Leaders on the
street at the march of unity, Paris: From left to right, Benjamin
Netanyahu (Israel), Ibrahim Keita (Mali), François Hollande(France), Angela
Merkel (Germany), out of sight, Mahmoud
Abbas (Palestinian Territories).
Attack on France:
'Let Us Resist the Spirit of War' (Le Monde, France)
"The only
victory the fanatics could hope for is to convince us that we are carrying out
a total war; to lead us into a cul-de-sac of force we believed to be a short
cut. … There is a second enemy: fear. The feeling of unforeseeable, pervasive
and sudden violence arouses a desire for security that will be impossible to fulfill.
Experience teaches us that terrorist attacks encourage the renunciation of
democratic values and amid concerns for our own security the sacrifice of the
liberties of others at home or abroad. The spiral of suspicion created in the
United States by the Patriot Act and the durable legitimization of torture or
illegal detention has today plunged that country into the loss of its moral compass."
We are today stupefied by the outburst of cold, calculated
violence that killed twelve people and seriously injured so many others, which was aimed at
silencing an organ of the press and liberty itself through the methodical liquidation of its
staff. They died because they were journalists; they
died because they were free; they died for what they represented. Our security forces
have paid a heavy price to protect the security of our citizens. The country is
coping with, united, the most murderous terrorist attack in almost two
centuries with spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity. The temptation is
great in such moments to resort to military formulas. Emotions are intense, but
intelligence about what is happening is indispensable.
France is gradually slipping into a climate of war; a
strange war that dare not speak its name; a war that wipes away the boundaries
between inside and out. On the inside there are images, postures and the logic
of a nascent civil war. The face of terrorism is changing. The networks of
bombers seem to have given way to lone wolves who themselves are ceding the
stage for further violence to commandos using Mafioso methods and military
equipment focused on the goal of eliminating symbolic targets representative of
democracy and liberty. This is no longer chaotic terror. This is organized
fear, constructed stone by stone to enclose us all.
On the outside, from one month to the next we see the crystallization
of a nightmarish frontline of a war of civilizations between the West and
Islam, and with the deformed and monstrous features of Islamism. Western
interventions are systematic: they appeared to be independent operations driven
by various ambitions, but they have succeeded in a singular result: the
emergence of an elusive jihadist enemy and the collapse of states and civil
societies in the region.
We now know some of the operations that heralded all this: the
operation in Libya in 2011 and its implosion since that date has transformed the
country into a terrorist landmark in the Sahara; and in the Sahel, in particular in
Nigeria bordering Cameroon and Chad where BokoHaram is extending its barbarous grip. But these wars
always nourish new wars, each time larger, each time increasingly impossible. They
nourish terrorism among us with promises of eradicating it. [The truth is] we will
only overcome jihadism there and terrorism here by
bringing concrete solutions to the crises in the Muslim world, which are at the
same time territorial, social, political and economic - conflicts that we
simplify by seeing only the Islamist symptom.
The spirit of war is a trap. It is a cycle that is driving
us every day toward a war that is out of control. In the name of our democratic
values our duty is to resist the spirit of war. The only victory the fanatics
could hope for is to convince us that we are carrying out a total war; to lead
us into a cul-de-sac of force we believed to be a short cut.
We have three formidable adversaries to confront.
There is first of all, the most obvious, the terrorists. We
cannot tolerate that mass murderers are still roaming the country and that the
apostles of hate are sowing their words with impunity. All of the state's legal
means must be utilized to apprehend them and bring them to justice. We must
improve our systems of prevention, surveillance and the protection of sensitive
places, and prevent radicalization, notably in prisons. Confronting an enemy
without borders, there can only be an effective fight through continually
reinforced cooperation between police and the judiciary on a European scale, but
equally with the other countries concerned. Where 20 years ago there were only
a few terrorist hotbeds, today the whole world is concerned.
It is urgent that we dry up the financing of Islamist
extremism in France, notably coming from Middle Eastern countries. It is with
this goal that, as interior minister, I proposed reforming the financing of
construction of Muslim places of worship by a Foundation of Islamic Works to reduce
foreign financing and to thus permit the blossoming of an Islam of France.
DEMOCRATIC POINTS OF
REFERENCE
There is a second enemy: fear. The feeling of unforeseeable,
pervasive and sudden violence arouses a desire for security that will be
impossible to fulfill. Experience teaches us that terrorist attacks encourage the
renunciation of democratic values and amid concerns for our own security the
sacrifice of the liberties of others at home or abroad. The spiral of suspicion
created in the United States by the Patriot Act and the durable legitimization
of torture or illegal detention has today plunged that country into the loss of
its moral compass. We have seen the vertigo of civil war in Algeria
during the darkness years. We see more and more countries who are afraid, who
are walling themselves up and who are moving away from democratic values.
There is a third enemy today: rejection. Our country is
tensing up from day to day. Its elites are turning more every day toward a
discourse of division and exclusion. History teaches us that when the dykes are
broken the country risks collapse. If we draw violence to ourselves, it is
because we are divided, weak, withdrawn into ourselves; a wounded country losing
blood. Literary disputes and partisan demagoguery show that the issue is not so
much saving us from the other, from invasion or from supposed replacements, but
to save us from ourselves, our abnegation, our narcissism of decline, the temptations
of the West and suicide.
In this trial, each of us has a duty to perform. Let us act
with responsibility, composure and in unity. Let us retaliate with exemplary
democracy, becoming again what we are: republicans who believe in dialogue, and
in the strength of culture, education and peace.
*Dominique de Villepin is a former prime minister and foreign minister