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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35167 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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So...I saw the Woman King and...it was a deeply American movie.

As expected: totally historically uncredible. Not just the obvious flipping of the Dahomey into the victorious good guys, but falling victim to the same congenital failing that Western media had since maybe Kirk Douglas's Spartacus framed the man as a proto-abolitionist (though iirc this goes back to Marx) : just a total inability to reconcile criticisms of slavery in practice with criticisms of slavery as such. Or, more generally: an inability to recognize the distinction between bad and evil; things that are bad for us have to be seen as universally evil (the other recent historical epic - The Northman - escapes this problem entirely, interestingly)

In the movie the King - who is portrayed as a progressive - defends himself by stating that Dahomey no longer sells its own people (which some internal slavery critics note is weakening the kingdom in the long run) and is told by his more-progressive general that slavery is an evil in and of itself, and so Dahomey needs to transition totally away from slavery into selling palm oil (something they apparently actually tried and abandoned because it -predictably - was not as profitable)

Characters don't just oppose the oppression of their own, they oppose the oppression of "Africa". They don't just want freedom for themselves, it's about freedom as such. Silly but absolutely predictable for American cinema.

Similarly, the plot is just riven through with standard American tropes. Rebellious girl is too good for an arranged marriage so is sent to the Amazons. There she constantly bumps up against the rules of the regiment since she wants it her way but eventually proves herself (without giving up her independence). There's of course a dashing stranger for her to be attracted to, because sexual taboos (the Amazons are celibate) in Hollywood exist to be strained against.

It's probably because this movie was so distinctly American that I was actually defused and really couldn't care as much how inaccurate it was. In essence it just seemed like a black version of an existing set of tropes that already didn't deserve to be taken seriously. Seen in that light, it was actually pretty fun (my one story complaint is that the lead actress looked far too young and small).

I left the movie wondering if this needed to be a culture war issue at all? Couldn't everyone just written it off as a silly, Braveheart-esque vision of history? It's stupid in very similar ways to other American historical fodder.

I think the movie is an obvious victim of a tit-for-tat strategy: well, you won't let us have our slave-bearing ancestors, you won't let us keep the status but contextualize them as products of their time, they have to be evil. You won't let us white-wash them either, cause that's dishonest. So we'll be damned if we let you create a new set of (mythical) heroic ancestors when we're denied that with people who actually existed and actually were ambivalent about slavery.

Helped along by the insistence of the crew that they were reflecting history - with perhaps the worst possible example (the Dahomey king's quote on slavery is incredible and I can see why everyone quoted it.)

One wonders how differently this movie would have been taken in a world where people didn't try to topple statues of people who didn't live totally in accordance with modern values. I expect the heat would be less if we could all take a sardonic stance towards the past.

Dahomey is whitewashed in a way that Europeans would never be whitewashed. No one would be okay with a movie about Leopold in Africa where the Africans are responsible for their own appendage-removal (although, ironically, this is the case, but accepting the metaphor…). No one would be okay with a movie about colonists which doesn’t show alleged savagery against Natives, or worse yet, shows Natives as the evil aggressor to innocent white people.

The problem is not historical inaccuracy, but an over-the-top double standard, where they are whitewashing slave owners because the slave owners were black, and making a villain of the emancipators because they are white. It is a racial double standard allotted to black history that is not allotted to white history, because “privilege”. This cuts through the pretense of social Justice and shows that Hollywood just wants to cast whites as villains and blacks as victims, without any deeper principle like social justice or historical truths. The Woman King proves that the guiding principle of Hollywood writing on race really is “white bad”, not “slavery bad” or “teaching history”.

although, ironically, this is the case

Wait, are you saying Leopold's subjects did maim themselves? Link / source?

Hey nice to see you came over from the sub. Yes I am saying the subjects did maim themselves*. Belgium and Britain were in a propaganda war over African control, so Britain used yellow journalism to tar the image of Leopold. One of these allegations was that the Belgians either directly participated in, or directed their subordinates, to maim natives who did not obtain the monthly required rubber tax.

Leopold replied to the propaganda by creating a commission composed of members from different European nations. This is less biased than a British journalist interviewing people at behest of the British government. The commission found that the Congolese natives who were employed by Leopold, the “sentries”, were abusing the locals and maiming them for their own greed when out on patrols. The commission actually demanded that Leopold no longer permit natives to do their own patrols, in order to reduce the number of native maimings.

This is also backed up by 19th century travel literature on the Congo region which mentions that maiming was the native punishment for all kinds of infractions. The maimings were not due to Leopold’s colonialism, but an absence of Leopold’s colonialism; he inadvertently permitted a savage Congo practice because he didn’t want his (very few, iirc <500?) Belgians to do patrols deeper into the Congo.

In typical language of the time,

The armed black left to himself feels the recurrence of the sanguinary instinct which the strictest discipline is scarcely able to restrain. It is during this service that most of the murders are committed which are ascribed to the State. This has been pointed out in the case of the expedition in the neighbourhood of Monsembe which was the subject of a complaint made by the Rev. M. Weeks.

https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=BOSTONSH19051111-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

https://archive.org/details/congoreportofcom00congrich

Roger Casement was responsible for much of the information gathered in the report, and he is not your typical British official, given that he was later executed for treason for supporting the Irish rebellion. After the Congo, he was sent out to Peru to investigate reports of abuses by a British company, so again - not just Brits versus Belgians:

In 1906 the Foreign Office sent Casement to Brazil: first as consul in Santos, then transferred to Pará, and lastly promoted to consul-general in Rio de Janeiro. He was attached as a consular representative to a commission investigating rubber slavery by the Peruvian Amazon Company (PAC), which had been registered in Britain in 1908 and had a British board of directors and numerous stockholders. In September 1909, a journalist named Sidney Paternoster wrote in Truth, a British magazine, of abuses against PAC workers and competing Colombians in the disputed region of the Peruvian Amazon.

Yes, native Congolese tribes were often savage. But the report also states that the Belgian administration was not concerned with governing the territory, but rather extracting the maximum profit from rubber. The territory was vast, the white officers relatively few in number, so they relied on native soldiers to act as police, and when the soldiers committed atrocities - well, that was how the cookie crumbles.

The Belgian administration anticipated the defence above - that the maimings were due to the savage natures of the natives:

The truth is, that in Uganda, as in the Congo, the natives still give way to their savage instincts. This objection has been anticipated by Mr. Casement, who remarks:—

“It was not a native custom prior to the coming of the white man; it was not the outcome of the primitive instincts of savages in their fights between village and village; it was the deliberate act of the soldiers of a European Administration, and these men themselves never made any concealment that in committing these acts they were but obeying the positive orders of their superiors.”

The administration itself was forced to regulate matters:

Independent State of the Congo.

Boma, September 7, 1903.

The perusal of reports on military operations and reconnaissances shows that the formal orders of the Government, so frequently repeated, respecting the instruction to send armed soldiers under the command of black non-commissioned officers, are not rigorously observed.

I even note with regret this disinclination, on the part of certain officials and agents, to conform to these instructions, which are, however, dictated by care for the higher interests of the State.

Military operations must be conducted in accordance with the regulations respecting service in the field, of which our officers and non-commissioned officers must make frequent application at daily drill, and in accordance with the numerous instructions in the matter. And to this end the superior staff, before deciding on the operations to be undertaken, must ascertain beforehand whether the means at the disposal of those below them are sufficient.

I have the honour to invite the territorial Chiefs to remind their staff of the preceding instructions, and to inform them that any breach of the rule forbidding the dispatch of armed soldiers under the command of black non-commissioned officers will be severely put down, and may lead to the dismissal of the agent in fault.

The soldiers must be the object of constant supervision, so that it may be impossible for them to commit cruelties to which their primitive instincts might prompt them.

The instructions also forbid the employment of the soldiers on post or transport work.

Nevertheless, this deplorable custom continues to obtain in many places.

It is important that the soldiers should not in future be constantly withdrawn from their garrison and from their military duties, and that they should remain at all times under the control of their Chiefs. This cannot fail to improve the instruction and military education of the men of the public force. I therefore request the staff whom it concerns to put an end at once to the above-mentioned condition of affairs; the postal service must be assured by workmen or by men specially chosen for that purpose.

If the authorities deem it necessary in certain cases to have the post or a convoy of merchandise escorted, the patrol must be organized according to the regulations, and must be commanded by a European.

It is only in most exceptional cases, and if it is absolutely necessary, that this patrol can, failing European, be commanded by a specially-selected and trustworthy non-commissioned officer.

But in such cases, which will have to be justified by the authorities, the men commanded by a black non-commissioned officer must be provided with a regulation cap-gun, which constitutes a good defensive weapon.

The Vice-Governor-General,

(Signed) F. FUCHS.

From the report:

From my observation of the districts I travelled on in the Upper Congo, it would seem well-nigh impossible for European officers to be always with the soldiers who may be sent on minor expeditions. The number of officers is limited; they have much to do in drilling their troops, and in camp and station life, while the territory to be exploited is vast. The ramifications of the system of taxation, outlined in the foregoing sketch of it, show it to be of a wide-spread character, and since a more or less constant pressure has to be exercised to keep the taxpayers up to the mark, and over a very wide field, a certain amount of dependance upon the uncontrolled actions of native soldiers (who are the only regular police in the country) must be permitted those responsible for the collection of the tax. The most important article of native taxation in the Upper Congo is unquestionably rubber, and to illustrate the importance attaching by their superiors to the collection and augmentation of this tax, the Circular of Governor-General Wahis, addressed to the Commissionaires de District and Chefs de Zône on the 29th March, 1901, was issued.

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