Meltdown pain felt in remnants of French empire

Christine Pochot buys croissants in her corner bakery, votes in French elections and is as French as her president _ but lives a hemisphere away from his Parisian palace, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The island's primary schools use the same textbooks, the currency is the euro and city halls are engraved with 'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.' But lately weeks of strikes and outbursts of rioting on Guadeloupe and nearby Martinique have disrupted the Caribbean calm. The world economic crisis is pushing up prices of staples that already cost more than on the French mainland, and reviving the resentment of the mixed-race majority toward the descendants of slave-owners and white colonists who still run much of the islands' economies.

[Captain A]

Go ahead and let the "Mixed races" unlawfully take over the white descendants land and nationalize their businesses and see what you wind up with. The remnants of law and order will evaporate just like they have in many African countries that have tried this type of Racist stereotyping in the name of racial equality and delayed justice. look at south Africa and Zimbabwe, once thriving countries when they were under White government but when they were taken over by the racist blacks they imposed stupid redistribution laws to break up the white ownership of many industries and large farms. The breakdown in Zimbabwe has led to hatred ,death and unbelievable hyper inflation. South Africa was once a business paradise and had good law and order now has descended into more poverty and the murder of many innocent whites that own farms and industries because of the breakdown of law and order and racist blacks out for revenge. This is what will happen in Guadalupe if they give in to the jealous mixed race Racists that feel that they are owed something for nothing. if they move against the white people and nationalize their businesses the island will become a hell hole. No one will invest money or want to do any business with the racists that will take charge in the name of racial equality. Destruction always proceeds the fall of government by white people to black or mixed.

[Beniyah Yosiah]

All former colonies should be free. Whites are not the only people in the world who a civiled.

[Nadege]

Captain A, i see you completely overlooked south african apartheid and White colonialism in west africa, you made no mention of how the european forces such as france, england, germany, portugal got rich off of african resources, gold, etc.,. you made no mention of "reprogramming" of african children to feel that they were inferior, the ills of country like Zimbabwe and a few other countries are an unfortunate response to white rule, i am not condoning the loss of lives there, but you can not omit the role of Europeans in the history of Africa and The Caribbean.

I don't know if you know much about Guadeloupe,( i was born there) but the majority of the population is mixed, as it is here in the United States, and the riots have little or nothing to do with that. The French administration is one of the worst oversees that i havve ever seen, that goes for France, Ivory Coast, Senegal ,Haiti, Mali etc. they ran their colonies horribly, they left bad legacies and in general Guadeloupeans are at odds with being French citizens, although they may enjoy some sort of benefits because of it.

[Sing]

bet any of you guys (if you are 30 or younger) that if these french oversea territories, become a free state, it will spiral downward economically for the next 20-30 years more or less before they can bounce back, if they know how to govern...look at Haiti PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!

[Jazz singer]

Nadege wrote:

I don't know if you know much about Guadeloupe,( i was born there) but the majority of the population is mixed, as it is here in the United States, and the riots have little or nothing to do with that. The French administration is one of the worst oversees that i havve ever seen, that goes for France, Ivory Coast, Senegal ,Haiti, Mali etc. they ran their colonies horribly, they left bad legacies and in general Guadeloupeans are at odds with being French citizens, although they may enjoy some sort of benefits because of it.

Captain A doesn't know anything about Guadeloupe, he doesn't know anything at all.

He is both racist against black people and anti-French, so has a field day criticising both.

I think that you are wrong to amalgamate ex-colonies like Ivory Coast, Senegal ,Haiti, Mali with French oversea department like Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion or New Caledonia.

On one hand you have colonies who have voted for independence and obtained it. On the other you have overseas territories who have voted to stay French, presumably because they thought it was their interest.

I don't know in the case of Guadeloupe, but for New Caledonia, every 5 years a referendum is organised to consult the people. So far, in spite of a vociferous pro-independence movement, the majority has voted for status quo. I imagine that it would be the same for Guadeloupe. The benefits from being part of France certainly outweight the disadvantages.

There are strikes and social troubles in mainland France too, and they have nothing to do with colonialism.

In any case, if the people from Guadeloupe believe that they could administer themselves better by severing links with France, I hope that their wishes will be granted and that they will successfully manage the test of independence.

The excuse of 'colonialism' will be fading with time.