Is France ready to draw a line on its colonial past?
This is a debate that is raging in contemporary political circles, with on the one hand a left-wing upset about this shameful period of French history, and on the other hand, a right-wing that says “It was the French who built them roads.”
However, the French government has shown an increasingly repentant attitude towards its former colonialism. Especially concerning the Algeria War, which remains the supreme example of French horror to this day.
RELATED: The Algerian Genocide: How France Killed Millions of Muslims
On January 26, Macron said, for example, that the French action in Algeria “was an unforgivable fault.”
Are the French people ready to come clean, too, and apologize for the terrible massacre that their countrymen and ancestors committed?
Let’s remember that in the new generations, almost everyone has a grandfather who fought in Algeria. Let’s also remember that the president in charge during the war was General de Gaulle, a figure who is highly praised to this day in France and a figure who each new presidential candidate claims for himself. From Pécresse to Zemmour, each one bickers to establish who is most similar to this wartime torturer.
So the question seems legit, when will repentance begin for the French people?
RELATED: The French-Algerian War Sixty Years On: A Legacy of Terror
In the city of Amboise, a statue in the image of Emir Abdelkader was to be inaugurated on February 6, 2022. This ceremony served as a gesture – oh so symbolic – of peace between France and Algeria. After all, Emir Abdelkader was an Algerian resistance fighter who had fought against France. What better gesture of peace could the country offer than to pay tribute to its former enemy on its own soil?
Taking this further, this symbol could even be seen as an acceptance of an Islamic France, that is, of a Nation with a plural identity that accepts that someone can be Muslim AND French!
Imagine the status of an Arab, wearing his burnous and with a beard as long as a hands length, proudly erected by the public authorities in a small French country town.
Following a recommendation of the report of historian Benjamin Stora, a stele in honor of Emir Abdelkader, hero of the struggle against the French conquest of Algeria, was inaugurated Saturday, near the castle of Amboise.
Were French citizens ready for this kind of turn of events?
Obviously, not all. The day before the ceremony, the statue of this great hero was vandalized. Despite the government’s wishes, it is a bit early for genuine repentance in France.
“Indignation”, “shame”, “cowardice”. A sculpture in honor of Emir Abdelkader (1808-1883) was vandalized before its inauguration on Saturday, February 5, in Amboise (Indre-et-Loire), prompting widespread condemnation, a journalist from Le Monde observed on the spot. In this commune of Indre-et-Loire, the Algerian national hero had been detained with several members of his family from 1848 to 1852.
The work entitled Passage Abdelkader, which represents the Emir Abdelkader cut into a sheet of rusted steel, was damaged mainly at the bottom of the structure.
Picture of Emir Abdelkader vandalized statue.Should We Buy that France Regrets Colonization?
Every year, France still receives money from its former colonies.
All the territories that France “liberated” through negotiation rather than armed conflict are still paying the price of their freedom today.
These are generally legal contracts, signed in the past in a consensual manner, but if France’s feeling of regret about its colonial history is sincere, why not abrogate these contracts that impoverish the former colonies and block their development?
One should also keep in mind the foreign policy of France, which has not turned the page on the thirst for conquest and interventionism.
To this day, the French neo-colonists do not commemorate the suffering in Mali, nor do they deescalate. Still, let’s not be pessimistic. This new editorial line of the French government still leaves room for hope concerning the future. Perhaps in 60 years, Macron’s distant successor will do his Mea Culpa on millions of massacred Malians.
RELATED: Mali: “Post”-Colonial Heartache in a Former Center of Islam
Bad article. Since when children inherit his/her parents sin. Why would they apologise for that?
Well apparently the children are doing the same thing their forefathers did if not worse. So they should apologize for that.
Plus we r speaking of the govt in general. Not the individual ppl
Those “children” are still holding the entirety of Algerian Archives from Ottoman times, 6 billion dollars equivalent of money still in debt with us since early 1800s, and thousands of skulls belonging to Algerian resistance fighters in the Musée de l’Homme…
“However, the French government has shown an increasingly repentant attitude towards its former colonialism.”
While simultaneously ramping up their anti-Islam policies….so, how sincere are they?
We should not expect or demand France or any other infidel country to repent for their past imperialism, and in return they should not expect or demand us to repent for past Muslim imperialism in their lands, including the colonialist conquests of the racist Umayyads (who were the Arab version of Nazis) in Southern France, and WW1 partially-secularized Ottomans and medieval versions of Da-esh like Timur making khawarij massacres in other cuffer lands like India and Armenia, and of course Da-esh.
Has Rakija become cheaper in your Belgrade? If not, how the heck do you say that Umayyads were racists?? You should be grateful to MS that Chetniks like you are still allowed to write fantasy stories here.
For millionth time, WALLAHI I’M SUNNI MUSLIM! I’m brown Desi South Asian, not white European. Where do you get this idea of me being Serb? If you repeat your Tekfeeri slander again, then I’ll call you Daeshi kharijee because that’s what you seem to support. Read history of Umayyads and Ottomans and you can clearly see that they WERE racist to non-Arabs and non-Turks, which is big mistake they made since they are not perfect or free of faults, which is why we don’t call them Khulafaa Rashideen.
Modi supporter spotted.
Many countries teach historical revisionist propaganda where they make their own history look perfect/sinless because they don’t want to admit that their nation has done wrong. Modern Turks see Ottoman as “historical Turkish nation” more than Islamic caliphate, hence they airbrush all crimes of Ottoman history because they don’t want to admit that their ancestors ever did bad. But fact is that Ottoman was hijacked by secular nationalist Young Turks that’s why they did mistakes against Armenians
Btw, these ppl are supposed to be your examples. The supreme example to follow coz they are progressives
Never forget nor forgive. They plundered our resources, tried to deform our identity, emptied our national archives, massacred up to 8 million of us; and then they want to apologize with some rusty statue? Pathetic!
We will see their humanity when they see our power. Until we are divided, and have taken the Js and the Christians as our friends and protectors and have put faith in the promises of kuffar (constitutions) over the promise of Allah (Quran, Sunnah) we will remain weak, humbled, humiliated, harassed as individuals, principalities, entire states and nations.