Leaders
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).
Dominique de Villepin: Let France '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
