Reading Response To Marrakech

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Reading Response: Marrakech When I first read Marrakech by George Orwell, I reacted with a rather objective perspective—I accepted that poverty is ignored, racism exists, and that colonial powers completely neglected their colonies during the early 1900s. Having no opinion on Moroccan poverty during 1939, I simply referred to it as “ancient history”. It wasn’t until a few days after reading the essay that I realized that what Orwell was witnessing still exists today. Several of my coworkers are from Morocco. I asked them if their lives were similar to what Orwell described. They told me that although life had gotten better, poverty is still evident almost everywhere. Their grandparents remember the terror of living during the generation Orwell writes about. To think that my grandparents were wealthy Texans and living on estates, whereas their families were living in ghettos and wearing rags is difficult to accept. Looking at how Orwell is writing, one can tell he usually writes more opinionated pieces. “All colonial empires are in reality founded on that fact.” How can one prove that colonial empires were founded on dehumanization? Orwell’s answer is fairly persuasive and obvious: the majority of colonies are poverty-stricken. However, if one is to look at the current political and economic situations of the colonial powers at the height of the colonization era, one can see that wars, lack of industrialization, and unstable economies are largely responsible for the poor treatment of colonies like Morocco. I disagree with Orwell; colonial empires weren’t founded on dehumanization, they were the effect of global powers having illusions of grandeur, but not being able to support their colonies. Orwell writes from a personal perspective, in that he encounters individuals and witnesses their strife. I’d imagine that if the French government leaders
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