Customer Reviews

The Empire in Africa

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I really wish that there existed a decent documentary about the horrible civil war in Sierra Leone. This one, though, is disturbing on many levels. First, the film-makers criticize the international media for focusing on amputees. Yet over and over again the film traffics in this same type of pornography of violence, for no apparent reason that serves the narrative other than to shock the viewer and promote the underlying impression (which they surely didn't intend) of "African savagery." Second, while I'm no expert on Sierra Leone, the film's handling of the conflict seems far from even-handed. I'm willing to agree that attrocities by the RUF were given far more attention than attrocities by ECOMOG. But this film comes very, very, close to saying that the RUF was unfairly scapegoated. This slides dangerously close to an appology for the horrible acts that the RUF committed. The overall message here is plain and important: it was the civilians in Sierra Leone who suffered while the international community ignored the conflict or manipulated it for its own gain, and that this is part of a larger colonial and neo-colonial pattern of denying Africans autonomous control over their own societies. But surely this point could have been made more intelligently and with more nuanced analysis.

This is basically one long, inaccurate apologia for the Revolutionary United Front -- a group that abducted children to fight as child soldiers and whose surviving leaders were convicted of war crimes in 2007. The RUF committed widespread atrocities, including the amputation of limbs of tens of thousands of civilians. This film, however, bizarrely focuses on the United Nations, UK, and Nigeria -- all of whom intervened at different stages to stop the atrocities -- as the main aggressors in Sierra Leone.

This is a 'must-see' for all individuals of good conscience to try to educate and reform certain societies where violence is rampant. Africa is important because it is the birthplace of humanity therefore qualifying for a respectable look at what can be done to return it to its original greatness.

It's hard to listen to feel sympathy towards RUF commanders describing their plight in "freedom fighting"...the commanders responsible for amputating thousands of children hands as a message to the corrupt goverment.After having inherited a well balanced infrastructure and economy from the british,the Siera Leonean goverments of the past 40 years have managed to utterly destroy their country .It's a good example of why foreign aid is useles to a continent so rich in resources which hasn't managed to ameliorate the situation, but sink even lower than before;Congo,Zinbabwe,Sierra Leone.....plenty of examples