Oil Films in Context
The colonized world witnessed a pivotal moment in British foreign policy after the First World War when the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson espoused the principle of self-determination in his infamous fourteen points declaration. Despite initial resistance to the notion that the language of self-determination could apply to its colonies, Britain changed its longstanding doctrine of direct colonial rule into a paternalistic posture of indirect rule that claimed to foster the governed territories towards political independence.
The era of naked British imperialism, epitomized by its colonial policy of direct rule in India, was collapsing. Britain’s imperial claims to the resource rich and formerly Ottoman provinces in Palestine and Iraq were accordingly defined as “mandates” rather than “colonies”. Yet in practice the militarized British rule in Iraq operated with unchecked control over political and economic decisions. At the outset of World War II the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Atlantic Charter in 1941 as a framework for more equitable objectives in postwar geo-politics. The Charter codified eight principles, including respect of all peoples’ right to self-government and a condemnation of territorial aggrandizement, which reinforced the need for Britain to reinvent its imperialist discourse.
As this essay shows, the emergence of the public relations profession and rise of corporate power became essential in the British imperial strategy to maintain its control over petroleum resources in postwar geo-political landscape. The Iraq Petroleum Company and its public relations office was an active player in the production of the neo-colonial discourse on Iraqi oil in Britain and Iraq.
The era of naked British imperialism, epitomized by its colonial policy of direct rule in India, was collapsing. Britain’s imperial claims to the resource rich and formerly Ottoman provinces in Palestine and Iraq were accordingly defined as “mandates” rather than “colonies”. Yet in practice the militarized British rule in Iraq operated with unchecked control over political and economic decisions. At the outset of World War II the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Atlantic Charter in 1941 as a framework for more equitable objectives in postwar geo-politics. The Charter codified eight principles, including respect of all peoples’ right to self-government and a condemnation of territorial aggrandizement, which reinforced the need for Britain to reinvent its imperialist discourse.
As this essay shows, the emergence of the public relations profession and rise of corporate power became essential in the British imperial strategy to maintain its control over petroleum resources in postwar geo-political landscape. The Iraq Petroleum Company and its public relations office was an active player in the production of the neo-colonial discourse on Iraqi oil in Britain and Iraq.
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