simardcasanova’s avatarsimardcasanova’s Twitter Archive—№ 23,318

                      1. Thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, I have started to document myself on the history of French colonialism And what I was taught in school did not even barely scratched the surface of what really happened One thing I want to highlight: the indigénat
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                    1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
                      Basically, the indigénat was a series of legal dispositions that distinguished “indigenous” people and “French” people in the French colonies It was a two-tier system, very similar of the way Black Americans were discriminated against (in the law) in the US
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                  1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
                    French people usually regard racism in the US with a bit of disdain of the like “this could not happen in France, we are so much better than that”. Are we though? Indigénat was used to slaughter “indigenous” people, led to forced labor and expropriations
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                1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
                  Indigénat was cut off only in 1946, but even in 1962 it was still somehow followed by French authorities in the colonies. I guess it is not a surprise that the Algerian War is called the “dirty war” because of the many massacres and the torture that happened during it.
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              1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
                I will be extremely candid: I had no idea indigénat existed in June. Absolutely no idea. Documenting myself on the history of racism in the US led me to this discovery. It was shocking to me that it took me so long to discover its existence.
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            1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
              And exactly as white supremacy and slavery still have political consequences today in the US, it is the same with colonialism in France Le Pen’s father was a soldier during the Algerian War. The National Front was created by partisans of l’Algérie française (French Algeria)…
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          1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
            … a political ideology rooted in colonialism and racism that considered Algeria as a legitimate part of (white) France And exactly as in the US, the French far right also have coded ways to dog wisthle racism against the children of “indigenous” people The beast never left
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        1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
          We need to have this conversation in France. About colonialism. And the horrors it lead to. Too many (white) French people, *me included*, are ignorant about this part of our history. The problem is that our ignorance lead us to think “there is no problem here”
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      1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
        But this is an error of attribution: we think there is no problem because *we don’t the problem exists*. And I wonder how many other European nations also have blind spots like this. A lot, I guess.
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    1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
      One last thing: it is not because France did all these atrocious things in the past that I am *personally* responsable for them. Of course I am not. But this is not a reason not to reevaluate with deep humility my knowledge of the history of the society I grew up in
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  1. …in reply to @simardcasanova
    Those are though and hard things to read about. But I don’t think we can afford to keep them under the carpet any longer. We need to have a colonial reckoning in France. It is long overdue.
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