http://worldmeets.us/images/charlie-hebdo-march-unity-paris-leaders-mini_pic.jpg

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."

 

By Dominique de Villepin*

                                            http://worldmeets.us/images/dominique-de-villepin_mug.jpg

 

Translated By Martyn Fogg

 

January 12, 2015

 

France – Le Monde – Original Article (French)

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 Boko Haram 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.

 

MORE ON CHARLIE HEBDO:
Huanqiu, China:
Condemn Paris Attacks ... and Western Cultural Insensitivity  
Corriere Della Sera, Italy:
'Europe's 9/11': If this is Islam, here's What We'd Like  
Die Zeit, Germany:
Charlie Hebdo: Time to 'Impose the Enlightenment' on Islam  
Le Figaro, France: War has Come to France - and France Must Win it

Corriere Della Sera, Italy: On Pope Francis' Secret Service: Confronting ISIS Threat

 

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

 

 

 

CLICK HERE FOR FRENCH VERSION

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