The
proclamation of the
twelve only had one ambition: to provoke debate
within the highest number of newspapers and thus
of countries. To proclaim high and strong that Islamism
is a new totalitarianism. Against which one will
not win through the criticism of weapons but through
the weapons of criticism. This resistance through
ideas is possible only if one does not abdicate
the only genuine weapons of resistance: freedom
of expression, the pen, a sense of humor. However
the cartoons controversy showed that many were ready
to give up resistance under pretext of not "offending",
of not "adding oil on fire".
This
renouncement is not simply that of governments terrorised
by the threat of economic boycott, but also that
of a certain left paralysed by "cultural relativism"
(humor, feminism and secularism are good for everyone
except for the Moslems, locked up in their archaic
and exotic essence) and the concept of "islamophobia"
(a concept which confuses the unacceptable stigmatization
of the Moslems with the legitimate criticism of
Islam as a religion to the point of transforming
antiracism into an anti-blasphemy censorship machine).
Salman
Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen and Ayaan Hirsi Ali once
received support when they were attacked as "apostates"
but were left on their own when an obscurantist
left accused them of being "islamophobes",
denying them the right to criticize the religion
in whose name they are oppressed. On their side
were intellectuals who have a long record of writing
against fundamentalism, including several Iranian
refugees in Europe, who expressed their concern
at the growing confusion on the words and thus on
the principles, about this global and totalitarian
threat. Those experienced the time when the same
confusion, and the priority to fight against imperialism,
had convinced the Marxists to give 'critical support'
to islamist and Khomeiny in power… Never again.
That is also the meaning of this manifesto, which
provoked reactions of enthusiasm for some and the
unease of those which do not like "to put oil
on fire", as if the fire had not started a
long time ago.
The
Iranian blogs, where a civil society avid of freedom
and change connects itself, were the first to circulate
the text and to translate it into Farsi. The very
morning of its original publication in Charlie
Hebdo. The previous day, an AFP (Agency France
presses) press release caused a mountain of phone
calls and requests for interview, in France but
especially abroad; especially from Denmark, where
the cartoons controversy continues. Not all the
daily newspapers, in particular the more left wing
ones, did want to support Jyllands-Posten's
publications of the caricatures. It is true that
the Danish context is not ours. Xenophobia prevails
there, including at the top of the State. But is
this not encouraging right wing populism by constantly
leaving to it the monopoly of resistance to totalitarianism?
And what will the European left in a few years resemble
if it ceases to be anti-fundamentalist and antifascist?
All the debate is there. And it is sufficiently
important for all the Danish newspapers to publish
the Manifesto. Some with enthusiasm, others more
critical.
Thus
the leading article of a left wing newspaper states
that: "the goal is right… but the analysis
and the means to arrive there are false". The
rest of that article is a digest of inaccuracies
as the newspaper explains that "terrorism
is the weapon of weak (...)therefore the moral panic
which can be felt in the Manifesto is without base".
The
Danish newspaper fell into the trap set up by the
hawks from the Pentagon since it is unable to make
a difference between "terrorism" (about
which the Manifesto is silent) and Moslem fundamentalism,
that is the political ideology about which the Manifesto
speaks. Its confusion continues when it adds:
The
problem is that the Manifesto does not attack Islam
but Islamism, i.e. the reactionary political instrumentalisation
of Islam. That is the proof that confusion about
words can trap critical intelligence and thus paralyse
any intelligent response to fundamentalism. Happy
days for the Hawks of the Pentagon. Because while
they position resistance to Islamism on the sterile
field of the war against the "axis of evil",
every time intellectuals, even feminist and secular,
even of Moslem culture, try another approach, confused
spirits such as The Brussels Newspaper in
Belgium or The Toronto Star in Canada, accuse
them of "islamophobia".
Fortunately,
many journalists preferred to let the signatories
speak for themselves rather than to judge without
understanding: The Express was the first
French magazine to reproduce the Manifesto in its
entirety, as well as TOC magazine. Many radios
(RTL, RMC, France Information) relayed the initiative.
Al Jazira reproduced the AFP press release,
without commenting on it. The BBC and Sky news in
Italy mentioned the Manifesto. On the Internet,
the Manifesto was reproduced by many sites, in particular
Proche-orient.info
and France2.fr.
To date, the Manifesto was circulated in Switzerland,
in Denmark, in Belgium, in Germany, in Italy, in
Canada, in Cyprus and in Colombia. The English and
American newspapers, which issued a kind of embargo
against the publication of the Mahomet cartoons,
are the most reticent. As if the war in Iraq put
less "oil on fire" than the publication
of caricatures on religion or a Manifesto signed
by Salman Rushdie calling for the resistance of
ideas…
Many
readers circulated the Manifesto by email to support
Charlie Hebdo. Some compared us to the Aurore
Journal which more than a century ago published
the J'Accuse of Emile Zola. Others would
like "twelve millions" to sign. But one
should recall that this Manifesto is a not a petition
to sign but a text to circulate. However, other
petitions can be signed:
