October 19, 2020 – Editorial of “The Etincelle” (The Spark) workplace newsletters in France
{An imperfect translation. Notes have been added as explanation}
A high school teacher was beheaded near his school outside of Paris. A price had been placed on his head by religious fanatics, in reality fascists who poison the Muslim world. He had used cartoons by Charlie Hebdo while teaching a course on freedom of expression. This barbaric attack stunned the country. Gatherings were held on Sunday, massive and silent: what to say, what to do? {Charlie Hebdo is a satirical weekly paper which had portrayed the prophet Mohammad as a terrorist in one of its issues. In 2015 two men attacked the office, killing 12 people and wounding 11.}
But Macron and his government did not show the same restraint and broke the silence with a thunder. This served as a godsend to ride their horse already launched against what they call separatism, and to continue their crusade adding Arabs, Muslims, Islamists … calling for us to stand against them as well, to defend the so-called values of the Republic. They also announced a reinforcement of repression, a hardening of laws, the dissolution of so-called suspicious associations, a day of national mourning… A hodgepodge against which no one in their political world rises. Jean-Luc Mélenchon even targets the community of Chechens, “ you have to go through the files one by one”… It’s not Putin saying at the time that “we had to kill them all, even in the toilet”, but it makes you think about it!
Against political Islamism, certainly
Among the threats that weigh on us, in the working class, there is certainly political Islamism, whose breeding ground has been largely fed in the world by wars and social disasters generated by the appetites of the imperialist powers. This political fundamentalism, with fascist methods, claimed tens of thousands of victims in Algeria in the 1990s, including the slaughtered and decapitated in the ranks of democrats, trade unionists and feminists. This extreme right, whether in power or in opposition, which first rages against the peoples of Africa and the Middle East, is also active here in France. The barbaric act in Conflans {the town where the murder took place} is aimed at disturbing, paralyzing, even terrorizing, and attempting to bind the workers of the Muslim faith around the flag of radical Islamism, who are its primary targets. And in the name of Mohammad or Christ the King of white fundamentalists, it is the same project of bringing the exploited and oppressed into line by political staffs recruited from among rich elites.
But not behind the supposed virtues of their republic.
Macron would oppose this extreme right in the name of the values of the Republic? What a joke! Let’s recall that his government, like the previous ones, has the best relations – arms sales and oil purchases galore! – with the dictator of Saudi Arabia who carries out beheadings in public. Exactly like the fundamentalists he claims to fight, Macron and his crusade against “separatism” are trying to divert the anger against his policies, he the president of the very rich. Islamist terrorists and fundamentalist Republicans like Macron have the same dedication to the God of profit! The same class hatred against the working class.
As for their alleged values of the Republic, liberty, equality, fraternity…
Freedom – for whom? – to have a home and a job, not to be fired, to express oneself freely on the job, for example? Equality – between whom? – where the gap is widening between the super-rich and the great mass of those who can no longer feed their families? Secularism – no kidding! – when the French state has been heavily subsidizing Catholic schools and other institutions for decades?
There is much to be said and discussed among us, workers and young people, who have been marking the situation with our resistance and struggles for the past few years, and who need to swell and close our ranks: our values are those of the abolition of wage slavery and its law of profit, those of international solidarity among workers and peoples: to change this world, so that it is no longer the barbarians, the cynics and the hypocrites who impose their law on us.
