Connecting to the Future
Bombers, Self-representation, and Meaning
In recent years I have come to realize that students need more help understanding the violence they see on television news and read about in short online articles. September 11, the renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and two wars involving Americans necessitate understanding and explanation. Yet the general public receives very little of this in the media beyond troop levels and casualty reports. This lack of information is aided by a centuries old trope that the Middle East is unknowable, mysterious, and chaotic. Without trying to justify or relativize violence, I think it is important to provide students an opportunity to incorporate these events into a system of meaning. Others argue that this is a false goal, and a dangerous one at that. Many Holocaust studies, for example, adopt the viewpoint that such an act cannot be rationalized and is eternally unknowable. It is my opinion that this treatment of traumatic events submits us to a compulsion to relive and repeat. Some see this as a good thing and use it for political purposes, (for a recent example of this see Glen Beck’s 912 project). I see it as an impediment to human development. For a historical example of trauma in national politics, see Henry Rousso’s, “Vichy Syndrome”. Part of my philosophy of teaching is to empower students to create their own meanings. With this aim in mind, I believe it is important to confront these “unknowables” in the classroom, and help students confidently confront violence in their world.
For this project I chose two films that depict the perpetrators of bombings. One, “The Battle of Algiers”(1966) depicts the National Liberation Front’s (FLN) disastrous campaign in 1957 to intimidate the European residents of Algiers. The other is “Paradise Now”(2005), a representation of suicide bombers in the Israeli-Palestinian war. The Algerian War of Independence (1954-192) was a watershed moment in decolonization as well as a conflict that saw a dramatic change in warfare. The model of the Algerian War is a model that has been repeated around the world, but most notably in Palestine. These films do not represent the same event, nor are they “Hollywood” films, but they both treat similar styles of conflict and both are narrative “fiction”. Furthermore they both approach the subject from the point of view of the perpetrators of bombing attacks. The aspect I have chosen to focus on in my comparison these two films is the psychology of the bomber, and by association, the colonized individual.
“The Battle of Algiers” depicts the moment in the Algerian War when the FLN decided upon an urban bombing strategy intended to demoralize the French civilian population. Successful at first, the turning point of this campaign was an intervention by the Foreign Legion’s hardened Paratrooper Division. This intervention successfully broke the FLN network by extensive and systematic use of torture. While the “Battle of Algiers” was won by the French, the methods employed turned the French public against the war, and led to public pressure on de Gaulle, to let Algeria go. (for a thorough account of the War, I recommend Alistair Horne’s “A Savage War of Peace”(1977). The book experienced a sort of renaissance after Henry Kissinger reportedly sent a copy to George Bush with the passages on torture highlighted).
While I thought about pairing a scene depicting torture with a scene from “Rendition”(2007), instead, I used a scene depicting three female bombers changing their appearance to pass the French checkpoints enclosing the Casbah. This “change” is famously described by Frantz Fanon in “Algeria Unveiled” (linked at the bottom of this post). For Fanon this change in appearance represented a liberation from the symbolic order of the colonizer as well as a revolutionary transformation of the Algerian people. In this clip we see three women discarding their traditional garb for modern European clothing and makeup. They use these disguises to pass unnoticed by the checkpoint guards and place their bombs before leaving.
A similar scene exists in “Paradise Now” where the protagonists Khalid and Said have their haircut, shave and don suits to pass as Israelis, but I chose a different scene. For one, I think the “Paradise Now” scene is probably drawn from the “Battle of Algiers”, but more importantly, I think the scene I chose is more telling of the bomber’s psychology. In this clip, Said discloses his motives for becoming a bomber. He is secretly the child of a collaborator who was executed by the Palestinians for treason. His decision to become a bomber is a result of the shame he has lived with since a boy. I found this moment revealing of another dimension of colonization, the mental burden of living with shame of your family and of yourself. A reading that could be paired with this clip is Albert Memmi’s “The Colonizer and The Colonized.”
Both films show violence as an act of control over oneself and one’s image. The Algerians subvert the French stereotypes and use them for advantage. In so doing they gain control over their individuality and assert a new identity. “Paradise Now” also depicts a battle over image and representation. In the clip I selected, Said and Suha visit a store where memorial tapes of martyrs are sold alongside tapes recording executions of collaborators, the price, the shopkeeper states to his chagrin is the same, even if the tapes of collaborators are more popular. His reason is that his cahier system can’t be changed. Said’s motive is to change his self image from collaborator to martyr. I believe the film is making a statement that both the image of martyr and of collaborator are part of the same representational currency that is difficult to change Fanon saw the Algerian War as a radical departure, a truly revolutionary moment, that changed the symbolic order while Memmi’s later work, “Decolonization and the Decolonized” argues that this representational currency can not be shaken off, and must be accepted and manipulated. “Paradise Now” takes a bleaker perspective, more inline with Memmi’s later thinking, depicting Palestinians as trapped in a their representations.
Of course talking about violence in terms of representation and self-image doesn’t convey the horror and revulsion that should be associated with these acts. Nor does it inculcate any sense of sympathy for the victims of such attacks. Nonetheless, I think giving students a starting point from which to begin to consider and cope with violent acts is a task that calls for removing some of the emotion from the equation.
Link to Fanon article:
http://home.comcast.net/~platypus1848/fanonfrantz_algeriaunveiled19...
For this project I chose two films that depict the perpetrators of bombings. One, “The Battle of Algiers”(1966) depicts the National Liberation Front’s (FLN) disastrous campaign in 1957 to intimidate the European residents of Algiers. The other is “Paradise Now”(2005), a representation of suicide bombers in the Israeli-Palestinian war. The Algerian War of Independence (1954-192) was a watershed moment in decolonization as well as a conflict that saw a dramatic change in warfare. The model of the Algerian War is a model that has been repeated around the world, but most notably in Palestine. These films do not represent the same event, nor are they “Hollywood” films, but they both treat similar styles of conflict and both are narrative “fiction”. Furthermore they both approach the subject from the point of view of the perpetrators of bombing attacks. The aspect I have chosen to focus on in my comparison these two films is the psychology of the bomber, and by association, the colonized individual.
“The Battle of Algiers” depicts the moment in the Algerian War when the FLN decided upon an urban bombing strategy intended to demoralize the French civilian population. Successful at first, the turning point of this campaign was an intervention by the Foreign Legion’s hardened Paratrooper Division. This intervention successfully broke the FLN network by extensive and systematic use of torture. While the “Battle of Algiers” was won by the French, the methods employed turned the French public against the war, and led to public pressure on de Gaulle, to let Algeria go. (for a thorough account of the War, I recommend Alistair Horne’s “A Savage War of Peace”(1977). The book experienced a sort of renaissance after Henry Kissinger reportedly sent a copy to George Bush with the passages on torture highlighted).
While I thought about pairing a scene depicting torture with a scene from “Rendition”(2007), instead, I used a scene depicting three female bombers changing their appearance to pass the French checkpoints enclosing the Casbah. This “change” is famously described by Frantz Fanon in “Algeria Unveiled” (linked at the bottom of this post). For Fanon this change in appearance represented a liberation from the symbolic order of the colonizer as well as a revolutionary transformation of the Algerian people. In this clip we see three women discarding their traditional garb for modern European clothing and makeup. They use these disguises to pass unnoticed by the checkpoint guards and place their bombs before leaving.
A similar scene exists in “Paradise Now” where the protagonists Khalid and Said have their haircut, shave and don suits to pass as Israelis, but I chose a different scene. For one, I think the “Paradise Now” scene is probably drawn from the “Battle of Algiers”, but more importantly, I think the scene I chose is more telling of the bomber’s psychology. In this clip, Said discloses his motives for becoming a bomber. He is secretly the child of a collaborator who was executed by the Palestinians for treason. His decision to become a bomber is a result of the shame he has lived with since a boy. I found this moment revealing of another dimension of colonization, the mental burden of living with shame of your family and of yourself. A reading that could be paired with this clip is Albert Memmi’s “The Colonizer and The Colonized.”
Both films show violence as an act of control over oneself and one’s image. The Algerians subvert the French stereotypes and use them for advantage. In so doing they gain control over their individuality and assert a new identity. “Paradise Now” also depicts a battle over image and representation. In the clip I selected, Said and Suha visit a store where memorial tapes of martyrs are sold alongside tapes recording executions of collaborators, the price, the shopkeeper states to his chagrin is the same, even if the tapes of collaborators are more popular. His reason is that his cahier system can’t be changed. Said’s motive is to change his self image from collaborator to martyr. I believe the film is making a statement that both the image of martyr and of collaborator are part of the same representational currency that is difficult to change Fanon saw the Algerian War as a radical departure, a truly revolutionary moment, that changed the symbolic order while Memmi’s later work, “Decolonization and the Decolonized” argues that this representational currency can not be shaken off, and must be accepted and manipulated. “Paradise Now” takes a bleaker perspective, more inline with Memmi’s later thinking, depicting Palestinians as trapped in a their representations.
Of course talking about violence in terms of representation and self-image doesn’t convey the horror and revulsion that should be associated with these acts. Nor does it inculcate any sense of sympathy for the victims of such attacks. Nonetheless, I think giving students a starting point from which to begin to consider and cope with violent acts is a task that calls for removing some of the emotion from the equation.
Link to Fanon article:
http://home.comcast.net/~platypus1848/fanonfrantz_algeriaunveiled19...
Comment
-
Comment by Aaron Munz on November 2, 2009 at 5:53pm - The two films you chose take the perspective of the oppressed or marginalized population. This is a departure from most Hollywood films which represent the heroes point of view for an American audience. We love an underdog story as any film about the American Revolution represents - Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" comes to mind - but it is still the story of overcoming oppression, not of "terrorism". The revolutionaries actions are justified because they are in the name of "freedom". By using the "Battle of Algiers" and "Paradise Now" you can teach students to depart from a ethnocentric American point of view.
-
Comment by Cliff Haley on November 2, 2009 at 5:09pm - Ok, fixed for the moment. This version starts slightly earlier in the film.
-
Comment by Cliff Haley on November 2, 2009 at 3:29pm
- Well, sorry all, my clip from the battle of Algiers was taken down by the copyright enforcement police. I'll try and find another one.
About
© 2009 Created by Bethany Smith on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of NCSU College of Ed to add comments!
Join this Ning Network