Days of Glory- Rachid Bouchareb

A quick comment on this Algerian/ moroccan/french film nominated as one of the best foreign language film for the Oscars- I haven´t yet seen it but this review i just read (link provided) reflects not only a relatively novel angle of the war theme but one that eloquently treats so many of the hot topics in today´s media- immigrants, identity, minorities, revision and subversion of the offical memory, advocacy of cultural difference as against diversity (Homi Bhabha´s reading) etc. I´m reading material now on the participation of Moroccans in Spain´s civil war - very similar with France and the use of Algerian and Moroccan soldiers in their European wars- and worse yet, the use of these "moros" in the indigenous colonial police force during the time of the Spanish Protectorate (1912-1956) to fight and kill their own compatriots!! I´m fascinated in exploring the psychoanalytical side of the identity problems which arise; how these moros perceive themselves, how the locals see them and how they are seen by the colonial power on whose side they fight. It appears that tribal hostilities were greatly used by the colonial powers to spread hate, resentment and division amongst the moroccans. The same question of identity and the locating of the "other", the other within oneself, the colonised, is treated by Homi Bhabha in The Location of Culture. Recently, there has been a tendency to give an outward look at these inside stories, which in some way blurs the private/public divide, transgressing these historical tabous. From the "boundary", from this liminal space- french colonial subjects fighting side by side the French in their international wars, or moroccan soldiers fighting with the Spaniards- we discover new, subversive histories which are universal narratives.