The Hour of Liberation – the Struggle in Oman

An urgent and fast-moving documentary/propaganda film on the struggles of the People's Liberation Army in Oman, in the Persian Gulf. The resistance of the PLA in the early '60s is placed in the context of British/US economic and political interests, in which a sophisticated oil-extractive technology in the north has produced a deliberate political maintenance of poverty and underdevelopment elsewhere. Establishing their base in Dhofar, in the south, the PLA's task is both military and ideological. As they seek to gain ground, since 1970 they have started a school, trained a people's militia, helped stop inter-tribal feuding among the nomads by helping them to build secure water-holes and learn farming. It's technically compelling, using stills, slogans, songs, documentary material, aimed as much at the Arab-speaking world as at all national liberation movements.