In Gillo Pontercorvo's anti-colonial film The Battle of Algiers there is sequence where three Algerian women plant bombs in cafes and an airport, killing French civilians. While notable because the preparation of this action eludes to Fanon's Algeria Unveiled , it also demonstrates how the actors of an anti-colonial struggle become locked into a particular logic of violence overdetermined by the original violence of colonialism. That is, this sequence takes place after a half-an-hour of the film's description of the colonial situation and is directly driven by the fact that French colonial police and civilians decided to bomb a civilian quarter of Algerians. Until then, the FLN had limited its violence to military targets; when it places bombs in European cafes and the Air France airport, however, it is because it is responding to the fact that all settlers are potential military targets. The film, while firmly on the side of the FLN, admits the tragedy of this civilian bo...
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reflections