Somali people still defiant
BLACK HAWK DOWN: Pentagon war propaganda
By Johnnie Stevens
Hollywood produces bad movies all the time. But "Black Hawk
Down" is more than bad. It is a conspiracy by the Pentagon and
Hollywood to distort history and demonize the Somali people,
right when the administration is considering another invasion
of that battered and impoverished African country.
The Pentagon commended director Ridley Scott for rushing the
film's release after 9/11. The Motion Picture Association of
America arranged a private screening for senior White House
advisors. Vice President Dick Cheney attended. So did
Contragate criminal Col. Oliver North, as well as a group of
U.S. Army Rangers.
"Black Hawk Down" pretends to tell the story of what
happened on Oct. 3, 1993, when tens of thousands of Somali
people, most of them civilians, fought off an attack by U.S.
Rangers and Delta Force commandos in the center of the capital
city, Mogadishu.
The heavily armed U.S. troops had come in Humvees and Black
Hawk helicopters to try and kidnap Mohamed Farrah Aidid and two
of his lieutenants. They intended to take them to a ship
anchored off the coast. Aidid was the Somali leader most
resistant to U.S. efforts to establish military and economic
domination in the area, under the pretext of providing food
aid.
The arrogant and racist presence of 28,000 U.S. troops was
hated by the Somali people. Sent there originally by George
Bush Sr. in December 1992, they had opened machine gun fire on
unarmed protesters and flown their helicopters so low over the
city that the downdraft pulled the tin roofs off people's
houses.
When one of the helicopters sent to capture Aidid crashed
near a crowded market and reinforcements were sent in with guns
blazing, the Somali people responded in a massive uprising
against them.
'Shooting at anyone
and anything'
The 16-hour battle ended in hundreds of Somali
deaths--helicopter gunships fired indiscriminately on the
people in the streets and market. Mark Bowden, in his book on
which this film claims to be based, wrote: "The Task Force
Ranger commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison, testifying
before the Senate, said that if his men had put any more
ammunition into the city 'we would have sunk it.' Most soldiers
interviewed said that through most of the fight they fired on
crowds and eventually at anyone and anything they saw."
U.S. forces with their sophisticated weapons have wreaked
death and destruction on many oppressed peoples--most recently
in Afghanistan. What made this battle different was that it
ended in the deaths of 18 elite U.S. Army Rangers, the
Pentagon's biggest battle loss since the Vietnam War. This led
to a hasty U.S. withdrawal from the country.
The Somalis were jubilant at having defeated these flying
death machines. "Black Hawk Down" was really a Somali people's
victory over what had been considered the invincible Rangers
and Delta Force.
But the film, in the words of New York Times critic Elvis
Mitchell, "converts the Somalis into a pack of snarling
dark-skinned beasts ... it reeks of glumly staged racism."
(Dec. 28, 2001)
That's what the Pentagon wants U.S. audiences to get out of
the film. Racism and fear of Third World peoples are being
whipped up here as the Bush administration moves to spread its
war of domination in Afghanistan to other Third World
countries.
But the reaction the film is getting elsewhere in the world
is far different.
Somalis still defiant
CNN reported on Jan. 22 that hundreds of Somalis crowded
into an outdoor playground just a mile from the battle site to
watch one of the first copies of "Black Hawk Down" to reach
their country. "Audience members seemed to take delight in
scenes of U.S. defeat. Each time an American chopper went down
in the film, the audience cheered. Every time an American
serviceman was killed, the audience cheered some more."
Afterward, some of the Somalis criticized the accuracy of
the film. But they were proud of the resistance it showed. "As
you can see, Somalis are brave fighters," one man said. "If the
Americans come back to fight us, we shall defeat them
again."
This film was released soon after the Bush administration in
November shut down the overseas branches of the Somali-owned
Al-Barakaat banking and telecommunications firm, which Somalis
living abroad had used to send money home. It was a cruel blow
aimed at destroying the Somali economy and bringing the people
to their knees in the face of starvation. But two months later,
the Somali people have refused to be broken--as their reaction
to the film showed.
Several groups in the U.S. are calling for a boycott of this
film and see it as evidence of the Pentagon's continuing desire
to reinvade Somalia, under the pretext this time of fighting
"terrorism."
Larry Holmes of the International Action Center points out
that the film "is being linked to new war moves against
Somalia, a poor country believed to have unexplored oil
reserves."
Activists are particularly angry at the decision to hold the
film's Washington, D.C., premiere on Jan. 15--the birthday of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Dr. King was an outspoken opponent
of the Vietnam War. How dare they hold a gala showing of this
racist film on the 73rd anniversary of his birth," said Sarah
Sloan, a youth organizer for the IAC. The group plans to
protest the film and leaflet filmgoers with educational
material on what really happened in 1993.
The Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis has also
called for a boycott of the film. Its executive director, Omar
Jamal, was visited by the FBI after the group criticized U.S.
policy on Somalia and the shutting down of money transfer
facilities here.
Reprinted from the Jan. 31, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page