Pop89: Klaatu Barada Niktu
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
Fans of old black and white B movies will not mistake the title of this column for a typo caused by a cat tiptoeing over my keyboard. They will recall that these are the only three words, three magic words, if you will, that will prevent Gort the robot from destroying planet Earth in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” The original movie was made in 1951, and I watched it for the first time last night at my friend’s insistence. She couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it; it’s a classic, she said. And so timely.
The movie was made at the height of the cold war when threats of nuclear annihilation were on North American’s minds and haunted children’s dreams. At the time, neither the Chinese nor the Muslims were enemy number 1, but every Russian or Russian sympathizer was suspect. Bearing that in mind, one can appreciate the brave stance of director Robert Wise, who made the Space Man, played by tall and elegant Micheal Rennie, the sane man, and the humanoids, the trigger-happy pre-judgers.
The story opens with a classic disk-shaped flying saucer landing in the mall of the United States Capitol. Troops and tanks immediately surround it, and eventually, Klaatu, the only creature aboard (besides his robot assistant Gort), emerges. He promises, in a suave English accent, that he comes in peace. Apparently, these are fighting words because the troops promptly pump him full of lead.
Klaatu came to Earth to warn us that if we want to blow ourselves up, fine, but if we turn our nuclear capacities outward, as a means of trying to control the cosmos, well, let’s just say, a spaces man who can travel 250,000,000 miles at 4,000 mph and make it to Earth in three years probably has more destructive know-how that we would ever want to experience firsthand.
Klaatu manages to get all the scientists of the world together to hear what he has to say by stopping all clocks and mechanical gadgetry planet-wide for exactly one hour. But that just makes him a freak, so the police still hunt him down and shoot him again, and as he lays dying on a DC street, he passes the three magic words on to the only woman who can save him, and in turn, save the planet. Tell Gort, he says: Klaatu barada nikto.
But what do the words mean? It may come as no surprise that there exists such a niche in the publishing world as an Alien Linguistics Editor. Tauna La Marbe, of Fantasy Films magazine, informs us that, freely translated, klaatu barada nikto means: “I die. Repair Me. Do not retaliate.” And so Gort refrains from laser-frying the troops and the crazed citizens of DC and takes Klaatu into his enormous robot arms and, through some nuclear hocus-pocus and clear-headed programming, resurrects Klaatu to his former dapper self.
“I’m dead. Don’t fight each other. Revive me instead.” Provocative words and a language reminiscent of another evolved figure, an odd and gentle man who also came in peace and was tormented for his strange demeanor and passivity. Like Klaatu, his words, from all accounts, were too alien to follow. In fact, throughout history, language has been at the mercy of the hearer. Words continue to get twisted and manipulated, mistranslated and misinterpreted, mostly out of mistrust and fear. Impatience and openness are absent in the face of fear, but intention is everything; sometimes, we intentionally hear wrong, so we can act in our favour or back up our initial fears.
I am thinking of the Cree/Ojibway Chief Big Bear and his words concerning ropes and necks. He would not sign on the dotted line because he did not trust a government who thought it fine to remove people from their own land in exchange for a postage stamp existence on a piece of land of a government’s choosing, the same government, who, pleading only good intentions, did not have a problem with withholding food from those who would not sign. What kind of act of good faith is that?
Big Bear said, no thanks. “I will not be an animal with a rope around my neck.” The Queen’s representative, Lieut-Gov Alexander Morris’ interpreter, translated it so that it came out as: “I will not let you hang me.” Morris was insulted. Imagine being accused of such a thing. Big Bear ended up in Stony Prison, not for a single misinterpretation, but for a string of misapprehended words due to radically different world views. Ultimately, Big Bear was imprisoned for not leaving his land.
Languages, linguists tell us, evolve. They are natural outgrowths of the human urge to connect, communicate, and commune with each other. Invented languages don’t have the same organic propulsion and so often become one more hallmark of one’s special status, a way of setting people apart rather than bringing them together.
I have seen how language is used as jargon, a means of making one’s profession a “members only” club. Jargon may impress your colleagues and even a few people who are forced to listen to recitations of data and theory (until they drift to sleep), assuming “he must really be smart because I don’t understand a word he says.” I remember asking a fellow graduate about her new job. She informed that it had “terminated,” but she was “actively pursuing a feasible alternative to plug into.” Her degree was in communications. Just this morning, my internet was down. My computer informed me to reconnect to “enable page functionality.”
I find it fascinating that there is a Klingon Language Institute, and someone from it has translated Hamlet into Klingon. But what I admire even more is the way some people have of calming fears, uniting others, and breaking tension with a story, a joke, a simple turn of phrase. Folks who put people at ease and who make us feel included may not even speak our language, but they make it known that we are welcome; we are all in this together. Even in times of conflict, they chose not to retaliate, but instead, they revive our weary souls, you betcha.