What’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, that France and north Africa have their own history completely unconnected to Nazis Germany or the US.
Absurd claims you are making here really. Almost unbelievable really.
I was going to ramble on about Mediterranean history, but then realized, it was already not short.
Have you ever heard of the 1961 Paris Massacre? It was a peaceful demonstration in a European capital. It ended with the police murdering dozens, maybe 100s.
That puts the civil rights struggles in the USA at the time into quite a favorable context. But one shouldn’t view these events in France solely through the lens of colonialism or American racism, as the countries of southern Europe and northern Africa have Millennia of shared history. It is not like EG the European conquest of the Americas or the slave trade.
Shipping is a very cheap means of transporting massive amounts of cargo (or troops). Currently, the Mediterranean divides Europe from Africa, but that is an anomaly. Historically, it has tied together the countries around the coast, for better or worse. The Roman Empire was based around that sea.
Modern day Algeria was a regular part of France since 1848, like French Guyana today. Or like Hawaii is part of the US. But the inhabitants were very much second class citizens, which was justified through religion. Much of today’s (French) Islamophobia feeds from that history. But do not forget that other countries around the Mediterranean, as well as Russia, also have a history of war and oppression involving Islamic people.
I actually just recently read Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. I hadn’t heard of the Paris massacre but it does not surprise me at all. Fascism truly is colonialism brought home.
Mediterranean history is relatively familiar to me but only if you go back to pre roman times or early Islamic expansion tbh. I only have the most basic of knowledge post medieval period.
Absurd claims you are making here really. Almost unbelievable really.
I was going to ramble on about Mediterranean history, but then realized, it was already not short.
Have you ever heard of the 1961 Paris Massacre? It was a peaceful demonstration in a European capital. It ended with the police murdering dozens, maybe 100s.
That puts the civil rights struggles in the USA at the time into quite a favorable context. But one shouldn’t view these events in France solely through the lens of colonialism or American racism, as the countries of southern Europe and northern Africa have Millennia of shared history. It is not like EG the European conquest of the Americas or the slave trade.
Shipping is a very cheap means of transporting massive amounts of cargo (or troops). Currently, the Mediterranean divides Europe from Africa, but that is an anomaly. Historically, it has tied together the countries around the coast, for better or worse. The Roman Empire was based around that sea.
Modern day Algeria was a regular part of France since 1848, like French Guyana today. Or like Hawaii is part of the US. But the inhabitants were very much second class citizens, which was justified through religion. Much of today’s (French) Islamophobia feeds from that history. But do not forget that other countries around the Mediterranean, as well as Russia, also have a history of war and oppression involving Islamic people.
I actually just recently read Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. I hadn’t heard of the Paris massacre but it does not surprise me at all. Fascism truly is colonialism brought home.
Mediterranean history is relatively familiar to me but only if you go back to pre roman times or early Islamic expansion tbh. I only have the most basic of knowledge post medieval period.