The battle for the bioscope in Namibia.

The direct and indirect moral regulation of its citizens, subjects and denizens is one of the key — albeit under-acknowledged — activities of states, especially in Africa. Using Namibia, a former German colony and then a League of Nations mandate as a case study, the author of this paper examines what the administration regarded as the most potent medium for influencing peoples' behaviour, namely film or motion pictures. Of all the so-called mass media, film was held to have the greatest capacity to impact people's values. Censorship was strongly nuanced in terms of age, gender and race and, with hindsight, was draconian. While appearing exceptional it was very clearly part of an emergent international system of moral regulation with a nexus in the League of Nations. Part of the problem from a colonial perspective was that Europeans believed that by allowing the colonized to view the back regions of European behaviour, it would undermine white prestige and this caused a moral panic. Ironically, despite the almost magical value attributed to cinema, its use for development and moral upliftment was relatively minor. The more intriguing question is why settlers were so intrigued by the impact of the cinema? Part of the answer is that the censors' certificate at the start of the film show was a ritual imprimatur signifying that they were in control of technology and reinforced and inscribed population categories. Each certificate in turn served to amplify the need for more censorship in order to maintain the settler fantasy world of a stable social situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]