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TeoKajLibroj wrote

I don't see what this has to do with "Documenting and analysis of state tyranny, imperialism, and neocolonialism".

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ziq wrote (edited )

Why would other cultures with their own languages want to speak France's language? Why is it important that France and its culture dominates the world?

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An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote

The subtitle for this article is "French president wants his native tongue to overtake English in Africa, increase its use online and loosen grip of English on Brussels"

How do you think french got to Africa in the first place?

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TeoKajLibroj wrote

The article also says:

Macron stressed that France saw itself merely as a “country among others” in the vast French-speaking world. Crucially, he insisted that the diverse and thriving global literature in French – much by bestselling African writers – must now be taught in schools in France, where it is absent from the curriculum.

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An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote (edited )

You might want to look into how france continues to keep it ex-colonies indentured before you make a further fool of yourself or have a ToS violation.

Then also read about neocolonialism generally, then also read about it with respect to language in particular.

Macron himself is a fucking turd, and even if he weren't, that would be no reason to think of a coloniser country trying to have its language 'overtake' languages to become dominant in other regions as anything other than predatory, despite appearances.

Edit: I guess today I'm less patient than usual :(
I've posted some links that may be helpful:

Macron and France are disgusting wrt Africa

Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature

France still robbing its 'former' African colonies

Macron, Much Like Centrism, Is a Vile Piece of Predatory Garbage

And then there's Nkrumah and Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism for starters.

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shanoxilt wrote

Given that you are an Esperantist, this response is somewhat ironic.

Unlike Esperanto, French is not a neutral, consensually-adopted language. It is, has been, and will continue to be forced upon other nations, just like English.

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TeoKajLibroj wrote

Right, but he's trying to promote French instead of English. I don't see how promoting French is evil imperialism, but using English is completely normal and shouldn't change.

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TeoKajLibroj wrote

How is the status quo (where people speak English, also an imperialist language) any better? I can't see why people are rushing to condemn any threat to the current system.

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shanoxilt wrote

Unfortunately, the fact that nobody is promoting English but it is spoken nearly everywhere is part of the problem.

It means that the Anglosphere's linguistic imperialism has been more successful.

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____deleted____ wrote

How do you think English got to Africa in the first place? In the Congo, and other surrounding nations, French is actually important in spreading knowledge as the wealth of information in the country is often in French.

It's two empires battling, but for some nations, French is a better of two imperial languages.

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TeoKajLibroj wrote

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is to spend hundreds of millions of euros boosting the French language worldwide, in a push to overtake English in Africa, increase the use of French online and teach French to more European officials to loosen the grip of the English language on Brussels.

This is the very first line of the article. You can't complain about promoting one imperialistic language while ignoring its even larger rival.

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emma wrote

Drawing attention to one nation's renewed imperial ambitions isn't the same as ignoring those of another. This is a classic straw man argument.

Admit you have no leg to stand on, and move on with your life.

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throwaway399201 wrote

As someone from one of those "colonies" I can tell you the answer: French sucks if you want to have a career in STEM where virtually everything is done in English. It's stupid to force us to have the additional burden of learning two languages when we can master a single one (in addition to our mother tongue of course). I'm speaking about STEM because that's what I've been doing, but I'm sure it applies to many other fields.

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Random_Revolutionary wrote

Yeah french schools since the third (I think) republic has killed our regional languages too! Teachers would beat and punish children that spoke regional languages. They were also really efficient at it, wiping regional culture and languages in a few generations. The French language story is a sad one.

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