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I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard, having both pretty lively politics, and Napoleon's 'whiff of grapeshot' in its DNA. Still, this is

I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard, having both pretty lively politics, and Napoleon's 'whiff of grapeshot' in its DNA. Still, this is more or less the basic pattern of how nations and armies work together. For example, the fascist coup that started the civil war in Spain was originally stymied by the fact that many of the insurrectionary military units were stuck in Africa in the Spanish colonies. The problem with armies is that even with the best of intentions, you end up using them, and if you use them, sometimes you win and end up having to do counterinsurgency in conquered territory. Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. From a UK perspective, it's always interesting to follow the careers of people in the early 20th century, as they move from one counter-insurgency to another, and they take techniques with them from one conflict to another, so you get guys who learned to torture people in Ireland ending up torturing people in post-war Greece, then they get jobs as police officers in the UK, and you can't help but wonder what they might have done there, what attitudes they brought to the job.

southerntofu 5y ago
> I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard Indeed, but this is true of any colonial empire, including USA, Russia, China, Turkey, and the list goes on. > Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. That's the history of modern french policing and the BAC, the "anti-criminal brigades" units patrolling in plain cloths and unmarked cars, often beating first then asking questions and regularly involved in trafficking/criminal schemes. They directly descended from the "Brigade Nord-Africaines" who were involved in controlling the north-african populations, as outline in Mathieu Rigouste books (if you speak french). Also worth noting that unlike some other countries, France mostly did not have a denazification process after WWII, and the police officials (préfets) orchestrating political/colonial repression under De Gaulle were the same officials collaborating with the nazis. This history and culture of police continues to this day, despite many police officers blowing the whistle on the corruption and abuse of the entire apparatus. It looks like the only way forward is a complete dismantling of the prison/police/military industrial complex (alongside MANY other social reforms, otherwise it'd lead to the formation of private militias, not community justice/accountability). This argument was of course common discourse in the anarchist circles since the 19th century, but gained notoriety in the 1960s/70s when many scholars (such as Angela Davis or Michel Foucault) refined those ideas and developed proper studies/explorations of the questions. Not that these reflections have died, if anything they've been revived by the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA (and equivalent anti-police-abuse movements elsewhere), but it's sad to see the current State of mainstream media where social critique is no longer welcome... unless it's from a fascist perspective (for example, notorious french fascist Eric Zemmour was for many years daily on public television spreading ideas of hatred, before moving to private channels after he was condemned repeatedly for hate speech).

southerntofu 5y ago

> I think France has a particularly bad record in this regard Indeed, but this is true of any colonial empire, including USA, Russia, China, Turkey, and the list goes on. > Then you get a whole load of people coming back home who started their professional career thinking of the population around them as the enemy, and have all the counter-insurgency methodologies as reflex and came of age in an enviroment where such things were normal. That's the history of modern french policing and the BAC, the "anti-criminal brigades" units patrolling in plain cloths and unmarked cars, often beating first then asking questions and regularly involved in trafficking/criminal schemes. They directly descended from the "Brigade Nord-Africaines" who were involved in controlling the north-african populations, as outline in Mathieu Rigouste books (if you speak french). Also worth noting that unlike some other countries, France mostly did not have a denazification process after WWII, and the police officials (préfets) orchestrating political/colonial repression under De Gaulle were the same officials collaborating with the nazis. This history and culture of police continues to this day, despite many police officers blowing the whistle on the corruption and abuse of the entire apparatus. It looks like the only way forward is a complete dismantling of the prison/police/military industrial complex (alongside MANY other social reforms, otherwise it'd lead to the formation of private militias, not community justice/accountability). This argument was of course common discourse in the anarchist circles since the 19th century, but gained notoriety in the 1960s/70s when many scholars (such as Angela Davis or Michel Foucault) refined those ideas and developed proper studies/explorations of the questions. Not that these reflections have died, if anything they've been revived by the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA (and equivalent anti-police-abuse movements elsewhere), but it's sad to see the current State of mainstream media where social critique is no longer welcome... unless it's from a fascist perspective (for example, notorious french fascist Eric Zemmour was for many years daily on public television spreading ideas of hatred, before moving to private channels after he was condemned repeatedly for hate speech).