On his book Cinema in an Age of Terror: North Africa, Victimization, and Colonial History
Cover Interview of May 15, 2011
In a nutshell
This book is about the ways that cinema teaches us how the idea of occupying the position of the victim is central to the dynamics of terrorism.
I became interested in the ways that the terrorized and the terrorizing seemed to share the common desire to occupy the position of the victim—to be seen as the victim—as a way of justifying their victimization.
Examining a number of films focusing on colonial history in North Africa that focused on images of victimization, it occurred to me that the visual aspect of victimization was important to the dynamics of terrorism. I began to examine, in particular, how films focusing on the images and spectacles of victimization that took place within colonial history might inform our understanding of terrorism today.
Cinema in an Age of Terror argues that films focusing on colonial-era victimization and terror enable us to see how victimization is very much about territory—cultural, spatial, and ideological.
So, while many films highlighting the terrorism of colonial history often focus on victimization as a way of producing a new or more complete version of history, I argue that they ultimately remain locked in a history that opposes torturer and tortured, victim and victimizer. I argue that, fundamentally, this vicious cycle is very much aligned with the dynamics of terrorism today and points to the centrality of the ideology of victimization within it.
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
In a nutshell
This book is about the ways that cinema teaches us how the idea of occupying the position of the victim is central to the dynamics of terrorism.
I became interested in the ways that the terrorized and the terrorizing seemed to share the common desire to occupy the position of the victim—to be seen as the victim—as a way of justifying their victimization.
Examining a number of films focusing on colonial history in North Africa that focused on images of victimization, it occurred to me that the visual aspect of victimization was important to the dynamics of terrorism. I began to examine, in particular, how films focusing on the images and spectacles of victimization that took place within colonial history might inform our understanding of terrorism today.
Cinema in an Age of Terror argues that films focusing on colonial-era victimization and terror enable us to see how victimization is very much about territory—cultural, spatial, and ideological.
So, while many films highlighting the terrorism of colonial history often focus on victimization as a way of producing a new or more complete version of history, I argue that they ultimately remain locked in a history that opposes torturer and tortured, victim and victimizer. I argue that, fundamentally, this vicious cycle is very much aligned with the dynamics of terrorism today and points to the centrality of the ideology of victimization within it.