I was threaten by a French guy (not on this site) who kindly advise me not to play with fire, revelations from 16th C books could harm a lot of people. And Algerians were not ready to read their own history in Topography and General History of Algiers. So I'd rather spent my time educating them.
It's just too much for me, this kind of philosophy still prospering nowadays in 2018. As a matter of a fact, it's the French government's position regarding francophones: educate Africa. Vulgar and pretentious.
We all know how good French did the job. The book i'm translating, Topography and General History of Algiers, was translated in 1870. They forget the introduction, the publication license, the marginalias and took away a lot of details, transforming it in a "non-sense History". After that, they forced Algerian to remember how chaotic and illogical was their story at mandatory school, provoking hate, despair and discouragement among Algerians towards their own History. Now, 50 years after the Liberation, little by little, they are recovering and History is turning a passion in the country.
Do you think knowledge can be harmful?
France has strong cultural influences in much of the African continent
France had a strong cultural influence. Nowadays, they still maintain the crookery of Franc CFA. All West Africa is using Franc CFA, which means for any transaction in West Africa, money (and its interests) have to go through Paris. African are feed off. And, anyhow, I found very disgraceful, having strong cultural influences after years of unfair, monstrous colonization, the French desire to "educate" Africa.
It is a very interesting book indeed. On the other side Africa is already educated . From the view-point of colonialist and post-colonialist countries "education" means re-education.