Decolonization In The Battle Of Algiers

1322 Words3 Pages

The time is 5:44 pm. The setting is in a restaurant. Here you will see the faces of many people whose fate has been sealed for them. Some seems happy, some seems confused, while some seems sad. A happy bartender is talking and enjoying the accompanies of his customers, a lovely couple having a nice conversation with each other, and there is a little boy enjoying his ice cream. Everyone is enjoying that moment of their not knowing what is about to happen to them. It is now 5:45 pm, a minute has gone by. A bomb has just gone off in the restaurant, and everyone is dead. This is one of the first bombings the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria has prepared for their French settlers. Death is the price of colonization and decolonization. The aforementioned scenario is a scene from the movie The Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The Battle of Algiers is a film that depicts the violence of colonialism and decolonization in French Algeria. The Wretched of the Earth is a book written by Frantz Fanon that depicts the same violence. In both sources,
Then, when faced with the possibility of a revolt or decolonization, the colonist will bring out their reason of colonization - to improve the condition of the colonized land and the colonized people. The colonists reason that if they leave the country, it will go back to the Dark Age (Fanon, 15).
The beginning of colonization also marks the beginning of decolonization. From the day the colonists start exploiting the colonized people and belittling the colonized people for the colonists' self-aggrandizement, the colonized ones have been prepared to use violence at any moment to end the colonists' exploitation (Fanon, 3).Decolonization is violent, there is a necessity for violence. This is a point that is repeated again and again throughout The Battle of Algiers and The Wretched of the Earth. Here, the focus will be on The Battle of Algiers to discuss the violence of

Show More
Related

  • The Guilt They Carried in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

    1414 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.

    Read More

  • The Themes Of Humanity In Algiers By Azem And Bewain

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slave narratives are comprised of stories regarding individuals toiling to escape systemised slavery. This is relevant to American history because it reinforces the themes of liberation politics in American literature. The idea that America was founded on the principle of all men being created equal was once again under scrutiny. Humanity in Algiers is a fictional account that adds to this criticism through the eyes of the white American Slave. The novella retains many of the tropes and ideas of quintessential slave narratives such as The Life of Frederick Douglas and establishes itself as a story of slavery. However, the approach to liberation in Humanity in Algiers is gradualism and acceptance. Consequently, the novella looses the overall point of the slave narrative contributes to a study of core humanities.

    Read More

  • De Gaulle and the Achievement of Independence in Algeria

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    De Gaulle and the Achievement of Independence in Algeria Algeria underwent a long struggle to gain independence from France. Its people had seemed to be happy with the colonisation of its country until France was occupied by Germany in the Second World War. This defeat along with others in Vietnam and other colonies proved to the Algerians that France was not the superpower they had once believed it was, and nationalist feelings began to grow. As the nationalist movement grew it became known as the FLN. At first its support was very small, many Algerians cautious of the extremists, they were happy with the peace that they lived with although they were exploited, not many complained.

    Read More

  • de Gaulle and the Granting of Independence to Algeria

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    de Gaulle and the Granting of Independence to Algeria Charles de Gaulle played a vital role in the decolonisation of Algeria. There were a number of factors that lead up to independence of Algeria for example the FLN. The FLN were the foundation of the nationalist movement, after seeing France occupied by Germany in the Second World War the Algerians realised that the French were not unbeatable, and set about to over throw the French and reclaim their country, which was occupied by both colons and the French army. In order to try and gain independence the FLN resorted to terrorism starting in 1954, attacking European settlements, their tactics were responded to with a massive show of force by the French Army. They had previously been defeated in Indo-China in 1940, Vietnam in 1954 and the Suez in 1956.

    Read More

  • Decolonization, Nationalism, Imagining and Representing Communities: A review of Post-Colonial Literature

    1294 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the course of Colonization, the world was divided into binary categories of the colonizer and colonized. These binary groups were based on a division of class, gender, race, ethnicity and the oppression of cultural traditions. Traditions of language, religion, labor, and social values were based on theologies of the colonizers, enforced upon the colonized. These binaries can be associated with the Manichean binaries discussed by Frantz Fanon in his book entitled The Wretched of the Earth. In Post-Coloniality, societies gain independence either through diplomatic political transitions or violent revolutions against the occupying force. Regardless of how independence is achieved, these societies undergo a multitude of socio-cultural changes. The colonized populations struggle to rebuild their communities, individual identities and national identities. The process of this decolonization is a long-term and strenuous procedure that varies from one culture to the next. Periods of colonial oppression have negative repercussions on social structures and prohibit certain cultural growth. It is the nationalism that bonds individuals together in creating a national identity, rebuilding the state while imagining the community and representing it in the traditional cultural affiliations of the indigenous populations.

    Read More

  • Samuel Dubois And The Haitian Revolution

    1510 Words  | 4 Pages

    “the Haitian Revolution forever transformed the world. It was a central part of the destruction of slavery in the Americas, and therefore a crucial moment in the history of democracy, one that laid the foundation for the continuing struggles for human rights everywhere. In this sense we are all descendants of the Haitian Revolution, and responsible to these ancestors.” (Dubois,

    Read More

  • The Colonies of Culture:The Postcolonial Self in Latin America and Africa

    2368 Words  | 5 Pages

    Postcolonial power is a hidden monster, it still do this day dominates the economies and pyschologies of Latin America and Africa. This has led to violence, both guerilla and dictator violence, and this violence is an unforgettable part of the past of African and Latin American culture.

    Read More

  • Colonialism In The Haitian Revolution

    1628 Words  | 4 Pages

    French occupation of Haiti began in the mid seventeenth century. For the next century and a half, the people of Haiti were forced to abandon their livelihoods and instead take up residence on namely sugar, indigo or cacao plantations in order to generate exports for the French market. Conditions on these plantations were often so cruel and oppressive that the common cause of death was exhaustion. No longer able to yield to the terms of their exploitation, Haitians participated in a string of slave revolts, the most prominent of which was led by Toussaint Louverture from 1791, which paved the road for Haitian emancipation. This essay will advance the idea that colonialism has impeded the political stability of Haiti during the nineteenth century, particularly from when Haiti formally declared independence in 1804. It will cover how issues such as; despotism, conflicting economic institutions, the militarization of the political system and racial supremacy, have negatively affected nineteenth century Haitian politics. Moreover, it will also elaborate on how these issues are, in effect, actually insidious derivatives of French rule during pre-independent Haiti.

    Read More

  • War For Independence-Mexico

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    The war of independence is thought to have been a war of revolution. It is not, it is the breaking of colonial rule. It was based on politics and a separation of powers. In my paper I will go from the start of a rising discontentment amongst the indigenous population and how those above them exploit the failures for their own gain in a system where they have always been favored more over.

    Read More

  • Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots with-in the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody wins in war. These ideas all correlate with how we view World War II history and how Inglourious Basterds muddles our previous thoughts on how these events occurred.

    Read More

  • The Haitian Revolution

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Haitian Revolution is widely considered as the significant event in Africans’ history in the new world. Indeed, the reduction of the Atlantic slave trade is conventionally accredited to the inception of Haitian Revolution. While it might have failed to inspire immediate revolutions within the Caribbean and eventually the world, the Haitian Revolution had a profound effect on the French Revolution as a case for many national emancipation movements. It is evident that the French Revolution determined the success of Haitian Revolution through the custom of racial hierarchy and subjugation in Haiti and through the spread of French Revolution’s ideals. These factors compelled the elite planters to either surrender some control or risk being subjected to violent rebellion.

    Read More

  • Western Imperialism

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beginning in 1880, there was a growing desire for European countries to expand and control their rule. The only continent at that time that was left uncontrolled and, in the European's eyes uncivilized, was Africa. This was the start of Western Imperialism. All European countries wanted their piece of Africa and to get it, they would let nothing stand in their way. They would change the entire government, religion, market, and behavior of most of the African nation and affect almost every person living there. An account of the impact of Imperialism is given in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. This book shows the changes that occurred in Africa during Imperialism and its affect on the community and the people of the tribes that existed there.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of God's Bits Of Wood And No Longer At Ease

    1781 Words  | 4 Pages

    History has been told through various forms for decades. In the past, history was more commonly expressed through word of mouth, but more recently in the past century, through written text. While textbooks and articles give formal information with little to no bias, novels give a completely new perspective from the people who experienced it themselves. The Novels, God’s Bits of Wood, written by Sembene Ousmane, and No Longer at Ease, by Chinua Achebe give a more personal account of the effects of colonization. These two novels tackle the British and French method of colonization. God’s Bits of Wood takes place in the late 1940s and sheds light on the story of the railroad strike in colonial Senegal. The book deals with different ways that the Senegalese and Malians respond to colonialism during that time. No Longer at Ease is set in the 1950s and tells the early story of British colonialism and how the Nigerians responded to colonization. Comparing the two novels, there are obvious similarities and differences in the British and French ways of rule. African authors are able to write these novels in a way that gives a voice to the people that are most commonly silenced during colonialism. This perspective allows readers to understand the negative ways that colonization affects the colonized. Historical fiction like God’s Bits of Wood and No Longer at Ease are good educational tools to shed light on the history and effects of colonization, but they do not provide a completely reliable source for completely factual information.

    Read More

  • Ratatouille Movie Summary

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    When they left they showed him remy. Then he left satisfied but a but concerned, he made his article. Then the restaurant got closed but then it became a delight.

    Read More

  • Essay About Full Enslavement

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    Analyzing the factors that escalated full enslavement of Africans can be very subjective. However, taking historical evidence into account, one can reach an unequivocal conclusion that full-scale enslavement was motivated by two major factors. The first factor being “economic purpose” happened to be more self-evident. In order to fully comprehend this very fact, it’s imperative to also understand that at first the initial use of North American land was cultivated raw material necessary for the British to produce goods for end users. However, the need for cheap labor soon arose and the Europeans at this time decided to fill this vacuum through the use of African-slaves. Africans were seen as inferior beings, not worthy to be treated with dignity and with basic human rights,

    Read More

More about Decolonization In The Battle Of Algiers

Open Document