Marhabbal
Good joke unfortunately for you I know perfectly the story and I'd suggest you to reconsider your position. If you consider the Barbarossa brothers and the other Turkish Gazis were welcomed in North Africa, you should read the way they've taken Algier by force and beheaded some of the most influencial chiefs of the area...
In case you forgot Barbaross was invited by the Algerians to battle against the Spanish and French, they weren't a Colony, Algeria was not colonised, it was not culturally forced to change, Algerians caried on being Algerians.
Algers was not taken by force, would you stop trying to re-invent history.
Well proud or not it is still colonization...
Go find out what Colonization means before throwing such words around.
For the law you're right this law WAS disgusting. It had been canceled.
Cancelled? there still pushing for its recognition, if they get the chance they'd implement it tomorrow and teach about how glorious their "colonialism" was to little Algerian, North African and other African kids
For the colony this is a stupid comment. Belgium had only one and they killed one million people.
They killed a million Africans so oooh that's fine, lets forget about it.
Another case of hypocrasy and double-standards.
Mamikon
France was not intent on killing all the muslims of Algiers...
Since when did you become the expert, in areas they were intent of killing all Muslims to wipe out any form of resistance.
In the 30's 2 million 345 thousand hectars of land was taken from Algerians and given to European settlers a large chunk of which was free of charge, from every 6 Algerians one was killed.
Its not restricted to Algeria.
Look at what happened in Chad, 400 Leaders, Representatives and wise men killed in a single night, the kingdom of Chad taken over, all Mosques closed, Medresse's destroyed, a whole nation torn apart, massacres, mass-arrests, a colonial clampdown.
In Gabon, turning it into a slave port of human traficing and suffering.
What about the role of the French in the Ruwandan Genocide? many say France should be directly charged as being one of the parties responsible for it occuring.
I could carry on and on, what I'm highlighting is that France is in no position to jump on a moral high horse and start parading around telling other countries that they need to adress their history while France is the one who should sort out her own issues first before attacking others.
Leonadis
your right, germany is the country which others can learn from in my mind, it has faced and acccepted its ugly past.
Todayy you rarely hear, Germans comitted a Genocide, its always "Nazi's" did it, the Nazi's comitted the genocide, not all German people supported this or participated, ofcourse its also true.
However, when talking about Turkey, they say "TURKS" comitted Genocide, "TURKEY" did it and "TURKEY" must adress its past.
The reality is, nobody from that time is alive today, in that era they were OTTOMANS, it was the OTTOMAN STATE, there was no TURKEY, Turkey is a seperate entity which was founded in 1923.
Leonadis
as i am entitled to mine. Your a member that holds the british empire in a glory light in other threads but ready to jump up and down about the french?
Ok, lets make a comparison.
Look at ex-English Colonies
U.S.A, Canada, India, Australia.....
Now look at ex-French Colonies
Algeria, Benin, Burkino-Faso, Senegal, Chad, Cameroon, Gabon.....
It doesn't take a genius to work out, what-ever crimes the Brittish may have comitted they also did and have benefited those countries aswell and many of them are today either Super-Powers, developing powers or countries with some hope.
Now look at ex-French Colonies, there is no infastructure, no railways, state education systems teaching people their own native languages and so on. Many are third-world, totally exploited and had most of their intellects and leaders wiped out leaving them with little hope for the future.
The two are in-comparable, you can critisice the Brittish all you like, there will be points I'll agree on however, one has to be honest and objective and the reality is, Brittish Colonialism had a far better effect then French Colonialism.
Leonadis
Either way it is how they handle their own past that really seperates them. So really the question should be; Which states actaully ban the word 'genocide' for being used for certain parts of its own past and inprison members of its press and writers for expressing such views? i can say its not france
Saying a Genocide occured is not an arrestable offense, Orhan Pamuk was not arrested, put on trial or imprisoned, he didn't say there was a Genocide either he said massacres.
Its actually going to become an arrestable offense in France.
So whose got more freedom of expression?
Leonadis
geez we all know that everyone has right to finger point, but what your point? its doesnt seem to be about the Algerains or bloody european emperialism. I see politics, the type used by the turkish foriegn ministry and some very sad and immature point scoring
Not at all, Turkey didn't start this, it didn't cause this, France is being immature and pointing fingers and causing this whole scene.
Algeria is an ally of Turkey, it has asked Turkey to accept the Algerian Genocide, why shouldn't Turkey accept it as France has done to her about the Armenians. France put Turkey in this position, Turkey is justified in its actions now.
Leonadis
Turkey can get nothing out of this
Oh but your mistaken.
Not only Turkey but a large chunk of the world could get alot out of this.
French Colonialism only ended fifty or so years ago, people are still alive who witnessed it.
Countries, impovrished and exploited in Africa can file international law-suits against France demanding compensation and apologies.
Even Turkey can file complaints about WW1 War Crimes commited agains Turks in the French invasion.
For too long Turkey has just kept silent because of its EU aspirations, people now are fed up, EU support is below 40% the road to EU is more important than joining it.
What happened in Algeria was definately horrible, should be condemned, and France has not sufficiently dealt with it, but I'm getting pretty sick of people whose blind nationalism makes them deny or minimize all misdeeds done by their country in the past, while they continuously going around pointing their finger to other countries.
You've given a great description of exactly what France's official policy is.
Minimlise all its own crimes and go around pointing fingers at others.
Its France that began all this, so France shouldn't be suprised to get a mouthfull of its own medicene!
Mixcoatl
If all you want to do here is to say how great Turks were and how bad others
But who here has said this? who? what's all these accusations and defensive attitude about.
Nobody is sitting here claiming Turkey to be the Angels of the world.
Nobody has denied there were Armenians who were massacred and that the Ottoman State in its last years comitted injustices, that the Turkish state has had a bad policy regarding Kurds in the past.
Were just exposing France's deep rooted prejeduce, double-standards and hypocracisy.
Turkey isn't perfect, neither is France, so who is France to start telling Turkey to accept this and that when it doesn't even adress its own issues first.
Mahrbbal
I'm just shock that some of us openly declare themselves as nationalists when we know what kind of horror it brought to the world...
Just to celebrate France on last time (ok I'm a bite nationalist as well
What an ironic statement, condemning some for being open about their Nationalist tendancies while admitting your also Nationlist yourself.
One rule for some and another for others.
Edited by Bulldog - 09-Oct-2006 at 08:09