Battaglia di Algeri [Battle of Algiers] (1966)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.claudiocolombo.net/)

Vibrant, exciting film; a virtual handbook for terrorists; showing why terrorism is such an intractable problem because it is an inherent response to the endemic White supremacism of the Western world's standard approach to the non-White world.

The winners in terrorist struggles - as one would expect - write the most truthful version of events, as here, because their insights into their enemies' failings are the most realistic and, thus, the most useful for defeating them. They have been on the receiving end of abuse and know that the French claims of Liberty, Equality & Fraternity only apply to the light-skinned. This is why colonialists won the Battle of Algiers, but lost the Battle for Algeria.

(Image: http://www.claudiocolombo.net/)

The most amusing aspect of White racism is its fallacious obsession with using skin pigmentation to determine character. Thus, for example, light-skinned bombers get through military checkpoints because only dark-skinned Muslims are being searched; racism being a two-edged sword that can be used against its proponents. Unlike the racist Monty Python joke in their movie Life of Brian (What have the Romans ever done for us?), this movie exposes the lie that White colonialists do any good for those they oppress. The issue is not schools, hospitals, civilization (aqueducts, sanitation, law & order) but self-determination and liberty. Without the latter, the former becomes the meaningless possession of imperialists living in gilded cages.

(Image: http://www.sharingfreelive.net/)

The other issue successfully-explored here is that of indulging ones fear of being killed by terrorists in claiming all members of the feared group are terrorists and should, therefore, be treated as if they actually were all terrorists. This preoccupation with collective punishment is well expressed through a young boy nearly being kicked to death by grown men for the apparent crime of being a Muslim. Inevitably, this approach simply creates the paranoid/schizophrenia typical of bullies, as well as more of the terrorism that such an attitude is meant to curtail.

(Image: http://www.sharingfreelive.net/)

An even-handed movie that treats White colonialists with respect, since to do otherwise would have been both bad drama and prove a lack of insight into the human nature of racists. A movie still as relevant today as it always was because of the superior intellectual and emotional force of its ideas. Easily the best film on terrorism as a positive activity in the world yet made.

Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.