Disproportionate Force: The long history of anti-colonial resistance.

Hamza Hamouchene on French colonialism in Algeria, Frantz Fanon, Dien Bien Phu, and the anti-colonial history linking Vietnam, Algeria, and Palestine today. He is co-editor of the recently published book Towards Palestinian Liberation: Global Perspectives on Anti-Colonial Resistance and Solidarity, https://tinyurl.com/Towards-Palestini..., a collection praised by a wide ranging group of international scholars including Laleh Khalili, Andreas Malm and Yanis Varoufakis. He joins Clara Mattei to trace that history from Vietnam to Algeria and onward. France occupied Algeria for 132 years. Three million Algerians died in the first five decades of what the colonial authorities called pacification. In May 1945, while Europe celebrated the defeat of fascism, Algerians marched peacefully in Sétif carrying their flag for the first time. Roughly 45,000 were killed in the two months that followed. By 1962, a quarter of the population had been confined in camps and 8,000 villages destroyed. Most of this appears nowhere in standard histories of France, and Hamza explains why the omission matters. Demands for self-determination meet disproportionate force, the response becomes the entire story, and the larger violence that produced it drops from view. Frantz Fanon read the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 as a victory belonging to every colonized nation. Algerians launched their revolution six months later. Hamza follows the solidarities behind it: Algerian and Moroccan dockworkers refusing to load cargo bound for Vietnam, Abd el-Krim writing from exile in Cairo, Palestinians funding and training movements across Latin America and Africa long before anyone spoke of a Global South. Bandung in 1955 and the New International Economic Order of 1974 grew from the same soil. Clara then turns to Adam Hanieh's chapter and the political economy of Western policy in the region. Hanieh identifies two pillars of US domination: Israel as an imperial outpost, and the oil monarchies of the Gulf. Normalization agreements from Camp David through the Abraham Accords work to bring those pillars together. The prize is control of the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal, which means leverage over global energy, fertilizer, plastics, and the trade routes carrying Chinese goods to Africa and Europe. A human rights framework explains none of this, which is much of why it remains the framework on offer. Clara connects the argument to FREE's recent Tulsa forum on data centers. The dispossession Oklahomans are organizing against runs on the same economic logic Hamza describes. Hamza Hamouchene is Programme Coordinator for North Africa at the Transnational Institute and the author of several works on political ecology and extractivism in North Africa. Chapters 00:00:00 - Hamza Hamouchene and Towards Palestinian Liberation 00:04:15 - Algeria and Vietnam: Passing the Torch 00:08:37 - France in Algeria: 132 Years of Settler Rule 00:13:22 - A Million Settlers and a Second-Class Population 00:15:14 - Sétif, May 1945: What Followed the First Algerian Flag 00:20:42 - Walter Rodney and the Double Standard on Resistance 00:24:41 - Frantz Fanon and the Victory at Dien Bien Phu 00:27:53 - Abd el-Krim and the North African Connection 00:30:30 - The Dockworkers Who Refused to Load the Ships 00:31:40 - Third Worldism and the Bandung Conference of 1955 00:37:05 - Revolution as Process: Ebbs, Flows, Counter-Revolution 00:42:52 - Adam Hanieh: Where Human Rights Framing Falls Short 00:46:00 - Two Pillars of US Domination in the Region 00:50:21 - From Camp David to the Abraham Accords 00:53:40 - Political Economy as Emancipatory Knowledge 00:57:32 - Why Settler Colonies Depend on Imperial Patrons 01:00:15 - Why Palestine Is the Entry Point to Every Struggle 01:01:30 - Famine as a Tool of Colonial Rule 01:03:31 - Sudan, Congo, and Intersecting Liberation Struggles 01:06:02 - Why Palestine Sits at the Center 01:09:06 - Breaking Dependency Under Global Capitalism 01:10:13 - Why Write During Catastrophe: Zinn and Cabral 🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩ ❤️ Watch, learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org 🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate or on Patreon:   / freefreeforum   🎧 Listen as a Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5m5xbrP... ▶ Connect with FREE Linktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForum Substack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/ X: https://x.com/freefreeforum Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforu... Instagram:   / freefreeforum   TikTok:   / freefreeforum   Facebook:   / freefreeforum   #vietnam #algeria #colonialism