Rome did, but that was par for the course at the time, and Maghrebians were allowed to become full citizens to the point where many became Roman emperors.

The Ottoman invasions didn't actually do that much damage to the Maghreb. It's a place very far away from them. Ottoman conquests of the Maghreb had around 40 000 casualties, many of them not of Algerians but of Ottomans and French/Spanish soldiers.

As for the Caliphate, they certainly did not annihilate any culture before them, and it's incredible to equate culture with Religion. The dominant religions there at the time of their invasion were Christianism and Judaism, which were preserved for a long time and are barely different from Islam, and religion is a tiny aspect of Culture. Their impact on the common person is so small that during Islamic rule the vast majority of people didn't even speak Arabic.

What the French did that was objectively much worse was to create a system where the citizens of the Maghreb were to remain an inferior second class only useful insofar as resources can be stolen forever.

As for colonialism in general, which I should remind you is the point, it caused more deaths than WW2.

You have hand waved away 2 thousand years of conquests of Maghreb as minor infractions. I'm mean it went from carthaginians to romans, vandals, byzantium, arabs, turks. Changed religion, culture and languages several times. You can't seriously believe that this were non violent happy occurences. Before the french even came they already spoke a different language than their ancestors, they prayed to a different god than their ancestors and they had no control over their territories. They were second class citizens even before the french came. I understand how you feel about French occupation and consider it worse because it was not so long ago and is in the nation's living memory. Other colonializations were more complete and successful and therefore part of what Maghreb is today. But objectively they were at least as bad as the french occupation.

The Maghreb followed Abrahamic religion for 1600 years, more or less, actually. The god we prayed to didn't change from Rome, the Vandals, Byzantium, Arabs, and Turks.

The language didn't change either. Most people spoke Berber languages for 2000 years. Even now there are towns where you can't get by with Arabic well.

People of the Maghreb were not second class citizens under Rome. Neither were they under the millenia+ in some places of self-rule.

It's fine if you don't know the difference between pre-modern invasions and colonization, and it's fine if you don't really understand the history of the region, but by god don't use that to justify imperialism which killed tens of millions of people.

In any case, ask yourself this. Why is it that two Africans became emperors of Rome, but that Africans never led modern European powers, nor were even allowed to vote? Ask yourself that, and you will understand the distinction between the two.

Not only that, but almost half of the Maghreb was never even invaded by the Ottomans, and even then it was De Jure, and not De Facto, mostly. Same for the Vandals and the Byzantines.

So no, your analysis is incorrect. Additionally, it's very well known that pre-modern war was much less bloody.

> Why is it that two Africans became emperors of Rome, but that Africans never led modern European powers

Because more often than not the military decided who became princeps, and military advancement was more egalitarian.

I’d hazard a guess that if Rome had still been controlled by the senate the chances of advancement in Roman society would have been restricted to Italian born patricians.

>The Maghreb followed Abrahamic religion for 1600 years, more or less, actually. The god we prayed to didn't change from Rome, the Vandals, Byzantium, Arabs, and Turks.

Most European languages stem from the same base Indo Euroupean language. And a still a German can't understand a Frenchman or a Slav. Even though Islam has the same roots as christianity it is a totally different religion with an even more different set cultural norms.

>The language didn't change either. Most people spoke Berber languages for 2000 years. Even now there are towns where you can't get by with Arabic well.

I would say the arabic language, which is the dominant language of the area (72%), is quite different from the berber language(27%).

>It's fine if you don't know the difference between pre-modern invasions and colonization, and it's fine if you don't really understand the history of the region, but by god don't use that to justify imperialism which killed tens of millions of people."

I'm disappointed and expected more from you than lowly accusations of me supporting colonialism.

>In any case, ask yourself this. Why is it that two Africans became emperors of Rome, but that Africans never led modern European powers, nor were even allowed to vote? Ask yourself that, and you will understand the distinction between the two.

Septimius Severus was half Roman and half Punic, so not Berber. Also his successor, his son Caracalla has even less to do with the people of Northern Africa. By the time Severus became roman emperor, some parts of North Africa have been under the roman empire for 300 years. France has a lot of citizens of North African descent today who have the same rights as any other citizen with a different origin.

>Not only that, but almost half of the Maghreb was never even invaded by the Ottomans, and even then it was De Jure, and not De Facto, mostly. Same for the Vandals and the Byzantines.

>So no, your analysis is incorrect. Additionally, it's very well known that pre-modern war was much less bloody.

Hacking somebody apart with a sword is not something I would call less bloody. You seem to be under impression that the rulers always changed peacefully without any wars, battles, destruction of cities, persecutions, etc. I'm sure that after 200 years of any new ruler things settled down and life when on, maybe even better that before, but before that things were pretty bad and ugly.