Error
Pascal Bruckner, André Glucksmann and Romain Goupil
Translated by Douglas
French original: "La faute"
(Le Monde, 2003/04/14)What a joy to see the Iraqi people in jubilation, celebrating their liberation and... their liberators! Some months ago, France claimed to be channeling America’s bellicose ardor toward UN “legality.” Unfortunately, opposition to the war degenerated into systematic opposition to Washington. Right or wrong, our leaders gave the impression they were protecting Saddam, digging in their heels for an arm-wrestling match with the Anglo-Saxon allies.
Friendship gave way to open hostility, despite the diplomatic smiles and denials which were tantamount to confession: “The Americans are not our enemies.” ... With its intransigence and its promise to veto “whatever the circumstances,” our country divided Europe, paralyzed the NATO and the UN, ended any non-military possibility to make the Iraqi dictatorship to give way with a unanimous and specific ultimatum. Far from avoiding war, the “peace camp” brought it on by playing Asterix against Uncle Sam. France has struck itself out of the game, made itself ridiculous. One does not lead a great nation by intoxicating oneself with media successes and oratory jousting. In this respect, Tony Blair, who took the risk of confronting his electorate while remaining true to his convictions, has proved to be a true head of state.
The Elysian stance has been reflected in public opinion. One day, we’ll have to recount the hysteria, the collective intoxication that struck the Hexagon for months, the Apocalyptic anguish that befell our greatest minds, the quasi-Soviet atmosphere that bound 90% of the population together in a triumph of monolithic thinking, allergic to the least debate. We shall have to review the biased coverage of the war by the media — which, with rare exceptions, were less objective than militant, minimizing the horrors of Ba’athist tyranny the better to indict the Anglo-American expedition, guilty of every crime, every mistake and every unhappiness in the region.
For weeks, Baghdad TV invaded our brains and crept in our windows, to the point that the very rare Iraqi dissident guests had to apologize for existing and that a French singer, in an act of rare obscenity, walked off the set of a variety show on France 3 at the arrival of Sa’ad Salman, an Iraqi filmmaker and opposition member. We will have to explain why, during this time, the Kurdish minority was forbidden to march while Saddam’s hatchet men paraded on our boulevards brandishing his portraits, shouting slogans to his glory, going so far as to beat up the exiled Iraqi poet Salah Al-Hamdani. We shall have to scrutinize that alarming percentage of the French (33%) who, not desiring a coalition victory, declared themselves de facto for Saddam Hussein.There is little choice but to recognize that anti-Americanism is not an accident of current affairs or just reticence before the Washington administration but the echo of a politics that, despite their differences, solders together the National Front and the Greens, the Socialists and the Conservatives, the Communists and the Sovereigntists... On the Right and Left, they were rare who did not give in to this “nationalism of fools” which is still a symptom of resentment and decadence.
We pleased ourselves to oppose French intelligence to American narrow-mindedness and the wisdom of Old Europe to the New World’s madness, lead by “Ubush Roi.” The result: one of the most awful dictatorships in the Middle East been toppled; France has contributed nothing to its fall.To the contrary, she did all she could to delay this. When Baghdad dances, Paris frowns. While some intellectuals and politicians publicly declared their shock, if not their “nausea” upon seeing the Anglo-Saxon victory, the weekly Marianne ran the headline “Catastrophe” on the day when Baghdad savored its first hours of deliverance. There’s no avoiding it: there shall always exist in our democracies a significant sector who are aggrieved by the fall of a dictator. The land of human rights loves not freedom perhaps as much as it claims to. From Jean-Marie Le Pen to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Saddam Hussein counted many friends among us, modestly dubbed “friends of the Iraqi people.” Will the Republic, with Berlin and Moscow, establish a national day of mourning over the loss of the reis?
The second Gulf war has been truly revealing. Recrudescence of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatreds, economic and social crisis, the desecration of a British military cemetery, the physical assault of Jews and Iraqi dissidents during the larger “peace” marches, a reactionary alliance with the unappealing Vladimir Putin, butcher of Chechnya, the reception of the African despot Robert Mugabe in Paris, public insults meant for the countries of Eastern Europe, who erred in not obeying us strictly; our great nation is not writing one of the most glorious pages of its history.
The future of free Iraq is highly problematic and pacification is far from guaranteed. We cannot be certain that Washington shall be wise in triumph nor that this military conquest shall at last result in a concord of hearts and minds. Nothing assures us that the Bush administration will ever get down to the Palestinian question despite its promises. Nothing guarantees that peace will prevail in the Middle East. But, by choosing as it has, Paris has condemned itself to having only a marginal role in this part of the world. History goes on. Is France no longer a part of it?
[Posted 2003/04/15]
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