AUT: Fwd: Black Hawk Down: Somali Reaction and Picket Idea

[Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>]

[Hi lists, The second e mail reproduced here comes
from Christchurch, New Zealand - I just thought their
picket idea there might interest others.]


In Mogadishu, Somalia, where pirated copies of "Black
Hawk Down" appeared two weeks after it showed in NYC,
scenes of Americans dying and their helicopters
spiraling down are greeted with cheers and shouts
of praise.  People see the movie time and time again,
in the open-air theaters.  They applaud the mass,
armed struggle that gave the U.S.
rangers their most serious defeat since Vietnam.

This has surfaced in the  press (NY Times, London
Times, Toronto Star, Australian Weekender etcetera),
sometimes with criticism of how it
distorts the reality of the Somalis' heroic battle
against U.S. imperialism.

The French newspaper Le Monde, which played the story
on its front page (Sunday Feb.3 Monday Fedb. 4) caught
the spirit but had a different twist.

It quotes a young militia member Warfar Abdi as saying
"In this film, we only see Americains.  They are all
presentged as heroes and Somalians
are only seen when there is a burst of Kalashnikov
fire. We would have had liked to see our brothers as
they valliantly fight and kill Americans as
in reality.  But the true message of the film, we have
learned, is that the U.S. will soon return to
Mogadiscio (Mogadishu).  Claiming to struggle
against terrorism but in reality to revenge themselves
for what we made them suffer."

Doing a Lexi-Nexis search of the English language
press, I didn't see this point -- the Somalians expect
a new U.S. invasion.  Some think they will
be able to defeat it, others don't or feel it would be
good for their business.

But they are analyzing what imperialism is planning
post 9/`11.

Now one might say  that the masses in Mogadishu were
misled to fight and die so hard for a misleader like
Mohammad Aidid, that our position
should be one of non-support for semi-feudal clan
leaders like him.  My response to such a position is
to point out that while the Somalians were
defending Aidid, they were also defeating U.S.
imperialism  -- militarily.

I think praise for their valor is in order.  And
concretely, the Intrernational
Action Center ( http://www.iacenter.org) is having a
protest in NYC Sat. Feb. 16 against BHD (Black Hawk
Down) and Collaterl Damage.  Check the web site for
details and if there will be similar demos in other
cities.

/greg dunkel

Over lunch, John and I have just been discussing
organising an informational picket when Black Hawk
Down starts in NZ - I think it opens next Thursday
(Feb 14).

I don't think we want to get into the game of calling
for people to boycott it - I hate the way some groups
call for boycotts every time they hear about something
they don't like, and it usually just makes them look
silly, or like they are anti-free speech etc - but it
would be good to have informational pickets, at which
we protested the glorification of the US
attack on Somalia and pointed to the way in which the
US govt is talking about going back there.  We can
also highlight that the masses in Somalia
have been going to see irate versions, shown at
open-air theatres in Mogadishu and cheering every time
the US suffer a casualty in the film.

John is drawing up a leaflet right now, partly filched
from one produced in the USA, by people at the
International Action Center (which is an
anti-imperialist outfit linked to the Mao-Trotskyist
Workers World Party). We can post it on the list, and
maybe peeople in other centres can
either use it directly or alter it any way they like.
But it would be good to  try
to have pickets in as many places as possible on the
day the thing opens. And fuck Ewan MacGregor, I
thought he was supposed to be some kind of
leftie, but his statements recently about the film and
the US in Somalia have been disgusting!

We've no probs about people going to see it.

In fact, we might go during the day and do the picket
at night.  If we get some media coverage, we need to
have seen the film, else we look like Patricia
Bartlett (well, actually she did go to all the nudie
stuff and have the biggest porn collection in the
country, so she could be 'informed' in her morals
camapigning!)

Phil <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>










=====
For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea":
THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/
THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/
and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/

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