Aimé Césaire reminded, “there is no colonisation without racism”

Islamophobia in the country of human rights – Part 3

By Vincent Delbos-Klein*

France saw a spate of terror attacks in recent months that the authorities attributed to Muslim extremists. In an exclusive series, Vincent Delbos-Klein explains what Islamophobia means in a country which is de facto multi-cultural society.

– Editor

Colonialism

Racism is probably a very old curse, but in its modern conception, it comes from the polygenist theories in the 18th century, when some philosophers and other people of influence started to spread the idea of a multiracial humanity.

In the context of slave trade and colonisation, polygenism was used as a tool to create the myth of a race scale, with white people on its top. Just like Aimé Césaire reminded, “there is no colonisation without racism” , and the 19th century was a dramatic period of colonisation.

In fact, the process of colonisation started two centuries ago, but the rise of capitalism during the 19th century led the country to start a new era of conquest and domination, especially in Africa that still nowadays has a terrible influence on global geopolitical structure.

Also read: Racism is not a brand new burden in French history

Among all the countries targeted by this wave of domination and colonial crime, Maghreb was on the first line but as everyone knows, despite the official speech it was not made to help the people but to enslave them, steal their wealth and build a society with citizen and non-citizen people, dominant and dominated people.

In this context, dehumanisation was a key process to maintain the structure. The way African people were represented in the newspapers, in the films and even in human zoos, tended to generate many long term stereotypes, to the point that still nowadays this dark heritage dramatically influences the national imagination.

In this enterprise of conquest and domination, it was vital for the colonial power to weaken all forms of resistance by applying the (not so) good old  “divide and rule” credo. This is why targeting in every way possible Islam (which was probably the most unifying counter-power in Maghreb), was a major objective for french power. One of its tool to reach this goal was to build a very negative representation of it and one of the main argument was the women’s headscarf. Take the control of women’s body was a key point for the colonial power. Like we said, french newspapers and museums were full of betlittling representation of their body, sexualised representation especially, for women. But this control also tried to target women’s soul by turning them against their own culture.

This is why the french power organised in Algeria”les cérémonies de dévoilement”,  unveiling ceremonies where women had to take off their scarf in public to symbolise their tearing way from their family, their culture, and their country. Sometimes, they even had to be taken in photo by the french army itself to record their image and let the french state shape it.

One of these photographers, Marc Garanger, involved in this process, used these photos to make visible the colonial violence and he succeeded where others failed because of a massive censorship.

to continue…

*Vincent Delbos-Klein is a Paris-based filmmaker and a researcher in sociology