The people’s struggle against colonialism and imperialism is a struggle of epic proportions, wherever it takes place. No liberation struggle is waged without involving all aspects of society. Bridges once burned due to the symptoms of imperialism (like racism and misogyny) are rebuilt stronger, made unmovable, connecting people to march together to fight the real enemy – the common enemy.
That enemy takes many forms. In Algeria, it was French paratroopers. In Vietnam, it was the U.S. G.I. In Palestine, it is the Israeli occupation soldier. Inside the Belly of the Beast, it is the police officer. In waging a war against these forces, the people use everything at their disposal and every skill they have learned to defend themselves and expel the occupier.
Netflix series depicts liberation struggle
“400 Boys” is an episode of the anthology series Love, Death & Robots, portraying the remnants of British gangs working together to defeat gods that emerged from the depths of the earth. That is the surface, but peeling back the layers of this animated short reveals a story of a people’s struggle for liberation.
The show opens with the remaining members of a Black and Brown male street gang, the Slickers, attempting to use this mystical, blue power to load a gun. Their attempt to wield the power fails because everyone is worn down, and there simply are not enough people. There is plenty to unpack here.
Although political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, it needs the backing of the masses to be loaded and wielded properly. The attempt failed because right then, it was only one part of the community, symbolizing the Black and Brown male working class, attempting to wield this power.
The Slickers take refuge underground, planning their next move. They move underground because of the immense carnage and destruction happening above their heads, caused by the gods. The guerrilla, whether in Vietnam or Palestine, utilizes such tactics to weather the fury of imperialist shelling and bombing.
Anti-racist unity needed
The Slickers are forced from their temporary reprieve when the ground above them is ripped away. It is revealed that the gods can unearth huge sections of the ground, similar to how the Israeli Air Force uses one-ton bombs – or bunker busters – to level whole residential blocks and refugee camps in Palestine and Lebanon.
The men head out looking for survivors and allies. But they find no one as they go block by block through territory once held by other gangs. It is not until they run into the sole survivor of the Soooooots, a lone white male, that they are able to grow in numbers.
Through character interactions, it is revealed that these gangs were once bitter rivals. But they need to work together to fight the gods. The Soooooots represent the white male working class. The long rivalry between the gangs results from the racism created by the gods, just as real-life communities are divided by the ruling class and kept from fighting the real enemy.
In the distance, destruction continues, but the characters are unmoved. Death and destruction are normal to them. They have dealt with the ravaging of their communities before these new gods emerged. Pillaging is pillaging, genocide is genocide. Whether it is carried out by settlers and soldiers, jet planes and tanks, billionaires and cops, or mythical gods of the underworld, makes no difference to those struggling for survival every day.
Women hold up half the sky
After coming together, they continue looking for survivors and allies. They decide to go to the turf held by the Galrogs, an all-women gang, knowing that if anyone managed to survive this hell, it is them. They are not met with open arms by the women. In this interaction, the show-makers demonstrate that to win against colonialism and imperialism, there must be not only racial unity but unity of the sexes.
The Galrogs are hesitant to join the growing movement. Like real-life women, they are battling the symptoms of imperialism every day. Whether it is fighting the rival street gangs or any bigger opponent, they have carved out a space where they are in charge and cannot be harmed. It is up to the men to prove to the women that the old patriarchal and misogynistic ways will be vanquished through the collective struggle for liberation.
The Galrogs are apparently the only integrated gang, encompassing all women. Meanwhile, the Slickers and Soooooots are all Black, Brown and white men, respectively, symbolic of how – compared to men – women have learned many of the needed lessons of liberation through their existence.
The Galrogs’ leader is an elderly Black woman who explains what brought the world to this state. That detail speaks to how the most vulnerable and oppressed people – women and specifically Black women – are also the most educated and influential to the struggle for liberation because of their experience of fighting daily.
It is revealed that the gods emerged from the cracked surface of the earth after the world bombed and terrorized itself so much. This parallels the wars waged by Western imperialism. These wars are meant to create cracks or markets in societies that can be exploited by the capitalist ruling class to subjugate a group of people.
Once the three gangs come together, they can mobilize the individual and unaffiliated groups of survivors to take to the streets to fight. They bring instruments, farming and mechanical tools, different kinds of blades, a few guns, whatever they can get their hands on. The three gangs together symbolize the working-class vanguard able to galvanize the masses into action. They are the FLN during Algeria’s war for independence, or the different factions that make up the collective Palestinian Resistance.
Imperialism is a paper tiger
As the final battle draws near and the masses organized into a People’s Army call out the gods for all the death and destruction they have caused, they are met with buses and buildings being thrown at them. The immediate response from the gods is mass violence on an industrial-sized scale — the symbolism there speaks for itself.
After the gods’ opening barrage fails to break the people’s will to fight, they are forced to step forward and show themselves. Stepping into the light, shaking the earth with every step, they are revealed as nothing more than three big babies, literally.
Colonialism and imperialism are meant to instill fear. But once fear is washed away and people realize they hold the power and have the right to self-determination, these systems are nothing more than paper tigers that can be defeated. Although wealth and hard power are being accumulated by fewer people, their base of power is the exploited communities and workers of the world, who increasingly possess the power to strike back. Western imperialism looks strong as it commits genocide in Palestine, but is revealed to be weak and defeatable in the waters of the Red Sea when fighting against a group better equipped to wage war.
Through their organization and newfound strength in the masses, the people are able to utilize the magical blue power to wound the gods and weaken them. Once their enemy is weakened, the army attacks with everything they have. The final battle depicts what it takes to win against such an enemy. The masses take heavy casualties as the gods topple buildings around them. The people use whatever they have to see liberation through to the very end.
The final words of the episode, “nothing ever ends,” spoken by the leader of the Slickers, are poetic because these communities, the working and oppressed people of the world, have dealt with enemies like these gods before. Be it militaries, police or any other state-sponsored thugs and settlers, the masses have battled and survived onslaught after onslaught, learning the needed lessons to claim victory. It is victory through expelling the occupier and oppressor, victory through surviving against all odds.
From Baltimore to Palestine, oppressed communities must find ways to fight back against forced displacement, redlining, segregation and ultimately genocide. The people resist by any and all means necessary to defend their places in the world against all odds, whether it is napalm or rifle butts and bullets, to reorganize and continue living, continue defying the colonizer and imperialist.
Part 2: More liberation themes in Love, Death, & Robots’ ‘400 Boys’
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