Those who never knew history happened are doomed to repeat it
Let me start off by saying I'm just as guilty as anyone else. Before I saw this, I never had any idea this conflict happened. I never heard a story, nothing. I think I had hear at one point Algeria was a French colony, and French was one of their official languages and that was it.
That being said, let me introduce you to probably one of the most important film of our times, and it was made 40 years ago. In French.
The film is called "The Battle of Algiers." I knew of it only because it showed up as one of the top foreign films on my Netflix recommendations. I put it in my queue, and watched it last weekend.
To give you a brief history lesson, the French occupied Algeria in about 1830. Apparently after a brief period, there was a relative calm for many years. Mind you, Algeria is a Islamic country. (Is this starting to sound familiar?) Then in 1954, the Arabic people of Algeria started to fight back against the French, upset about what they saw as a desecration of their Islamic state, allowing alcoholism, prostitution, and a whole slew of excesses to continue against their beliefs. (That's where the movie starts.)
One of the most profound lines in the movie was the Colonel discussing the current situation. "The problem is that the Algerians want the French out. The French don't want to leave. Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' then you must accept all the necessary consequences." In involves a bloody conflict, police states, torture.
The French were able to eliminate the resistance. One-by-one, they infiltrated the terrorist structure, but only after they killed or tortured many Algerians, many of whom were only bystanders or neighbors to those in resistance, and many of them got killed in the process as well.
And then two years later, the entire country rose up against the French. Two years after that, the French finally pulled out, and Algeria got it's independence.
And why is it so relevant to today? We're a western country occupying an Islamic state. In the minds of many of the citizens of Iraq, we're just as bad as the French were in Algeria. However, the problem is somewhat same, somewhat different: The Iraqi people want us out. We don't want to leave, at least until a stable democracy is in place.
Let me say, I'm not taking either side. Both sides engaged in acts that were reprehensible. Terrorism is horrid, and war is never pretty.
But perhaps the greatest thing I got out of this film was a greater understanding of the Islamic people, why they hated the French, and why they would hate us. And what we can learn from their mistakes, and keep from another American dying. Perhaps the Iraqi people need that assurance that no, we don't want to be in Iraq forever, and exactly what our goal in Iraq is.
Mind you, my chief complaint with the war in Iraq is not that we should leave now. It's that the war has been mishandled so incredibly badly, and that everytime they screw up, people die.
And for people who had no idea history happened before are doomed to repeat it.
That being said, let me introduce you to probably one of the most important film of our times, and it was made 40 years ago. In French.
The film is called "The Battle of Algiers." I knew of it only because it showed up as one of the top foreign films on my Netflix recommendations. I put it in my queue, and watched it last weekend.
To give you a brief history lesson, the French occupied Algeria in about 1830. Apparently after a brief period, there was a relative calm for many years. Mind you, Algeria is a Islamic country. (Is this starting to sound familiar?) Then in 1954, the Arabic people of Algeria started to fight back against the French, upset about what they saw as a desecration of their Islamic state, allowing alcoholism, prostitution, and a whole slew of excesses to continue against their beliefs. (That's where the movie starts.)
One of the most profound lines in the movie was the Colonel discussing the current situation. "The problem is that the Algerians want the French out. The French don't want to leave. Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer 'yes,' then you must accept all the necessary consequences." In involves a bloody conflict, police states, torture.
The French were able to eliminate the resistance. One-by-one, they infiltrated the terrorist structure, but only after they killed or tortured many Algerians, many of whom were only bystanders or neighbors to those in resistance, and many of them got killed in the process as well.
And then two years later, the entire country rose up against the French. Two years after that, the French finally pulled out, and Algeria got it's independence.
And why is it so relevant to today? We're a western country occupying an Islamic state. In the minds of many of the citizens of Iraq, we're just as bad as the French were in Algeria. However, the problem is somewhat same, somewhat different: The Iraqi people want us out. We don't want to leave, at least until a stable democracy is in place.
Let me say, I'm not taking either side. Both sides engaged in acts that were reprehensible. Terrorism is horrid, and war is never pretty.
But perhaps the greatest thing I got out of this film was a greater understanding of the Islamic people, why they hated the French, and why they would hate us. And what we can learn from their mistakes, and keep from another American dying. Perhaps the Iraqi people need that assurance that no, we don't want to be in Iraq forever, and exactly what our goal in Iraq is.
Mind you, my chief complaint with the war in Iraq is not that we should leave now. It's that the war has been mishandled so incredibly badly, and that everytime they screw up, people die.
And for people who had no idea history happened before are doomed to repeat it.
posted by Joe Carlin at 12:57 AM
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