Charlie Hebdo: Imperialism’s new 9/11?
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The Jan. 7 Paris bombings and shootings, which killed 17 journalists and others, afforded French and allied capitalist heads of state—some 50 presidents and prime ministers plus top U.S. officials, all complic it with mass murder—the opportunity for an unprec edented show of unity under the call of “I am Charlie Hebdo.” We note the hypocrisy of the perpetrators of war and systematic violence coming together to pose as defenders of “free speech, liberty, fraternity, and democratic rights.” Virtually all have led in suppress ing, if not murdering, opposition currents in their own nations and everywhere on earth where their troops engage in the ruthless murder of oppressed people.
A recent article by Parisian journalist George Kazo lias, subtitled, “The Wages of Intolerance,” captured the grotesque hypocrisy of those who led the Sunday, Jan. 11 government-sponsored and media-promoted Paris spectacle of 1.6 million people. “Then there were the world leaders,” Kazolias writes, “Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arsenily Yatseyuk, who has neo-Nazis in his government and has done nothing to bring to justice the fascists and their police accomplices who murdered 48 ethnic Russians in Odessa last May.
“There was Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has taken numerous measures to muzzle the op position press, earning the scorn of Reporters with out Borders, which ranks his country 64th in press freedom.” Orban has also earned international criti cism for encouraging persecution of the Roma people and for his party’s anti-Jewish stance.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, whose government slaughtered over 2000 Palestinians last year in its invasion of Gaza, also marched in Paris. While in France, Netanyahu called on French Jews to migrate to Zionist Israel for their “protection.” What hypocrisy! Kazolias, in his article, recalls that noted Israeli historian Shlomo Sand has written, “I am aware of living in one of the most racist societies in the Western world.”
Beating the war drums loudly, the president of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, Roger Cukier man, declared the attacks in Paris to be the beginning of “World War Three” and likened them to what is happening in “Syria and Gaza.” Former French Presi dent Nicolas Sarkozy went further, proclaiming, “War has been declared on France.” Le Figaro’s editorial writer, Ivan Rioufol, joined the chorus with “France is at war. Perhaps at civil war tomorrow. Its enemy is radical Islam, political Islam, Jihadi Islam.”
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu joined in the arm-in-arm display of ruling-class solidarity.
6 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2015 fear and suspicion. Laurent Cipriani / AP (Left) Anti-Muslim graffiti on the walls of a mosque in France. or the entire world’s people who are victims of the all-pervasive high-tech surveillance of everyone’s personal means of communication by the U.S., France, and all other so-called demo cratic nations.”
Using the Jan. 7 bombing of the of fices of the racist, Islamophobic sa tirical magazine Charlie Hebdo as a pretext for deepening the concerted and worldwide assault on democratic rights and to justify new wars of con quest, world imperialism has declared yet another “war on terror.” This one includes openly sending U.S. and allied troops to areas of the world, such as Africa, where they have generally op erated in a covert manner in the past. The world’s real terrorists believe that Charlie Hebdo can be used to legiti mize, in the name of fighting terrorism, their plans for theft and conquest.
The French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle was assigned a week later to head for Iraq to join U.S. fighter planes in bombing that nation to smither eens. The French National Assembly is all but certain to renew its previously “limited” commitment to join the U.S. bombing in Iraq and Syria.
Three thousand French troops have been deployed in Africa to “counter extremist groups in Chad and Mauritania.” Thousands more are stationed in other former French colonies like Mali, where in the name of fighting terrorism they organize to install dictators posing as democrats to protect their “interests,” and murder all who oppose the essential re-colonization of the African continent now in progress.
The now thundered rationalizations to combat ter rorism are dutifully employed to demonize all who resist—the same rationales, minus that of the “white man’s burden to civilize savages,” used in previous centuries to justify colonization, plunder, and en slavement.
A massive mobilization of French police was ordered Marcel Valls. Ten thousand French troops were de ployed across the country to “guard vulnerable sites deemed at risk.” Jewish schools and synagogues were placed high on the list. The objective is to manufac ture a terrifying atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and re crimination. Electronic surveillance has been ramped up to “curb jihadist recruitment in prisons and other crucibles of radicalization.”
“The French response,” according to The New York Times, “played into an emerging debate across Europe that pits support for civil liberties against the de mands of security officials, who site the attack as evi dence of an urgent need to introduce stronger powers to monitor suspects.”
A month earlier, France witnessed a wave of criti cism of U.S. mass surveillance of its citizens and of the all-pervasive horrors that were revealed in Di ane Feinstein’s $40 million, 6000-page Senate Intel ligence Committee report documenting widespread CIA “illegal” detention and torture. France was among the several nations who condemned as “draconian” the post-9/11 U.S. reactionary measures like the Pa triot Act that included deep incursions into basic civil liberties. Today, that rhetoric has vanished. The near instant transformation was achieved using the com bined powers of the French state.
Attacks on French Muslims We have heard of no measures taken to protect the beleaguered Muslim communities—the “banlieues” that surround Paris, largely populated by impov erished African and Middle Eastern immigrants— where unemployment ranks highest in the nation and social services rank lowest. Unemployment among Muslim youth approaches 40 percent. Close to half of the residents of Muslim communities lack a high (continued on page 7, in “The French government has ordered a mobilization of police. The objective is to create an atmosphere of”)