You cant whitewash colonialism.

last updated 8 January 2015

France

Editorial

France should be ashamed of itself, said Paris’ Libération in an editorial. Thanks to a strange little law passed last winter, this school year we’re supposed to be teaching our kids about “the positive role” that colonialism played in history. “Revisionism, of course, is a favorite pastime of just about every culture.” Nobody wants to think of his grandparents as bad people. But arguing that the French conquest of western Africa wasn’t so terrible because we left behind a few roads and schools is not just disingenuous. It is a lie. The members of parliament who approved this measure not only have dishonored themselves, they dishonor all those who believe that history should be about the truth, not political agendas. The colonial period was an ugly time for France, and it’s shameful to pretend otherwise. “The descendants of those who suffered have the right to demand that public memory should retain the marks of this suffering.”