Decolonisation, books and films

Decolonisation is one of the key themes that overlaps several of my courses; if I have learnt one thing it's that the British did a pretty good of job screwing up much of the globe in the name of 'civilisation' (for which they meant 'give us your resources'). If I've learnt another, they didn't half screw places up anything like the French. This week I've been looking at Algeria and Indochina, and the legacies left there. France was in a pretty bad state in 1945, and so their desire to recreate their pre-war empire and re-establish a pride in their nation, is to some extent understandable. But that's nothing compared to the mess that Italians made of Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. And you don't need to know much history to know the diabolical state they're still in after the Italians went of their little adventure. None of this lets the British off the hook though - I suppose that they had the benefit of realising earlier than the others which way the wind was blowing (for which they may have Gandhi, of all people, to thank) and that empire was worth foregoing if good relations (and economic ties) could be retained with the ex-colonies. Being bankrupt they had little ability to resist colonies wanting independence at that time anyway.

Which (in a roundabout way) brings me to the book I've just finished reading by Richard Flanagan, Wanting - which is awesome. The title of his latest book (just out in the UK) is obviously the book's theme, but through its characters - the explorer Franklin, Charles Dickens (who apparently was a writer) and an aboriginal girl, and its setting in Tasmania, London and the Arctic it also reflects the folly of the Victorian belief in the racial supremacy of Anglo-Saxons over other races - especially the 'savages' who cannot control their desires. Flanagan also wrote my favourite ever book, Gould's Book of Fish about which I tentatively use that word 'postmodern' (which it is in its treatment of identity and history/myth). 

My lectures today were on French decolonisation and war fllms as historical 'documents'. We looked at Apocalypse Now and Platoon - not for what they tell us about Vietnam, but for what they tell us about America in 1979 and 1986 when the films were made. The French banned the film the Battle For Algiers (1966) about the armed conflict there (1954-60), because it dared to paint the French, and French heroes, in a negative light. Apocalypse Now was not banned in the USA, despite its anti-war theme and portrayal of American soldiers - in fact it won an Academy Award for Best Picture. The contrasting attitudes might reveal something of the difference between France and the USA at these times, and the way that they saw their recent past.