Ever since I
was a child, I was taught about World War I & II and the impact these two
great events had on modern history. I was taught about the planes, the weapons,
the nations and the peace treaties that came about; how the U.N was a direct
result of this, coming out of the League of Nations.
The one
thing I wasn’t taught and wasn’t made aware of until I grew up was that there
were African soldiers involved. And not only Africans, but even other people
from South-East Asia and French North Africa, all fighting for the major
players in the war. And not to mention the impact that they too had on helping
to win the war.
When I saw
the movie Wonder Woman, which was mostly set during the First World War, I was
happy. The attention to the historical detail was amazing. They were fighters
from all background. In one scene at a train station, you can see at least two
Indian fighters with their turbans on.
Wonder Woman
even has a motley crew that includes a French North African fighter and even an
American Indian. This was rare for cinema. Most time big screen portrayals of
the wars only show White soldiers and this may be rightly so because they were
the majority, but they weren’t the only race nor the only story perspective that
can and should be told.
In Nigeria,
thanks in part to the works of Barnaby Philips with Al-Jazeera, we know the story of Isaac Fadayebo who died in 2012. A
then young man from the South-West of Nigeria, Fadayebo fought for Britain (and
by extension its allies) as did other Nigerians & West Africans during
World War II. They fought for the colonials against the threat in Asia, which
they the Colonials faced and not we, the people who were hired as mercenaries
more or less.
The likes of
Fadayebo were recruited from all over the country and sold the thrill of
adventure and of course the chance to serve the crown… a “noble” cause! They
were willing and able. Fadayebo’s story is short of remarkable and I wish would
be turned into a feature film to show a more diverse view of the war.
During World
War I, it was the South-East Asian soldiers who helped Britain, most of them
from India and mostly Muslims. Their interaction with the mostly White
Judeo-Christian comrades is believed by some to have played a slight role in
the modern English language as we know it now.
Through the
interactions of these two seemingly different groups of people, serving one
crown, new words were picked up from the Indians that would enter the present
English language as we know it.
These little
details make the wars more interesting than the mainstream commercial versions
we get told in books and movies where we already know the main characters,
because every two years or so, someone makes a movie about it. No shade to the
filmmakers of Dunkirk and the Darkest Hours, but it proves my point as
to the almost one-sided perspective we constantly get.
My goal now
forward is to help document these other sides of the wars, whether by writing
about them or hopefully through visual representations such as art galleries
and or movies. We should have all sides of a story!
