Anti-imperialist Film Screening #1: The Wind That Shakes the Barley by Ken Loach

 

Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, The wind is rising traces the political development of the inhabitants of a small village near Cork, Ireland, during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). The film follows the trajectories of two brothers, Teddy and Damien O'Sullivan, from a working-class, rural background. While Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) has long been involved in the Irish revolutionary movement, Damien (Cillian Murphy), a medical student, decides to join the armed struggle against the British occupiers when the colonial police brutally repress unionized railway workers fighting for a free Ireland. Within the IRA, Teddy and Damien rub shoulders with figures inspired by James Connolly and the revolutionary socialist tradition, as well as peasants and workers fighting against the almost thousand-year-old occupation of their country by English forces.

When the British changed strategy in 1921 and agreed to concede the creation of a "Free" Irish State, the independence movement fractured between defenders and detractors of the treaty with England. Aware of the need for a clean break with British imperialism and the capitalist system it represented, young Damien sided with the "anti-treaty" movement, which wanted to prolong the war until complete national—and economic—independence was achieved. Teddy, whose new responsibilities instilled in him the rules of realpolitik, sharply opposed his brother's radicalism. The O'Sullivan family tragedy highlights how a section of the bourgeoisie and proletariat of a colonized country can come to accept the conditions of a former colonial power.

In the current context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it is difficult to review The wind is rising without drawing a parallel with the history of colonialism in Palestine, also shaped by British imperialism. This film invites us to reflect on the painful divisions within national liberation movements and their roots in deep class contradictions.

 

This screening inaugurates a series of films and documentaries devoted to anti-imperialism, which will explore a dozen past and present anti-colonial struggles. Each month, a screening will be devoted to a specific struggle, with a brief introduction to the historical and political context of the country in question, followed by an open discussion.