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by walrus01·10y ago·view on hn ↗
Force them to learn English? It is the defacto language of science and technology. For a population of less than 500,000 they're not going to develop locally created curriculum for, for example, masters degrees in electrical engineering and medical sciences in the Berber language.
3 comments
Icelanders have both those things in their own language at a current population of 350,000, and have had it since before they were less than 250,000.
Iceland has never consisted of 165000 people living in tents in a desert refugee camp who never had a single culture or dialect in the first place, and doesn't rely on dealing with foreign NGOs for things as basic as their water supply.

As far as I'm aware, the indigenously-developed Icelandic curriculum also teaches native Icelanders to speak English to a good standard, which they rely on heavily when interacting with the outside world without consider having to do so a terrible colonialist imposition.

it did. in the 12th century. but self esteem of the bonds was so hogh, that they managed just ok.
That is true, though I have met a number of Icelanders and they do any serious science in English. They also have the benefit of extensive educational and university exchanges with Denmark and Norway. And they're not a refugee population living in a desert without a functioning government.
The language of science is mathematics.
I wonder what all that text around the equations is. Probably not important, right?
The equation is as old as Karl Marx's "The Capital".
Classy colonialist position. If you cannot develop your own curriculum, we will move you and take your land and resources. Do you really think First American Nations had a poor life just because they had no electricity?
The First American Nations had lots of land and discretion to raise crops, hunt, and self-determine their political futures on a tribal level. These guys don't. There are 165,000 people in refugee camps because the King has control of their land and will basically never give it back. They're already moved. Their land and resources are already gone. The only way they're likely to get it back is an ugly war of some sort, a substantial part of which must be waged by external powers on behalf of these people or they will simply lose.

As this war simply isn't going to happen, the only sane way forward to get these people and their future generations out of this misery is to get them out of there and send them to places where they will be recognized as human beings instead of as an obnoxious political problem. In the current state of the world this is, for better or worse, much more practical when they are capable of supporting themselves and prospering in an urban environment. That takes education, and broadly speaking education in English is probably the choice that gives them the best options right now, unless somewhere non-English-speaking is specifically offering to give them a break (which would be smashing, doubly so if the Somewhere is Morocco itself, but I've not heard of it).

And getting just one of those people out of there and into an English-speaking nation has already contributed substantially to international recognition of their plight through this article.

I like the way you protect that Kings's particular right to own land of these people.
> I like the way you protect that Kings's particular right to own land of these people.

ommunist, I'd like to ask you very kindly and seriously to reconsider whether you should be discussing this matter in these pages. If that reads to you as protecting the king's right then you're so laser-focused on finding a way to grind the axe of "down with colonialism" that you've already made up your mind not just what's right and wrong but what everyone else thinks and as such you have no room in your mind to understand the motives of other people discussing the matter.

There is nothing in my comment to suggest any right which the King has to those lands besides the fact that he presently occupies them and maintains an ability to command force to protect them (force which the world is disinterested in challenging). Complaining that I'm "protecting the rights" of this distasteful actor is silly and as far as I can tell all you're doing here in general right now is looking for ways to spit bile at people. That's not conducive to a healthy discussion forum.

And that's the charitable interpretation which assumes you are operating in good faith out of your care for the downtrodden of the world. Maybe you're just a bona fide troll here, in which case, you're doing a great job.

Maybe they'd rather learn Chinese? I don't care what they study nor do I want to "colonize" their desert. Anything that improves their standard of living and political self determination is probably an improvement at this point.
If 'you' will not, China can get control of that thorium in that sands.