John Rhys-Davies: Hollywood is a very tribal culture
Sallah, “best digger in Egypt” from Indiana Jones movies, is the last great Arab hero in Western movies, says John Rhys Davies, aka Gimli, aka Treebeard, aka Michael Malone — to quote just a few of dozens of his roles over the span of more than 50 years of acting. He was born in Africa, considers himself a humanist, but definitely does not fit today’s progressive narrative.
In Return to the Hiding Place, you played a Jewish cantor whom Christians hid from Nazis during World War II. “Modern attempts at philosophical elasticity are allowing anti-Semitism to reassert itself,” you responded. “That was the devil we really thought we had beaten.” I was intrigued by the word philosophical elasticity…
Second World War is the last Great War we had, where we were really successful. Nazism was destroyed and the whole philosophy of Nazism too. And that is a great moral victory for humanity and civilisation. The old devil will always reappear… hold on, I have to be very careful here…
Don’t worry, I am not BBC.
If you were, I wouldn’t be having this conversation… they would just take out the world here and there… and publish a mess.
Cool. So about the “philosophical elasticity”
Western European civilisation is Judeo-Christian concept. I was christened a protestant, and I can’t myself model a sceptic, but I find myself defending our civilisation. And some of the best inventions of our civilisation, for instance the right of free speech, the individual conscience, really comes from 2nd century Christians, who were saying to themselves: I don’t care whether the emperor is going to fall.
The keyword here might be dedication.
The Jews were always certain, that their faith kept them apart from the Gentiles, and they were prepared to die for it. Masada is the great image of that sort of unpolitical resistance against the Romans. The Romans were the thousand year Reich. They really were tough, mean, and purposeful: you got in line, or you got eliminated. The things that have come from this tradition, a Judaeo-Christian tradition, are for example the right of free speech, democracy, right of free assembly.
These are part of glorious things that make our civilisation remarkable. One of the great achievements of Western civilisation was the abolition of slavery. It’s a manifestation of great moral principles that are rooted in Torah during its evolution. The Pharisaic tradition is really Talmudic tradition. And it’s wonderful. There’s nothing original really in Jesus’s teachings, that hasn’t already been taught before. Except that extraordinary and somewhat blasphemous thing, that no one comes to the Father except through me. This is a deep and profound heresy in Judaism.
You said that we are going to lose western European civilisation. That civilisation was once a strong alliance of nations, yet now the United Kingdom has dropped off. And you were loud supporter of that separation…
There are good arguments on either side. My personal conviction was that EU, the operators of the EU, is too intolerant, too inflexible, too top-down governed rather than bottom-up governed, and is incapable of dealing with the problems we are going to be facing in the next 50 years.
What problems are they?
We have three major challenges. One: the rate of increase of income per capita is slowing down.
Obviously. The production rate doesn’t increase as steeply as birth rate.
Between 400 AD and 1300 AD, there is no increase in income per capita in Europe. Between 1300 and 1700, income per capita doubles. It’s only in that transformative period between 1870 and 1970, that suddenly every 3 out of 4 people think “things are getting better”, and that within 10 years, they will be doing better that their dads ever did. And that peaked in 1970 and it’s regressing back since. Now imagine the psychological effect of the situation, when people realize, that at the end of the decade or the end of their lifetimes, things are not going to be that much better. That will have very profound effect, very pessimistic effect.
Ok what is the other issue?
Robotics and artificial intelligence. 14 years from now, at 2034, it is expected, that 20–50% of jobs will be taken by that. So you have pessimism, and suddenly you have people competing for jobs. And the third factor is the migration from Africa. Population of Africa is 1.2 billion. In 30 years, it’s 2.5 billion. 50 years after that, its 4.5 billion. It doubles and almost doubles again.
I grew up in Africa, I know Africa, I know the mess that is Africa, I love Africa and I love Africans. But I cannot imagine any economic system at all, that can provide those people with anything other than subsistent standard of living. They will have to migrate. And the impact of that migration will be anything like we’ve seen in history. And because there’s a racial and cultural component to it. In Europe, you are going to find people, who were living in one of the best places in the world, now struggling to survive, because they will be looking to any jobs and coming up against new migrants, who are competing for those jobs. This is a recipe for disaster. We have to come to terms with it.
How?
None of us wants to be racist. But at the same time, 45% of Latin America would like to live in United States. We got to make up our minds. Are borders to be absolutely invisible and people just walk through or not? Because the effect of that on United States is utterly change the nature of the United States. And on a scale like that, the constitution, which is basically the bill of rights, which has evolved from Magna Carta and all that way back, may not stand up.
I still think there’s a hope.
Of course you are right in saying there is a hope. If we have the will and the tolerance.
Most people here at the festival think of you as of Gimli, but for me, you will forever be Sallah from Indiana Jones movies.
Sallah — the best digger in Egypt!
Do you think we will see you in the fifth instalment of the saga?
They said there is, but will Sallah be in it? I don’t know. I suspect not…
Why?
Hollywood is a very tribal culture. As far as temporary culture is concerned, Sallah is the last great Arab hero in Western movies. Reliable, fun, powerful…
For me, Sallah is a unique example of cooperation between different cultures. Like Gimli. Like yourself. But hey… last question — you are very active, have 13 films in production phase…
And I’m also trying to build a film studio on Isle of Man, to do some movies that I’ve written myself!
People sometimes find your non-conformal opinions and attitudes offensive. Are you really like that?
It’s not my job to offend people. When talking to audiences in past few years, I look at them, and they appreciate same things like I used to appreciate when I was the student: the right of the free speech, the rights of the equality of women, the right of freedom within the law. I can’t count on these things if for instance there are number of Arab students there, because they do not believe women should have equal rights. I cannot count on them by the Chinese, who talk about democracy with the Chinese, but it’s in fact a different thing. So I have to try to find something we have in common — we all basically have.
What do we two have in common — besides the love for movies?
What you and I have in common, is that 18.000 years ago, just as the ice was beginning to retreat, our ancestors, who had a culture, that they carved out of wood and leather, they had brains 10% bigger than ours. They may actually represent human beings at their most intelligence. And they survived in a world, where everything they hunted was bigger, stronger and faster than them. But the advantage they have was the grey matter between their ears. And perhaps one of the things we ought to do is ancestors respect. Because you and I are related. Many, many times related. Anyone, who lives in Europe, by the time you get back to the Greeks, is multiply related. And perhaps that’s the key position to go back and say „we may have different labels, but at heart, we are cousins. And maybe the family should get more together.
