The Berlin International Film Festival is rightly regarded as a major cinematic event. It shows better taste than the Academy Awards or the BAFTAS and it avoids the media circus at Cannes. However, it is not immune from the impact of contemporary politics. So, in a Press release it announced that it had deleted ‘anti-semitic’ instagrams posting on its pages and went on to comment on a row over statements made by award winning film-makers at the finale.

“We understand the outrage that the statements made by some of the award winners were perceived as too one-sided and, in some cases, inappropriate. In the run-up to and during our festival, we made it very clear what the Berlinale’s view of the war in the Middle East is and that we do not share one-sided positions. However, the Berlinale sees itself – today, as in the past – as a platform for open dialogue across cultures and countries. We must therefore also tolerate opinions and statements that contradict our own opinions, as long as these statements do not discriminate against people or groups of people in a racist or similarly discriminating way or cross legal limits. From our point of view, it would have been appropriate in terms of content if the award winners and guests at the Award Ceremony had also made more differentiated statements on this issue,” says Mariëtte Rissenbeek. “The Berlinale stands for democracy and openness. We explicitly oppose discrimination and all forms of hatred. We want to exchange ideas with other social and political institutions on how to conduct a social discourse on this extremely controversial topic in Germany – with the inclusion of international perspectives – without individual statements being perceived as anti-Semitic or anti-Palestinian. We have to face up to this controversial topic – as an international film festival and as a society as a whole.”

The Festival is responding to politicians and the media, especially those based in Berlin, who mounted another chorus of complaints; claiming that the comments by film-makers were ‘anti-semitic’ and anti-Israel’. As with the Festival Press Release many of these lack essential detail; this Screen Daily report is better than many. In Germany there seems to be little distinction among the political class between the words ‘anti-semitic’ and anti-Israel’. And warnings has been issued that breaching this discourse could lead to loss of state funding. This is on top of the attempts to silence the public pro-Palestinian voice. The German state appears to be even more extreme that that in Britain in supporting the Zionist settler colonial project.

This is clearly an example of what is termed ‘Eurocentrism’. This item is common in discourses, used and misused by commentators. It is best understood in the terms set out by the Marxists, Joseph Needham and Samir Amin:

“Eurocentrism is defined as the notion that European culture is the universal culture to which all other cultures must conform, given that non-Western cultures are reduced simply to being particular cultures. As Needham argued, “The basic fallacy of Eurocentrism is therefore the tacit assumption that because modern science and technology, which grew up indeed in post-Renaissance Europe, are universal, everything else European is universal also.” Likewise, Amin writes: “Eurocentrism…claims that imitation of the Western model by all peoples is the only solution to the challenges of our time.” Eurocentrism both projects itself as the universal culture and rejects the true universalism of peoples.” (Monthly Review)

Europe and North America are full of examples of this expressions of neo-colonial interests and values. The treatments of the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan are recent examples; as are the common responses to migrants from Africa, the Americas and Asia.  In terms of Germany critics have pointed out how the German policy on Israel is so different from the way that Germany treats its own history, including the genocide against the Herero People in South West Africa. British equivalent actions would include those perpetrated in colonial Kenya during what is still called ‘the Mau-Mau rebellion’.

Unfortunately the Berlinale Press Release does not really confront the reactionary content of the criticisms. But European cinema, like that in North America, has a poor record on addressing the colonial violence inflicted and still being inflicted on oppressed peoples and nations. There are many films about oppression and repression in Europe, or in North America; these include numerous films on the holocaust perpetrated by the Third Reich. To the best of my knowledge, whilst there are literary and dramatic works on German colonial atrocities, I am not aware of a film addressing this. And as for Britain, there is the 1955 Simba, dramatising the perils, not for Africans, but for white settlers in Kenya: and there is White Mischief (1987) with an almost total absence of the indigenous peoples.

The most problematic omission is the genocide in the Congo under Belgium rule, in what was called the Congo Free State; over the space of only 23 years, some eight to ten million Africans were slaughtered with many more mutilated by the authorities. There is a single documentary, King Leopold’s Ghost (2006),  and two poor adaptations of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness.

Third Cinema film-makers have addressed these events: Sembène Ousmane is one example: and Palestinians have addressed the issue since the early days of the PLO Film Unit.  And European Television actually performs better than western cinema. There are documentaries about many of the European colonial atrocities and genocides,  If readers think my comments are exaggerated then the best of these is a good antidote. Exterminate All the Brutes is still available on HBO, Now TV, Sky Go and Just Watch streaming. This should be mandatory viewing for U.S. British and German politicians and media chiefs. Perhaps then Al Jazeera would not be the lone television channel providing a detailed coverage of the latest chapter in the actual implementation of Eurocentrism  and its costs to millions of people outside the privileged western circle.