Calls for an international boycott of Christopher Nolan’s recently released version of “The Odyssey” are based on his decision to shoot a segment of the film in the occupied nation of Western Sahara.
STEPHEN ZUNES; [email protected]
Zunes is a professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco. His latest book, co-authored with Jacob Mundy, is Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.
Zunes told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Western Sahara is a full member state of the African Union with a functioning government administering liberated zones and refugee camps serving roughly 40 percent of the nation’s population. Meanwhile, three-quarters of the country, including the coastal areas where the filming took place, is under a repressive military occupation by the Kingdom of Morocco––in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark decision by the International Court of Justice.
“The United States and Israel are the world’s only two nations to formally recognize Western Sahara as part of Morocco, which the monarchy illegally annexed following its 1975 invasion of its southern neighbor.
“In accepting generous subsidies from the Moroccan regime, the film’s producers have provided legitimacy to the illegal occupation. It would be the equivalent of filming in Israeli or Russian-occupied territories in collaboration with those governments.
“Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups have ranked Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara as among the most politically repressed nations in the world. Since any protest within the occupied territory is not tolerated, it is imperative that global civil society mobilize against this injustice. Morocco wants to turn the Dahkla region, where the segments of the movie were filmed, into a major tourist destination and film set.”