Debates about the legacy of colonialism in France are not new, but they have taken on new urgency in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Responding to acts of religious and racial violence in 2005, 2010, and 2015 and beyond, the essays in this volume pit French ideals against government-sponsored revisionist decrees that have exacerbated tensions, complicated the process of establishing and recording national memory, and triggered divisive debates on what it means to identify as French. As they document the checkered legacy of French colonialism, the contributors raise questions about France and the contemporary role of Islam, the banlieues, immigration, race, history, pedagogy, and the future of the Republic. This innovative volume reconsiders the cultural, economic, political, and social realities facing global French citizens today and includes contributions by Achille Mbembe, Benjamin Stora, Fran?oise Verg?s, Alec Hargreaves,Elsa Dorlin,and Alain Mabanckou, among others.
Highly recommended.
Introduction: A Decade of Postcolonial Crisis: Fracture, Rupture and Apartheid (2005-2015) / Nicolas Bancel,Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas
Part I. Colonial Fracture / 2005
1.1 The Emergence of the Colonial
1. The Republican Origins of the Colonial Fracture / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
2. When a (War) Memory Hides another (Colonial) / Benjamin Stora
3. A Difficult History: A Brief History of the Colonial and the Postcolonial Situation / Nicolas Bancel
4. Reducing the Republics Native to the Body / NaciraGu?nif-Souilamas
5. Colonization and Immigration: Blind Spots in the History Classroom / Sandrine Lemaire
6. Memory Wars: A Study of the Intersection between History and Media / Pascal Blanchard and Isabelle Veyrat-Masson
1.2 The Return of the Colonial
7. The Enemy Within: The Construction of the Arab in the Media / Thomas Deltombe and Mathieu Rigouste
8. Islam and the Republic: A Long, Uneasy Historyló