ANALYSIS: Simplistic to see Paris attacks as consequence of systemic exclusion
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- Written by Henry Adams
Seeing the Nov. 13 Paris attacks as a consequence of French colonialist attitudes only gets us so far and in fact is "dangerously reductive," a researcher at the University of Birmingham pointed out last week.[1] -- "Fifty years after the end of the French empire, the situation has changed significantly," wrote, on his university's website, Berny Sèbe, an expert on the history of the Sahara, Franco-African relations since WWII, and comparative imperialisms who is the author of the book Heroic Imperialists in Africa (Manchester UP, 2013). -- After all, "Arab countries, some of whom fought to the bitter end for their independence, have also suffered" from jihadism. -- "The Algerian government, which emerged out of an eight-year struggle with France, battled with a decade of terror in the 1990s, which claimed between 100,000 and 200,000 lives." -- And unlike decolonization movements, for which the notion of human rights was a source of inspiration, "jihadi groups reject wholesale the values inherited from the Enlightenment." -- "By contrast, we are now witnessing through these attacks an attempt to challenge deliberately the core values of French (and Western) society." -- Jihadists seek "the annihilation of the West and its values -- an objective which had never been even formulated by anti-colonial activists in the post-war period." ...
TRANSLATION: A review of intellectuals’ responses to the Paris attacks (Le Monde)
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- Written by Mark Jensen
On Saturday, Le Monde (Paris) offered brief summaries of what seven well-known intellectuals have been writing about the Paris attacks.[1] -- Nicolas Truong also provided links to their recent pieces, all published in Le Monde....