Vive La France- Colonialism

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Ah the French and their identity issues-

Speaking of history-

France Orders Positive Spin on Colonialism
The Associated Press

Friday 21 October 2005

Paris - France, grappling for decades with its colonial past, has passed a law to put an upbeat spin on a painful era, making it mandatory to enshrine in textbooks the country's "positive role" in its far-flung colonies.
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Indentured servents and forced labor is not REALLY slavery....

But the law is stirring anger among historians and passions in places like Algeria, which gained independence in a brutal conflict. Critics accuse France of trying to gild an inglorious colonial past with an "official history."

At issue is language in the law stipulating that "school programs recognize in particular the positive character of the French overseas presence, notably in North Africa."

Deputies of the conservative governing party passed the law in February, but it has only recently come under public scrutiny after being denounced at an annual meeting of historians and in a history professors' petition.

An embarrassed President Jacques Chirac has called the law a "big screw-up," newspapers quoted aides as saying. Education Minister Gilles de Robien said this week that textbooks would not be changed. But the law's detractors want it stricken from the books - something the minister says only parliament can do.

The measure is one article in a law recognizing the "national contribution" of French citizens who lived in the colonies before independence. It is aimed, above all, at recognizing the French who lived in Algeria and were forced to flee, and Algerians who fought on the side of France.
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What is it called when history is told for political reasons?

Unlike other colonies, Algeria, the most prized conquest, was considered an integral part of France - just like Normandy. It was only after a brutal eight-year independence war that the French department in North Africa became a nation in 1962, after 132 years of occupation.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has equated the law with "mental blindness" and said it smacks of revisionism. The Algerian Parliament has called it a "grave precedent."

The friction comes as France and Algeria work to put years of rocky ties behind them with a friendship treaty to be signed this year.

"Morally, the law is shameful," said University of Paris history professor Claude Liauzu, who was behind the petition, "and it discredits France overseas."

France was once a vast empire, including large holdings in Indo-China and Africa. It unraveled in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly calmly.
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And empire is a good thing!

However, France suffered ignominious defeats in Indo-China and Algeria. Paris only called the Algerian conflict a "war" in 1999. Throughout the fighting, and for decades thereafter, France had referred only to operations there to "maintain order."
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It's called a police action...
Like in Iraq.

In colonial times, French textbooks typically depicted the French presence in the colonies as that of benevolent enlightenment, with a clear mission to civilize.

The newspaper Liberation this week published drawings from "France Overseas," an illustrated colonial Atlas of 1931 that showed "before" and "after" drawings, one a sketch of Africans cooking and eating another human being, the second a school house on a well-manicured street with a French flag flying overhead.
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Cannibals replaced by French cuisine!
Viva la Culture!

The Association of History and Geography Professors has asked that politicians "end the practice of manipulating history" and abrogate the law.

The separate petition by history professors gathered 1,000 signatures in three weeks, said Liauzu.

"We're in a rather crazy situation," he said. "They say the law won't be applied but it's up to lawmakers to cancel it."

Beyond the real concerns over the political manipulation of historic events, there is another danger of falsely misrepresenting French colonization, Liauzu said.

"France is a country profoundly marked by immigration" with the majority of French from immigrant stock, Liauzu said. By failing to tell the truth, children of today's immigrants "are deprived of any past."
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Your thoughts?
 
Not that I want to be a total bitch or something, but it's "Vive la France".

Frankly, this does not surprise me. The Frenchies have done worse things in the past. A lot of this resembles what the Americants are doing, if not now at least in the future, when all the things they're doing today come to haunt their weakened nation.
 
The French should bring back the Absolute Monarchy and Catholic control over large parts of the state. Last time they where sane or did anything cool.
 
John Uskglass said:
The French should bring back the Absolute Monarchy and Catholic control over large parts of the state. Last time they where sane or did anything cool.
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I may be Catholic and under the circumstances am disgusted by France, but even I know thats a bad idea.

France never has dissarmed any of its nukes and considering the huge land area where the religious majority is Catholiscism they could easily start a nuclear war by firing at each and every country forcing them all to fire at each other when they fire at France. Considering "third world" countries wouldnt get hit that would leave Africa, South America, and most of Asia intanct. More or less most of South American and Africa are Catholic though and given time they could form relatively strong civilizations and working together through religion easily take Asia and the shattered remnants of Europe and North American. Hey they could even warn the Catholics in those countries of the impending doom and have them build shelters and stockpile resources so the nuclear holocaust leaves them intact and in a position to easily smite the other survivors.

Why did I say that? Just wanted to give you a glimpse of how "intelligent" the idea of a Monarchy is particularly when religion bolsters it.

On a more serious note, Welsh would France's re-judging of its history be a form of reviving blind nationalism? I mean I kinda wonder how quickly until they invade Germany for "atrocities".

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
I'm suddenly in the mood to watch The Battle of Algiers again.

It looks like the academics are taking the proper action against an ill-conceived law (I wonder of it was adopted under the guise of patriotism). I don't really see it being much of a long term issue, since it would look rather bad if the politicians dug in their heels on this point.
 
Kotario said:
It looks like the academics are taking the proper action against an ill-conceived law.
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And we all know that that will work so very well.

Really it doesn't suprise me at all the whole revisionist history thing. If we slowly stamp out all culture around the globe then it makes everyone easier to control because we have fewer contrary ideas. Example, how can you say "That's not right." If you don't have a concept of what IS.

I mean I'm surprised we here in the USA haven't jumped the shark and just started teaching that the USA predates the Roman empires and used to be some sort of Bronze age utopian dynasty full of wonder and Unicorns. And it is the gays that ruined it all for us.

Those damn gays took our utopia and unicorns.
That is why we are passing a law that allows you to beat them... with sticks.
 
This doesn't surprise me too much. It really reminds me of the somewhat revisionist "thing" going on in Japan, about WWII.

But every nation does this, in one degree or another. The textbooks talk about the "winning" of the West in America. Oh you mean the slaughter of the tribes that were in your way? OK....

Ugh.
 
Ehehehe.

Yes, keep watching France. Forget about us. We don't want any bad press about Imperialism over here in Blighty. :P
 
Well well what did you expect? It's merely a question of how long will it take for the winner of a conflict to re-write history, 1984 gives us a glimpse of what may happen.
Remember that the people involved were the best humanity had to offer, but your people are going to tell the story differently, right?
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Walks away mumbling "I told them it was all a big conspiracy! But Would they listen to me? Nooooooo!"
 
Games tend to be factually wrong and politically incorrect. Your point being?
 
Have I offended you Ashmo? Actually, I suppose you have all ready stated so, but to the degree which you hound my comments in other threads? Both my comments were in the same light-hearted vein, and again, you are free to ignore them.

It does have relevance to the topic at hand. I suggest you read the linked article more carefully. Even though it seemingly not deliberate, a certain cultural bias emerges. This unconscious bias has quite a bit to do with the rewriting of history, intentional attempts like the one brought up in this thread, and otherwise. However, you nail my unstated point in your own comment. I do believe that the author takes the issue perhaps a little too seriously (though maybe that is sly intent, would be hard to be certain on the point).
 
It's not you, it's your posts.

You happen to post in the forums I watch, so it is inevitable that I will read and sometimes even respond to your posts.

Back on topic:

It should certainly not be a new notion that history is subjective and computer games grossly oversimplify reality and tell their tales with a certain bias, but that is a general problem with abstraction (no abstraction can offer an exact, "objective" representation of reality -- that's why it is an "abstraction" in the first place).

The additional bias added by the designers and developers trying to represent (an abstraction of) their views (intentionally or not) obviously makes the final products all but accurate representations of reality, but that's because they were never intended to be.

It's the claim of accuracy that adds a potential for harm through deception, tho. If a Civ game claimed to be historically accurate, or portray an objective "reality" (both of which would be a false claim), this problem would arise.

Until games can claim historical accuracy without having to face critique and people actually believe games more than history books, this should not become a problem. Mankind has survived Westerns and CSI, so there should not be an imminent danger in video games.

On the notion of 1984:

How do you know it hasn't happpend? Ten out of three conspiracy theorists agree that the Jewish alliance of Nazi-Communist has in fact rewritten our history books six times over. Since most of them also agree that language and mathematics are their tools of deception and should therefore be ignored entirely, this whole statistic has been made up on the spot.

Now, more seriously, a question: Suppose someone, somehow, WOULD manage to rewrite history and make everyone believe in his lie -- does it matter?
 
I suppose that question hinges on another question really.

What does he rewrite history WITH? Because say he convinced everyone that the earth was a hundred years old and that at the dawn of creation it was fortold that it would explode in 200 years. And everyone accepted that as the fact of history.

That would have a signifigant political, social, and perhaps economic impact on how we live our lives.
 
Ashmo said:
It's not you, it's your posts.
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I can't help but connecting the two. But, I understand what you mean.

I agree with you more than I don't, I think the author over-emphasizes the issue, which is only natural. Though, I believe there is another side to the matter. It is not that people will take the Civilization games at face value, and believe that the progress of civilization has been the dominion over land and native peoples. It is more that this view is all ready widely accepted, enough so that it creeps without intent into these games and is given no thought by the players. Another way to state it is that the games are not the danger, but a symptom.

An unfortunately rough post, but I'm running a little late as it is. I apologize, but I didn't want to put off writing this once I was half through.
 
I think if there seriously was Jewish conspiracy to rewrite American history in a more favorable vein, than Brooklyn would have become the second Holy Place by now.

History is constantly rewritten. But the question is not whether history should be rewritten, but for what purpose.

Commisar made a mention, and I know I am quoting this wrong, that there was something about appreciating the past, the notion of memorializing history- especially with regard to Russian history.

Perhaps- but I think the goal of history should be an idealistic one- the ideal of obtaining the truth. And I will agree that the truth is a slippery devil and perhaps there can be no "perfect" telling of the truth. But without that goal than you are slipping into political or ideological motivations.

Consider for instance Cuba, where generations have been indoctrinated under Castro's leadership into Marxism. North Korea where you can't get a decent reading of the Diary of Ann Frank. When I speak to my Chinese students most of them have little appreciation of knowledge of thousands of years of Chinese history. Confucius who? What's Taoism?

One of the goals of the state is to create a uniformed nation. Language is one device for that goal. France spent hundreds of years making a national state through use of the French language. But a shared history helps create a shared identity- and thus a community.

The question than becomes what kind of community do you want to have. This is actually very serious. Take a White Supremist shithead and you've got someone trying to recreate the history of the world as a division between good whites and bad blacks (and everyone else).

The identity shaped by history often, unfortunately, not only shapes what you think of yourself and where you're from, that which you as a people take pride in. It can also shape what you can do by framing things as acceptable if not noble.

If W says we are a people who have a proud history of righting the wrongs for our fellow man- that suggests that we should invade little countries and remove dictators. It inspires the next generation.

Seriously, a lot of countries today that used to be colonies are in worse shape than they were when they were colonies. Is it because the Colonialists left? No. It probably has more to do with the fact the colonialists realize that colonies are not cost-effective. Can a retelling of history that proclaims the virtues of colonialism inspire future generations to "take up the white man's burden?"

Maybe.
 
On a side note: If I look at all the "Your country's history is full of atrocities" Third Reich documentaries on tv, I can almost understand why some people turn to neo-nazism.

The "truth" lies somewhere in between.
 
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