Refractory Gauls, or the French politics thread

[Barrister]

Dud just listen to yourself - you criticize Muslims for thinking that Al-Andalus should return to Muslim ownership, yet just a few sentences over you talk about how eastern Thrace is "occupied".

Read my posts instead of cherry picking, I also said debatable and mentioned the Cyprus issue.

Greek viewpoint, not mine. It's unrealistic. However, Greeks do not cause trouble and assimilate, unlike Muslims.

My friend - I've called myself a Byzanto-fourtysomething before, but the fall of Constantinople was a very long time ago - even longer ago than the fall of Granada.

Psst, Allies controlled Constantinope in 1918. The Greco-Turkish war ended in 1922. Smyrna was Greek for a few years, and Trebizond was to be part of a Greco-Armenian buffet state (Pontic Greeks got genocided instead). Plus a Kurdish zone still nominally Turkish. Not so long ago.
Muslim Turks, even most secular ones as well to be fair are genocide deniers. The Cyprus issue is still there, as well. Most Turks here are even more radical than in their own countries : 2/3 vote for national-islamist Herr Dogan.

Their last Fan walk in Germany had to be terminated due to extreme right-wing Grey Wolfs salutes.

[/quote]

So as not to be accused of "cherry-picking" I have quoted you in full.

My friend, you can't say something completely ridiculous and cover yourself by saying "it's debatable".  You can't say "is the earth flat?  Well it's debatable".  "Eastern Thrace" has been Turkish for centuries.

I'm well aware of the post-WWI settlement of the Ottoman Empire.  The Allies proposed to divide up Anatolia until either there was no Turkish state at all, or only a very tiny rump Turkish state, with Anatolia being divided up between Greece, Britain, France, Italy Armenia and Russia (although Russia then no longer mattered after the Revolution).  It was old-school imperialism at its worst.  Turks under Ataturk rose up and defeated the Allies.

You can definitely argue that maybe the borders should have been drawn differently - maybe Smyrna should have been Greek in the end (and the Turks definitely genocided the Armenians!) but again - this was a century ago and those borders are now long-settled.

[Barrister]

Not enough, you should use Türkiye instead of Turkey. 

Screw that.

I speak (and write) in English, so I use English spellings.  So primarily that means it's Turkey and Ivory Coast.

[Sheilbh]

Europe is a continent basically built upon cultural genocide.
Everyone for hundreds of miles on this side of a line is French and everyone for hundreds of miles on that side of the line is German is not the natural order.

Certainly ethnic cleansing. Europe's a charnel house - even putting European imperialism and settlement to one side. Across Europe people were made to match borders. Just visit, say, any city in Poland (having recently got back from Gdansk and the tri-city area.

It's one of the reasons I find Europe orb of lightness so maddening. I've mentioned it before but the European diplomat quoted in relation to Ukraine that it was "intolerable" that Europe's future was being decided in tank battles. There is nowhere in the world where history has been decided by tank battles as much as Europe. There's not an inch of ground here that is not blood-soaked.

Edit: Also I think the best contemporary European art is very often engaging with this past - say, Olga Tokarczuk.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Europe is a continent basically built upon cultural genocide.
Everyone for hundreds of miles on this side of a line is French and everyone for hundreds of miles on that side of the line is German is not the natural order.

Certainly ethnic cleansing. Europe's a charnel house - even putting European imperialism and settlement to one side. Across Europe people were made to match borders. Just visit, say, any city in Poland (having recently got back from Gdansk and the tri-city area.

It's one of the reasons I find Europe orb of lightness so maddening. I've mentioned it before but the European diplomat quoted in relation to Ukraine that it was "intolerable" that Europe's future was being decided in tank battles. There is nowhere in the world where history has been decided by tank battles as much as Europe. There's not an inch of ground here that is not blood-soaked.

all continents are charnel houses. There's no such thing as a noble savage.
It's not because they weren't westphalian states that the tribes and non-european states weren't genociding left and right. Something to keep in mind.

Agree on the orb-of-light thing. Euros have forgotten that to keep your country you need to be willing to hold it, occassionally the means at all costs.

[Jacob]

Sure Sheilbh, but is that unique to Europe? Is there anywhere in the world where the land is less blood-soaked?

And secondly, isn't the Euro orb-of-lightness ultimately aspirational? Seems to me that it's an attempt to make Europe - and the world - less of a charnel house.

[Duque de Bragança]

Dud just listen to yourself - you criticize Muslims for thinking that Al-Andalus should return to Muslim ownership, yet just a few sentences over you talk about how eastern Thrace is "occupied".

Read my posts instead of cherry picking, I also said debatable and mentioned the Cyprus issue.

Greek viewpoint, not mine. It's unrealistic. However, Greeks do not cause trouble and assimilate, unlike Muslims.

My friend - I've called myself a Byzanto-fourtysomething before, but the fall of Constantinople was a very long time ago - even longer ago than the fall of Granada.

Psst, Allies controlled Constantinope in 1918. The Greco-Turkish war ended in 1922. Smyrna was Greek for a few years, and Trebizond was to be part of a Greco-Armenian buffet state (Pontic Greeks got genocided instead). Plus a Kurdish zone still nominally Turkish. Not so long ago.
Muslim Turks, even most secular ones as well to be fair, are genocide deniers. The Cyprus issue is still there, also.
Most Turks here are even more radical than in their own country : 2/3 vote for national-islamist Herr Dogan.

Their last Fan walk during the Euro in Germany had to be terminated due to extreme right-wing Grey Wolfs salutes.

So as not to be accused of "cherry-picking" I have quoted you in full.

My friend, you can't say something completely ridiculous and cover yourself by saying "it's debatable".  You can't say "is the earth flat?  Well it's debatable".  "Eastern Thrace" has been Turkish for centuries.

Apples and Oranges, comparing me with a flat-earther, clearly false. Also, I said it was the Greek view point (I am not Greek, remember? ), which you did not quote, so you are lying again. No use in debating with you then, until you start acknowledging that basic reality.
Not to mention, the one who wants even more Thrace recently is Erdogan (sabre-rattling? possible but not a good omen) and the Grey Wolves, not Greeks.
https://www.eurotopics.net/en/167248/erdogan-questions-historic-treaty

I'm well aware of the post-WWI settlement of the Ottoman Empire.  The Allies proposed to divide up Anatolia until either there was no Turkish state at all, or only a very tiny rump Turkish state, with Anatolia being divided up between Greece, Britain, France, Italy Armenia and Russia (although Russia then no longer mattered after the Revolution).  It was old-school imperialism at its worst.  Turks under Ataturk rose up and defeated the Allies.

So aware of it you had to be reminded of it, because you conveniently omitted it.
Imperialism not at its worst, by a long shot, that old-school imperialism did not lead to genocide, unlike the Young Turks' version of it.
Atatürk went along and made not alteration to that genocide policy.

You can definitely argue that maybe the borders should have been drawn differently - maybe Smyrna should have been Greek in the end (and the Turks definitely genocided the Armenians!) but again - this was a century ago and those borders are now long-settled.

Borders definitively settled? Tell that to the Armenians who got expelled from their homes in Nagorno Karabah and who had been there for centuries.

[Barrister]

Apples and Oranges, comparing me with a flat-earther, clearly false. Also, I said it was the Greek view point (I am not Greek, remember? ), which you did not quote, so you are lying again. No use in debating with you then, until you start acknowledging that basic reality.

As you wish.

[Sheilbh]

Sure Sheilbh, but is that unique to Europe? Is there anywhere in the world where the land is less blood-soaked?

Possibly not - I think it is something that should be an important part of our understanding of our continent and past as Europeans. And I don't think it is. I think there's a common attitude of cultural superiority - I think it's perhaps why writers and film-makers in Eastern Europe engage with it as a topic so much compared to Western Europeans.

Although I do wonder. I think there is maybe a difference because Europe was rich and industrialised early. I think there is a distinctively European experience of the two world wars and attendant genocides (and frankly just how many genocides there have been in the continent of Europe compared with the rest of the world). But also you think of the Thirty Years War and affected areas seeing 30-50% of their population wiped out.

I could be totally wrong but the only place that I can think of similar scale human catastrophes is China.

And I certainly think almost nowhere else in the world achieved the level of congruence between national borders and ethnic identities that Europe had by the mid-twentieth century.

And secondly, isn't the Euro orb-of-lightness ultimately aspirational? Seems to me that it's an attempt to make Europe - and the world - less of a charnel house?

I don't think so - or it's certainly not how I read it. I always see it as a bit lecture-y. We have evolved past war etc.

[Josquius]

Sure Sheilbh, but is that unique to Europe? Is there anywhere in the world where the land is less blood-soaked?

Possibly not - I think it is something that should be an important part of our understanding of our continent and past as Europeans. And I don't think it is. I think there's a common attitude of cultural superiority - I think it's perhaps why writers and film-makers in Eastern Europe engage with it as a topic so much compared to Western Europeans.

Although I do wonder. I think there is maybe a difference because Europe was rich and industrialised early. I think there is a distinctively European experience of the two world wars and attendant genocides (and frankly just how many genocides there have been in the continent of Europe compared with the rest of the world). But also you think of the Thirty Years War and affected areas seeing 30-50% of their population wiped out.

I could be totally wrong but the only place that I can think of similar scale human catastrophes is China.

And I certainly think almost nowhere else in the world achieved the level of congruence between national borders and ethnic identities that Europe had by the mid-twentieth century.

And secondly, isn't the Euro orb-of-lightness ultimately aspirational? Seems to me that it's an attempt to make Europe - and the world - less of a charnel house?

I don't think so - or it's certainly not how I read it. I always see it as a bit lecture-y. We have evolved past war etc.

I thought of mentioning it in my post but it was going way off topic. But Ironically I'd say most of Africa is quite an exception.

There's this idea that Europeans came in and drew borders randomly and that's why ethnic groups are so split up there.
Which...yeah. The Europeans certainly could have paid a little bit of attention. But native kingdoms werent really into caring about such things and just conquered whoever whatever the language anyway.
Much of SS Africa being such an ethnic hodge podge is because it didn't go through the same dark paths of ethnic cleansing and genericisation as Europe.
The way Africa's ethnic groups are setup is basically along similar lines to how Europe's were historically.

Another thing I find really freaky to think about is just how damn modern so much of this is in Europe. The old stat of in the late 19th century (iirc?) only 40% of France speaking French.... It's mind blowing in the very recent underlying cultural brutality it represents.

[Duque de Bragança]

Another thing I find really freaky to think about is just how damn modern so much of this is in Europe. The old stat of in the late 19th century (iirc?) only 40% of France speaking French.... It's mind blowing in the very recent underlying cultural brutality it represents.

Rather late 18th century, pre French-Revolution. The Revolution and the Third Republic changed that. Though
most of these dialects had quite in common with standard French, specially in the North (Langue d'oïl).

There was that French clergyman, l'Abbé Grégoire, complaining that everybody in French Canada was speaking the same dialect, which was not the case in mainland France (only 15 départements).

[Valmy]

Look I am just saying Europe put forth considerable effort creating these ethno-nationalist states by various means. Immigrating to one of those countries, especially in great numbers, is going to make them unhappy. When lots of Portuguese people immigrated to France in the past, not a reference to anybody in particular, it definitely caused some grumbling.

[Duque de Bragança]

Look I am just saying Europe put forth considerable effort creating these ethno-nationalist states by various means. Immigrating to one of those countries, especially in great numbers, is going to make them unhappy. When lots of Portuguese people immigrated to France in the past, not a reference to anybody in particular, it definitely caused some grumbling.

Some grumbling in Portugal, for sure.
Nowhere near what the Muslims have been causing here in France. Where are the Portuguese jihadis again? Portuguese communautarism? Portuguese niqabs? Portuguese assaulting Jews due to the situation in Gaza?
Portuguese immigration is seen as a model here, even by the likes of Marine and Zemmour. Mélenchon and the like not so much, truth be said.

You should have chosen an anachronic example such as Italian immigration in the late 19th century, but then French people were also definitively at fault, with social economic issues playing a huge part:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_des_Italiens_d%27Aigues-Mortes

If you want to blame the French, use this example, and the whole shameful Rital thing.

[Jacob]

Sure Sheilbh, but is that unique to Europe? Is there anywhere in the world where the land is less blood-soaked?

Possibly not - I think it is something that should be an important part of our understanding of our continent and past as Europeans. And I don't think it is. I think there's a common attitude of cultural superiority - I think it's perhaps why writers and film-makers in Eastern Europe engage with it as a topic so much compared to Western Europeans.

IMO most nationalisms have a belief in their own cultural, except during moments of crisis and doubt. Nations and cultures that think they suck over extended periods of time don't last, I expect. So I don't think that the "common attitude of cultural superiority" is particularly unique to Europe.

Look at Japan, Korea, China. Look at the US, Russia, India. Look at Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Iran. Sure you'll find plenty of people decrying cultural shortcomings (but so will you in Europe), but there's also a very robust belief in the values of the respective cultures. To be fair, I'm less confident on the sentiment in Central and South America and Africa - but I think that's fairly short term as they disentangle the consequences of colonialism.

Although I do wonder. I think there is maybe a difference because Europe was rich and industrialised early. I think there is a distinctively European experience of the two world wars and attendant genocides (and frankly just how many genocides there have been in the continent of Europe compared with the rest of the world). But also you think of the Thirty Years War and affected areas seeing 30-50% of their population wiped out.

I agree that there are unique qualities to the European experience, but I don't think it's about war and destruction. I don't buy that Europeans are uniquely violent nor uniquely the victims of brutality in a historical perspective.

IMO the main thing that makes Europe unique is that we got the head start in industrialization and built global extractive empires on the back of that in a way that lead to (relatively) deep institutionalization of liberal and democratic values in our societies.

I could be totally wrong but the only place that I can think of similar scale human catastrophes is China.

The Mongol invasion of the Middle East was not that lovely; and in general the peoples of the Middle East are not unfamiliar with bloodshed in their local histories.  And honestly, it's a bit rich to talk about the unique experience of death and tragedy in Europe when you have the Armenian genocide, the massacres in Rwanda, Sudan, Darfur, the persecutions of the Yazidi, the brutal Syrian civil war, and so on in recent history.

Plenty of historical war and ethno-national murder and rivalries in SE Asia. The Khmer Rouge did a pretty convincing attempt to top the genocide league. Vietnam and Korea had some pretty brutal wars for their populations in the 20th century. Partition in India had a rather high death toll. Paraguay suffered a very bloody war.

Now, I can't speak to the prevalence of war and murder in pre-colonial Africa and the Americas (though that the Aztecs were pretty brutal in warfare is well established I think), but I think that speaks more to the absence of easily accessible evidence than that those places were significantly more peaceful than Europe.

Yes we were traumatized in Europe by the two World Wars, and that trauma has shaped our societies - but I think the determinant of how we responded to that trauma was not the unique scale but other factors.

And I certainly think almost nowhere else in the world achieved the level of congruence between national borders and ethnic identities that Europe had by the mid-twentieth century.

As long as you accept that Frisians are Danish (or German or Dutch), that Bretons are French, that Occitanians are French, that the Basque are French (or Spanish, depending) that Catalonians are Spanish, that the many constituent peoples of the Soviet Empire were essentially Russian, that the distribution of Croats/ Serbs/ Hungarians/ Romanians/ Greeks/ Albanians/ Kosovars is optimal re: national borders and so on.

... which is to say that I'm not entirely convinced 

And secondly, isn't the Euro orb-of-lightness ultimately aspirational? Seems to me that it's an attempt to make Europe - and the world - less of a charnel house?

I don't think so - or it's certainly not how I read it. I always see it as a bit lecture-y. We have evolved past war etc.

Yeah, it's lectury right now because we've had a good run in the post-WWII era. And honestly it's pretty remarkable when you look at the history. But is there any reason why it can't be aspirational and lectury at the same time? If we want the peace to hold and liberal values to continue to underpin our prosperity we have to believe that it works - and if we believe that it works, why wouldn't individuals get lectury every so often?

[Valmy]

I don't blame the French, or the Euros (well ok beyond the ones who went to certain extremes...) but rather I think the basis their states existance makes them naturally (understandably?) resistant to mass migration as it represents a danger to the basis of their states. They are certainly not alone in the world on this. Japan is much the same way for example.

As I said before Islam has particularly problematic elements in its religion that, for various reasons, are difficult for Islam to address. I think this is because so much of it is based on the fact that God, or his prophet, have decreed certain things. So the only way to really get around problematic elements is to rationalize around or ignore them. But then that leaves the door open for crazies to go ahead and NOT ignore the part about sex slaves or whatever. We certainly have things like that in other Abrahamic Religions. Like if suddenly we started rigidly enforcing the letter of Leviticus or something. It just seems more problematic in Islam for whatever reason.

But that is mainly an issue for a small minority of Muslims. It seems unfair to crack down on all of them for the crazies but you cannot dispute the fact that they do carry a group of crazies around with them. Again, not unlike other religions, but in Islam it just seems more so. At least in recent history.

[Sheilbh]

IMO most nationalisms have a belief in their own cultural, except during moments of crisis and doubt. Nations and cultures that think they suck over extended periods of time don't last, I expect. So I don't think that the "common attitude of cultural superiority" is particularly unique to Europe.

To be absolutely clear I'm not saying any of this is unique to Europe. My point is more the gap between European self-perception and reality.

And cultural superiority is perhaps the wrong way of phrasing it. More a moral superiority interwoven into that cultural attitude - the "orb of light"-ness. Maybe a smugness that I think sits ill at ease with Europe's own past - particularly in Western Europe. I think Eastern Europe is perhaps, to some extent, peripheral - it's a site of settlement, population exchanges, forced migrations, nationalities questions. Which is why I think it's particularly in Eastern European writers and thinkers that you get a more interesting, thoughtful take that engages with the past.

I agree that there are unique qualities to the European experience, but I don't think it's about war and destruction. I don't buy that Europeans are uniquely violent nor uniquely the victims of brutality in a historical perspective.

IMO the main thing that makes Europe unique is that we got the head start in industrialization and built global extractive empires on the back of that in a way that lead to (relatively) deep institutionalization of liberal and democratic values in our societies.

Although that's a view from Western Europe - and particularly France, Benelux and the UK (I'd put it the other way round too - I think often the extractive empire funded industrialisation). I think that industrialisation and extraction also made Europeans more lethal - it's not a moral judgement that Europeans are uniquely violent, but that Europe's wealth and economic structure allowed for more violence: better guns, bigger bombs, conscription, total war in ways that other societies couldn't (including in Europe's past) and when that was turned internally it was, I think, pretty unprecedented.

Again I don't think any of this is necessarily about "uniqueness".

Although I'm not sure on the connections with liberal democratic values. On that I think Europe's great achievement has been democratisation - the spread of values not their depth.

As long as you accept that Frisians are Danish (or German or Dutch), that Bretons are French, that Occitanians are French, that the Basque are French (or Spanish, depending) that Catalonians are Spanish, that the many constituent peoples of the Soviet Empire were essentially Russian, that the distribution of Croats/ Serbs/ Hungarians/ Romanians/ Greeks/ Albanians/ Kosovars is optimal re: national borders and so on.

... which is to say that I'm not entirely convinced 

It's more that there was a process of creating French or Germans or Dutch. It was part of modernity but also often a process of suppression of local languages and customs that reflected the growing power of the state. Like a lot of modernity it's double-edged. Like nationalism itself - it is liberation and sovereignty on the one hand but also defining who is in and out and what constitutes those groups. Perhaps ultimately that's the point - Europe experienced modernity first with all its benefits and attendant traumas.

I also think Greece is a really interesting example because a huge chunk of its population are Greeks from Turkey as part of the population exchange with Turks also expelled from Greece. And Greece is one of the models of how to integrate that new population. But what happens between the Greeks and Turks is then replicated across the continent twenty years later. Entire populations moved around to align with the new borders.

Yeah, it's lectury right now because we've had a good run in the post-WWII era. And honestly it's pretty remarkable when you look at the history. But is there any reason why it can't be aspirational and lectury at the same time? If we want the peace to hold and liberal values to continue to underpin our prosperity we have to believe that it works - and if we believe that it works, why wouldn't individuals get lectury every so often?

If we're lecturing about values then fine I suppose - I'm not sure how persuasive it is.

But I don't think it is values based - I think it's normally quite smug and morally superior (again a diplomat expressing incredulity at tanks in Europe!). He apologised for it but Borrels speaking at the College of Europe about how Europe is a garden and "most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden".

Edit: Alternately I've had three trips to Poland in the last eighteen months and I should stop going because it fucks me up