The French Colonialist’s Comeuppance
By pushing its immigrants to the fringes of French society, the country cultivated a breeding ground for humiliation, exclusion, and retribution.
By Gordon AdamsGordon Adams is a Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service, American University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. From 1993-97 he was the senior White House budget official for national security.
January 21, 2015
When we asked what was going on, all we learned was that “parachutists” were expected to land in the region. Why? Because Gen. Raoul Salan, the commander of French forces in Algeria, intended to invade the French mainland and carry out a coup d’état against Charles de Gaulle, then president of France.
This was my introduction to the legacy of French colonialism. It was no joke. Salan had seized Algeria’s key cities and, with the support of French forces there, was preparing to invade the homeland, take Paris, and remove de Gaulle, the president. De Gaulle’s sin: ending the colonial war France had been waging for seven years against an uprising of the colonized Algerian people. He had allowed a referendum on self-determination in Algeria and had begun secret negotiations with the National Liberation Front. First Vietnam was lost, and then Morocco and Tunisia in the 1950s; now, for the French military, the retreat from empire was at the shores of France.
In the end, Salan’s “putsch” failed. Those French who had occupied Algeria since the 19th century — known as the pieds-noirs — streamed back to France, losing generations of property and wealth, and the Algerian revolution took power. The direct humiliation of the colonized had ended, at least in Algeria. But a bitter legacy of the colonial tradition is alive today — a legacy that can be seen in the attacks as well as in the French response.
In his 1950 book Discourse on Colonialism (Discours sur le Colonialisme), Césaire described the colonial relationship as one based on “forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses.” And he went on to argue for the need for a new self-awareness among the colonized, which he called “negritude,” an awareness of the self and community of black colonized that would allow them to confront the white French colonizer.
In Tunisia, Albert Memmi, a Tunisian Jewish writer and sociologist, wrote The Colonizer and the Colonized in 1957. The colonial system, he argued, dehumanized both the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer “pretends to have seen nothing of poverty and injustice which are right under his nose.”
From the 1970s through the turn of the century, driven by economic failures in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, the colonized have come to France, following the pieds noirs. Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans, and many West and Central Africans came, bringing both cultural diversity and Islam into the heart of France. They also brought with them the memory of humiliation and degradation.
Sadly, France has adapted badly, even not at all, to this migration. The colonizer has not been able to adapt to the presence of the colonized. The French concept of nationhood was rooted in becoming “French,” adopting French symbols and French culture, not in widening the sense of what is French to include other cultures, races, religions, and values. Discrimination grew. The damnés were condemned to shoddy housing in the banlieues and were treated poorly in the education system; their religion was ignored or criticized (lay France rejects the wearing of headscarves), and their employment opportunities were few and far between.
The immigrant population has remained “colonized.” .Decades of this colonial legacy and state and public reinforcement of the “separateness” of the immigrant population has been coming home to roost for several years now. Riots in the immigrant fringe of Paris broke out 10 years ago. The marginalization did not end. Today, some of that unintegrated population has found its way to radical Islam. The younger generation of these immigrant families lives in France but is not “of France,” and France is not inclusive of them; they speak French, but employment opportunities are rare, and upward mobility even rarer.
This is not an apology for what has happened. But it is a recognition that France, and Europeans in general, have played a big role here, laying the bed and planting the seeds that have led us here. Until Europeans register the reality of this history, the response to this violence will be, in return, violence. And violence that begets violence is a very dangerous national security strategy for Europe. The use of repression and violence to control these populations is not a winnable tactic. While it might achieve street peace in the short run, it only builds resentment and further opportunity for a violent response. Fought as a “war,” it is not winnable. It simply perpetuates the colonial tradition that the colonized recognize. And it creates even more violence in response, as Fanon argued, leading to a vicious cycle. Community engagement with the Muslim population is badly needed; the creation of educational and employment opportunities is the only long-term answer.
She was French, criticizing the United States and, basically, arguing that engagement was the only long-term solution. Now the issue has come home to the French. Intermarriage may not be the answer, but an open intercultural understanding is fundamentally necessary in her native land and on the continent where she lived, lest the violence continue and grow unabated. Maybe it is time for the French police to protect not only Jewish sites against anti-Semitic violence, but also Muslim sites against violent retaliation.
フランスは植民地をしぶしぶ手放した後も、植民地主義を続け、フランスにいる旧植民地出身者をいじめ、侮辱し、片隅においやり、その復讐の種をまいて、つい１０年前にも暴動があったばかり。
暴力で弾圧しては、暴力によって、仕返しされる悪循環になるだけだから、相手の気持ちを理解する努力をしなくては、と。
できるかなああ・・・・フランスに。
（歴史問題）
