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TOPIC: colonialism

This Happened

This Happened — November 1: A War Begins That Would Change Two Nations

Updated Nov. 1, 2023 at 12:50 p.m.

Starting in 1954, the Algerian War was fought between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front, and ultimately led to Algeria winning its independence in 1962, ending more than a century of French colonial rule.

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Western Plunders Of Antiquities? Challenging The New Chinese Uproar

There is no doubt that the old museums in Europe and America bear deep imprints of the colonial era; in a mirror image, "protecting treasures" has become a transcendental reference for the new China.

In mid-August, the British Museum reported a suspected burglary.

A batch of gold jewelry, precious stones, semi-precious stones and glass from the 15th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D., not on public display and used for scholarly research, were said to have been stolen from the museum. The suspected burglar? The museum's curator of Greek artifacts. In a more explosive revelation, the director of the museum, Hartwig Fischer, confirmed that some 2,000 items had been lost from the museum's coffers over the past 10 years. He resigned at the end of August.

The incidents made ripples in China. The Global Times published an editorial on August 27 titled "Please return Chinese cultural relics to the British Museum free of charge," stating that "Most of them were looted or stolen when Britain took advantage of people's danger, robbed them while they were on fire, or even directly engineered disasters for China."

In September, a Chinese social media user produced a web series called "Escape from the British Museum'' — it became a hit. The show tells the story of a Chinese "jade pot" in the British Museum's collection that transforms into a young woman who wants to return to China.

Ironically, the jade pot is a contemporary artifact (made in 2011) and was given to the British Museum by its creator, Yu Ting, a jade carver from Suzhou.

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The Colonial Spirit And "Soft Racism" Of White Savior Syndrome

Tracing back to Christian colonialism, which was supposed to somehow "civilize" and save the souls of native people, White Savior Syndrome lives on in modern times: from Mother Teresa to Princess Diana and the current First Lady of Colombia, Verónica Alcocer.

-Analysis-

CARTAGENA — The White Savior Syndrome is a social practice that exploits or economically, politically, symbolically takes advantage of individuals or communities they've racialized, perceiving them as in need of being saved and thus forever indebted and grateful to the white savior.

Although this racist phenomenon has gained more visibility and sparked public debate with the rise of social media, it is actually as old as European colonization itself. It's important to remember that one of Europe's main justifications for subjugating, pillaging and enslaving African and American territories was to bring "civilization and save their souls" through "missions."

Even today, many white supremacists hold onto these ideas. In other words, they believe that we still owe them something.

This white savior phenomenon is a legacy of Christian colonialism, and among its notable figures, we can highlight Saint Peter Claver, known as "the slave of the slaves," Bartolomé de Las Casas, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Princess Diana herself, and even the First Lady of Colombia, Verónica Alcocer.

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France Leaves Niger: Exposing The Empty Shell Of Post-Colonialism

Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday evening the recall of the French ambassador to Niger, and the departure of the 1,500 French soldiers stationed there: the end of a dangerous impasse. France is being forced to wholly review its African policy.

-Analysis-

PARISFrance will leave Niger, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday evening on French television.

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This Happened

This Happened — September 25: Mozambique War Of Independence

On this day in 1964, the Mozambican War of Independence against Portugal began.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Why Morocco Still Won't Accept Earthquake Aid From France?

Time is the most precious resource when it comes to disaster relief, and yet French teams have been left waiting for Morocco's approval for their aid. Looking at recent tensions might explain why the country is hesitating on accepting help in a time of such dire need.

Updated September 12, 2023 at 1:20 p.m.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Major humanitarian disasters can sometimes provide an opportunity to overcome hostilities between nations – but they can also be missed opportunities.

The earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday night has had a significant impact in France, not only due to the large Franco-Moroccan community here, but also because of the longstanding human connection between France and its former Maghreb protectorate.

Yet 72 hours after the disaster, the offers of assistance from the French government, including those from Emmanuel Macron himself, had still not received a response from Rabat. Meanwhile, Morocco had given the green light to relief efforts from Qatar, Tunisia and Spain. Spain is the only European country with 56 military rescuers already on the ground.

France possesses undeniable expertise and resources in the field of emergency relief, and if there is one area where every minute counts, it is the search for survivors. By Tuesday, the death toll had topped 2,800. Yet French teams, including search dogs and equipment, are still awaiting clearance to deploy from French soil. The Americans find themselves in a similar situation.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

First Niger, Now Gabon: What's Triggering The Coups d'État In Francophone Africa?

Is it a Russian conspiracy or anti-Paris bias? Or a sign that democracy has never really taken root in post-colonial realities?

-Analysis-

PARIS — It's a spectacular phenomenon, and not easily explained. Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and yesterday, Gabon: five African countries which have all seen military coups in the last two years. This raises many questions.

A simplistic explanations might label this a wave of coups, a Russian conspiracy or a rejection of France — and without a doubt these factors may be at play here, to some extent. But we need to dig deeper.

Something else these countries have in common is the failure of post-colonial states, which have been shaped under strong French influence. They have experienced two phases: one authoritarian, the other democratic – or, to be more accurate, pseudo-democratic.

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This Happened

This Happened — August 17: Indonesia Declares Independence

Indonesia declares its independence on this day in 1945.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War
Olena Struk

Russian Invasion Should Change How Ukraine Remembers World War II

The images of World War II have been used many times when describing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But memory can deceive — many Ukrainian victims were forgotten as the Soviet Union spun history for its own purposes.

KYIV — Tetiana Pastushenko has an interest in the fates of forgotten people.

Pastushenko — who has a Ph.D. in History, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Military and Historical Research at the Institute of History — has been researching the topics of Ukrainians in forced labor in the Third Reich, Soviet prisoners of war, and prisoners of Nazi concentration camps for many years.

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These are often people who have been left out of the official collective memory of the war. Ukraine was one of the most devastated areas in Europe during World War II. It was a principal battleground on the Eastern Front and suffered years of occupation and countless deaths.

She spoke to Ukrainian news outlet Livy Bereg about the stereotypes that still need to be overcome in the European research community, the importance of memory, and how the latest war will affect the global interpretation of World War II.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Israel-Palestine, The Eternal Proof That Violence Is The Absence Of Politics

Israel's military operation in Jenin is the latest escalation of bloodshed. Once again, the language of violence has prevailed because there is no political solution on the horizon.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Who still believes that a military solution is possible between Israelis and Palestinians? No reasonable person, apparently. And yet, once again, the language of violence prevails when there is no political solution possible or foreseeable.

This observation could have been made half a century ago just as it is being made today, following a rapid-fire full-scale war operation carried out by the Israeli army in Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank. A terrorist attack claimed by Palestinian Hamas islamists has also occurred in Tel Aviv.

We hadn't seen anything like this from Israel in 20 years — airstrikes, tanks, hundreds of soldiers assaulting a densely populated Palestinian city.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War
Oleksandr Merezhko

The De-Russification Dream: How A Ukraine Victory Could Remake Central Asia

As Russia loses in influence in Central Asia, Ukraine has an opportunity to take over a key role in relations between countries in the region and the European Union.

-OpEd-

KYIV — When Ukraine called on Central Asian countries this spring to move away from Russia and forge closer ties to Kyiv, Moscow responded with its usual bluster that the region is Russia's untouchable fiefdom.

The reaction is a sign of the current weakness of Russian power in the region, and that Central Asian countries from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan themselves are tired of diktat's from the Kremlin.

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But what does this mean for Kyiv? For Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksandr Merezhko, it is a historic opportunity for Ukraine.

From a historical perspective, Russia's attitude toward the people of Central Asia has gone through several stages. During the period of the Russian empire, Central Asia and its people were subjected to brutal colonialism. Considering them "uneducated," Russian authorities were convinced that international law did not apply to their relations with Central Asians. Therefore, they could seize the territories of this region by force and impose their law.

The Soviet era brought in a period of exploitation by the new imperial center, and a de facto cultural genocide when the Communist regime tried to destroy the culture, religion, national identity and character of Central Asia.

Modern Russia has inherited certain traditions of colonial and Soviet national policy in its attitude to the region, which today has a population of circa 72 million, in five countries: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Its current approach is, in fact, neocolonial, and Central Asian nationals who come to Russia in search of work often become victims of humiliation, discrimination and racism.

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Ideas
Wieland Freund

Purebreds To "Rasse" Theory: A German Critique Of Dog Breeding

Just like ideas about racial theory, the notion of seeking purebred dogs is a relatively recent human invention. This animal eugenics project came from a fantasy of recreating a glorious past and has done irreparable harm to canines.

BERLIN — Some words always seem to find a way to sneak through. We have created a whole raft of embargoes and decrees about the term race: We prefer to say ethnicity, although that isn’t always much better. In Germany, we sometimes use the English word race rather than our mother tongue’s Rasse.

But Rasse crops up in places where English native speakers might not expect to find it. If, on a walk through the woods, the park or around town, a German meets a dog that doesn’t clearly fit into a neat category of Labrador, dachshund or Dalmatian, they forget all their misgivings about the term and may well ask the person holding the lead what race of dog it is.

Although we have turned our back on the shameful racial theories of the 19th and 20th centuries, the idea of an “encyclopedia of purebred dogs” or a dog handler who promises an overview of almost “all breeds” (in German, “all races”) has somehow remained inoffensive.

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