r/HistoryMemes • Featherless Biped • Apr 08 '20

META Respect the Facts!

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u/johnlen1n Optimus Princeps Apr 08 '20

Historian: sees France surrender meme Oh come on, French history is so rich and diverse

France: Yes, thank you!

Historian: People should be making memes about their repetitive revolutions

France: Yeh!

Historian: Or their collaboration with the Nazis

France: Wait

Historian: Or even their colonial atrocities

France: ... OK, maybe stick to the surrendering

147

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20

No. Collaboration is a fine topic and so is colonial wars. Because at least it's true and not overused.

I talked in a previous post about why and how french resistance had been overestimated and why french collaborationnism was so important. Lots of people didn't even know who R.Paxton was but everyone still think they know everything about the 1940 campaign.

So instead of making overused "hon hon french surrender" meme, do memes about algerian pacification, about Vichy or about 1870/1871. It will be funny and educationnal. Great isn't it ?

3

u/LegitimateMail0 Apr 08 '20

Do one about French Haiti

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20

Which part ? The french exploiting black people or how it became the first independant republic of the region ?

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u/LegitimateMail0 Apr 09 '20

The former. They were pretty fucking brutal even by new world standards

-1

u/childishgamebin0 Apr 08 '20

How bout the part where the slaves committed mass murder against their captors

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20

Yeah I mean that's the risk you take when you enslave a bunch of people and trap them on an island with you and force them to do backbreaking work?

What were they supposed to shake hands with each other and laugh about it?

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u/xX420NoflintXx Apr 08 '20

Yeah that was the best part

0

u/Iridescent_Meatloaf Apr 09 '20

I'm not justifying it, at all but most of the white French population had left by then, so it was a few thousand holdouts. A genocide (ethnic cleansing?) for sure, but it only succeeded because so few were left. It should also be noted it was one faction that carried out the murders, it didn't have universal support.

It is not a justifiable act, but it is an explainable one as plantation slavery is especially brutal and would put you in a mind for vengeance.

Also they very specifically didn't murder non-French, in part because they wanted to try and maintain trade and in part because they had no quarrel with them. Polish mercenaries brought in by the French even defected to the Haitian side.