Bring_Things_Home

Bring Things Home The Colonizer and the Colonized The colonial system that emerged from the Imperialist expansions of the European powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seemed, to Europeans, to be a undeniable fact. The status quo could be maintained, and the hegemony of the white industrialized nations would be maintained. Yet by the twentieth century, the system began to crumble; an example of this collapse is presented in Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers. This film represents the final hours of the colonial system, being destroyed by the revolt of the colonized as predicted by Albert Memmi's The Colonizer and the Colonized. But the end of the colonial system does not mitigate the damage done by the years of European rule. The Algerians, unable to assimilate, turn to revolution and violence which the French are only too willing to return. Thus the vicious cycle of mutual degradation and hate predicted by Memmi continues. Memmi concludes that there are two options available for a colony: assimilation or rebellion. The former is impossible because of the colonizer will not allow the destruction the abject colonized population, so the situation that all too often occurs, as in Battle of Algiers, is the latter. Yet french, colonized, memmi, violence, assimilation, colonizer, colonial, yet, system, mutual, european, cycle, cannot, algerians, adopted, struggle, fln, colony, both, being, algiers, violent, unable, thus, situation, sees, revolt, repression, rebellion, methods, end, each, destruction, degradation, culture