And how do the Jews of Israel fit, our they self determined, colonists, conquerors, or just a bunch of warring tribes that can come together to fight and kill their opponents yet fail to govern effectively.

Yes I know that technology and agriculture, and weaponry are all thriving, but would Israel be willing to get off of the teat that is US foreign aid?

I’ve also watched “The Battle of Algiers” several times. I agree with the commenter who said he did not see any bias for either side in the film. My thinking after watching it the first time and knowing Pontecorvo’s background, was to wonder how he could have presented such a favorable depiction of the French.

Horne notes that Algeria was to France what Texas is to the United States. The French were right to use hard-nosed tactics and if they had persevered Algeria would still be French. De Gaulle’s reasoning for abandoning the war still baffles me and Horne never fully explains it, giving opinions on every possibility from Chinese Communist intervention to a Muslim demographic swamping of France. Whatever the reason, it was a truly cruel betrayal. Google “Oran Massacre” sometime and read about something that will turn your stomach. Horne estimates that almost 150,000 harkis (Muslims who fought for France) were killed in the aftermath of the French departure. He also notes that there were never as many Muslims fighting in the field against France as there were fighting for her.

Paul Aussaresses was right when he argued that the only way to break the Algerians was to be more dangerous than they were. He realized he was fighting an enemy that relied on terror as its major weapon and that enemy could not be beaten in any other way. He didn’t want terrorists in jail, he wanted them dead and he was seeing the issue with a clear-sightedness that few Frenchmen, and even fewer of their political class, ever mustered.

Today? The bottom line is that Algeria, like most of Africa, plays less of a role in world economics now than it did prior to independence. Even Algeria’s sea of oil and gas hasn’t been able to make it prosperousIt’s a given that the people are worse off. It is nothing but the honest truth to state that economically the Algerian people, like the rest of Africa, would have been better served by independence coming forty years later, if indeed it came at all. If you don’t believe that statement, take a look at the standards of living in 1955 in colonial Africa, noting their steep rise in the first post-WWII decade, and compare that with the past decade when the West has been booming. However, as John Stuart Mill noted, history is replete with examples where people have chosen to be badly ruled by themselves rather than well-ruled by others. The moral of the story is to be careful what you wish for: you might get it. Zimbabwe is a saliently cautionary tale in this regard.

Algerian culture went from your average Pre-Colonial ‘nothing to write home about’ to being a broken factory of wannabe french prostitutes and thugs. Let’s face it Algeria was no China or Persia, but it did have it’s own culture and was a part of a global community. After the centuries of French colonialism they were just scraps and discard. Their culture had sublimated into a crash version of lower class French life. Their role models; the violent instruments of colonialism itself. If you want to see the role model for the FLN you don’t have to look much further than French colonial authorities; men who had not a generation before sold out their honour and loyalty to the Adolf Hitler in return for the opportunity to maintain their position as overseers. Another tidbit of Algerian history you seem to be blissfully ignorant about.

Ultimately, Whether colonialism is wrong or good can be answered by a simple thought experiment; would you tolerate it if you were the oppressed?

Western Culture is self-evidently BETTER, because it produces both freedom for women and male cooperation. Western culture prevents too much “Big Man” ism and gives most every man (or did, until recently) a fair shot at getting a woman to be his wife.

Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and almost every other place instead suffer from “Big Man” disease with the Big Men hoarding all the women and resources, in tribal ways, promoting violent upheavals and conquering other peoples as a way of life. It’s stable, in that these nomadic-tribal societies can go on unchanged for thousands of years, but it’s pretty violent, and poverty stricken in that modern science and technology cannot be produced there, since that requires male cooperation which in turn means relative freedom for women and preventing too many Big Men.

It’s interesting to note that Coastal China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore being the most successful post-Colonial states have largely shut down the Big Men and more or less offered “most” men a shot at women and thus being cooperative rather than ruthless rivals.

Osama bin Laden, for example, is known to have assassinated his mentor, Azzam, and his sons in Pakistan, even though his mentor had co-founded Hamas, and was a central figure in Palestinian terrorism. No wonder, Osama was one of 57 children produced by his father, who in turn had 22 wives. Such a system ALWAYS produces that sort of people.

Colonialism, in the British form, and to a lesser extent the French, tended to subdue the Big Men and prevent widespread polygamy. It produced more male cooperation than had ever been seen in such societies. It’s true that German, and particularly Belgian colonialism in Africa was as brutal as that of the Japanese in Asia. Or the Russians in the “near abroad.” The Spaniards were mostly absentee colonialists, and had little impact on their societies, particularly in the Philippines, in the same way the Dutch did not change the society of Java.

BUT … to the extent that Caribbean or other societies ruled formerly by the British work at ALL, it is because Big Men have been suppressed and with it polygamy. Look at Haiti — a disaster because the French did not suppress but rather enhanced Big Men. Even the Dominican Republic, with much the same people, have fewer Big Men.

It is perfectly possible for Third World people to conduct themselves rationally and responsibly, and European History before the Middle Ages is replete with European “Big Men” who would make Idi Amin blush: Eric Bloodaxe, Harold Bluetooth, Strongbow, Alexander, and Caligula come to mind.

Lesson: Culture matters and what matters most is how men compete over women, and how women have freedom or not in a society.