A lot has been written about the film The Battle of Algiers. This article not only does not answer its own question, but it erases the struggle of the Algerians and the Arabs in general since 2010-11. “What relevance does The Battle of Algiers hold today, 55 years after it was first released?” When we speak about the film’s relevance today, we speak about Black Lives Matter and Occupy? How appalling! Naomi Joseph has ignored the Arab uprisings of 2010/11 and 2019. The latter year is of the Algerian uprising. How does the movie relate to neo-colonialism as contrasted to colonialism? Is France today a neo-colonial power in Algeria, in the Sahel, and other places? Is there anything uttered by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, relevant and echos what is in the film? Do the reactions of the French ruling class, the media, the intelligentsia, and a large section of the population in the aftermath of the violent attacks in France in 2015 and afterwards reveal a continuity or an end t
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51