Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 November 4

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 4

Metropolitan France & French Algeria

So, just making sure that I am actually right, French Algeria had never been legally part of Metropolitan France as it was always a colony and ended its existence as an oversea department, correct? I am asking this because some people discussing the Catalan independence movement and the Irish independence conflict seem to think that Algeria was considered an integral part of France and that its independence violated the first line of the French constitution saying that "France is one and indivisible". 70.95.44.93 (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

As you see at the article you linked, "Metropolitan France" is a geographical term: the part of France that's in Europe. Overseas departments are also part of France. If you're American, Metropolitan France is like the 48 contiguous states and the overseas departments are like Alaska and Hawaii. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:10, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Article 1 of the French Constitution does say that France is indivisible, but Article 53 allows for treaties that cede territory, provided that there is consent from the people involved. I rather think that if a constitutional court was required to rule on this, they would say that a treaty granting independence to an overseas department, and complying with the terms of article 53 does not violate article 1. Whether this ever actually was tested in court I don't know. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the French constitution, it is important to note that the current French constitution, the Fifth Republic, post-dates the Algerian Crisis, indeed the Algerian Crisis was the thing which brought about the end of the Fourth French Republic. --Jayron32 13:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

It was adopted in 1958—during the crisis and well before Algeria was made independent. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

See also this recent query: 2019 March 25#Were Algerians able to freely move to European France before 1962?. Alansplodge (talk) 13:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

An important thing to remember about French Algeria, is that there was always a two- (or even three-) tiered class system there that existed regardless of the actual legal status of Algeria and its incorporation into the French state. There was a famous quote that said "L'Algerie, c'est la France" or "Algeria is France", implying the full incorporation of Algeria with the rest of France, but the residents of Algeria were afforded very different levels of rights depending on whether they were native Algerian (Berber, Tuareg, Arabic, etc.) people OR if they were pied noirs, OR if they were born in Metropolitan France. Generally, people of White European descent had better freedom of movement, and were usually considered full citizens of France, while those that were of non-European descent were not granted such rights. The article Indigénat would be most informative for this discussion. --Jayron32 13:54, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Which led to some rather indignant indigénats. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

The French actually prided themselves on not doing things solely on a crude racial basis -- but to get the full rights of French citizenship, a non-European had to visibly adopt French culture, and persuade the French that he was doing so. See Assimilation (French colonialism) and Évolué. Algerian Jews followed that path, but few Muslims were willing or able to do so... AnonMoos (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

It was a bit of false pride, however. They policy in practice was "You can be a French citizen, so long as you abandon all of the things that make you different from us". That's bigotry anyway you slice it. They set up a series of rules designed to specifically exclude undesirables based on their ethnic/cultural heritage, and then applied those selectively against those specific ethnic/cultural groups they didn't want to change their pure country. To say it wasn't done on a crude racial basis, I assume you mean "just based on skin tone", which may be true, but there are LOTS of ways to be a bigot that do not strictly include skin tone. --Jayron32 13:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

However, some degree of assimilation is going to be required by any society. For example, a ban on honor killings. SinisterLefty (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Being expected to follow local laws regarding murder are distinctly different from requiring people to abandon core religious tenets or other cultural practices. That's a red herring to our discussion here, which is that the French essentially required a person to abandon all meaningful aspects of their earlier culture, not just the blatantly abhorrent ones. Requiring people to not murder others with impunity is not the same as requiring them to stop being halal, or to speak a different language at home, or stop teaching their cultural stories to their children. --Jayron32 19:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I never said it was the same. Forbidding women to cover their faces entirely while in public (which makes identification impossible) would be the next step towards the gray area. But, I can also see the point that allowing people to set up their own city (or part of a city) in your country, where they speak only their own language, and thus essentially exclude the locals, is more like them setting up a colony in the nation than joining it. I can see why, at the very least, they might require signs to also display the national language. In Quebec, where they weren't happy about being "colonized" by anglophones, they passed such a law. Of course, when the people making the laws are the colonizers, then, by the same token, they should largely leave the locals alone, with a few exceptions like honor killings. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:31, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

That's not a grey area. Unless the authorities are directly charging you with a crime, there's no requirement that you be identifiable without asking. If they want to know your name, they can ask you. If they want to know who you are, they can ask you to produce an ID card or something. You don't need to be able to be identifiable, however, if you're just going about your daily business doing nothing wrong. --Jayron32 20:11, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

This is going to depend a lot on the jurisdiction, but in many places where they are putting in street cameras linked to facial recognition systems, they're going to have an issue with people going around with their faces hidden. It's gray in that it has to balance public safety with Freedom of Religion and privacy. But when the authorities definitely need to identify people, say at a border crossing, then keeping a veil on is not going to be allowed, in most places. Those that allow it have basically surrendered control of the border, as then anyone can cross with a burka on (men included). SinisterLefty (talk) 02:30, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

They are doing so. Whether the fact that they are doing so means that it is right and just that they can track and monitor every person as a matter of course, without regard for first establishing reasonable suspicion that the person has broken a law, is a different issue. The ability to catch people who have done nasty things is useful; more problematic is the ability to track people who haven't done anything wrong, in case you want to decide later that you don't like them, and create crimes to charge them with. Requiring that people accept a government's unjust and unwarranted invasion of their privacy is not a just position. --Jayron32 17:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

As stated above, Algeria was part of France. It was NOT a colony the way of, say, Madagascar or Vietnam. The law of the land, and the organisation of the administration, were the same law as in, say, Paris, while in a colony the law and organisation were different. However, there were two class of inhabitants: citizens, and "indigenes". Indigenes could become citizens if they so wished, but this meant their losing a number of specifics, and doing this required breaking free of social rules, for few actual benefits (racism was real, and the person would still be considered indigene by citizens, while indigenes would consider him a kind of traitor); few did it (but just follow the article Indigénat provided by Jayron32).

"France is one and indivisible" is just a constitutional rule, it can be overruled by just another constitutional rule. Which has just be done quite recently about New Caledonia (whether the Nouméa Accord process will or will not result in independence, the simple fact that independence is possible already broke the rule of indivisibility). It can also be broken de facto, which is actually the normal way as constitutions go.

Gem fr (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

1951 French legislative election in Algeria describes the way in which Algerians participated in elections for the French National Assembly by means of electoral colleges, separate ones for Europeans, non-European citizens and non-citizens. Alansplodge (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

the way you write it implies 3 colleges, when there were 2: one college for citizens (from whatever ancestry), and a second for ″indigenes″ (non citizens). Gem fr (talk) 02:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Quite right, there were only two, my apologies. Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Mark Twain

Were any of Mark Twain's speeches ever recorded and if so, are these in the public domain and if so, where can i find them. Please and thank you. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 11:20, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Searching for "Mark Twain cylinder" turns up a number of leads. He apparently made several recordings, but very few survive... AnonMoos (talk) 13:08, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

The Library of Congress says that "Mark Twain was known to have made recordings on three occasions; unfortunately none of them are known to have survived". A recording which was previously thought to be of Twain turned out to be a friend of his impersonating him. See Mark Twain Sort of Speaks to Us October 30, 2014 by Bryan Cornell. Alansplodge (talk) 13:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Could you perhaps direct me toward transcripts of his speeches? Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Did you look at my link? The only text mentioned is The American Claimant which you can read in full here. Twain recorded some portions of the book in 1891, using it as a sort of dictation machine rather than for publication.

This article says that the 1888 recording mentioned by the Library of Congress never actually existed since Thomas Edison was out when Twin visited his laboratory; however he had intended to dictate passages of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which you can read here. The final recording was "made by Gianni Bettini in 1893, in which Twain interrupted Nellie Melba’s rendition of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor".  :::Alansplodge (talk) 17:55, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Or if I have misread your question, apologies and see Mark Twain's Speeches. Alansplodge (talk) 20:34, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Alternatively LibriVox recording of Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain. Read in English by John Greenman. Alansplodge (talk) 20:36, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

What other languages did Twain write in? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:42, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

German.—eric 18:43, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Even if there was a recording I'm am of a generation who would hear this man's voice instead :-) MarnetteD|Talk 18:48, 5 November 2019 (UTC)