Israeli-Arab Wars: Time For a Just End

The comments exchanged after the dramatic events of the last few days focus on the horror of the barbarity and the rejection of extremism. These are certainly the first ideas that come to mind in the heat of the moment. But the analysis must go further. What are the causes of this disorder? What solutions can be found in the midst of horror and massacres?

An endless series of wars?

 

At first, there was a chorus of protest against the savage terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas, which probably claimed more than 1,200 civilian victims, including children of all ages. The emotion has now changed sides, with the State of Israel taking its usual disproportionate reprisals against the Palestinians, beyond the limits permitted by the laws of war, which, here as in Ukraine, are largely ignored by the belligerents. This, moreover, is the result of Hamas' cynical calculation: by provoking the State of Israel with an absolutely horrific attack, to obtain in return something to condemn it for its inevitable reprisals, and to mobilise the Muslim world once again by reducing the conflict to a supposed war of religion - forgetting in the process the Christian religion, which has also been present among the Palestinians since the time when Jesus preached in the region. By being outraged, we are all relaying a large-scale Machiavellian manipulation, no doubt orchestrated by Iranian strategists. But at the same time, the facts are there: with more than 3,000 deaths, the vast majority of them civilians, and a deliberately provoked humanitarian crisis that affects the two million Gazans indiscriminately, the reprisals are beyond the limits of what is bearable. It is time to demand a total halt to this type of counter-terrorism actions, which have themselves become terrorist.

Destructions in Gaza, October 2023

Of course, I don't want to ignore the fact that Jews today are experiencing uncertainty and even fear, both in our countries and in Palestine, and that in itself is unbearable. I am very sensitive to the tragic fate of the Jewish people. The French Protestant community distinguished itself during the Second World War by the risks it took to protect persecuted Jews, and my family remembers two of its members who have their tree at the Shoah Memorial in Jerusalem as "Righteous Among the Nations". But when remembering this historical facts, can you avoid being immediately struck by the analogy between the persecuted people of then and now? There is a people who are the wandering Jews of today, deprived of a national home and rights, and often deprived of solidarity on the part of other nations, including Arab nations. You will have recognised the Palestinian people. I was also made aware of their tragic fate through meetings with the Palestinian people. I was also made aware of its tragic fate through personal encounters and friendships with individuals directly involved. What is almost always overlooked is the fact that the interminable Israeli-Palestinian drama is the result of a succession of events in which the European powers were heavily involved: the division of the world, including the Mediterranean, by the great powers, particularly after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire ; the long practice of anti-Semitism in Europe, up to and including the terrifying Dreyfus affair, which led Jews to wish for the creation of a national home where, for once, Jews could live in safety; European nationalism, born of Bonaparte's hijacking of the French Revolution, which led to multiple wars, the tragedy of the Great War and the mad promises made by the British to the Zionists; the Shoah which accelerated the creation of a Jewish state; the Cold War which drove some into the arms of the Soviets and others into those of the Americans... A long series of failures and betrayals of human rights for which the Arabs have only a very modest responsibility... This is why Europe, as is too often overlooked, is not standing idly by. In the early 1970s, Gaullist France launched a Euro-Arab dialogue aimed at increased cooperation between Europe and the Arab states. It drew in its European partners and, as early as 1975, the EEC began relations with the Arab countries. It brought its European partners on board and, in 1975, the EEC began relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Today, the European Union is the leading supplier of development aid to Palestine, ahead of the Arab states and the United States, and other powers that are above all lavish with fine words. For the period 2021-2024, the EU has earmarked €1.117 billion for the Palestinians. This money will enable Palestine to finance key sectors such as education and health, even though the buildings rebuilt with European funding are often destroyed by Israeli bombing.

Destroyed lives

Too many commentators, particularly those on permanent news channels, judge the actions of one side or the other without taking into account the suffering of the people. Most of the young Palestinians recruited by Hamas and involved in the terrorist attack on 7 October were born during the second intifada (2000-2005). Their only experience of life was the Israeli occupation, followed by sieges and the devastation of repeated military assaults on this 365 square km enclave with poverty and unemployment rates around 50%. How can 2 million people live in a territory whose population density reaches almost 6,000 inhabitants per km2 (yes, six thousand, almost as many as Hong Kong), with no possibility of leaving the territory, with the prospect of Israeli bombing raids at more or less regular intervals? Wasn't it shocking, with hindsight, to hold a rave party right next to this overpopulated and desperate Bantustan? To claim to be building a peace when some are comfortably settled in safe houses while others are crammed into dilapidated buildings that are regularly bombed? (Bombings that have claimed over 5,000 victims in ten years, including many women and children... but whose faces are not as present as those of the victims of the terrorist attack on 7 October). Is it not to be expected that when a government bases all its actions on force and the policy of fait accompli, elevating contempt for international law to the rank of virtue, building a wall beyond its recognised borders, and populating an annexed territory in a way that is as shameless as it is illegal, there will be an equally violent reaction at some point? He who sows the wind reaps the storm, as the French proverb goes... If Israeli public opinion could, on the occasion of the current tragedy, realise that Bibi Netanyahu's promises were fallacious and endangered what they claimed to protect, there would at least be a spot of light in a very dark landscape.
Too many commentators, on the same television shows, attribute a direct or indirect responsibility for the events to the Muslim religion, via its most militant version, invested in the political domain. This is, of course, giving in to the natural human tendency to point the finger at scapegoats in order to preserve our self-esteem, including - or even especially - when we are afraid of being called into question... Having said that, it would be hard to deny that Islam includes an element of valorisation of violence, when some clerics, notably among the Iranian leaders, openly rejoice in the massacre of innocents perpetrated by Hamas. But are our ideologies and our religions so different from Islam on this point? Do you have to leaf through the Old Testament for a very long time to find stories or even commandments that exemplify extremely violent behaviour? Need we point out that, despite Christ's indisputably pacifist teaching, Christian theologians, including some of the greatest, were quick to seize on flimsy pretexts to justify war and forced conversions? Should we see this as a congenital defect of Christianity or as the a posteriori construction of a theological justification for pre-existing political choices (which, according to Jacques Ellul, contributed to the "subversion of Christianity")? Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater, ignoring all the contributions made by Christianity, the source of countless admirable works of education and solidarity (including the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, hit by a murderous explosion on 17 October) run and financed by the Episcopalian Church in Jerusalem, or the Red Cross/Red Crescent), and even of movements of resistance to oppression? Haven't Judaism and Christianity both glorified bloody episodes in their history? The question is how these violent ideas have been or can be counterbalanced, and ultimately dismissed as dangerous ideologies deserted by the majority of intellectuals and believers. How can we continue to live together as a society, Muslims and non-Muslims, Jews and non-Jews, Christians and atheists, without re-establishing dialogue? Let's not give in to the propaganda that always wants to accuse, ostracise and radicalise, without seeming to understand that violence is a path that only has a way out if we know how to get out of it. Unless we end up with the total destruction of the regions in conflict and massive sacrifices among the populations, one day agreements will have to be reached that take into account the legitimate claims of the current peoples, regardless of how long they have been claiming legitimacy over a given territory.  

German exodus to the West, 1945

I was inspired to see, during a recent visit to Silesia, a province in south-western Poland, that in these territories, which underwent large-scale ethnic cleansing in 1945, the Germans have now accepted the expulsion of almost 5 million of their fellow citizens from this territory (out of the 12 million or so expelled from Central and Eastern Europe). These expulsions have been accompanied by the violent deaths of over a million people. Despite opposition from refugee associations in Eastern Europe, acceptance of this expropriation was concluded in 1990 with the Treaty of Moscow, forty-five years after the events. The Germans present at the meeting I attended in Poland spoke without hatred of their Silesian origins, of their visits to the villages or towns where their grandparents were born... Evidence of German-Polish cooperation can be seen here and there on renovated historic buildings. In other words, since, 85 years after the start of the first Arab-Israeli war, it appears that the two peoples cannot come to an agreement without outside help, it is time for the international community to unite in demanding symmetrical concessions from both sides: on the part of all the movements representing the Palestinians, recognition of the State of Israel within its 1967 borders, which would have the merit of removing a key argument from the Israeli right-wing; and on the other hand, a halt to acts contrary to international law and a commitment by the State of Israel to respect the decisions of the United Nations. This would be a better policy, particularly on the part of Europe, than that of accepting to follow the lead of extremists on one side or the other.
The solution to the conflict and the unity of our society, called for by President Macron, come at the price of mutual concessions on demands and an absence of compromise on values.

Pictures, top to bottom : Assaf Kutin, State of Israel Government Press Office ; Fars News Agency ; RafahKid Kid, via Wikimedia Commons ; Deutsches Bundesarchiv

Migration an opportunity not a threat

Migration will always be a part of our past, present and future.

They will always raise the same feelings of fear. Each time again however reason should be summoned and the situation calmly analysed.

A “no migrant” policy would have meant that France would have left out or expelled Maria Salomea Skłodowska, Alberto Wladimiro Alessandro Apollinare de Kostrowitzky, Guy Behar-Hassan, Ezra Benveniste or Pietro Cardini just to name a few names chosen from the top of the alphabetic list. Oh, you don’t know them? They are better known under the French version of their names: Marie Curie, Guillaume Apollinaire, Guy Béart, Emile Benveniste and Pierre Cardin.

For those who are unsure of their achievements, here are the main ones.

Marie Curie was born in 1867 in Warsaw; she came to study in Paris at 24 because academic careers were not open to women in Poland at the time. An outstanding mind, she was not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, but also the first person to win it twice, and the only person to win it twice in different scientific fields (physics and chemistry).

Guillaume Apollinaire, one of the foremost poets of the 20^th century, was born in Italy as a Polish subject of the Russian empire. He died in 1918 aged 38, under the French uniform. (Yes many foreign-born died under the French uniform.)

Guy Béart, the much acclaimed French singer who just died was born in Cairo in 1930, studied mostly in Lebanon, and finally came to Paris to study engineering. He was awarded the Grand Prix de l'Académie française in recognition of his achievements over his long career.

Emile Benveniste, born Ezra Benveniste in Alep, Syria, obtained French citizenship at 22 and became one of the leading linguists of the 20th century. (Yes good people can come from Syria.)

Pierre Cardin, who became famous as a representative of French haute couture, was born near Treviso, Italy, in 1922; incidentally he is also an extremely successful entrepreneur; he is in the top 5 of the most famous Frenchmen worldwide.

A few migrants... in alphabetical order from A to C...

And by the way, we would also miss the extremely French Gaul Asterix, the comics having been created by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny. (Both were French but born from respectively Italian and Polish parents.)

When I see today the number of engineers, technicians and other well educated migrants from Syria and Iraq who are making their way into the EU I rather think that our countries are on the winning side. Moreover they also had the courage and determination needed to make this dangerous trip with their families.

Additionally a few facts concerning our future should be made clear. To quote Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner responsible for Home Affairs on her hearing on migrations in the Hague on 5 June 2012, without immigration the EU's working age population would shrink by 12% by 2030 ; the EU is short of an estimated 380,000 to 700,000 IT workers in 2015 ; and by 2020, the health sector could be short of two million professionals.

Clearly already today if there had been no immigration so far there wouldn’t be enough people to look after my ageing mother in her nursing home and if there was no immigration today there would be no one to look after me when I’ll be there myself!

 As in previous waves of migration this one will be an effort in the first place but once the migrants will be settled they will build the future of our countries, their new home.

Crime without punishment is but the ruin of Man

The tragic story of the Utoeya massacre goes on to sicken the world. Picture of the Norwegian murderer parading at his trial with a mixture of bravado and provocation have been beamed around the world. Now recognised as mentally sound, he knows perfectly well that he risks at most to be condemned to a little over twenty years in jail. And the trial gives him a deeply shocking global exposure. Justice appears toothless and our societies are under the threat of other such crimes. The families and friends must be devastated at the sight of this murderer enjoying himself under the eye of the global television cameras.

On April 18th, 2012, Mr Breivik was even pushing provocation as far as to ask to be either acquitted or sentenced to death – in a country where the death penalty has long been banned. None of these too sentences would be appropriate. No sentence would be appropriate for one single murder let alone for the evil of 77 murders.

Like Raskolnikov in Crime And Punishment, Mr Breivik is trying to convince others as well as himself that it is okay to kill people if it is for a high and noble ideal, thereby suggesting to amend the criminal law for him.

Why not after all? This is a rather exceptional case. I therefore respectfully suggest to the Norwegian Parliament to urgently amend the law and to create a new penalty allowing murderers to slowly realize what they have done: let Mr Breivik be condemned to a service work in favour of the community, consisting in digging every day by hand some of the graves needed by the Oslo cemeteries, and to reach every week the total of 77 graves. The name of a victim would be reminded to him for every grave. In that way he could reflect every day about the loss of a dear one; every week he could regret to have relentlessly executed some many young victims. With respect I submit to the Norwegian Parliament to establish that such penalty destined to deter mass murders be without limitation of time, thus that it be continued beyond his prison time, the only limit being the victims’ next of kin’s forgiveness. Either the families would forgive spontaneously or the killer could ask for forgiveness. He would however continue his work in proportion of the pardons not granted.

This treatment may seem inhuman. It is in no way meant to be degrading or sadistic. It is meant to bring about a change of paradigm in the killer’s mind. At the start of this work, Mr Breivik would probably still be pretty much the same as he is today, swaggering and self-satisfied; but after a few years he might be caught up by his conscience. He might reach a better understanding of good and evil. He might understand that violence can only destroy and not create. He might start to fathom the value of human life.

Of course Mr Breivik is an extreme case, but the idea could be applied to all murderers before too many candidates to stardom takes up arms. Will there be no other cases? The Toulouse murders should be a cause for alarm. A society that is durably unable to make clear what it approves of and what it disapproves is in danger of death. It is not clear that our society disapproves of violence: by answering all situations by coercion, by sending troops around the world to settle issues, by allowing video games et televisions to showcase hundreds of violent deaths without ever showing their consequences, our societies are not disavowing violence. Without a clear message about violence, including a clear warning that those who kill people would have to pay a very heavy price, unable to sanction appropriately crimes against humanity, our societies will lose their humanity.

Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, said Rabelais. Crime without punishment is but the ruin of Man suggested Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Let’s hear him.

Supreme Injustice

When I read it in the news, last Monday (July 27th, 2011) decision by the US Supreme Court left me speechless. On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out California State’s ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.
Even stronger, Justice Antonin Scalia explained that “there is no tradition in the United States of restricting children's access to depictions of violence”. That much we already knew, as TV channels beam worldwide hundreds of hours of American made fiction films or series depicting all forms of violence and now even torture (in one particularly shocking episode of “24” Jack Bauer even threatens to kill a child, in order to obtain information about the ticking bomb which threatens civilization.”) The annoying thing with this beautiful tradition is that it keeps a door open through which ever more violence and a taste for ever more powerful weapons are inserted in juvenile minds. It creates an addiction to violence in US society which has now been characterized and understood.

Justice Antonin Scalia shockingly tried to justify the decision by pointing out that “the violence in the original depiction of many popular children's fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Snow White.” If this was really the base for the legal reasoning of the high court, it demonstrates an appalling ignorance of the role of symbolic violence in fairy tales and the role it plays to alert young minds to the world’s meanness without giving them the example of real / realistic violence. Fairy tales are preventing violence not condoning it - and incidentally avoiding giving the instructions for use of various weapons. The high court save two exceptions, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Stephen Breyer; Justice Clarence Thomas at least showed he understood the difference between an adult and a minor when he wrote: “The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that "the freedom of speech," as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians.”

For Justice Antonin Scalia, “No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.” What kind of “ideas” are exactly presented in the extremely violent video games, apart that it is okay to randomly kill your neighbours and whoever you come across? This extreme interpretation of the First Amendement is contrary to what simple ethics call for. In a country where the majority is religious, are the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth not somewhat selectively listened to? Or are they just valid on Sundays?

The high court must also be unaware of, or chose to ignore the findings of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, as early as 2000, reported that one of the warning signs characteristic of school shooters was that the high-risk student “spends inordinate amounts of time playing video games with violent themes, and seems more interested in the violent images than in the game itself” (O’Toole, M.E. (2000). The school shooter: A threat assessment perspective. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, p. 20). OK this is not the only cause for violence, only a big risk factor, like high fat foodstuffs or smoking for heart attacks. Do we then encourage these activities because they are ‘only’ risk factors?

The high court must also have chosen to ignore the statistic reality of violence in the USA. A UN source, the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, carefully validates and compares international statistics which show that the level of intentional homicide in the USA is of 5 per 100,000 inhabitants, four times the level of France, five times Italy’s, six times Germany’s, seven times Switzerland. In this ranking, the USA find themselves surrounded by countries like the Philippines, Ukraine, Argentina, Laos… of course far better off than the worse countries among which Russia (15), Brazil (22), Colombia (35) or El Salvador (73), but still the only developed country with such level of violence.

Finally you wonder in what kind of protected world the Supreme Court judges live. May be if the next hot video game was about killing a Supreme Court judge with a realistic depiction of the Supreme Court premises, they would at last discover limits to the so-called freedom of speech, which is now being translated a license to learn to kill.

Ratko Mladic, or the works of an ordinary nationalism

What should shock us in the arrest of Ratko Mladic is not the fact that he escaped capture for 15 years – the last Nazis are still free to move around while others just peacefully died in their homes, nor should it be the fact that he was hidden and protected by the Serb military – there is a natural solidarity between kin (as the natural solidarity of the French with DSK proves). What should really shock us is that there are still people, 15 years after the fall of the Milosevic regime, to come and demonstrate and cheer him whatever his faults and crimes can be. Are this people sick? No, these are ordinary, honourable folks, from all social backgrounds, anchored in their nationalist feelings, to be precise in their Serbian national superiority feeling. These are just nationalists, as there are so many of in Europe.

I hear lots of objections coming my way, so I’ll rush unto my dictionary and check each word. Doing so I am reminded of the Richter magnitude scale of European tragedy: at the first level we find nationalism, this patriotic feeling gone astray which recognises no moderating principle, not to be confused of course with the mere and sincere love of your country which translates in a will to defend and promote it; at the second level, we find fascism, an exalted form of nationalism with suppresses democracy; at the third level is Nazism, a racist form of fascism. At the first level we get war; at the second one we add dictatorship and at the third the concentration camps.

Must we really put all these eggs in the same basket? Is the posture of those who demonstrate in support of Mladic in 15 cities of Serbia not different from the one of the leaders of Front National in France, Lega Nord in Italy or Vlaams Belang in Belgium? Are their ideas not different? The online documents and programs of these parties would unfortunately not disappoint a hot-headed anti-Muslim Serb nationalist:
Take Front National for instance: “Not long ago, four pillars used to support the nation: family, school, religion and the army. Since 1968 mostly, the silent revolution of anarchy and globalisation has ruined them.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1116)
“Due to lack of money it has not only become impossible [for the French army] to recruit a sufficient number of soldiers, but it has also become impossible to recruit the right quality of soldiers. 20% of these recruits are now originally coming from the Muslim world.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1153)
“France, the oldest country in the world after China, will embody for all people the principle of national sovereignty, thus the free choice of one’s own destiny. Far from opposing us with the rest of the world, as the professional liars would have us believe, this program cannot possibly alienate our real friends.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1149)

In Italy, Lega Nord practises gross xenophobia without fear of alienating the rest of the world. In 2010, just before the regional elections, a group of party members, the EuroMP Mario Borghezio among them, demonstrated in front of the Moroccan consulate in Milano, shouting “This is Milano, not Marrakech” and unwinding security tape to mimic the closing down of the consulate and the end of the “invasion”. Mr Borghezio quipped that his party “wouldn’t accept any longer the filth and chaos brought about by the Moroccans.” Asked about the reason for all that hate, an activist just answered: “It is the party’s line.”

In Belgium, Vlaams Belang, new avatar of the sinister Vlaams Blok, introduces itself as “ a popular, radical, nationalist and republican party for Flanders”. Apart from the creation of a Flemish state in the framework of a European confederation, their program refers very mildly to “an active defence of the European values and identity.” The declarations of one of their leaders, Mr Filip de Man, shed a cruder light on what it exactly means: “We go back to basics, to the source: against massive immigration for the protection of our superior European culture.” (quoted in La Libre Belgique). “Who is not in agreement with our norms and values can book his flight ticket. One way,” he concludes.

But like in the Front National for a year, the cosmetic efforts of Vlaams Belang to appear acceptable to all are in full swing. The Flemish nationalists write it themselves: “We must charm the public and the media through a “Tiel Eulenspiegel” approach (the prankster Tiel Eulenspiegel being a folklore character who derides the powerful and pleases the humble) : a “parlez-vrai” style not exempt from humour nor irony. Ingenously they write in their (accessible on line) program that the Party needs:
- a cunning external communication strategy, supported by a well thought-through and coherent media strategy (media being tolls, not enemies)
- to break out of the media and political isolation
- to rejuvenate the Party
- to moderate speech and style, to modernise it and adapt it to circumstances
- to win the middle class (university, opinion leaders, the areas of culture and charities)
- to join in with everything that goes into the right direction for the party (for instance the increasingly influential critical ideas about Islam.) End of quote. (http://www.vlaamsbelang.org/files/visietekst.pdf)

Behind this effort to deceive public opinion, to charm it like Mischievous Tiel, there is absolutely no doubt that the narrowest nationalist ideology remains in place. When this ideology reaches power and takes over control of the armed forces, nationalism turns into fascism and results tragedies like Sarajevo, Srbrenica, the concentration camps and other tragedies.

Thank you, MrMladic, to have reminded us of that so forcefully. Let’s never forget.

Towards a liberation from the colonial past in France?

Is a generous, principled, freedom-loving France back, like in 1789? You could believe it if you just looked at the French support to the Lybian rebellion or to the new Tunisian regime. There is indeed a surge of generous enthusiasm. But will it last longer than the Arab spring? Will there be a summer after the spring?

More specifically where is the coherence between French support of the Lybian rebels and their handling, within France today, of the North-African Muslims?
Not only have they been kept in a status of indigenous people – half-slavery really- from 1830 to 1961 in total contradiction with the democratic principles of the French Revolution, not only have they been used in three German-French wars and one colonial war (Indochina) where they have paid in blood for a citizenship which kept being denied to them, not only have they been recruited in their most remote villages to be offered these wonderful mining, industrial or otherwise harder services jobs which made French prosperity possible between 1945 and 1975, not only have they then been parked in grey and degrading neighbourhoods, not only are they still being denied equal opportunities in education and in jobs, not only have the mainstream French maintained over the last two centuries an attitude of racist and ethnocentric superiority, the North-African Muslims living in France are now submitted to a new series of insults, they are ostracised as Muslims, wrongly accused of being responsible for joblessness and insecurity and the subject of theatrical so-called debates which impair social cohesion and serve only vested political interests.

In a not so distant future, when the Arab heads of State will have turned their backs on corruption and arbitrary, will they not question France, just as we naïvely question the Turks about Armenia or the Chinese about Tibet?

The French governments bear a heavy responsibility: those who are in charge of creating the conditions to develop jobs and security are consistently failing – a comparison with Germany would be telling, and they try to divert attention by indirectly accusing the Muslims, distorting language and undermining dialogue. Governments being elected by the people on the basis of programs designed to please the electorate, this responsibility obviously falls back upon all French citizens.

This goes to prove that, as a nation, we have remained in a colonial mindset, and maintained our racist and ethnocentric superiority attitude, so entrenched in our economic vested interests that we readily foster corrupt dictators and take away from the poor their modest livelihoods to give more superfluous to the rich.

Yet, we like to describe our country as the country of Human Rights – and we support the rebels of North Africa. We are still somewhat revolutionary. But let us acknowledge that while our speeches are littered with bombastic democratic, moral or social principles, our deeds are more often than not hallmarked by selfishness, racism and pettiness.

Would it not be timely to address the question of who we are and what we want, the real question? Are we the heirs of those who massacred thousands of people in Algeria, Chad or Niger during the colonial conquest, or in Setif and Guelma in 1945, in Madagascar in 1947, in Cameroon from 1955 to 1960 and who have turned a blind eye on the Rwandan genocide? Are we the heirs of those who, through the Colonial Law, maintained feudalism and vested interests in the regions under French administration? Are we the heirs of those who, during 130 years, made of the belonging to a religion – Islam - a cause for inferior status? Or are we the representatives of a country which has changed priorities and is now attached to Human Rights, democracy, the right of people to self-determination, international Law and sustainable development for all?

The answer should be self-evident yet it isn’t. The common point between our distant colonial past and the present time is selfishness and the desire to pile up ever more riches, be it at the cost of the holiest principles. Of course a little self-interest is necessary but if we need to chose between the colonial past and the democratic future, we have to communicate individually as well as collectively that we are not ready to grow our economy at the cost of our own democratic principles. As Rabbi Hillel the Eleder used to say 2000 years ago: “If I am not for me, who will be? But if I am only for me, what am I? And if not now, when?” In other words, if we want to be part of the construction of a more just world, we need to tackle the question now.

First step: sharing the historical facts. Acknowledge very simply that no matter what the benefits of colonisation may have been, it was unfair to maintain the North-African Muslims in an inferior status for 130 years, whereas the colonial project itself was to annex Algeria to France definitively. Teach more in detail colonial history, in the same way as other episodes such as the French Revolution or the World Wars.

Second step: to avoid any hypocrisy, end the taboo on ethnic or religious statistics. It is impossible to continue to pretend that what is in fact the main ground for discrimination in France doesn’t exist and that all citizens are de facto treated equally. Only what is being measured can improve.

Third step: define focussed actions to gradually establish equality of rights and duties, as well as of benefits and demands. For instance demand from companies, particularly from those competing for public procurement or works a certified diversity label, intensify the language and professional training in order to develop more employment opportunities and business initiatives among those from families stemming from former colonies. Simplify the organisation of State agencies and empower State officers on concrete objectives in terms of integration and equal opportunities. If the measurement of Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product is possible, then certainly measuring the qualitative aspect of integration is also possible.

It is time to signal that the French are no longer a colonial minded people but are now clearly in favour of democracy. It is possible if citizens, each of us, decide to do so for everything within their reach and to demand it at the next elections – for everything that depends on national politics. Moreover a clear-cut turning in our foreign policy would most probably provide us with a huge fallout from our presence in Lybia.

Our political class and media at their lowest!

Undignified, costly and inefficient, so be it, but let’s try and avoid criminal behaviour!

According to the inner circle of the French Presidency, our dispute with Europe about the Roma people is supposed to be the result of a long thought-through strategy, and someone even quipped that European commissioner Viviane Reding had done a big favour to France! Really? Indeed the French could not value the clumsy comments of the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship; with all her political experience she really should know that you are mostly better off avoiding to manipulate without precautions the rather emotional symbols of Shoah or WWII. But – surprise! - a recent poll published by the daily “Le Parisien” shows that a majority of French think that Europe, not France, is right on this one.

Would the “Homeland of Human Rights” not accept lightly that representatives of its own police expel European citizens in spite of their legal status? Would that remind French citzens of a sinister past, when adults and children alike were deported because of their racial identity? If so, it is honourable, and it is actually all that is left of our honour. Indeed when government ministers lie blatantly to the European authorities (whose authority stems from international treaties signed by France), when top civil servants flout the Law, either by writing villainous directives or by depriving poor people from their fundamental rights, when as a result of all this, doors are kept closed for our President (who will have to reduce his official stay in New-York by three quarters), what is left? May be the honour that the courageous civic commitment of a few small groups can earn us – Christians and non-Christians groups which are ready to stick their neck out to maintain humanist values ahead of reason of state, may they be thanked for that!

Taxpayers should really protest as well. The steps taken are not only utterly lacking in dignity, they are also costly and inefficient: once return allowances and air tickets have been paid, we can only watch the poor people who were expelled come back where they hope to survive, back to square one. Is it really worthwhile turning half the planet against us for such a result?
But the expulsion frenzy of the French State doesn’t stop at rational considerations. A TV report was recently showing how those who are denied the right to asylum in France are sent back to their home situations; once their province is listed as “pacified”, Afghanis are just sent back to their death, either quick if they refuse to enlist with the Talibans to partake in Jihad, or slightly slower because if they de enlist, they will mostly be engaged in kamikaze actions. The French Government’s attitude does surprise Afghan officials who wonder aloud what NATO soldiers are doing in these “pacified” regions and ironically suggest that the French Minister of Immigration take a little discovery tour of the area. The same report also showed how the French police are trying to get asylum seekers to renounce by promising them about anything in return, like a job in their home country! One treads there boldly into criminal territory, beyond failure to assist a person in danger, very near being accessory to murder.

Alas indignity is not the problem of just one party. How can we otherwise qualify the grotty press campaign launched the last months against one government minister? A few weeks ago, an excellent documentary film by Yves Boisset was featured by the French television about the Salengro case. (Roger Salengro was the Interior Minister of the Popular Front; his integrity was widely acknowledged but at the end of 1936 he committed suicide following a long press campaign implying he had been a traitor during WWI, which a baseless calomny.) During the debate the name of former French Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy who committed suicide in 1993 came up several times although his case was rather different; he had compared himself to Roger Salengro but he looked like an honest man compromised by an utterly corrupt entourage in very real scandals. Conversely, the present campaign against Eric Woerth is strongly reminiscent of the attacks on Salengro. He is the victim of a carefully calculated firing, planned to last long and destroy without fail. The artillery is manned by a set of leftists who are obviously convinced to serve a noble political cause: to slow down or prevent the reform of pensions, exactly like Charles Maurras, Henri Béraud and Léon Daudet who were sure to serve their cause by torpedoing the Popular Front through his weakest link, Roger Salengro.
Salengro killed himself because in such defamation cases suspicion lingers on even after innocence has been proven. Is Eric Woerth innocent? It seems that remarkably little evidence of the contrary has come up after a very long and thorough research in his long past of politician. However, whatever the ultimate answer will be the method remains sordid; such a campaign, carefully calculated to harm as much as possible and why not to kill, verges on the criminal.

In the anti-Roma discrimination case as well as in the anti-Woerth campaign, one is strangely come back to the violent and reckless practices of the Thirties. The mere remembrance of what followed soon after should wake us up to a massive civic mobilisation and vigilance!