Cheminade: “Let’s Not Let This Decisive Moment Pass Us By”

This is the statement of Jacques Cheminade, president of Solidarité & Progrès, after having marched in the Sunday 11th rallies in Paris. The original statement is available in French on Jacques Cheminade’s website, English translation reprinted here with permission.

In Paris this Sunday January 11th, I marched with the people of my country. I could not but admire the reverence, the dignity and the determination of this immense crowd, transcending party politics. “I am Charlie, I am a Jew, I am a policeman, I’m a Muslim, I am a Christian, I’m a Frenchman, I’m a citizen of the world,” tells you what we all felt.

Our place was there.  And the feeling nothing would be as it been before was there too.

Today, political life resumes, that is, reason committed to action, without hypocrisy.  It is immediately necessary to identify those responsible:  We must demand accounts, of Saudi Arabia, of Qatar, and all those agencies that engendered these Frankenstein monsters.  We must place blame on those who, whether in London or Washington, in Wall Street or the City of London, whether in Riyadh or Doha, promote terrorism or launder its funding, violating the principles of our Republics.

On an emergency basis we must set up a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the sources of terrorism, with the commitment not to stop investigating into areas no matter how embarrassing.

It is time, well past time. Without such action, we will descend into the aggressive policy of NATO and into a regime of lawless law, which, as it was noted by Mikhail Gorbachov, may lead to nuclear war and in which terrorism is the asymmetrical excrescence.

It is time, well past time, to return to a global policy that serves the cause of humanity, a policy of peace, understanding, and cooperation with all those who are willing to put an end to the destructive austerity policies that create the breeding ground of false prophets and imbecile barbarians.

Let’s do what it takes to ensure that lovely day of yesterday brings us there, and that national unity not be a so-called sacred union, suffocating us in submission to those who sow the wind to reap whirlwind.

With a thought in each of our deeds for the two youths at Vincennes this past Friday, who died a hero’s death as they sought to wrench weapons from the killer’s grasp.

Forward!  We are the stuff dreams are made of.