tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/french-empire-24970/articlesFrench empire – The Conversation2023-01-15T14:36:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1971932023-01-15T14:36:12Z2023-01-15T14:36:12ZCanada, a superpower? Here’s how the country might one day fit the bill<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503627/original/file-20230109-7526-b6x4xo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3300%2C2129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A paddler launches a canoe on Bass Lake in central Ontario on Canada Day, 2021. Could humble Canada be heading towards superpower status in the decades to come?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Thornhill</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canada--a-superpower-here-s-how-the-country-might-one-day-fit-the-bill" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>For the foreseeable future, <a href="https://now.tufts.edu/2019/11/21/why-united-states-only-superpower">the United States will probably remain the world’s most powerful nation</a>. Yet, like any champion, it must watch for challengers and head them off. At present, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/10/evergrande-china-us/620360/">China’s rise on the global stage troubles Washington</a>. A few decades ago, it was the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>But will future contenders for superpower status be much closer — specifically, north of the U.S. border? The British Empire ended in the mid-20th century when it was outmanoeuvred not by one of its longtime rivals, France or Germany, but rather by its ally, the U.S. Could Canada do the same?</p>
<p><a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm">Canada’s population</a> is just a fraction <a href="https://www.census.gov/popclock/">of its southern neighbour’s</a>, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has announced an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-immigration-500000-2025-1.6636661">ambitious plan to bring in 500,000 immigrants each year</a> by 2025.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-plans-to-break-records-with-its-new-refugee-targets-193880">How Canada plans to break records with its new refugee targets</a>
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<p>The vast majority will be young and selected via merit-based criteria that give priority to education and workplace skills. Canada’s population in relation to the U.S. has also been slowly increasing for decades and <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220209/cg-a001-eng.htm">is growing at a faster pace.</a></p>
<p>Canada and the U.S. are roughly the same size, both accounting for <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/geography/largest-countries-in-the-world/">6.1 per cent of the world’s land mass</a>. Much of Canada’s land at present is cold, barren and largely uninhabitable. But climate change has made Canada’s landscape more temperate and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/could-global-warming-turn-canada-into-a-superpower-1.556373">suitable for agriculture and other activities</a>, a trend expected to continue in the decades to come. </p>
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<img alt="Ships are seen on open water behind a large chunk of blue-ish sea ice." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503628/original/file-20230109-15599-kauvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ships are framed by pieces of melting sea ice in Frobisher Bay in Iqaluit, Nunavut in July 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
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<h2>Economic powerhouse</h2>
<p>In some ways Canada is already a superpower. Its economic output is the <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/countries-by-share-of-global-economy/">eighth largest in the world</a>. The seven countries with larger economies have bigger populations than Canada. Even with a short growing season and relatively small area devoted to agriculture, Canada is the <a href="https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/sector/overview">fifth largest exporter of agri-food and seafood products</a>. </p>
<p>But economic strength is only one measure of a global power. Another is having the resources that others need. In that regard, Canada is extraordinarily rich in natural resources, including clean water. Regardless of future economic, environmental and technological trends, the country will be an energy and natural resources superpower. </p>
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<img alt="An aerial shot of a large array of lakes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504082/original/file-20230111-32622-hgpv75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Canada has an abundance of fresh water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sergei A, Unsplash)</span></span>
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<p>Two other elements are needed for <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2022-06-21/what-makes-a-power-great">superpower status</a>: a political system that provides strong governance and a national culture that’s appealing to its own citizens and to people around the world. </p>
<p>Canadian politics prizes stability and moderation, both hallmarks of a superpower. Social change occurs with few ideological battles. For example, becoming the first developed country to legalize <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/legal-marijuana-makes-few-waves-in-canada/6718512.html">the use and sale of recreational cannabis</a> happened with scant controversy or social division. </p>
<p>Even on <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberal-government-seeking-delay-to-expanding-medically-assisted-dying-program-1.6196668">expanding the scope of medical assistance in dying legislation</a>, Canadians have remained civil, with all stakeholders willing to listen to each other. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-providers-and-maid-the-reasons-why-some-dont-offer-medically-assisted-death-186625">Health-care providers and MAID: The reasons why some don't offer medically assisted death</a>
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<h2>Providing inspiration</h2>
<p>Superpowers are not only countries that dominate in various spheres, but also countries that command the aspiration of — and provide inspiration for — people around the globe. For two centuries, the U.S. has made its national dream one that others around the world sought to attain. American-style democracy was the gold standard. </p>
<p>This is now less and less the case. The “city on a hill” acting as <a href="https://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/columns/the-new-world-order-america-in-decline/">a beacon of hope for others</a> has morphed in recent decades into a selfish “America-first” environment. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with orange-blonde hair speaks with his arms spread behind a podium that says Trump. American flags are behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503637/original/file-20230109-9407-cwhwi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former president Donald Trump announces a third run for president as he speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in November 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">American citizens have grown disillusioned by their polarized politics</a>, while outsiders question the excesses that drive U.S. capitalism. Donald Trump’s years in the White House have left many <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/01/29/how-america-changed-during-donald-trumps-presidency/">dismayed about the future</a> of their country and widened the divisions between Republicans and Democrats. </p>
<p>As neighbours, Canadians shake their heads in wonder at the inequities, lack of public health care, lax gun control and debates over abortion and immigration that dominate and <a href="https://www.environicsinstitute.org/insights/insight-details/we-re-witnessing-the-continuing-cultural-divergence-of-canada-and-the-united-states">divide American politics</a>. </p>
<p>Canadian culture, shaped by the country’s history of being a fragment of both the British and French empires, has aspired to promote equality, both between individuals and groups, although it’s failed in its abysmal treatment of Indigenous Peoples.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/delgamuukw-25-years-on-how-canada-has-undermined-the-landmark-decision-on-indigenous-land-rights-196196">Delgamuukw 25 years on: How Canada has undermined the landmark decision on Indigenous land rights</a>
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<p>Nonetheless, in an age of globalization and demand for greater personal freedoms, Canada’s <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-multiculturalism-a-work-in-progress/?gclid=CjwKCAiA8OmdBhAgEiwAShr40-sSjf2t9aarxeliFshUw2DdiDnNGQbUmrKvtGi9uzLhaEWXx9ZFExoCcDgQAvD_BwE">multicultural policies are a beacon of hope</a> in a world often scarred by religious, ethnic and tribal battles. </p>
<h2>Where will Canada be in 2223?</h2>
<p>Much like when the U.S. steadily assumed the role of unchallenged superpower from Great Britain during the first half of the 20th century, it might be that <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2020/why-canada-may-become-a-great-global-power-this-century/">Canada gradually becomes a great power</a> this century — perhaps first as a partner to the United States, but then increasingly supplanting its neighbour. </p>
<p>For many around the world, such a transition would be preferable to other scenarios, such as China or Russia assuming more dominant roles in global affairs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/united-states-the-end-of-an-illusion-of-omnipotence-186421">United States: the end of an illusion of omnipotence</a>
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<p>A shift in global power relations would occur at a leisurely pace and with minimal disruption. </p>
<p>In 1776, with a population of 2.5 million, few imagined that within two centuries, the U.S. would become the dominant superpower. It’s not inconceivable that Canada could perform the same feat by 2223.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Klassen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1776, with a population of 2.5 million, few imagined that within two centuries, the U.S. would become the dominant superpower. It’s not inconceivable that Canada could do the same by 2223.Thomas Klassen, Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1615902021-05-31T15:24:04Z2021-05-31T15:24:04ZUN and African Union key to public support for French military operations in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402830/original/file-20210526-23-1rav1fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French President Emmanuel Macron with French troops during his 2017 visit to France's Barkhane counter-terrorism operation in Gao, northern Mali.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Christopher Petit Tesson/Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57239805">coup in Mali</a> and the recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/world/africa/president-chad-killed.html">killing by rebels of Chadian strongman Idriss Déby</a> starkly illustrate the challenges facing France’s counterterrorism operations in Africa.</p>
<p>In February 2021, French president Emmanuel Macron pledged to extend his <a href="https://www.thedefensepost.com/2021/02/17/france-maintains-sahel-force/">country’s 5,000-strong Operation Barkhane</a> in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. He declared that Barkhane’s primary goal was to help states in the Sahel region “decapitate” insurgent groups that France has persistently portrayed as terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda.</p>
<p>Yet the operation, launched in 2014, has relatively little to show for its efforts. It also comes with a significant price tag for France, <a href="https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2021C05/">close to €1 billion in 2020</a>. This economic burden has become hard to justify, especially amid the economic pressure from the COVID-19 crisis. </p>
<p>The French public increasingly doubts that armed insurgencies in the Sahel are a major security threat to France. Domestic support for Operation Barkhane <a href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/operation-barkhane-la-bataille-de-l-opinion-est-lancee-20210112">dropped below 50%</a> for the first time earlier this year. Yet <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030175801">French leaders</a> continue to view their country as an essential security provider in Africa. </p>
<p>French policymakers understand that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2020.1734571">sharing the burden</a> of military operations with global partners can help boost flagging support at home. At the same time, foreign governments <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2020.1733986">hesitate to contribute</a> substantial resources to France’s military efforts in Africa. This includes France’s principal NATO allies, such as the US, UK and Germany. People in these countries often see French operations as self-serving endeavours to defend France’s regional influence and great power status. </p>
<h2>Swaying public support</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/in-search-of-soft-power-does-foreign-public-opinion-matter-for-us-foreign-policy/0C9DB5A0FB1EF43767932DE4E2C4DCEF">Research</a> shows that foreign public opinion has a considerable effect on countries’ willingness to contribute troops and resources to multinational military coalitions.</p>
<p>Seeking to boost foreign public support and facilitate multinational coalition-building, French leaders have sought to portray their interventions in Africa as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiz050">part of a “global war on terror”</a>. But people in potential troop-contributing countries may suspect that leaders who advocate intervention are <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Overblown/John-Mueller/9781416541721">inflating the security threats</a>. They thus remain hesitant to contribute. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab032">recently published study</a> we investigate whether, and if so to what extent, endorsements from the United Nations or the African Union (AU) increase foreign public support for contributing to French-led military operations. We hypothesised that UN or AU endorsements might offer an impartial <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00660.x">“second opinion”</a> to sceptical foreign publics that political instability in the Sahel does indeed threaten global security, thus justifying military intervention.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>To test our hypothesis, we conducted nationally representative public opinion surveys in the US, Great Britain, and Germany. The surveys were fielded online by the polling company <a href="https://today.yougov.com/">YouGov</a> in August 2018. </p>
<p>Each survey taker read a vignette that began with the introduction,
“Imagine that France is planning a military intervention in one of its former colonies in West Africa”. Then, the vignette described France’s intervention goal as helping the African country’s government combat Islamist terrorists. </p>
<p>Our surveys contained an embedded experiment. That is, we randomly assigned information to our respondents about whether the UN or the AU endorsed France’s intervention. Participants were then asked if they supported their government contributing to France’s intervention. This could be by providing combat troops, financial and logistical assistance, or advice and training for local government forces.</p>
<p>Our surveys presented realistic scenarios as the US, UK and Germany have partnered with France in Africa over the last two decades. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/africa/terrorism-west-africa.html">US</a> has contributed intelligence, aerial refuelling and logistics to Operation Barkhane, worth about $45 million a year. <a href="https://www.thedefensepost.com/2018/06/14/first-uk-troops-arrive-africa-sahel-france-barkhane/">The UK</a> has deployed about 100 troops in support of French missions since 2018. It recently <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mali-british-troops-al-qaeda-isis-b1795568.html">increased this to 300</a>. It has also offered transport, reconnaissance and logistical assistance. <a href="https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/laenderinformationen/mali-node/mali-bundeswehr/2340748">Germany</a> has contributed 1,400 troops to EU training and UN peacekeeping missions in Mali, in support of French efforts.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>We found that approval by the UN or AU (or both) increased US, UK and German public support for contributing to French military operations by about 5 to 7 percentage points. This is significant, given that in all three countries, baseline public support was around or slightly below 50% for non-combat contributions. It was substantially lower for sending combat troops. </p>
<p>The bump in public support from multilateral approval is thus likely to be politically valuable to French leaders intent on building multinational coalitions. This finding is particularly relevant because of our study’s focus on counterterrorism operations. <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/30/1/140/692882/0162288054894616.pdf">Previous scholarship</a> had suggested that the public strongly supports such operations, regardless of multilateral approval. We found that this is not necessarily the case.</p>
<p>In short, multilateral approval does make a difference to public support, even in counterterrorism cases. It helps reassure citizens that the threat from terrorism is real and warrants military intervention.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>French leaders appear to understand that multilateral approval helps build coalitions and share burdens. Since the mid-1990s, they have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1733985">sought to legitimise</a> their African interventions by securing approval from the UN and regional institutions. Our study confirms a strong causal link between such multilateral approval and the willingness of foreign publics to contribute to French-led operations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Rogers de Waal is affiliated with YouGov, which provided the research behind this article. The research was provided in pro bono collaboration as part of YouGov’s public data offering
. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan A. Chu and Stefano Recchia do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>French policymakers understand that sharing the burdens of military operations with global partners can help boost flagging support at home.Stefano Recchia, John G. Tower Chair in International Politics, Southern Methodist UniversityJoel Rogers de Waal, Co-director, YouGov-Cambridge Centre, University of CambridgeJonathan A. Chu, Lecturer, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138082019-05-21T11:36:00Z2019-05-21T11:36:00ZHate heaped on black heroines of the French Resistance would look familiar to AOC and Rashida Tlaib<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273861/original/file-20190510-183112-1mwdf1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When women of color in government work together, it often helps their chances of legislative success. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/New-Congress/d54d663d9f4f40219cf02af9a93784ec/6/0">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Women of color who hold public office in Europe and the United States frequently attract intense scrutiny. </p>
<p>In the United States, the outspoken U.S. Representatives <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/24/hardball_panel_why_is_the_right_so_obsessed_with_alexandria_ocasio-cortez.html">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib-israel.html">Rashida Tlaib</a> and <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/first-somali-american-congresswoman-ignites-controversy-in-diverse-minneapolis/4854761.html">Ilhan Omar</a> have seen frequent attacks in the media by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/trump-s-9-11-tweet-on-rep-ilhan-omar-draws-condemnation-from-democrats-1491120707941">critics</a> who portray them as unpatriotic, not American enough.</p>
<p>Government ministers across the Atlantic have been subjected to similar aggression. </p>
<p>Both former French Minister of Justice <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/christiane-taubira-french-guiana">Christiane Taubira</a>, the first black woman to <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/taubira-christiane-taubira-delannon-christiane-1952/">hold this high office</a>, and European Parliament member Cécile Kyenge – Italy’s first black government minister – have been satirized with <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20131113-france-racism-black-minister-taubira-monkey-banana-magazine-cover">offensive images</a>, called racist names and told, in short, that they <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/italys-first-black-minister-racist-abuse-discrimination">don’t belong in European politics</a>.</p>
<p>My historical <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BWpDGiAAAAAJ&hl=en">research on race and gender</a> shows that such attacks started well before the current era. In France, even black women who fought Nazis during World War II were accused of not being French enough when, later, they entered politics.</p>
<h2>Redefining patriotism</h2>
<p>Black French women played important and often overlooked roles in the French Resistance, the <a href="https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=153">underground movement</a> that fought Hitler’s regime after France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940. They served as spies, nurses and clandestine couriers.</p>
<p>My forthcoming book uncovers the political struggles of France’s first two black female senators, Eugénie Éboué-Tell and Jane Vialle, after they took their fight for equality into government. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273863/original/file-20190510-183077-1165ox0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eugenie Éboué-Tell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.senat.fr/senateur-4eme-republique/eboue_tell_eugenie0410r4.html">French Senate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5809190/eugenie_ebouetell_in_nynew_york_age/">Eugénie Éboué-Tell</a> was the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-the-brutal-french-guiana-prison-that-inspired-papillon">French Guyana</a>-born wife of a high-ranking colonial administrator in Africa. In 1939, Éboué-Tell joined the women’s auxiliary corps as a nurse in Central Africa’s fledgling Resistance army. </p>
<p>Given her husband’s prominence, Éboué-Tell’s military service brought visibility to the African origins of the French Resistance movement – and to her own dissidence. In 1940, Éboué-Tell was sentenced to death in absentia for joining the Resistance by France’s Vichy government, which was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/vichy-government-france-world-war-ii-willingly-collaborated-nazis-180967160/">by then collaborating with the Nazis</a>. </p>
<p>After the Allied victory, Éboué-Tell went from death sentence to being awarded the French <a href="https://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/D25/deco.html">medal of honor</a> by the government.</p>
<p>In 1945 she was elected to the French National Assembly and a year later to the Senate. There she met another black woman who had also played an important role in the French Resistance, <a href="https://upclosed.com/people/jane-vialle/">Jane Vialle</a>. </p>
<h2>Challenging French oppression from within</h2>
<p>Vialle, born in 1906 in the Republic of the Congo, moved to Paris with her father at the age of seven. She was working as a journalist when World War II broke out. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273862/original/file-20190510-183083-1ycj2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane Vialle, a reporter turned spy turned French senator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.senat.fr/senateur-4eme-republique/vialle_jane0151r4.html">French Senate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vialle left Paris and became a clandestine agent for <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/albert-camus-edited-the-french-resistance-newspaper-combat.html">Combat</a>, one of the three major Resistance movements in the south of France. As a spy, Vialle gathered intelligence on the movement of Nazi troops across Europe. </p>
<p>She was arrested in January 1943 and charged with treason. In her trial records, the Vichy French prosecutor said that Vialle had so expertly coded her data that, when her house was raided, police could not crack her code.</p>
<p>Vialle was sent to a concentration camp and then a <a href="https://womenintheworld.com/2018/05/04/sentenced-to-prison-mothers-bring-their-babies-to-live-with-them-behind-bars/">women’s prison in Marseille</a>. The historical records I located differ on how she survived incarceration: Either she escaped or she was released. </p>
<p>Much of black women’s history during World War II is similarly ambiguous. Their stories of resistance remain untold, still shrouded in mystery.</p>
<p>Either way, Vialle survived the war. She was elected to the French Senate in 1947. </p>
<h2>Continuing the resistance after World War II</h2>
<p>Following electoral campaigns that emphasized their role in the Resistance, Éboué-Tell and Vialle were initially hailed in France as war heroes.</p>
<p>They used the power of their new Senate seats to challenge another kind of oppression in France: colonialism. </p>
<p>In 1947 France was still a global empire. It controlled dozens of colonies and territories in the Caribbean, South America and across Africa.</p>
<p>France’s deployment of troops to its African colonies during World War II caused a rise in the number of children born of African mothers and white French soldiers. As scholars <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo9637538.html">Emmanuelle Saada</a> and <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208198.001.0001/acprof-9780198208198">Owen White</a> have documented, French colonial policy was to sequester these children in government orphanages, where they received a limited education and could be forced into child labor.</p>
<p>Vialle and Éboué-Tell thought these children, too, deserved liberation. </p>
<p>In 1947, they collaborated on legislation that would give these children the same rights as those born in mainland France. Among other benefits, it would allow them to conduct a paternity search and could require absentee French fathers to pay child support. </p>
<p>Fellow lawmakers accused Vialle and Éboué-Tell of being divisive for highlighting racial inequality. But after a fierce four-year battle, the landmark legislation passed. </p>
<h2>Learning from history</h2>
<p>I find in Éboué-Tell’s and Vialle’s stories relevant parallels to politics today. </p>
<p>These black French women knew from deeply personal experience that their country was both heroic and villainous, a place of freedom and atrocity – at once a symbol of liberation from Nazism and a colonial oppressor. </p>
<p>As outsiders who’d worked their way into the center of power, they broadened narrow ideas of who was authentically “French.” They expanded more citizenship rights to people who, like them, came from the colonies.</p>
<p>I can see today’s female politicians of color following their lead, using their political power to advocate for the most marginalized in society. </p>
<p>As a member of Parliament, France’s Christiane Taubira spearheaded 2001 legislation that recognized the Atlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity. In 2016, she <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/27/french-justice-minister-christiane-taubira-resigns">resigned</a> as minister of justice in opposition to new anti-terror laws targeting French citizens of immigrant origin.</p>
<p>Now another black French woman, National Assembly member Danièle Obono, is pushing legislation to <a href="http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/deputes/fiche/OMC_PA721960">protect children and working mothers</a>.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has <a href="https://ocasio2018.com/issues">done the same in the United States</a>. Ilhan Omar has signed onto the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2415/cosponsors">Dignity for Detained Immigrants bill</a>, which would better protect immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security. </p>
<p>And, like French pioneers Éboué-Tell and Vialle, these “outsider” politicians are still <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/22/jayapal-freshmen-dems-1231513">working together</a> to effect change from within the government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annette Joseph-Gabriel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women of color in public office often face great scrutiny and hostility. New research shows how France’s first black female senators used their experience fighting Nazis to pass landmark legislation.Annette Joseph-Gabriel, Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074792018-11-23T13:13:56Z2018-11-23T13:13:56ZReturning looted artefacts will finally restore heritage to the brilliant cultures that made them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247032/original/file-20181123-149338-1jkg488.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C258%2C2617%2C1804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the plundered Benin plaques, at the British Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plaque-warrior-attendants-16th17th-c-nigeria-751012396?src=da3MPHvFfZ4elDJvDArYtw-1-0">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>European museums are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. As an archaeologist who works in Africa, this debate has a very real impact on my research. I benefit from the convenience of access provided by Western museums, while being struck by the ethical quandary of how they were taken there by illegal means, and by guilt that my colleagues throughout Africa may not have the resources to see material from their own country, which is kept thousands of miles away. </p>
<p>Now, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html">a report</a> commissioned by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has recommended that art plundered from sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial era should be returned through permanent restitution. </p>
<p>The 108-page study, written by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese writer and economist Felwine Sarr, speaks of the “theft, looting, despoilment, trickery and forced consent” by which colonial powers acquired these materials. The call for “restitution” echoes <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-3-cases-explain-restituting-nazi-looted-art-difficult">the widely accepted approach</a> which seeks to return looted Nazi art to its rightful owners.</p>
<p>The record of colonial powers in African countries was frankly disgusting. Colonial rule was imposed by the barrel of the gun, with military campaigns waged on the flimsiest excuses. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700010215">Benin expedition of 1897</a> was a punitive attack on the ancient kingdom of Benin, famous not only for its huge city and ramparts but its extraordinary cast bronze and brass plaques and statues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C146%2C1462%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three British soldiers in the aftermath of the Benin expedition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Oba%27s_compound_burnt_during_seige_of_Benin_City,_1897.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The city was burnt down, and the British Admiralty auctioned the booty – more than 2,000 art works – to “pay” for the expedition. The British Museum got around <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=621873&partId=1&searchText=benin+bronze+oba&page=1">40% of the haul</a>.
None of the artefacts stayed in Africa – they’re now scattered in museums and private collections around the world.</p>
<p>The 1867 British expedition to the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia – which never fully acceded to colonial control – was mounted to ostensibly free missionaries and government agents detained by the emperor Tewodros II. It culminated in the Battle of Magdala, and the looting of priceless manuscripts, paintings and artefacts from the Ethiopian church, which reputedly needed 15 elephants and 200 mules to carry them all away. Most ended up in the British Library, the British Museum and the V&A, where they remain today.</p>
<h2>Bought, stolen, destroyed</h2>
<p>Other African treasures were also taken without question. The famous ruins of Great Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abyssinian-difficulty-the-emperor-theodorus-and-the-magdala-campaign-18671868-by-darrell-bates-oxford-oxford-university-press1979-pp-xiv-240-map-plates-bibl-950/87357AE77ACA20265A82FD6BBCE7BF21">were subject to</a> numerous digs by associates of British businessman Cecil Rhodes – who set up the Rhodesia Ancient Ruins Ltd in 1895 to loot more than 40 sites of their gold – and much of the archaeology on the site was destroyed. The iconic soapstone birds were returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1981, but many items <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=596305&partId=1">still remain</a> in Western museums. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabwe’s soapstone birds, photographed in 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Soapstone_birds_on_pedestals.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these are the most famous cases, the majority of African objects in Western Museums were collected by adventurers, administrators, traders and settlers, with little thought as to the legality of ownership. Even if they were bought from their local owners, it was often for a pittance, and there were few controls to limit their export. Archaeological relics, such as inscriptions or grave-markers, were simply collected and taken away. Such <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/cultural-property-global-commodities-case-mijikenda">activities continued</a> well into the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Making them safe</h2>
<p>The argument is often advanced that by coming to the West, these objects were preserved for posterity – if they were left in Africa they simply would have rotted away. This is a specious argument, rooted in racist attitudes that somehow indigenous people can’t be trusted to curate their own cultural heritage. It is also a product of the corrosive impact of colonialism.</p>
<p>Colonial powers had a patchy record of setting up museums to preserve these objects locally. While impressive national museums were sometimes built in colonial capitals, they were later starved of funding or expertise. After African countries achieved independence, these museums were low on the priority list for national funding and overseas aid and development, while regional museums were virtually neglected. </p>
<p>Nowadays, many museums on the African continent lie semi-derelict, with no climate control, poorly trained staff and little security. There are numerous examples of theft or lost collections. No wonder Western museums are reluctant to return their collections. </p>
<p>If collections are to be returned, the West needs to take some responsibility for this state of affairs and invest in the African museums and their staff. There have been <a href="http://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/past/africa/geap.html">some attempts</a> to do this, but the task is huge. It is not enough to send the contentious art and objects back to an uncertain future – there must be a plan to rebuild Africa’s crumbling museum infrastructure, supported by effective partnerships and real money.</p>
<h2>The rightful owners</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hoa Hakananai’a: a Moai at the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheeprus/13335231584/sizes/l">Sheep</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Will the <a href="http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/">Musée du quai Branly</a>, that great treasure house of world ethnography in Paris, which holds more than 70,000 objects from Africa, be emptied of its contents? Or the massive new <a href="https://www.humboldtforum.com/en">Humboldt Forum</a> – a Prussian Castle rebuilt at great cost to house ethnographic artefacts in Berlin which opens early in 2019 – be shorn of its African collections? There are already fears at the British Museum that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/easter-island-british-museum-return-moai-statue">a very effective campaign</a> may lead to the return of its Rapu Nui Moai statues to Easter Island.</p>
<p>This year is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Magdala, and the V&A Museum has <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/v-and-a-opens-dialogue-on-looted-ethiopian-treasures">entered into worthy discussions</a> to return its treasures to Ethiopia. But there are reports this would be on the basis of a long-term loan, and conditional on the Ethiopian government withdrawing its claim for restitution of the plundered objects. The Prussian Foundation in Berlin <a href="https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/great-zimbabwe-bird-2013-zimbabwe-and-prussia-cultural-heritage-foundation-germany">entered into a similar agreement</a>, unwilling to cede ownership of a tiny fragment of soapstone bird to the Zimbabwe Government in 2000.</p>
<p>The report by Savoy and Sarr offers hope that such deals could become a thing of the past and that Africa’s rich cultural heritage can be returned, restituted and restored to the brilliant cultures that made it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Colonial powers plundered the heritage of countries all over the world – restitution is long overdue.Mark Horton, Professor in Archaeology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/990452018-07-02T12:30:28Z2018-07-02T12:30:28ZLa Marseillaise: has the song that unified the French republic become too divisive?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225700/original/file-20180702-116129-1c3op9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=175%2C35%2C816%2C645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To arms, citizens!</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Changes to French educational curricula rarely make headline news in Britain. However, both <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-pupils-must-learn-national-anthem-in-drive-against-islamism-qswm8vbzm">The Times</a> and the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/26/french-primary-pupils-must-know-national-anthem-eu-flag-ward/">Daily Telegraph</a> felt it worth reporting on a recent decision to make primary-school pupils learn, and sing, La Marseillaise. </p>
<p>At one level, it might seem perfectly natural, if one is going to have a national anthem, to spend a little time in school learning what it is. But opening up that basic question of what such a song is – and is for – reveals that nothing about such a choice is simple.</p>
<p>Unlike most national anthems, either generic patriotic ditties adopted in retrospect, or specially composed banal dirges to national virtues, La Marseillaise served as a real rallying cry for national survival. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise">Written in 1792</a>, when the French Revolution had just flung itself into war against the major powers of Europe, it speaks of the dread of counter-revolutionary invasion and the horrors it will bring:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Against us, tyranny’s<br>
Bloody standard is raised,<br>
Do you hear, in the countryside,<br>
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?<br>
They’re coming right into your arms<br>
To cut the throats of your sons, your women!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this is also a “day of glory” to which the “children of the Fatherland” are summoned, and after raising this threat, the chorus bursts forth:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To arms, citizens,<br>
Form your battalions,<br>
Let’s march, let’s march!<br>
Let an impure blood<br>
Water our furrows!</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Man the barricades</h2>
<p>Thousands of volunteers marching to war on the frontiers, and to topple the monarchy in Paris, hurled these words to the skies, heralding the birth of France’s republican tradition and its defence through years of ensuing combat. In the first half of the 19th century the song was often suppressed in France by various monarchical regimes, but became part of the repertoire of international radical and revolutionary protest. It was finally anointed again as the official national anthem in 1879, after France had definitively become a republic once more.</p>
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<p>The moral weight of this tradition is captured in the famous scene in the film Casablanca, when the patrons of Rick’s bar, including several real refugees from Nazism, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM">roar it out in defiance</a> of the German officers singing their own, anti-French, patriotic hymn, Die Wacht am Rhein. If this were the real meaning of La Marseillaise, pure and simple, what right-thinking person could object to learning it off by heart and singing it every day?</p>
<h2>Imperial legacy</h2>
<p>But Casablanca is set in Morocco, a sovereign monarchy transformed into a French “protectorate” in the years of great power rivalry before 1914, by the usual imperialist combination of force and guile. Its neighbour Algeria had been declared an integral part of France itself decades before. The very day, May 8 1945, that Europe was declared free of Nazi tyranny, French soldiers attacked Algerians protesting for independence, starting a <a href="http://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/printpdf/2658">wave of conflict</a> that killed more than 100 French settlers and several thousand Algerians. The next two decades in the history of France were stained by the brutal refusal to yield independence to its imperial territories, in wars that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.</p>
<p>The history of imperialism, and its legacies of racism and inequality, haunt La Marseillaise. In the 21st century, it has rarely been free of controversy. On some recent occasions, it has come to the fore once again as a symbol of a nation under attack. Twice, in January and November 2015, the French National Assembly united in singing it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/arts/music/after-paris-attacks-la-marseillaise-echoes-around-the-world-in-solidarity.html">after terrorist attacks</a> – attacks which nonetheless have posed hard and unanswered questions about the radicalisation of <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/marianne-under-siege/">marginalised youths of African origins</a>.</p>
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<p>More often, the anthem has become embroiled in controversies around sporting events – and particularly football matches – where, ironically and pervasively, the politics of national identity make headlines year after year. The French national team won the World Cup on home soil in 1998 with what seemed at the time like an epoch-making display of multi-ethnic unity. But in 2001, when the Algerian team came to Paris for their first ever encounter, La Marseillaise was greeted with a <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1850831,00.html">hurricane of booing from a crowd</a> largely made up of the descendants of colonial subjects. The match was eventually abandoned after a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2001/oct/08/newsstory.sport16">pitch invasion</a>.</p>
<p>The historian Laurent Dubois <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2013/03/the-blood-of-the-impure">has documented</a> the emergence of these tensions. They began with inflammatory comments in 1996 by the then-leader of the far-right Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, about non-white footballers not singing the anthem, and who were thus “fake Frenchmen”. In vain did players of a previous generation point out that nobody really sang the anthem. Le Pen made it such a touchstone that he launched his 2002 presidential campaign in front of the stadium where the Algeria game had been played, referencing the non-white crowd’s booing specifically as he did so. And, of course, Le Pen succeeded in getting through to the final round of that election, pushing aside the candidates of the left, as his daughter Marine did in 2017.</p>
<h2>Racist and xenophobic?</h2>
<p>Through these controversies, the association between La Marseillaise and race has been reinforced. In 2014, the justice minister Christiane Taubira, of Afro-Caribbean descent, was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-27444750">sucked into a social media row</a> with the conservative opposition after being seen not singing along at a ceremony marking the abolition of slavery. Supporters produced video of many other politicians doing likewise, but it formed part of a pattern of attacks on Taubira, one of France’s most prominent black politicians.</p>
<p>From the other side, the song’s lyrics, and particularly the line about “impure blood”, have increasingly been seen as essentially racist – in the wake of the Taubira incident, the actor Lambert Wilson <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-27444750">called them</a> terrible, bloody, racist and xenophobic". There have been <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20140514/marseillaise-france-racism-taubira">campaigns to change them</a> or to change the whole song, while others argue that altering a few words will not deal with the underlying racism of society.</p>
<p>The series of shocking terrorist outrages in Paris and elsewhere since 2015 have, in some senses, put these squabbles into perspective. Christiane Taubira can be seen, just about singing along, in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MK7o_76QeU">video</a> of the November 2015 parliamentary Marseillaise. In other senses, however, they have heightened the tensions which lie behind the disputes. Taubira herself resigned from the government two months later, unwilling to endorse a proposal to strip French citizenship from convicted terrorists. </p>
<p>The 2017 presidential election was fought in part on a clearly right-wing terrain over <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-french-presidential-candidates-are-arguing-about-their-colonial-history-75372">the merits of France’s colonial history</a>, and whether both revolutionary and imperial pasts had to be accepted for one to be truly French.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the non-white descendants of imperial subjects continue to inhabit the deprived estates of the urban periphery – the famous <em>banlieues</em> – and to experience <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/22/nothings-changed-10-years-after-french-riots-banlieues-remain-in-crisis">economic neglect and police brutality</a> under governments of every colour. Alongside the new educational focus on La Marseillaise the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has just announced a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44625625">policy of universal national service</a> for all 16-year-olds: it remains to be seen whether this or anything else will be enough to unite the children of the Fatherland – and where they are supposed to march.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Andress does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Primary school children in France will now have to learn and sing La Marseillaise. But for many people, it is racist and xenophobic.David Andress, Professor of Modern History, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526552016-02-23T19:05:05Z2016-02-23T19:05:05ZThe post-colonial caliphate: Islamic State and the memory of Sykes-Picot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109605/original/image-20160129-27340-62w6x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Map of the Sykes–Picot Agreement showing Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia, and areas of control and influence agreed between the British and the French in May 1916.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMPK1-426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg">Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Since announcing its arrival as a global force in June 2014 with the declaration of a caliphate on territory captured in Iraq and Syria, jihadist group Islamic State has shocked the world with its brutality.</em></p>
<p><em>Our series has been examining the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">historic and cultural forces behind the rise of these jihadists</a>. Today, historian James Renton looks at the fateful 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, which was pointedly denounced by Islamic State in the first video it released.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Ever since Islamic State (IS) spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN0F40SL20140630">announced the establishment of a caliphate</a> on June 29, 2014, analysts have been busy trying to explain its aims and origins. </p>
<p>Much of the discussion has concentrated on the IS leadership’s theology – an apocalyptic philosophy that <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-islamic-state-is-based-on-religion-why-is-it-so-violent-52070">seeks a return to an imagined pristine Islam</a> of the religion’s founders. But this focus has led to a neglect of the group’s self-declared political aims. </p>
<p>For all the importance of religion in the way IS functions <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-lays-claim-to-muslim-theological-tradition-and-turns-it-on-its-head-53225">and justifies itself</a>, we can fully understand the caliphate only if we pay close attention to the public explanations – the modernist manifestos – of those at the helm of its overall political purpose. </p>
<p>Viewed from this perspective, the caliphate appears primarily as an attempt to free the ummah – the global Muslim community – from the legacies of European colonialism.</p>
<p>The leaders of IS do not see their caliphate as an exercise in theocracy for its own sake, but as an attempt at post-colonial emancipation.</p>
<h2>Looking right back</h2>
<p>Certainly, the very name adopted by the declared leader of the caliphate suggests an acute preoccupation with a specifically religious mission that harks back to the early years of Islam. </p>
<p>Originally known as Ibrahim bin Awwad bin Ibrahim al-Badri al-Samarra’i (or variations thereof), he took on, long before the summer of 2014, the pseudonym Abu Bakr, the name of the first caliph (the successor to Muhammad as the religious and political leader of the ummah).</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110935/original/image-20160210-12178-1vrnf2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Briton Sir Mark Sykes agreed on terms with his French counterpart, François Georges-Picot, for dividing up the region after WWI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Mark_Sykes00.jpg">Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ruling in the years 632-4, Abu Bakr put an end to dissent against the new Islamic system in its Arabian heartlands. He established the caliphate as an expansionist Muslim empire with military campaigns in, the sources suggest, present-day Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Israel-Palestine. </p>
<p>As a declaration of intent, this choice of name by IS’s leader – whose full moniker became, alongside the title Caliph Ibrahim, <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/documents/baghdadi-caliph.pdf">Abu Bakr al-Husayni al-Qurashi al-Baghdadi</a> – seems to encapsulate much of what we need to know about the new caliphate’s ambitions. </p>
<p>Al-Adnani’s <a href="https://ia902505.us.archive.org/28/items/poa_25984/EN.pdf">founding proclamation</a> made a point of celebrating the military victories of the first decades of Islam and how the ummah then “filled the earth with justice … and ruled the world for centuries”. This success, he argued, was the result of nothing more than faith in Allah and the ummah’s adherence to the guidance of the Prophet Muhammad.</p>
<p>But the conquest of land and the establishment of a Muslim empire – or state, as those behind the new caliphate prefer to call it – is a means to a very specific end. It is not an end in itself. </p>
<h2>Anglo-French infamy</h2>
<p>According to al-Adnani, the caliphate is needed to take the ummah out of a condition of disgrace, humiliation and rule under the “vilest of all people”. Al-Baghdadi, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28116846">speaking two days after</a> he was pronounced caliph, was much more <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/documents/baghdadi-caliph.pdf">specific</a>. </p>
<p>The fall of the last caliphate – and, with it, the loss of a state – led to the humiliation and disempowerment of Muslims around the globe, he said. And this condition of statelessness allowed “the disbelievers” to occupy Muslim lands, install their agents as authoritarian rulers and spread false Western doctrines.</p>
<p>Al-Baghdadi’s vague narrative refers to the story of the dissolution after the first world war of the Ottoman Empire, which had governed much of Western Asia for four centuries. </p>
<p>In its stead, the British and French empires took over significant parts of the region and remained for decades. When their rule came to an end, these colonial states did their best to leave behind successor regimes that would serve British and French interests and those of the wider West.</p>
<p>For IS leaders, these colonial machinations have left the ummah floundering ever since because they took away the essence of power in the contemporary world: sovereignty – territorially based political independence. </p>
<p>The caliphate is urgently needed, al-Baghdadi argues, to rectify this harmful absence. A similar argument for a caliphate, though made with a very different type of state in mind, was articulated by the UK-based scholar <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/recalling-the-caliphate/">S. Sayyid</a> in 2014.</p>
<p>The most explicit evidence of this political objective’s primacy is to be found in the new caliphate’s propaganda, which has been such an important part of the IS project. </p>
<p>To coincide with the announcement of the caliphate, IS released a video entitled “<a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d43_1404046312">The End of Sykes-Picot</a>”. Signed in May 1916, the Sykes-Picot agreement was a secret <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MPK1-426_Sykes_Picot_Agreement_Map_signed_8_May_1916.jpg?uselang=en-gb">Anglo-French plan</a> for dividing the Asian Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence and zones of direct rule for the two European empires. </p>
<p>The Bolsheviks discovered the agreement in the Russian state archives soon after they took power in November 1917 and revealed its contents to the world.</p>
<h2>The Sykes-Picot agreement</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1345&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110936/original/image-20160210-12137-1v1egj7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1345&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The French negotiator of the Sykes-Picot agreement, François Georges-Picot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFran%C3%A7ois_Georges-Picot.JPG">Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The Sykes-Picot agreement did not set out the borders of the states that replaced the Ottoman Empire, as the video suggests. But this error is beside the point if we want to understand the significance of the agreement for IS, and what it tells us about its caliphate. </p>
<p>In the Middle East, Sykes-Picot became shorthand for a whole narrative of Western betrayal and conspiracy in the region. But it also came to stand for the specific European colonial process of robbing the peoples of the region of their sovereignty. </p>
<p>And it is IS’s declared goal to undo this process. This is why “The End of Sykes-Picot”, above any other possible subject matter for an inaugural film, had to accompany the declaration of the caliphate.</p>
<p>For al-Baghdadi, sovereignty and Islam cannot be separated; thus the need for an Islamic state. He cannot use the term empire, even though it more accurately describes the global expansionist aims of his caliphate. </p>
<p>This is not just a question of semantics; it goes to the heart of the purpose of IS. The caliphate is needed, its leadership contends, to end the consequences of European empire, of colonialism. It is an effort to finally break away from the colonial condition; an attempt at a new post-colonial ummah.</p>
<p>Liberty from colonialism and sovereignty go hand in hand. The post-1918 world order embodied in the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, places the idea of sovereignty at the centre of how we understand power today. Within this system, the absence of a state is the absence of power. </p>
<p>The military defeat of IS and its loss of territory would, of course, make sovereignty, and thus the caliphate, impossible. But this defeat will not solve the problem of the sense of powerlessness that fuelled the 2014 caliphate in the first place; it will only compound it. </p>
<p>The real long-term challenge that faces opponents of IS, therefore, is not the overthrow of the caliphate – as difficult as that might be – or even to defeat “extremism”. It is, rather, to overcome the narrative at the centre of IS’s call to arms: Muslim alienation from the world system. </p>
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<p><em>This is the seventh article in our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">historical roots of Islamic State</a>. <a href="http://bit.ly/UnderstandingIS">Download our special report</a> collating the whole the series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Renton has received funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council for a monograph that he is writing on the idea of the Middle East and its consequences.</span></em></p>The leaders of Islamic State do not see their caliphate as an exercise in theocracy for its own sake, but as an attempt at post-colonial emancipation.James Renton, Reader in History, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.