, not Bond bimbos.
Recently when the Zimbabwean immigrants were under attack in South Africa, Dale joined communities gathered in the Anti-Privatisation Forum to to protect them. Together, they rescued the Zimbabweans from rampaging mobs.
Dale's philosophy is rather more inspiring than Bond's:
"We are all human beings. Our main challenge as humans is to overcome and transcend all the various constructed 'identities' (national, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc) that create and sustain conflict/violence, greed/ inequality and artificially divide us. The struggle we must wage is one to universalise our human commonness of basic needs and desires and in the process free ourselves from the bondages of self-constructed economic, social and political/ideological exploitation and oppression. We can change ourselves and all the worlds we live in only if we believe we can."
Now that is my kind of man of Action, no Barclaycard, no machine gun, no tailored City boy suit. Shame about the Aston Martin though.
* * *
Some of the responses on the Guardian Comment is free website were amusing:
SpeedKermit said,
Well, when I called Dale a few months ago, he basically said, "Phil I don't have time to talk we are organising a defence of the immigrants." And he rushed off.
I cut off awkward calls like that all the time - "Can't talk now darling, I'm involved in a high speed pursuit with a Mercedes and the front seat passenger is shooting at us [affects crackling noise indicative of driving through tunnel]"
In one incident Dale and his friends found 400 immigrants inside a town hall with a mob outside. Dale didn't start shooting, he and his friends went to the local police station where the police were lounging around refusing to answer calls for help and they turned them of the station and took them to the scene of the potential tragedy and the people inside the church were saved. There were other incidents.
Hackney has really gone to the dogs hasn't it?
I used to live in Hackney. It wasn't that bad, SpeedKermit.
Hi Mr Hall,
ReplyDeleteI've read your piece in the Gaurdian about a left wing James Bond and found it very thought provoking, especially your account of the life of Dr McKinley. And how about a fantasy story along the lines of Bond but with a different philosophy? Bond and other western 'action' heroes and heroines have an assumption in their story that the world they fight for, the western world of Europe and the US, is a force for good, spreading liberty and civilisation throughout the world. I see it diferantly, in my view the west has ravaged the rest of the planet for the last 500 years and is still doing so, and after looking at your Gaurdian article and your blog I believe you have some sympathy with that idea.
As I'm a fairly creative person a few months ago I decided to create such a fantasy and I'm letting you know of it as I think you'd enjoy it. It doesn't feature a left wing hero but instead of portraying western civilisation as a force for good, as Hollywood does, it depicts it as a perpetrator of global barbarism. And I've tried to write it like a Bond tale, with the features we are familiar with in his adventures. So there is a super villain, a femme fatale, hi-tech gadgets, one line jokes and a high body count.
The plot, in brief, is that medical research in the US has discovered the possibility to make a new and terrifing bio-chemical weapon, but for its development horrific experiments need to done on live human beings. As it is considered unthinkable to do that in the US or its European allies the CIA calls up criminal gangs in South America that it has had a long association with to supply people for this. So I'm trying to subvert the 'action hero' genre.
Opinions of the story from those who've seen it, friends and online readers, vary, but some feel I've got an interesting idea even if it's not brilliantly written! And I don't claim to be a Shakespeare or Dickens, or even an Ian Fleming, but I do think, modestly I hope, that I do have an interesting idea and maybe I'll find someone of more litery talent than I who can help me improve it. And I think you'd find it interesting, so if you'd like to see an alternative to James Bond have a look here,
http://ajon.wordpress.com/
I should add that my knowledge of how to prepare text for an online site is not good! As you will see. But it is readable though you may want to increase the text size.
Should you wish to contact me, and I would be delighted to hear from you, my address is,
jond9815@googlemail.com
Regards John Devalle
Hi @jonabout town. Nice to hear from you. Looks like we are both setting out our literary sails, though we are heading for different places.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of subverting the genre is brilliant. After all all those cool movies about the CIA were, it turns out, partly financed and informed an promoted by the CIA - surprise, surprise.
So they leverage culture, but a lot of it is just shlock really, isn't it.
I think subverting the genre should be like a joke really. It should all come in the punchline. In other words, stick as close as you can to the genre without parodying it and just as the readers are dreaming of sleeping with a beautiful double agent, they switch sides or whatever. It's like the old truth about writing fantasy fiction. You make it as real and ordinary as possible in the beginning and then, believably, slip sideways into a coherant, and somehow believable, fantasy world.
BTW Can I post a link to your blog on mine?