Andor & The Anatomy of Resistance
An analysis of the politics of the characters of Andor and how they relate to real-world struggles against imperialism, capitalism and oppression.
Star Wars as a franchise has always been deeply political, relying heavily on anti-imperialist and anti-fascist messaging. The original trilogy was, by George Lucas' own admission, largely inspired by the Viet Cong's struggle to resist American imperialism. The prequel trilogy, for all its faults, leaned heavily on the process in which liberal democracy descends into fascism to form its core overarching plot, culminating in the famous line; "So this is how democracy dies, to thunderous applause".
Nevertheless, no other Star Wars property has zeroed in on the nature of fascism, and what it means to resist, as much as Andor. The show takes great pains to illustrate the fascist nature of the Galactic Empire, in a much more explicit way than the movies – where the Empire could easily be seen as simply a tool in the hands of an evil space wizard, rather than a factory for domination and evil, independent of the spiritual conflict of Jedi against Sith, the Light Side against the Dark Side. We never actually witness the society that the Empire oppresses, but instead follow a resistance almost completely devoid of the context of why it fights.
Andor on the other hand dives deeply into the politics of resistance, showing the audience why the Empire is bad rather than simply telling us that it is. It explores the complicated nature of resistance and the diversity of opinion and ideology that must be stitched together for any kind of revolution to succeed. In this exploration we see many parallels to real-world struggles against oppression, be it imperialist, colonialist or capitalist.
Manufacturing Consent for Genocide
Perhaps the most striking parallel to the real world in Andor's second season is found in the Ghorman genocide. In the very first episode, we're shown a top-secret Imperial meeting, tasked with finding a solution to their "Ghorman problem". Ghorman, a wealthy and prominent planet, has the misfortune of sitting on a rare and crucial mineral that the Empire is willing to do anything to get its hands on. The problem? Mining the mineral will at best result in extensive damage to the planet's ecosystem, and at worst destroy the planet in its entirety.
Tasked with finding solutions to this problem, the committee settles on a strategy of manufacturing consent. Imperial propagandists gleefully inform the rest of the people present that they've been hard at work sowing the seeds of bigotry through careful manipulation of public opinion using the Empire's control over the media. One of the main characters of the show present at the meeting – Dedra Meero, an ISB officer (the Star Wars equivalent of the Gestapo) – makes the argument that propaganda painting the Ghormans as "anti-Imperial" alone is not enough. What's needed is militant action on the part of the Ghormans. Something the Empire can point to and say: "See? We told you these people are violent savages", thus justifying any and all further repression as simply a measured and appropriate reaction to violence.
This process culminates in a false flag operation, a sniper on the roof, that serves as the final justification needed for genocide.
It doesn't take a genius to draw parallels to the real world here. Almost two years ago now, the events of October 7th were almost immediately weaponized to justify even greater brutality and genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, as well as an intensification of the Apartheid regime in the West Bank. Before the bodies of October 7 were even cold, Israel was bombing apartment complexes, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
Israel doesn't even need the sniper on the roof, the literal false flag operation. Where Dedra Meero and the ISB needed to manufacture their fig leaf in the span of just a few short years, Israel has had nearly a century to carefully cultivate theirs. Endless atrocities and provocations over the span of 76 years created fertile soil for it to grow.
More than that, the Israeli government has long pursued a policy of ensuring that the only game in town for resistance against them is Hamas, an organization easy to vilify to a western audience already primed to see any militant action on the part of muslims as evil religious fundamentalism. In the words of Benjamin Netanyahu at a Likud party conference in 2019: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
In the context of Andor, we as the viewer know that the Ghorman insurgency is playing into the Empire's hands. But critically, this doesn't change the righteousness of said insurgency. We know that the Empire is counting on the insurgency to act, but we also know that there is nothing else they can actually do, as the Empire will have its way regardless. Backed into a corner and faced with brutal repression and eventually genocide, the show portrays the Ghorman insurgents as heroes, not – as we like to label similar movements in the real world – terrorists.
Nemik's Manifesto
One of the most compelling characters in Andor's first season was that of Nemik, a passionate and idealistic young man working on his revolutionary manifesto. Through the course of a daring heist on an Imperial facility, Nemik is killed, but not before playing a part in radicalizing our eponymous protagonist who carries the manifesto with him, thus carrying Nemik's message into the wider galaxy.
We only ever get an extract of the manifesto, posthumously titled The Trail of Political Consciousness, read to us on screen, but what we get is essentially a message of hope. The idea that while oppressive forces might seem all-powerful and resistance may feel futile, it is in fact the oppressors who must live in fear, as people will always instinctively rebel, when pushed far enough.
As powerful as the message is, it's unfortunately only half-true. The most successful and enduring systems of oppression account for exactly this by creating in-groups and out-groups. In the words of Lyndon B. Johnson: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
This is where the systems of oppression we face in the real world are stronger than the ideology of the Empire. Tiers of oppression and exploitation creates an environment where many of those oppressed and exploited will be the most faithful defenders of the status quo, fearful of falling further down the ladder, grateful that there's someone else, an "other", to suffer its most violent edge.
The Utility & Danger of Moderates
Both seasons of Andor spend a great deal of time with Mon Mothma, a senator in the Imperial Senate who openly leads what we might call a "liberal" faction of politicians opposed to the overreaches and power grabs of the Emperor. For most of the show's run, her contribution to the Rebellion is a financial one. Through a shell-foundation she funnels much needed cash into rebel hands while trying to check the worst overreaches of the Empire in the Senate.
However, for all her value to the Rebellion, it's precisely Mon Mothma and her moderate politics that leads the Galaxy back into another struggle against resurgent fascism. If we look beyond Andor to what happens later in the chronology, we see what happens when moderates are allowed to dictate the revolution's goals. In The Force Awakens, set decades after the events of Andor, we learn that Mon Mothma's leadership of the New Republic argued for and successfully implemented a peace with the remnants of the Empire, followed by a vast demilitarization effort, effectively leaving the Republic completely defenseless against the inevitable resurgence of fascism. Rather than continuing the war and extinguishing every last vestige of Imperial power,
Granted, this condemnation of moderate politics or revolutionary half-measures is almost certainly accidental. It's a convenient plot device that allowed The Force Awakens to operate on the same dynamics of power as the original Star Wars did. Namely a plucky rebellion (now called "The Resistance") who's up against a much larger and more organized imperial force (The First Order). Given that the events of the original trilogy upsets this power structure and results in the creation of the New Republic, ostensibly a galaxy-spanning civilization with immense resources at its disposal, some kind of narrative device was necessary for this mirroring of A New Hope to make any kind of sense to the audience.
But whether or not this condemnation of half-measures is intentional doesn't matter – the author is dead, after all. It's a poignant example of the consequences of leaving the fight unfinished. And here perhaps, we can draw some parallels to resistance against capitalism rather than fascism. By allowing capital to retain some measure of power, it sets the stage for the inevitable reversal of the concessions that were fought for. Half measures like social democracy, welfare states and the reigning in of the worst excesses of capitalism might produce tangible improvements in the short term, but they are doomed to gradual erosion in the long term. The concessions and gains that the labor movement extracted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries started getting chipped away within a generation, starting as early as the late 1940's with the passage of the Taft-Hartley act – severely restricting the rights of unions and workers to strike – and reached its greatest successes with the neoliberalism of Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980's.
Fanatics & Accelerationists
For my money, the most captivating character introduced in Andor is Luthen Rael. Luthen is a man who sacrifices everything for the rebellion, for little personal gain. He operates an underground logistical network that feeds nascent and scattered rebel cells with much-needed equipment and resources. Throughout the show, he often butts heads with Mon Mothma, who despite her hatred for the Empire is unable to embrace the harsh realities of resistance that Luthen has. Where Luthen "makes his mind a sunless place", Mothma strives to maintain a life and some semblance of happiness outside of the cause, encapsulated in a brief exchange with her cousin who tells her there's work to be done: "But we have to live to do it though, don't we?"
Luthen is an accelerationist. He believes that any atrocity or oppression that the Empire deals out is ultimately a benefit to the cause. When confronted with the escalating tensions on Ghorman and the possibility of the entire planet going up in flames, his only response is "It will burn. Very brightly."
To Luthen, any action that brings the Imperial fist down is a victory, and the harder it comes down, the greater the victory. The suffering incurred a necessary sacrifice, the victims martyrs to the cause of resistance. In the context of universal fascist oppression, this calculation makes sense, because there is no worse situation to accelerate towards. The Galaxy is already at the proverbial rock bottom. There is nothing to lose. He takes no joy in this calculation, having already surrendered any hope of personal peace or happiness.
The real world is, of course, more complicated. Although it's seductive, anti-capitalist accelerationism can easily be seen as playing with fire, setting the stage for a descent into fascism with the convenient excuse of reestablishing order. As the fabric of capitalist society frays, liberals and social democrats will not respond with concessions and reform, but instead try to harness reactionary violence to maintain the status quo. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
The Joy of the Fight
Saw Gerrera is the flipside to Luthen's joyless struggle. Where Luthen agonizes over the actions he takes, Saw revels in them. For Saw, it's less about the outcome of the struggle than the struggle itself. The fight is freedom, and taking part in it is a reward in and of itself.
There are essentially no lines Saw won't cross. He will target civilians, both directly and indirectly. He will use torture to achieve his goals, and he will abandon anyone or anything if he sees it as necessary. Every successful revolution has a Saw. They're the ones who will take up arms long before anyone else, undeterred by long odds or certainty of death and defeat.
Saw is the type of revolutionary who has no place after the revolution is won. He accepts, like Luthen, that there will be no happy ending for him. No rest under the shade of the tree of freedom that he fights to plant. There is no place for Saw once the fight is over. But unlike Luthen, he enthusiastically embraces that reality.
For many, Saw is perceived as a cautionary tale, the dangers of losing yourself and your morality to the fight. In my opinion it's not him that's the cautionary tale but rather the ones that would cast him aside, dismiss him as an extremist that goes too far, a person who delegitimizes the struggle. You can (and should) lament Saw's atrocities, but like all atrocities committed in the course of liberation, the ultimate responsibility lies not with the oppressed, forced into such actions, but with the oppressors who made those atrocities the only outlet. When the boot is on your throat, it's not your responsibility to occupy the moral high ground, to struggle only in such a way that your morality remains pristine.
Fractured Resistance
Speaking of Saw Gerrera, one particular scene in Andor's first season stood out to me as a great piece of commentary on the fractured nature of revolutionary momentum. In a meeting between Luthen and Saw, the former says "Whatever our final version of success looks like, there's no chance that any of us can make it real on our own", to which Saw responds by lambasting the various ideological strains of other rebels. He concludes that only he has clarity of purpose, and wonders what particular ideological strain Luthen subscribes to, a question that he dodges.
Saw, for his part, does not expand on what his vision of a post-Imperial galaxy should look like, either. And that's because he doesn't have one. That's exactly what his clarity of purpose is. He's not interested in what other rebel factions are envisioning after the fight ends because to Saw, there is nothing for him once the fight is over. In this, he is the same as Luthen, but they draw opposite conclusions. Where Saw disdains his fellow rebels and their ideological motivation, refusing to coordinate with anyone lacking his "clarity", Luthen sees these ideological differences as inconsequential, a problem to be tackled after he has exited the stage, and thus not a problem he's concerned with.
This, of course, is a familiar problem to anyone with even passing familiarity with the history of revolutionary struggle. From the very beginning of anti-capitalist struggle, really any kind of revolutionary struggle, leftists and would-be revolutionaries have engaged in internecine infighting, often over minute differences in tactics or end goals. Put three revolutionaries in a room, and you'll have three different factions denouncing each other.
It Takes a Village
To me, the most resonant theme of Andor is that all these people, divided by tactics, specific goals and morality, are all needed. To succeed, the rebellion needs every variety of rebel.
It needs the inspiring philosophy of a Nemik, the institutional legitimacy of a Mon Mothma, the ruthless calculus of a Luthen, and the uncompromising fire of a Saw Gerrera. It needs disparate allies, all with a different vision for what comes after the fight, but willing to work together to get to a point where that disagreement is even relevant. It needs masses of people, willing to fight back regardless of the consequences and reprisals.
On their own, any of these spokes of the revolutionary wheel are easily dealt with, swept away and buried. It's only when they put aside their differences that momentum can build and the fight be won.