Based on the author's latest book, Slouching Towards Sirte:
NATO's War On Libya and Africa (Baraka Books, Montreal, 2012),
and nearly two years of extensive documentary research, this
film places the 2011 US/NATO war in Libya in a more meaningful
context than that of a war to "protect civilians" driven by the
urgent need to "save Benghazi". Instead it counters such notions
with the actual destruction of Sirte, and the consistent and
determined persecution of black Libyans and African migrant
workers by the armed opposition, supported by NATO, as it sought
to violently overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and the Jamahiriya. This
film takes us through some of the stock justifications for the
war, focusing on protecting civilians, the responsibility to
protect (R2P), and "genocide prevention," and examines the
racial biases and political prejudice that underpinned them. The
role of Western human rights organizations, as well as
misinformation spread through "social media" with the intent of
fostering fear of rampaging black people, are especially
scrutinized.
On YouTube
The Cost of a New
Libya: The Political Bouillon interviews Max Forte
Maximilian C. Forte is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at
Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. He teaches courses in the
field of political anthropology dealing with “the new imperialism,”
cultural imperialism,
Indigenous resistance movements and philosophies, theories and
histories of colonialism, and critiques of the mass media. He writes
regularly for the Zero Anthropology Project, with additional
articles appearing in Global Research, CounterPunch, MRzine, and was
formerly a columnist for Al Jazeera Arabic.
