journalism... ?

"'A lot of French journalists are shit,' Wady, the sculptor, observed one afternoon as we shared a narghile filled with apple-flavored tobacco. 'They come here and talk against the U.S. in a stupid way. They don’t care about the crimes of Saddam Hussein.' And it’s not only the French, noted Esam Pasha, a painter and translator for the U.S. military: 'European and Arab journalists talk to us, but they don’t care about our happiness in being liberated. They only want us to make anti-American comments.' Even a cabbie who took me to the Shabander one afternoon weighed in. 'Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia TV, no good,' he said. 'They only show pictures of bombings and killings of Americans -- always how things are bad in Iraq, never how they are getting better.'

"Worse, I heard many stories at the Shabander about foreign correspondents staging news events to discredit the U.S. One young man introduced me to a Spanish photographer who, he later reported, had just finished posing an Iraqi woman in a nearby pile of rubble looking plaintively toward heaven, as if seeking deliverance from U.S. bombs. Rasim, the painter, claimed he witnessed Arab TV journalists pay idle Iraqis to light a car on fire and throw rocks to create an 'anti-American' demonstration. 'These journalists come here with their minds already made up,' he groused. 'They’re not interested in anything that contradicts their anti-American viewpoint.'"
— Steven Vincent in this month's Reason. (Hat tip: the Web-majestic Erik Svane.)

The Letter

Regarding the letter below, Mosvar Barayev is apprently this guy. However, the authors misspelled his first name, which is supposed to be Movsar. He was the leader of the Chechen group that took a Moscow theater audience hostage in 2002.

The letter was also received by Le Monde and Le Parisien. Authorities are now stating that the letter doesn't fit normal patterns and the police are openly skeptical, saying they've never heard of the group (feh!) and that Islamist terrorists don't usually announce the steps they intend to take. Le Monde's Piotr Smolar also says that the reference to Charles Martel is more reminiscent of far-right ideology.

Whatever the doubts of the police, the public is very much on the qui vive, as can be seen from the behavior of the delirious motorist Jonathan blogged below. To-night, the 8 o'clock nightly news on France 2 showed the Paris bomb squad blowing shit up all over town and dynamiting the tailgates of abandoned trucks. The Prime Minister's office is stepping up it's a security plan known as vigipirate (the name of which is a combination of vigilance and pirate, or "high-jacker" or "terrorist." Not obvious what an English equivalent would be... "operation vigirist"? There's a reason this sort of thing is rarely immitated.)

UPDATE: The Beeb reports that "a suspicious object on a railway line north of Paris hit rail services, including the Eurostar, but it turned out to be an oxygen canister. ¶ The bomb disposal experts who examined the object marked 'AZF, do not touch' dismissed the threat as a bad joke."

FURTHER UPDATE: [deleted: it was boring]

Red alert

In 2003, public debt reached €16,000 per French citizen: The state's finances have seriously deteriorated and the shortfall in Social Security is growing. The accrued deficit is now as high as €63.4 billion. Faltering growth will not bring things back into the black. Fees withheld have risen for the first time since 1999. [...] Since December 31, 2003, France has effectively no longer met the two Maastricht criteria that established a ceiling for public deficit at 3% of GDP and debt at 60%: the former has reached 4.1% and the latter, 63%. [...] Nevertheless, the deterioration of public finances is unprecedented. Since the 1974 oil shock, France has never been able to end a fiscal year with a budget surplus; it always spent more than it took from taxpayers. In 2003, it spent €273.8 billion for €239.8 billion in revenues, generating a record deficit of €56 billion. One fifth of spending is not covered.

2004 will not be the year of reversal: the forecasted deficit is €55.5 billion, which means that come the end of September, the administrations will be living on credit. The deficit is not due to investment, capitalizing on low interest rates. Only 10% of state expenditures are invested. [...]

The state isn't the only one in the red. In 2003, public corporations — health and unemployment insurance — watched their deficits explode, reaching €9.4 billion. Social security now has a discovery authorization of more than €30 million with the deposit insurance corporation [did I get that right? — D] In all, 43.9% of the wealth produced by the economy that is received in the form taxes and withholdings is not enough to cover the cost of services.

Bombs 'to split Spain from allies'

A document published months before national elections reveals al Qaeda planned to separate Spain from its allies by carrying out terror attacks. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Slante!

Are they any safer?

TF1 news reports that "a letter signed 'Mosvar Barayev commando,' addressed to the prime minister, threatens France with attacks if the law on secularism which specifically forbids wearing the Islamic veil in public schools is not withdrawn. Here are the main elements."

'In the name of Allah, forgiving and merciful on behalf of the the servants of Allah, the Mighty and Wise to the servants of the French Republic (...), this message is addressed to the leader of the government, Mr. Raffarin:

'On 10 February 2004, a new height was reached in the war being waged against Islam by the Coalition with the passage of a law barring the hijab from grammar and high schools and public places by the Assembée nationale. (...) We had excluded you from a certain category among your infidel brethren because of your opposition to the unjust aggression of the Crusaders in Iraq but you yourselves have taken the decision to put your names on the list of the most dogged enemies of Islam. (...)

'We take France for an avowed enemy of Islam along with the rest of the Coalition and the Maghreban and Arab governments that collaborate with you and we intend to retaliate. With this hateful, discriminatory and anti-Muslim law, you have shown the whole world and all Muslims that you were well and truly on the side of the devil and we shall treat you as such until the Final Day unless you reverse your decision and comply with the will of Allah who is also your God.

'Know that we have succeeded in penetrating, and establishing ourselves on your soil, the same land in which Charles Martel and his troops defied us, land of pride and arrogance, people of wine and pork, of licentiousness and nudity (...)

'Our organization, though wounded, has been able to right itself, thanks be to Allah and even to become larger and master new technologies and secure massive recruitment of volunteers specifically for jihad, and Europe is a new land of jihad.

'France will be safe neither on its soil nor in its interests abroad (...).

'Present in France for some time but also very mobile, we were waiting for three sings before making ourselves known:

• The passage of the 10 February law constituted a first sign to us

• The signal clearly and explicitly given by Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Laden's second in Command. A February 24 audio recording attributed to him explicitly denounced France for having forbidden the wearing of the veil in public school, — Ed.)

'It has been forbidden to us to reveal the third sign but this is the one that will determine for us the moment when we shall act.

'Mr. Raffarin, know that what is promised to you is certain (...). We ask that you immediately withdraw your law on secularism (...). If you do not withdraw it immediately, we shall respond severely and with an intensity not seen before in your country since the acts of 1995. We ask Muslim men and women to avoid crowded places and to cling to Allah's moorings.'"

RWANDA

This is an old skeleton in France's closet yet it appears the MFA has no prepared response. It came up when the final subject was discussed during to-day's press conference. The matter elicited a pregnant reply:

President Kagamé has leveled extremely serious accusations against France, which he accuses of having participated in the Rwandan genocide. What is your initial reaction to these statements?

Spokesman: I have no reaction.

In your face, Zapatero!

The BBC reports on the results of a study (PDF, 249k/27 pp) — one the Beeb commissioned itself and which it calls "authoritative" — of Iraqi public opinion on the occupation and the future of Iraq:

An opinion poll carried out in Iraq will make good reading for US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence.

[...]

It suggests that the reporting of the daily attacks on the occupying forces in Iraq could be obscuring another picture.

Seventy percent said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were going bad.

And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.

Can you imagine?!!

French forces nearly captured Bin Laden — perhaps several times

AP Paris Osama bin Laden narrowly escaped capture by French troops working with American forces in Afghanistan, perhaps several times, the head of France’s armed forces said Monday.
.
French soldiers are determined to capture the fugitive head of the al-Qaida network by the end of the year, Gen. Henri Bentegeat said Monday.
.
‘‘Our men were not very far,’’ Bentegeat told France’s Europe-1 radio station. ‘‘On several occasions, I even think that he slipped out of a net that was well closed.’’

...as I was saying

"'¡No pasarán!' was the message of those defending ballot-box democracy during the Spanish civil war. As the full horror of the Madrid atrocity unfolds, surely the time has come to unite against terrorism — the new fascism of the 21st century, wherever it takes place." — Rotherham MP Denis McShane in Thursday's Guardian, in case you missed it.

keynote address: Sheikh Yassin

Tim Blair wonders in a recent post about the dubious suggestion by the Guardian that terrorism should be warded off by some sort of interfaith conference that could slake the anger of the Muslim world. Can they really be unaware that such conferences occur regularly and that they this isn't already happening? Window in Lebanon's entry for February 25 reads as follows:

For those who had doubts, the views that the radio station RFI (Radio France Internationale) holds on the Middle-East remain rather pronounced. The proof: the visit by Richard Labévière, world service editor in chief of the and editorialist for RFI, to study and documentation center, linked to Hezbollah, which contacted him so that he could participate in a conference on dialogue between Europe and the Islamic world. M. Labévière claims that it is important to converse with everyone, and not to be sectarian. This is very naïve. Accepting the invitation of a party that openly calls for the destruction of Israel is not discussion. It's taking sides. And this isn't the first time RFI has taken sides against Israel as a state.

Good reporter that he is, Mr. Labévière nevertheless got a scoop: "First off, I'd say that al-Qaeda no longer exists. At any rate, it's no longer an operational organization since September 11, 2001. That date was in a sense the result of the rise in power of an organization that is now no more than an empty shell, a kind of franchise, an ideological logo."

In a book hailed by the talking heads, Gilles Kepel, eminent Islam expert from the Center for International Research and Study [a.k.a. Sciences-Pô], also once ventured that Islamist terrorism was no longer a threat. Six months before September 11, 2001.

Do a search for Mr. LaBavure... sorry Labévière and you'll find he appears in all the wrong (read paranoid) places. Recently translated into Engish, his book, Dollars for Terror, was a boon to conspiracy theorists everywhere. Here's a Brazilian Web site accusing him of "base anti-Americanism." Since I once studied Portuguese for all of ten days, hold your applause while I try my hand at translating the first sentence:

Richard Labévière is an editorialist for Rádio França Ineternacional and a well-regarded journalist, however, it remains that his theses are always permeated with an anti-Americanism, which stands out and is similar the Brazilian kind, which bears the marks of primariness.

I'll appreciate pointers if I screwed this up.

...can't believe the news to-day

Tomorrow's edition of Le Monde, which hit the streets this evening, contains the following editorial on the recent purchase of one of France's largest media groups by one its largest defense contractors.

Le Monde Editorial

The French Exception
LE MONDE | 13.03.04 | 11h32

Do we have any idea what the reactions would be in the United States if the Washington Post were purchased by Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-16? In France, Dassault announced on Thursday, March 11, that it would buy up the remaining shares in Socpresse [a newspaper group that owns numerous French papers] owned by the heirs of Robert Hersant and take its ownership of Socpresse from 30% to 80%.

Not only has Le Figaro fallen into the hands of the company that manufactures the Mirage, but with it, L'Express, L'Etudiant, Le Progrès, Le Dauphiné libéré, La Voix du Nord.... Seventy publications in all. Curiously, this maneuver has not caused national upset over the future of the press and its independence from the economic and political powers. When one adds that groupe Lagardère, formerly Matra, owns the Hachette empire, one can calculate that in all 70% of national newspapers are the property of two weapons manufacturers. At the very least, this ought make one think.

France has also entered into the grand movement that is concentrating the world press, with smaller newspapers being absorbed into big corporations. The reasons are the same for the press as they are for other industries: a need for internationalization and greater reach. But France adds other incentives for concentration by imposing very poor general conditions on its press groups. That French newspapers should be reduced to throwing themselves at the feet of companies in other industries (weapons, in this instance, but also construction for Bouygues [a telecoms giant] or luxury goods for LVMH and Pinault) speaks volumes about the many difficulties: want for capital, inflated printing costs, distribution hurt by a dramatic reduction in the number of points of sale. The handicaps are legion against those who would survive in the information business. The government should be alarmed by this French exception, a deplorable one, and consider it relevant to democracy.

The things at stake here are at the heart of causes taken up by Le Monde, be they editorial or economic. It is in response tot this that our newspaper has sought to join with others in a group predicated on independence from the political and economical powers. In so doing, our desire is to help better the structures of a sector that is ill and frail.

Therefore we must hope that the arrival of Dassault won't mean a return to the days when the press danced for billionaires. We must also hope that it doesn't see the media come under political influence. Suspicion may be heightened by the friendship that exists between Jacques Chirac, president of the Republic, and Serge Dassault, the CEO of the family business, who was also a regional advisor to the Rally for the Republic [France's governing party] and mayor of Corbeil-Essones. A suspicion that can grow still further, given the direct dependence of the very same groupe Dassault on State contracts for its fighter planes.

One would want to think that a reversion to the customs that once existed between the power and the press is impossible, Today they are forgotten. The journalists of every editorial board, including those in the Socpresse group, know the price of independence: the credibility of their newspapers depends on it. Yet Italy shows us that there is still a vivid temptation for the power to take the media in hand.

• ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE 14.03.04 EDITION

Anti-corruption crusader and former investigating magistrate Eva Joly (previously discussed here, here and here) writes in her memoires (pp. 274-75):

Of the 16 largest companies in France, 11 are active in an area where the practice of high corruption is common: Total, Vivendi environnement, Bouygues, Vinci, Airbus... [based on 2002 figures, see here for 2003 figures]. But this fact is rarely mentioned; above all because most of the national media belong to these groups, which encourages neither to curiosity nor to debate. [The TV station] TF1 belongs to the Bouygues group [NB: Bouygues was part of the consortium involved in building Osirak], Le Figaro and L'Express are controlled by the Dassault group. [Radio station] Europe 1, Paris Match and the majority of publishing belong to Lagardère.

Joly doesn't take the time to lay the full extent of Lagardère's presence in the publishing, broadcast and advertising industries. Separate from its defense activites, Largardère Media is has considerable operations in four areas: publishing, print media, distribution and broadcast. The site reads that "Hachette Filipacchi Médias, a Lagardère Media subsidiary, is the world’s top publisher of magazines. Its 238 titles in 36 countries total over one billion copies and more than 130,000 pages of paid advertising annually. HFM has turnover of 2.2 billion euros, 54% of it generated abroad." Tenth largest publisher in the world, Lagardère also owns 40% of Editis (formerly Vivendi Universal Publishing).

Relative to Dassault's relationship to the government, page 70 of Notre allié Saddam (a book I have discussed here and here) gives us an illustrative anecdote:

In February of 1991, Olivier Dassault, RPR member of the Assemblée Nationale and son of Serge, president of the group, revealed one aspect of these ambiguous relations: "I chose to sanction Michel Rocard (this was a censure motion at the Assemblée Nationale). So my father, who thinks that one does not vote against a government to which one is selling planes, pulled me from my position as head of planning for his factories, a position I'd been in for six months [Paris Match, 14 mars 1991].

Just to give you an idea of what exactly we're talking about, let's consider one example of how the French defense industry reacts when people get too close to sensitive matters. On pages 70-1 of her book, Joly writes:

Such a threatening reality sometimes becomes hazy in my mind. I learn to live without thinking about it. But the backlash is hard. As was the very high-ranking French general with star-spangled epaulettes whose acquaintance I made during an impromptu cocktail party at an embassy. We engaged in light conversation for a few moments. Then suddenly he put his blue eyes right in mine.

"I imagine it must not be much fun for you everyday, ma'am. Such agitiation, the pressure, the threats. But I'll think you'll make it in the end."

I didn't answer. He paused for two seconds. I started to smile in thanks. Then he continued, coldly.

"It'd be another matter if you left the petroleum business to look at weapons sales. With us, there's no warning. If you start an investigation, I'll give you 48 hours..."

Bland Spongiformity

Before he became the lightening rod that he is today, member of the Académie française and philosopher Jean-François Revel traveled to Italy and returned with the accounts that would form the book Pour l'Italie ("For Italy"). The book was an argument about the nature of Italian society, its social conservatism, sexual practices and its treatment of women. Yet even before his transformative Vietnam-era visit to American University campuses (after which he wrote his pro-American polemic Without Marx or Jesus), one can see traces of the figure that was to emerge. Here's a quick rendering of a passage from page 136:

The commonplaces of international psychology are as stubborn as they are numerous and false. This is why the quality (and the demerit) of being cartesian is attributed to French intellectuals. The author of the most wooly-minded page will write: "We French, born cartesians...," etc. However, in our time, the French are anything but cartesian: they are claudelian, heideggerian, Christian, spenglerian or malrausian but not cartesian. Even scholarly works are beset with obscurity, prolixity and disorder. Given that the entire French system of evaluation and examination is founded on the art of dissertation, it is surprising to learn that most French academics can neither write not compose.

By contrast, the only true cartesians to-day are the English. Their academic works are the only ones that are rigorous and well-written. It is the same with their newspapers: reading the weekly The New Statesman [Oh! How the mighty have fallen!] is consolation for the bland spongiformity of so many French weeklies that think themselves "alive" and "spirited," etc.

UPDATE: I posted some of the dirty bits over at LOTF. In case you're interested...

Dieudo gets the egghead treatment...

Prof. Eric Marty, author and editor of numerous books, gives a rather abstruse analysis of the content of Dieudonné's statements.

VIEWPOINT

Take heart, Dieudonné!, by Eric Marty

LE MONDE | 06.03.04 | 13h58

Israel, the land that, in its flesh, is surely the most comfortably universal and cosmopolitan of all.

The Dieudonné scandal is pronounced in three parts. The first is his appearance on the Marc-Olivier Fogiel's show dressed as an orthodox Jew, with the accouterments of a Palestinian terrorist and shouting "Isra...Heil!" : here the Jewish victim materializes as his two executioners.

The second part are the political statements in which it appears that Jews are "slave drivers converted to banking" and that Israel has "financed apartheid its final solution projects" (Le Journal du Dimanche, February 8).

Third part: his appearance through numerous media, yelling about conspiracies, particularly on Canal+, on the evening of Saturday, February 28, for example ("7 jours au Groland"), where he acted the part of the banished, and where it emerged that his banishment illustrates the fact that he is speaking a truth that everyone wishes to silence.

This anti-Semitic farce in three acts is easily recognizable; so much has it been played out in history that now it only exists in parodic form, in which until then, the last known actor had been Jean-Marie Le Pen.

[...]

It shall be said that a victim — and blacks are obviously victims —ultimately has two choices: he can either condemn his genuine, historic tormentor — and this is the case with current historical projects on slavery — and thus cease to be a victim; or he can play on what René Girard has called mimetic rivalry: the victim choses not the enemy but the rival, that is to say the one who appears, in his eyes, unjustly, as identified by the world as being more of a victim than he is.

The rival victim is the one who prevents the victim from being, and proclaiming himself a victim the way he wants to. In the mind of anti-Semites, such is the place of the Jew. The ideas emerging from this small but virulent fraction of anti-Semites among the black community eliminates the Jews as victims by making them into executioners (executioners of the Palestinians), but, as if this weren't enough to cancel out the weight of mimetic rivalry, the Jews must be made into their own executioners: the Jew is a slave driver, a financier of apartheid, etc.

[...]Dieudonné and his friends should take heart: Israel is the first civilization in the world to have admitted the absolute anthropological equality of blacks by viewing the sons of Cham as the direct descendants of a universal parent (Adam), and this isn't the least benefit of monotheism that the self-proclaimed atheist that is Dieudonné might think on.

Moreover, because the notion of "race" is foreign to the Jewish being, there are even Jewish "Negroes" — the Falashas — that Operation Moses, starting in 1984, and then Operation Solomon, in 1991, have saved from the discriminations they suffered in Ethiopia and integrated into the land of Sem, Israel, the country that, in its flesh is surely the most comfortably universal and cosmopolitan of all.

During the Dieudonné scandal, an AFP bulletin informed us that the mayor of Nablus resigned in the face of the terror that the Palestinian militias (including the al-Aqsa martyrs brigades) had been inflicting on the population since the start of the Intifada (September 2000) and of which the latest incidents had caused the death of 30 people, including the mayor's own brother. That I know, the French media took little notice, if any. That's another one for Dieudonné and co. to think on: the real criminal is rarely the scapegoat!

Eric Marty is professor of contemporary French literature at université Paris-VII - Denis-Diderot.

• ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE 07.03.04 EDITION

Ouch!!

Remember Tim Blair's Beat-up of the week? Le Monde has just fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. It's also shot up the reader recommended list to first place.

UPDATE: Le Monde responds over at LOTF.

You forgot your turtle-neck!

Hi! I'm a horse's ass!
—Robert Harvey

I did say that France had been unlucky recently in the quality of people publicly associated with it. Here's yet more proof.

Surely, Yale professor Farid Laroussi's essay, "Why I became an American," was a painful moment for Le Monde's readers. Into the breach comes Stony Brook professor of Comparative "Studies" Robert Harvey, with his essay, "Why I became French" :

When Farid Laroussi brandished his "Why I became American" (Le Monde, 10 December 2003), without ever really explaining why he had become American, but rather to spit on the country where he obtained the degrees that have allowed him to take a position at an important private American university, I was outraged.

And this, from a man who is supposed to teach comparison!!? Pity the poor students at SUNY Stony Brook who have this doddering idiot inflicted on them. I found that Laroussi's incisive and deft language resisted translation, as is often the case with good writers. An immediate comparison reveals that Harvey is decidedly out of his depth (and if anyone fails to address his stated subject!... note that Harvey spends much of his essay, explaining not why he became French but rather his frustration with the conventional misuse of the word "American" to refer to US nationals).

Let's recall what Laroussi said about migrating to the US:

I chose the United States. It is moving to learn that you are offered a second chance without having to prove your hands are clean [i.e. “white”]. Neither my name, nor my professed religion or ethic origins have been an obstacle in this. The police leave me alone because here one is not subject to spot identity checks. My friends never feel it necessary to share a good Arab joke with me. ... I was already an American the minute one of my ancestors left his village on the edge of the Sahara, leaving behind him a world without possibilities.

Today, while there may always be things to be criticized, they are less decisive, less cutting, than suffering the judgment of more than five million of my former compatriots who, during the last presidential elections, told me by voting for the far-right candidate that they would never want me around.

How did Harvey miss that? The foul stench coming form his direction indicates that the "outrage" he felt was in seeing criticism of France, the object of his devotion and the instrument of his thick-witted vanity. Of those who saw Laroussi's essay, the ones more nearly approaching literacy understood that his French/Arab origins make his criticism of France all the more stinging. Harvey, who describes himself as a "privileged" white Christian and "international academic" (not a playboy), sees only an Arab doing what he thinks Arabs aren't supposed to do: criticize France and praise the United States. Pressed to respond, Harvey stumbles all over himself and, in their eagerness to print an American in praise of France, Le Monde's editors overlooked Harvey's embarrassing stupidity.

"Agreeing with Laroussi on many points," writes Harvey, "I prefer here to offer a few thoughts on my recent decision to 'become French.'" This, Harvey tells us, is because he wants "to continue participating in the public life of the two countries where I still principally practice my profession." (Which is comparing things, in case you've forgotten.)

Yet, having said this, Harvey doesn't feel he's achieved his appointed task (i.e. explaining why he's now French). He continues and reveals, perhaps unwittingly, the real reason:

At bottom, I don't believe a given individual is of a determined nationality from birth.

Which is as much to say that for many long years of anguish, Harvey could only be French when his head hit the pillow.

It remains that isolationism, protectionism, obese arrogance and the irascible theocratic reaction of the United States have become atavistic. In this country, which is nevertheless my own, the power does what it wishes. No discussion with it is possible. In my view, the US model is at once inexorable and intolerable.

....Ah! An American who hates himself: this is the peak of "anti-Americanism." Let's be clear: I am a US citizen; I have a great many reservations about the domestic and foreign policy of the United States; I don't much like the US mentality.

So, it's clear to those of us who might have thought that Harvey was a dork on Long Island who couldn't get tenure: he is in fact a post-national citizen of the world, one of the enlightened, the great and the good, dusting off American provincialism like so much dandruff. Let's just hope that he renews the prescription on his wire-frames in time for that Lars Von Trier retrospective...

...and that one day he reads this post after googling his own name

¡socialismo sí!

Hola camaradas!

We have made some changes to the appearance of our blog. In bolshevik terms, of course, this is a matter of indifference. Yet we feel that, for our readers, nothing is too good.

We are none of us the best at Web design so if you encounter any problems viewing this blog, please avail yourselves of the comments function or email us through our respective blogs to let us know about these problems.

¡Vivan los héroes de las Brigadas Internacionales!

Bullet holes in the cemetery walls...

We, of ¡No Pasarán!, are duty-bound to remember.

Get To Work

Tonight, you've a chance to save a woman's life merely by wiggling your fingers about on a keyboard. An Iranian friend in Paris emails to say that he has received word that the execution of Ms. Mandana Nik-khou Monfared, 25, called "imminent" Amnesty on February 3, is now truly drawing near.

The word comes from among Iranian exiles in contact with Amnesty, who are asking concerned individuals to write to the Iranian authorities, asking for clemency. They say the Supreme Court has upheld her death sentence for the murder of her fiancé — barring a pardon, this can only be commuted if the victim's kin waive their right to retribution and accept blood money.

Amnesty also reports that last year, Mandana retracted the confession she reportedly gave police while in custody and insisted she was innocent, stating that it was her husband (whom she planned to leave for Masoud Khazi, the victim) who committed the crime. This January, Mandana's nine year-old son wrote an open letter to Ayatollah Shahrudi, head of Iran's judiciary, saying "We do not have a father and only have our mother. We ask you to let her come home to us... Our mother is innocent."

Only the French-language "urgent action" alert gives the addresses of those persons to whom pleas for Mandana's life should be addressed. They are

Judicial Authority: His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Telegrams: Head of Judiciary, Ministry of Justice, Tehran, Iran Fax: +98 21 879 6671 (send messages, "care of Director of International Affairs, Judiciary") Term of address: Your Excellency

Spritual Guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran: His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei The Presidency, Palestine Avenue Azerbaijan Intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Telegrams: Leader of the Islamic Republic, Tehran, Iran Email:webmaster@wilayah.org (In the subject field, write "To the attention of His Excellency, Ayatollah al Udhma Khamenei, Qom") Term of Address: Your Excellency,

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran His Excellency Hojjatoleslam val Moslemin Sayed Mohammad Khatami The Presidency, Palestine Avenue Azerbaijan Intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email:khatami@president.ir (please resend the message if it bounces) Term of Address: Your Excellency

Send copies to: Mr Mohammad Hassan Zia'i-Far Secretary, Islamic Human Rights Commission PO Box 13165-137 Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Fax: +98 21 204 0541 and to the Iranian diplomatic representatives in your country.

For more information, please also see this matter, which may also require immediate action, though Amnesty's French language alert writes "after 23 February 2004, please check with your section about whether intervention is still necessary. Thank you."

They say each letter genuinely helps. Please write.

Boni-Fascism

In recent weeks, France has been particularly unlucky: some ugly characters have come to the fore to greet the public and hey have not made the greatest of ambassadors.

In addition to Mr. IsraHeil, or Dieudonné, there was our friend Franck "boum!" Moulet. On Thursday, Libération told us (misspelling "Rikers" yet again) that Franck lives with his younger sister, has barely any belongings and earns his living doing odd jobs (packaging, pizza, handing out flyers and two years in a university library in Marseilles). He also "cries easily and sometimes his tears have nothing to do with America and prison. But he doesn't want the help of a psychiatrist. His family regrets this."

Worst of all, however, was the reemergence of Pascal Boniface, who published an unusually stupid essay in last Saturday's Le Monde. In responding to an earlier essay by Francis Fukuyama — who had argued that France's Arab minority has an influence over French public policy — Boniface demonstrates why audacity is sometimes a minor virtue, writing:

It is amusing to see an American criticize a country on the pretext that its foreign policy is supposedly influenced by the electoral weight of certain communities. Isn't this one of the characteristics of American foreign policy?

The fact that Boniface is insinuating that Jews control the United States isn't the only cause for upset. Close readers will notice that he is once again stepping on the very same land-mine that forced his resignation from the Socialist Party in 2003. In an internal memo on campaign strategy to Socialist leader François Hollande (which was later leaked to the press), Boniface wrote:

I am struck by the number of young beurs [i.e. Arabs] and French Muslims of all ages who claim to be on the left but who, due to the situation in the Middle East, say they won't vote for Jospin in the presidential election. An attitude toward the Middle East question that is perceived as unfair and, of course, one they think is yet again at the expense of the Arabs, demonstrates to them that Arab/Muslim community is not considered, if not rejected by the Socialist family. The situation in the Middle East and the timidity of the Socialists in condemning Israeli oppression encourages the alienation of Muslims in France, for which no one, Jew, Muslim or Pagan, can be happy. It is doubtless better to lose an election than one's soul. But, by putting the Israeli government and the Palestinians on equal footing, we're risking the loss of both. Is support for Sharon worth losing 2002?

When this memo is mentioned publically, Boniface makes oblique efforts to deny he ever wrote it but his opponents simply trot out the direct citation above. In August of 2001, Boniface also published an essay in the pages of Le Monde entitled "Letter to an Israeli friend" that read, in part, "By permitting too much of the Israeli government's impunity, France's Jewish community could end up the loser in the medium term. The Arab and/or Muslim community is surely less well organized but it seeks to be a counterweight and will fast outweigh the Jewish one in numbers, if this isn't already the case."

For having essentially told French Jews that they'd better sever ties with Israel or risk alienation, Boniface came in for a bit of a drubbing. Then Israeli ambassador to France, Elie Barnavi shot back with his own essay:

I can't tell what revolted me more about the "Letter to an Israeli friend" (Le Monde, 4 August, 2001), by Pascal Boniface. The insincerity of the title, which infuriatingly reminded me a pamphlet once published by Ibrahim Souss [former PLO Paris representative and author of the pamphlet Letter to a Jewish friend] ? The saccharine and unctuous tone which fails to disguise an implacable hostility? The gulf between the tonality of this text and the brutal one he committed for internal consumption by his party? The content, rich in ideological insinuations but politically vacuous? It was all of the above, probably.

Boniface demurred for 22 days before responding and when he did, the essence of his reply was that he found "unacceptable such intellectual terrorism that consisted in accusing any person of anti-Semitism that dares criticize the Israeli government, an accusation which ought, incidentally, to apply also to Israeli pacifists and to those French Jews who share this point of view."

The title of this response, "Are we allowed to criticize Israel?" lent itself to a book that Boniface published in April of last year (ranked 4,526 on Amazon, even now). Yet soon after this, things got too hot for Boniface and he was made to walk the plank, after a "friendly" luncheon on July 18, 2002. An article appearing that day in Libération (available for free here) revealed that in a note to François Hollande (ya think M. Hollande is simply turning these notes over to the press?...) Boniface wrote that "communitarianism has returned in force to the Socialist Party" (note that it was good old Tariq Ramadan who sparked so much controversy by accusing France's Jewish philosophers of "communautarisme"...) and that certain "friends of Israel" were to blame for his demise, particularly former Finance minister Dominique Strauss-Khan, "When I'm being violently attacked by the Jewish far right, seeing DSK throw me to the wolves among a hostile crowd [...] and call me a 'wretch' is troubling," wrote Boniface. It was deputy mayor of Paris and friend to Lionel Jospin Pierre Schapira who was among the first to point out that "it's rather outrageous of him to criticize communitarianism when he's the one who brought out the idea with his note to Hollande."