Last night, on one of the UK TV channels, a new three-part drama was broadcast called, 'Occupation' which deals with the lives of several fictitious British soldiers in Iraq and their families during the years following 2003. Iraqis feature as background fauna except where they rise to being love-interest (as in 'white man attempts to rescue educated brown woman from nasty fanatical brown men, only to find that it is a fruitless mission'). Technically, it is very well-written and the acting was superb. It is posing as a critique of government policies in relation to the invasion, destruction and occupation of Iraq.
However, while appreciating the drama and the sentiment, several matters occur to me:
1) Powerful elites of white - or 'Honorary White' artists and journalists seem to monopolise all sides of the argument in the public space of the West. [Btw, I use the term, 'white' here politically rather than cod-anthropologically, as (though the West remains conveniently ignorant of this) there are many people in Iran, Afghanistan and even Pakistan who could be described as, white.] They get paid large commissions, get given prizes and their careers are made, for writing, directing, etc. big anti-war productions which become, when exported, exemplars of British culture (wave the flag!) and the whole exercise begins to assume the aspects of an farcical opera of apologetics. They just drop a trendy (on the stage, on the page as in couture, after the war, there comes the fashion!) narrative line into the pot and hey presto, they're a (rich) saint! Meanwhile, the voices of the subaltern are brushed to one side, not reported, ignored, because truth
can come only from a white mouth.
2) There is an element of confession, catharsis and redemption in all of this, I mean as a society. I do not think this is always appropriate. There is no redemption or salvation for killing two million people.
3) I would like to see Iraqi writers, directors, casts, etc. - those living in Iraq - given commissions and full editorial control to make dramas about this issue aimed at everyone, not jsut at audiences in the West. But then, of course, everything is tainted, as the money would come from the same West which undertook the destruction in the first place, so it would have to be 'Middle Eastern' money. This is why Iran's film industry is so powerful - artistically - it is independent of Western formal cliche. Usually, people like us are hauled on to write about such things as, 'Lolita in Peshawar', or the 'Kite Runner/ Bookseller/ Bicycle-Rider of Kandahar'.
4) I have real problems with anything about any of this type of thing being converted - sublimated - into 'entertainment'.
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