I was and still am quite fond of an aging French couple who used to spend half their year in the US. When here, they'd lead a Saturday discussion group, and I often sought the company and the needed practice. She is/was a "Pied-Noir," which literally means "Black Foot," but really is a nickname for Europeans who had settled in Algeria du…
I was and still am quite fond of an aging French couple who used to spend half their year in the US. When here, they'd lead a Saturday discussion group, and I often sought the company and the needed practice. She is/was a "Pied-Noir," which literally means "Black Foot," but really is a nickname for Europeans who had settled in Algeria during the French colonial period. Until 1962, the Pieds Noirs counted Algeria as an extension of France where they led a mostly European-style existence. But an independence movement, aided by communist sympathies and featuring guerrilla tactics that were often *ahem* quite brutal, eventually gained enough momentum to force out the French.
The basis of the novel and movie, The Day of the Jackal, is that many in the French military blamed DeGaulle for abandoning his public vow to keep Algeria French. And many, many people; Europeans and Algerians loyal to the French, were slaughtered as the exodus unfolded. The novel was fictional, but the backdrop of rebellion and assassination attempts against DeGaulle was real.
Is Algeria better off today? Depends on who you ask. I find these stories both fascinating and sad, and they are part of a pattern wherever there was empire. While some might bristle at anything colonial, there was an order, a civilization, a culture in Algeria that were created out of an undeniably rudimentary and hostile environment. Some of these places had a beauty that has been lost.
Similar to our situation if Native Americans joined with other groups to murder white families in the USA. The reason I believe in equal opportunity and helping poor people of colour with better schools. Trump and Musk are attempting to do this by cutting the amount of money given to friends and relatives of those in charge. Hopefully
we will put some of that new found wealth towards our Native people.
I was and still am quite fond of an aging French couple who used to spend half their year in the US. When here, they'd lead a Saturday discussion group, and I often sought the company and the needed practice. She is/was a "Pied-Noir," which literally means "Black Foot," but really is a nickname for Europeans who had settled in Algeria during the French colonial period. Until 1962, the Pieds Noirs counted Algeria as an extension of France where they led a mostly European-style existence. But an independence movement, aided by communist sympathies and featuring guerrilla tactics that were often *ahem* quite brutal, eventually gained enough momentum to force out the French.
The basis of the novel and movie, The Day of the Jackal, is that many in the French military blamed DeGaulle for abandoning his public vow to keep Algeria French. And many, many people; Europeans and Algerians loyal to the French, were slaughtered as the exodus unfolded. The novel was fictional, but the backdrop of rebellion and assassination attempts against DeGaulle was real.
Is Algeria better off today? Depends on who you ask. I find these stories both fascinating and sad, and they are part of a pattern wherever there was empire. While some might bristle at anything colonial, there was an order, a civilization, a culture in Algeria that were created out of an undeniably rudimentary and hostile environment. Some of these places had a beauty that has been lost.
Similar to our situation if Native Americans joined with other groups to murder white families in the USA. The reason I believe in equal opportunity and helping poor people of colour with better schools. Trump and Musk are attempting to do this by cutting the amount of money given to friends and relatives of those in charge. Hopefully
we will put some of that new found wealth towards our Native people.