All hail the generous French
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James Baldwin in ‘No Name in the Street’ describes the state of Algerians as he witnessed during his time in Paris. He recounts the filthy conditions they lived in, and the poor treatment they received, as he talks about the double standard in the French’s perception of the Algerians who spent their times at Arab cafes. While the Algerians who spent their time in cafes seeking warmth and in need of jobs were seen as lazy, French students who did the same were not.
The narrative that a nation can help another be civilised is one that colonial powers often hold onto in order to justify their actions and fuel their saviour complex. The idea that indigenous folks are incapable of utilising their resources and must be ‘taught’ how to (more often than not by their white colonisers), allows for the colonisers to condone their actions. Challenging the coloniser, then, becomes a question of being ungrateful rather than of opposing an imperialist regime. This is why Baldwin points out that the French took particular offence in their colonies’ disdain towards the French.
It is perhaps this sentiment of offence that the French carried into their perception of the Arabs as ‘uncivilised’. Baldwin describes his amusement at being considered ‘civilised’ by the French, knowing that the French were way too proud to ever call a nation such as the United States ‘civilised’. What made the Arabs particularly uncivilised was their unwillingness to be civilised by the French. I find it interesting how Baldwin points out that “the French were not raciste, like the Americans, they did not believe in destroying cultures” (Baldwin, 4). This, almost self- reassuring, idea of ‘not being racist like the Americans’ sounds like it seeks to serve the superiority complex of the French in establishing that their treatment of the colonised, as opposed to that of the Americans, comes from a place of generosity and good will.