"Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from the underdeveloped peoples."
The are some haunting images here, and I mean beyond seeing the victims of bombing and other atrocities. The shanty towns of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) juxtaposed with the country clubs of white people, for example. I also agree with rising up against colonial oppression, using force if necessary, and Frantz Fanon makes compelling, passionate arguments for that as well as reparations for centuries of plundering. But while the broad picture was painted, I was held back from loving this film entirely because it felt a little superficial as a documentary. The giant words put up on the screen while Lauryn Hill read them didn't help. I also felt like it could have given a more complete picture had it been updated to the state of things in 2014, when the documentary was made. Instead, we hear the words Fanon wrote in 1961 set to images from the 1960's through the 1980's.
With that said, there are so many damning moments over the nine segments of the documentary, including:
- The interview with Tonderai Makoni of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in 1970, after he had been imprisoned for five years, where he speaks of institutionalized racism and torture, followed by an interview with a white settler expressing indignance over black people wanting to own cars and houses. He also believes colonists have a better chance in South Africa, where the Native to Colonist ratio is 4 to 1, than in Rhodesia, where it's 34 to 1.
- The interview with Robert Mugabe before he became president of Zimbabwe, who says altruistically that privileges based on color will no longer exist, and society will be integrated. Here I would have been more impressed had the film given us up an update on Mugabe's 37 year corrupt dictatorship that committed its own atrocities.
- In response to workers striking in Liberia in 1966, the Swedish-American mining company LAMCO in cahoots with President William Tubman getting leaders jailed and threatening workers with weapons. The images of Robert Jackson and his family being driven out into the middle of nowhere with all of their possessions after he's been fired for leading the union are devastating.
- The white missionary couple in Tanzania that had been there since 1952 answering questions blithely while black workers toiled away in the background. They state that building the church is more important than building schools or hospitals. They degrade native customs and are like deer in the headlights when asked whether or not the values they preach, like monogamy, are based more in European culture than the Bible. It's clear that they view the natives as having no redeeming values in their customs and beliefs.
- The guerrillas in Mozambique in 1972 who say they asked for liberation from the Portuguese peacefully, but were laughed at and massacred, the planes provided by NATO terrorizing them with napalm. Aside from disturbing images of a girl, crying baby, and nursing mother with limbs blown off, it's clear that the Portuguese committed war crimes by deliberately destroying crops, houses, schools, and hospitals.
- The interview with Amilcar Cabral, pushing for independence in Guinea-Bissau after 500 years of Portuguese subjugation. Here we see Portuguese wounded but there is very little of the context given, before or afterwards, e.g. That Cabral was assassinated, that independence was attained, but that since then the country has been mired in instability and poverty. (Though I'm certainly not pointing this out as a defense of colonialism.)
- The interview with Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, in 1987, when he explained the rejection of food aid from the IMF because it created a "beggar mentality." We are informed that five months later, he was killed in a coup with the aid of France and America, but nothing else of what's happened there over the last four decades.
Sartre had it right, Fanon's text is a justification of violence in reaction to violence, and a requirement to "decolonize" the various nations of Africa. I think in general it's true, as those in power very seldom relinquish it voluntarily. I would have been impressed if the film had addressed the cases where non-violent movements have worked, however, like Gandhi's in India. And as a last note, I have to say, there was absolutely no good reason for the documentary to include the cows being brutally shot from helicopters by the rebels in Angola, with a close up of blood pouring out of one's nose. Overall, it is a compelling window into colonialism and the writing of Frantz Fanon though.
