EU Apparently, Statue of French slavery abolitionist Victor Schœlcher torn down in Martinique.

[Husky_Khan]

An article in English from Le Monde about it.

Deux statues de Victor Schœlcher brisées par des manifestants en Martinique

Des manifestants anti-héritage colonial ont fait tomber des sculptures de l’homme qui a décrété l’abolition de l’esclavage. Emmanuel Macron a condamné ces actes « avec fermeté ».

www.lemonde.fr

Des statues de Victor Schœlcher détruites

La statue de Schœlcher située devant l'ancien palais de justice de Fort-de-France et celle située dans le bourg de Schœlcher ont été détruites ce vendredi après-midi...

www.martinique.franceantilles.fr

Translated it via the browser...

The statue of Schœlcher located in front of the old courthouse in Fort-de-France and that located in the village of Schœlcher were destroyed this Friday afternoon (May 22)

On this commemoration day of May 22, a group of activists dropped the statues from their bases before damaging them with blows. Activists have moved into high gear this year, challenging the action of Victor Schœlcher and reproaching him in particular for the decree following the abolition of slavery which allowed compensation to the owners of slaves.

 

[Deleted member 88]

What a shockingly terrible crime/s!

Its not like...for one the slave owners are alive, or two their descendants are still on the island living off that money(it would still be wrong even if that was the case).

No...these "activists" are mad that there wasn't a Haitian style extermination of the slave owning class.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

What a shockingly terrible crime/s!

Its not like...for one the slave owners are alive, or two their descendants are still on the island living off that money(it would still be wrong even if that was the case).

No...these "activists" are mad that there wasn't a Haitian style extermination of the slave owning class.

Extermination? Nah, just send them to Gulags where they will be reeducated and receive a living wage

 

[Cherico]

What a shockingly terrible crime/s!

Its not like...for one the slave owners are alive, or two their descendants are still on the island living off that money(it would still be wrong even if that was the case).

No...these "activists" are mad that there wasn't a Haitian style extermination of the slave owning class.

Im pretty sure their ansestors were just glad to be free.

 

[Tiamat]

An article in English from Le Monde about it.

Deux statues de Victor Schœlcher brisées par des manifestants en Martinique

Des manifestants anti-héritage colonial ont fait tomber des sculptures de l’homme qui a décrété l’abolition de l’esclavage. Emmanuel Macron a condamné ces actes « avec fermeté ».

www.lemonde.fr

Des statues de Victor Schœlcher détruites

La statue de Schœlcher située devant l'ancien palais de justice de Fort-de-France et celle située dans le bourg de Schœlcher ont été détruites ce vendredi après-midi...

www.martinique.franceantilles.fr

Translated it via the browser...

So essentially...another bunch of idiots who want to start a brawl/riot/fight/war over something that happened a few centuries ago? History goes round and round like a wheel, it doesn't necessarily repeat, but often rhymes as one person said.

Yeah....the destruction of a culture over some idiot grievance to justify a new brawl. Humanity is obsessed with destroying itself. It's happened before, and it's happening again...

EDIT: I just find crap like this that I'm reading on Memorial Day of all things to be rather bitter, especially as a veteran. But, it is what it is.

 

[Deleted member 88]

What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new in the whole world. "Look," they say, "here is something new!" But no, it has all happened before, long before we were born. No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then.

Ecclesiastes.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new in the whole world. "Look," they say, "here is something new!" But no, it has all happened before, long before we were born. No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then.

Ecclesiastes.

“Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph”

― Robert E. Howard

 

[Lanmandragon]

I think it’s often said that Abraham Lincoln owned slaves even if he banned it

And that the Founding Fathers DID NOT illegalise slavery

So they’re all evil douchebags or something

Yeah, really “problematic”, I pity you whiteys at least my people last I checked are trying to be proud of our culture and history last I was in college

Lincoln never owned slaves.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Lincoln never owned slaves.

Oh right, I think that was Thomas Jefferson

 

[Lanmandragon]

Oh right, I think that was Thomas Jefferson

Washington owned slaves to doesn't change that they were great men. Hell considering slavery is literally the default of humanity. The vast vast majority of great men owned slaves. It literally does not matter anf I say this as the descendent if slaves.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Washington owned slaves to doesn't change that they were great men. Hell considering slavery is literally the default of humanity. The vast vast majority of great men owned slaves. It literally does not matter anf I say this as the descendent if slaves.

I don't think people have ANY problem with the Romans and the Vikings for owning slaves, hell I don't think anyone had a problem with Native American First People's Nations owning slaves like Don Cheadle's ancestors

Or Africans selling other Africans off to Europeans

Or Saudi Arabians or Middle Eastern taking the kids of the Children's Crusade and selling em off too

 

[Lanmandragon]

I don't think people have ANY problem with the Romans and the Vikings for owning slaves, hell I don't think anyone had a problem with Native American First People's Nations owning slaves like Don Cheadle's ancestors

Or Africans selling other Africans off to Europeans

Or Saudi Arabians or Middle Eastern taking the kids of the Children's Crusade and selling em off too

Which just proves thier hypocrisy.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Which just proves thier hypocrisy.

I think I remember one guy on SB going on about how Roman Slavery was different from “chattel slavery” as you can buy your freedom back or something

 

[Morphic Tide]

The idea of integration of non Europeans into European nations and with European peoples has failed, it has always failed and it will always fail. Any attempt to do so will lead to nothing less than the destruction of Europe and the European peoples.

Here's a history question for you: Why do Europeans have a narrow enough culture band to meaningfully describe a "pan-European" identity like this? To my knowledge, the answer is because what you're saying does work, and has triumphed. In the original "drag a foreign king through the streets to his execution" sense. As in Rome was built on such practices as its core method of stabilizing conquered areas, by way of making it so they ceased to be subjugated by integrating their cultures into just more Romans that didn't need subjugated.

Japan pulled off the reverse during the Meiji Restoration, drawing in European experts to train a local intellectual class to buy their way to being an industrial state without a sweeping conflict that sacrificed their cultural identity for material progress. And the United States pulled off a similar action, to a less intense degree, when they toppled Japanese imperialism, making a staunch low-friction ally of a bitter enemy by forcing a few key cultural touchstones on them.

The United States is built on integration much as Rome was before it, drawing people in and converging culture to a sufficient degree as to eliminate broad friction. The states came to think themselves American, the Irish were drawn in to being merely "white", the many denominations converged upon seeing themselves as simply Christian.

The modern failure is that there's no pressure to let go of the "old country", no ridicule of the man who can't speak clearly to his boss, no force assuring this integration, where the Romans executed every King and syncretized every faith and kept every festival to a single calendar so there was only the habits of Rome.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

@Morphic Tide
Somehow you make me think the solution is to imitate the Federation

NOT Gene Goldenberry’s socialist paradise

But Robert A Heinlein’s one in Starship Troopers where you actually have to do a service to get the right to vote and odds are the ones who get one become different from the rest in mindset

 

[Morphic Tide]

@Morphic Tide
Somehow you make me think the solution is to imitate the Federation

NOT Gene Goldenberry’s socialist paradise

But Robert A Heinlein’s one in Starship Troopers where you actually have to do a service to get the right to vote and odds are the ones who get one become different from the rest in mindset

That's one way of going about it, as it makes it so that governance has a powerful cultural filter, separate from the structure of the wider society.

Heinlein saw the rampant selfish individualism of Western civilization as a time bomb of untamed youths tearing society apart, and the Federation, from my understanding of the backstory, rose to simply stop the anarchy that ensued, constructing itself as a meritocratic military government with only minimal concern for the economy. It lacks commissioned officers, to my knowledge, so everyone in charge had to make their way from the bottom, filtering for a willingness to obey and look after one's peers and subordinates.

Rather notably, one of the elements that makes it into the movie is that the viewpoint character's parents tell their son to stay out of government, because there's much more to be had as a business person than as a Citizen.

Edit: The biggest thing of the Federation is that it can get away with being a minimal government that doesn't concern itself with businesses because it is the military. If a megacorp starts to form that threatens the "weak" state, the generals and the politicians are one and the same, and consequently such an attempt at usurping authority automatically means challenging the whole of military force. This also makes it essentially immune to juntas, because it is one to begin with.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

@Morphic Tide
Yeah, the Rico’s were in the military for life and happy for it

Though, somehow I don’t think the crazy youths thing would occur under an actual Socialist power like the USSR, they’d be gunned down ASAP

Or not

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Washington owned slaves to doesn't change that they were great men. Hell considering slavery is literally the default of humanity. The vast vast majority of great men owned slaves. It literally does not matter and I say this as the descendent if slaves.

To be fair given how slavery has been a legal and widespread part of civilization since civilization began until quite recently on the historical timescale I'd say at least 90% of the population on this planet has at least one ancestor that was a slave