By Mike Macleod.

[Mike Macleod is the Scottish Labour Party candidate for the Orkney Constituency in the elections to The Scottish Parliament on Thursday 7 May.]

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a hard sell and an even tougher watch.  There are no heavily-muscled American Superheroes bursting in to rescue everyone at the last minute.  Almost all the action takes place in a contact centre in the Occupied Palestine West Bank.  It shows talented, kind but ordinary people doing their best from a distance to help rescue a small girl trapped many miles away in Gaza.  The girl is in a car with the dead bodies of her relatives, and Israeli tanks very close.

This film has some of the elements of Tragedy in the archaic Greek tradition – the downfall of a noble protagonist through a combination of excessive pride, personal error, fate and divine intervention. 

Is Omar the noble protagonist?  In terms of call-centre status he is the lowest form of human life – he actually takes calls.  But his attitudes are noble and many of the audience would share them – a small girl trapped – Omar will move Heaven and Earth to save her!

A few words now on contact centres, in which I worked for seventeen years.  Firstly, there is the story of the King and the Three Blind Men.  The King orders an elephant to be brought to him, and for the keeper to ensure it stays still.  He then individually instructs three blind men to examine it and tell him what they find.  The first blind man finds a leg and says “It’s a tree!”.  The second finds an ear and claims “It’s a plant!” The third finds the tail and declares “It’s a snake!” 

You understand immediately how difficult it is in a call-centre when you cannot ever see what is happening at the other end of the call.  Also that each of the Three Blind Men (or advisers) diligently gave the King the best advice they possibly could, based on the information available to them.

Instead of touch, contact centre workers have to rely on their ears, their speech and their brains.  In this film, you may notice the lady in the white dress and head-covering, who used effective targeted questions to discover the girl’s true circumstances. 

What do you need to get on in a contact centre?  A good knowledge base, a thorough understanding of what can and cannot be done to help a caller.  Good questioning skills and call control. Attention to detail.  Effective teamwork – including respecting colleagues and procedure – recognising some things cannot be done. 

Empathy is not on this list.   I’ve often heard former colleagues saying how glad they were to leave the job – they could feel themselves becoming hard and insensitive.

Clearly Omar is new to this game.  His emotional outbursts were unhelpful.  His behaviour in snatching the phone from Mahdi, in direct contravention of procedure, was unforgiveable.  This should have prompted the Centre Manager, mean as a rattlesnake at being disturbed, to emerge from their lair and suspend Omar immediately.

Instead let us focus on Mahdi – the true ‘noble protagonist’ in this film.  A middle-aged man with a beard and a belly, he performs a mission-critical function with great skill – negotiating with intermediaries, who in turn negotiate with the Israeli Defence Force to allow a Palestinian ambulance through to rescue wounded in a Gaza warzone.  Mahdi is pivotal to the film, and explains concisely and beautifully at various stages how the negotiation process works.   

Since we’re talking Greek Tragedy here, the Excessive Pride was Omar’s, in believing he knew better than Mahdi. 

Personal Error – this was Mahdi’s, in being too kind to Omar and in not taking him off the case immediately.  But then, misplaced kindness will kill you quicker than a bullet.

Fate – the audience will naturally have an immediate emotional reaction to the small child trapped in a warzone, especially since some of the actual recordings of her voice are used throughout.  But her predicament performs an important dramatic function – once the child’s circumstances are established, the call centre and the Palestinian Ambulance crew must do their best to help her, that is their duty.  The debate rages in the contact centre – to do their duty – but at what cost, and to whom?

Divine Intervention – here the Israeli Defence Force plays the role of the Gods.  They are never seen, but the Palestinians repeatedly talk about them and speculate on what they might do.  From a Palestinian perspective, the Israelis are the malevolent and capricious Greek Gods of antiquity, who thought nothing of imposing terrible punishments on humanity.

The ancient Greeks believed that Tragedy should evoke Fear and Pity, leading to the audience experiencing Catharsis (or emotional purification). Only you can judge if this film provokes such feelings in yourself. 

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Mike Macleod is the Scottish Labour Party candidate for the Orkney Constituency in the elections to The Scottish Parliament on Thursday 7 May.

The other candidates standing for the Orkney Consituency are:

• John William COUPLAND – Reform UK
• Jamie HALCRO JOHNSTON – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
• Robert Fraser LESLIE – Scottish National Party (SNP)
• Liam Scott MCARTHUR – Scottish Liberal Democrats

There is also a vote on 7 May for the Highlands and Islands Regional MSPs.