Opening at theaters around the country starting tomorrow (screening
information is here), “Meeting Resistance” is a film that gives a voice
to the shadowy Iraqi resistance that has fought the world’s most
powerful imperialist country in history to a standstill. With an economy
of means, this documentary accomplishes what all great art strives for,
namely the humanization of its principals. With so much hatred directed
against Sunni insurgents, who lack the socialist credentials of past
insurgencies that attracted the solidarity of the Western left, “Meeting
Resistance” takes a giant step forward in making the “enemy’s” case.
After watching this powerful film, one will have to agree with George
Galloway’s assessment in a speech given at the al-Assad Library in
Damascus on July 30, 2005:
"These poor Iraqis — ragged people, with their sandals, with their
Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons– are writing
the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military
operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the
people who occupy it. We don’t know who they are, we don’t know their
names, we never saw their faces, they don’t put up photographs of their
martyrs, we don’t know the names of their leaders. They are the base of
this society. They are the young men and young women who decided,
whatever their feelings about the former regime — some are with, some
are against. But they decided, when the foreign invaders came, to defend
their country, to defend their honor, to defend their families, their
religion, their way of life from a military superpower, which landed
amongst them."
Co-directed by Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, “Meeting Resistance”
allows a group of insurgents in the Al Adhamiya district in Baghdad to
explain why they decided to fight the occupation, how they are
organized, and–perhaps of the greatest interest–what kind of backgrounds
they have. Among the most interesting revelations is that only a small
percentage can be described as Baathist “dead-enders”, the description
that was offered by the Bush gang early on and that was accepted by some
sectors of the left. A political science professor in Baghdad, the only
interviewee who is not actually part of the resistance, estimates that
less than 10 percent are Baath Party activists.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/meeting-resistance/
