BTW the first few minutes are in Spanish narrative, then switches to English, and has text for the deaf.
Mani says:
GOOD NEWS: I just received an Undergraduate Recognition Award for outstanding achievement from Stony Brook University for "Belief" (4/9/10)
read NEW 2010 abstract about "Belief"
Imagine living twenty-nine years of
your life by the word of God. Now
imagine that one day you waited for
your wife to get into the shower and
then left your entire life behind with
only the money in your pocket and the
clothes on your back.
That is only the beginning of the
story behind Emmanuel “Mani” Garcia’s
life. He was born May 28, 1973 almost
immediately into the life of a
Jehovah’s Witness (JW), and on August
1, 2002, he left everything he knew behind:
his friends, his family, his religion,
his culture, his identity.
Then in 2006
he started a research project to delve
into the power of belief and how it can
shape, help or control the people it captivates.
Garcia, an admired student of
Stony Brook University, debuted the
first episode of his miniseries belief
Wednesday, April 14 on campus. Entitled
“Sacred Ground,” he creates the
first of a series of steps to begin a healing
process: a process he likens to the
steps generalized for the LGBT community
on “coming out.”
Garcia takes the audience through
the timeline that led to his eventual departure
from the cult-like religious
group. Garcia’s father was a rebellious
child of the 70s. He heard a knock on
the door one day and decided to accept
Jehovah’s teachings, as told through the
Watchtower Organization (the main
source of information and leadership
for JWs), and this turned his family’s
life upside-down. There was a drastic
move from Chicago to Alamogordo,
New Mexico (during the times of nuclear
bomb tests) and the tragic and
sudden death of a friend were just some
of the events that took place in his early
years as a JW. It is edited almost like a
French auterist film with its quick cuts
and spliced scenes, and then brings the
audience into long takes of interviews
with other former JWs, that would now
be referred to as apostates, or traitors.
Garcia is one of these traitors, but
he found the courage to reach out to
others like himself. He does not condemn
the religion. He is not looking to
expose it. But rather, he is trying to
make something so that others will not
feel so alone. Many of the former JWs
he interviewed would not reveal themselves
on camera, as others had done,
but did communicate with Garcia
through phone calls, e-mails and text
messages. Garcia stressed how important
it was to understand that, just because
they did not show themselves,
these people were still as brave as the
others because they found a way to say
their piece about the religion that was
controlling them.
The mode of communication
though proved insignificant, as it was
the message sent that was most telling.
One that hit particularly hard was from
someone who contemplated suicide because
of the strains and difficulties the
organization imposed on his/her life.
Many said that if someone knew they
were speaking with Garcia they would
be ostracized, basically from their own
lives. The threat of being found out was
extremely serious and could have dire
consequences on those that were speaking
to Garcia against the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
As described by those interviewed,
nobody else but a current or former Jehovah’s
Witness could even possibly
begin to understand the toll the organization
took on them. It encompassed
their whole lives, everything they did,
everyone they knew, and everything
they believed. A JW was essentially shut
up from the entire rest of the world and
sought to preach and teach their use of
the Bible. The idea was that taking up
this practice of the Bible was to sacrifice
yourself completely to God, as Garcia
informed the audience when he presented
Matthew 16:24-25, a verse used
popularly by the Watchtower: If any
man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me. For whosoever will save his life shall
lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for
my sake shall find it.
Garcia’s first episode of his miniseries
proposed finding a “sacred
ground” in order to begin the healing
process. He goes back to the beginning
of his life, to his Spanish roots, he thinks
of the sunset, and he thinks of…Joe Versus
the Volcano. Believe it or not, he referenced
a quote from the movie.
Patricia says, “I wonder where we’ll end
up?” and Joe [Tom Hanks] answers,
“Away from the things of man.” The
miniseries does not necessarily look to
bring the audience “away from the
things of man,” but rather to be aware
of the things that try to seize control
over us.
Mani Garcia heals by reaching out,
and by helping others to start the
process of healing. The scars that belief
leaves do not have to be forever, and
Garcia empowers an audience of any
race, gender, or religion to see that you
do not always have to believe what you
are taught and you are not always alone
when you think you are.
Away From the Things of Man
By Liz Kaempf
