On the hostage-taking of two Frenchs in Iraq
The current hostage-taking of two French journalists in Iraq is certainly counter-productive to the Arab-Islamic resistance struggle against the imperialist onslaught. Therefore also the anti-imperialist forces in the Arab and Islamic world as well as the Muslim community in France condemn it and call for the immediate and unconditional release of the French nationals.
Only those regimes should be held responsible who actually sided with the US aggression on Iraq and who continue to support the ongoing occupation. Those countries which did not directly participate in the aggression should be spared from retaliation in this asymmetric defensive anti-imperialist war.
Only in this way the poor and oppressed popular masses of the world including those strata in the imperialist centres (who are by majority non-Muslim) will support the Iraqi liberation struggle – a support which in the long run will be pivotal for victory. This heroic struggle can not and must not be taken hostage by obscurantist forces destroying its universal and unifying character against the US empire.
However, nobody can deny that the permanent and pre-emptive war of the US empire is also led as a crusade against Islam according to the doctrine of the clash of civilizations. And there is not only the American Protestant fundamentalist version of this crusade but also the French Secularist fundamentalist one. With the exclusion of girls wearing the scarf from public school the French state proves to be not less anti-democratic than its US homologue.
In spite of falling into a collective chauvinist hysteria, French society faced with the current dramatic events should back-pedal and rethink its chauvinist and dictatorial move in line with the US attempts to transform the world into a Guantánamo prison camp for all those resisting Western imperialist capitalism. At least those who claim to defend democratic interests for all the people of the world should do so.
The very fact that now even the French Muslim leaders are forced to refrain from fighting the anti-democratic ban highlights the political counter-productivity of the current hostage-taking. Not all political problems can be resolved by brute force but require protracted political effort to convince people. The Iraqi resistance struggle should not be abused to point at the oppression suffered by the French Muslim community. There are other means.
Release the French hostages!
Lift the anti-democratic French ban of the Hijab!
End the occupation of Iraq and Palestine – support the resistance!
Anti-imperialist Camp
September 1st, 2004