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The oppressor wants to put positive spin on his oppression? Amazing. I didn’t know that there was anything remotely positive about colonialism!? I don’t mind them teaching it as long as they also teach about the murder, maiming, rape, forced labor, theft, displacement and all the other stuff that came along with their presence. Amazing.

Excerpt:
The row over the French government’s decision to retain a law teaching the “positive aspects” of colonial history, has been sparked off again after the country’s Interior Minister postponed his trip to the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe.

With the law specifically stating that the colonial history of north Africa be shown in a positive light, there are fears that improving relations between Algeria and France following their bloody 8-year war, which ended in 1962, may now be at risk.

In reaction to the introduction of the law, Algerian President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika reflected concerns that the emulation of the positive aspects of French colonialism is a sign of a refusal by Paris to recognise its colonial past, reported Radio France Internationale.

Referring to the uprising in the Algerian town of Setif, on May 8, 1945 during which as many as 40,000 Algerians were killed by French forces after 90 European settlers died in the rioting, Bouteflika spoke of a “mental blindness”.

In a scathing attack on the implementation of the law, he compared the use of furnaces by the French colonialists to incinerate the bodies of the Algerians killed during the revolt, with “the crematoriums of the Nazis”.

http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/d...Caribbean+trip

Recess, what did you honestly expect? History is almost always told from the point of view of the group who writes it. Whether we are talking about the colonial history of the French, English, Spanish, Japanese, and the US, as far as these groups were and are concerned, theirs was an exercise in “civilisation”. We, the former colonised like to delude ourselves into thinking that all people share our view that history is supposed to be “objective”. But that is wishful thinking; even the English and the French know two separate versions of their wars against each other. The fact is that history is supposed to be used in such a way of fostering national pride – as well as ancestral pride – in a people. Unfortunately, that can also mean that the nationalistic historian often ends up closing his eyes to the more sordid aspects of his country’s history for a variety of reasons. So you could blast the French if you want, or the British or the US; they are all patently racist, exploitative societies, but even more you need to understand and analyse their thinking and their actions in order to get ahead in this chess game.

Agreed!...and do I understand it very well!