WE ARE AT WAR
"For them death is life" (*)
by the Editing Committee of Partecipagire
What I want to tell the French is that we are at war and we are at war because the measures that we will take will be exceptional. We strike the enemy to destroy it, here in France, in Europe, but also in Syria and Iraq '. These are the words of anger and revenge of the French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, 24 hours after the massacre of Paris. All were moved by the many dead and wounded that the bloody attack has caused, but I wonder if the words of Valls, a Prime Minister of a great nation, they really make sense in these circumstances. The very word 'war' seems to have only an emotional value that immediately gives room for some doubt. On the one hand give dignity of warriors to the killers who acted with premeditation may appear as inappropriate, and in the other way a war is not only a police operation and requires at least a clear definition of the enemy. "The attacks in Paris and Beirut were designed to shake the very foundations of all our societies. They are an assault on our sense of connection and shared humanity, our tolerance, liberty and respect. [...]This was more than a monstrous act of hatred." This was written in the message sent from Avaaz to all its mailing lists. "They want to destroy our civilization," writes indignantly Pascal Bruckner (*) in Le Figaro' "Since World War II, France had not experienced an attack of this magnitude on its territory ... Those who blew themselves wanted to die. Those kamikaze said to their victims: look at us .. For them to kill and die was the same gesture. we must recognize that we are completely powerless against such nihilistic rage -...... youth is the age of the absolute, "wrote Nietzsche. These young people are in an apocalyptic dimension, a messianic eschatology that will bring a bloodbath. For them, death is life. " For them, the terrorists, the jihad warriors, assassins en cachette, suicide bombers, young angry and nihilistic, death is life.It is hard to avoid the rhetoric of outrage, anger (not nihilistic?), compassionate and frustrating emotions that all these victims of the massacre cause. Yet a little 'cold blood there would not hurt; to try to understand; not to abandon ourselves to easy explanations based on this collective madness that married religious fanaticism until the ultimate massacre but also to immolation. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, ISPI (Institute for International Policy Studies) published a book, Twitter and Jihad, which is well worth reading (in e-book format you can be downloaded free at ISPI). Particularly interesting is the chapter by Harit Hasan al-Qarawi, the modus operandi of the Isis.
"The slogan of Isis soon became 'consolidate and expand', emphasizing the divine promise of a near future in which Islam would prevail in the world," writes al-Qarawi. [...] "The propaganda directed toward local populations focused in promoting the legitimacy of the control of Isis, presenting the Islamic State as the "model that best represented the ideals of the people." I do not promise luxury and abundance (...), but what Allah promised the believers: the creation of the caliphate on earth, "are the words Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi uttered during his first public appearance in the mosque Hadbaa of Mosul." The Caliphate will not be Heaven on Earth (that comes later), but it is something very much better than any other way of organizing society. No corruption, no abuse, no immorality, no injustice. A society no longer based on the laws of men but on those of God, does not allow misery and inequality, exploitation and slavery. And for those who think that it is nonsense, some are ready to demonstrate in practice that in the territories administered by ISIS, it will finally be possible to live the dimension of harmony and balance. "The house is free, no more rent. So well as gas and electricity. No one dies of hunger, because food is guaranteed. You do not pay taxes but families can rely on the State welfare system. There is no racism and whoever obeys the Koran can count on the public sympathy. " Whether or not this is so in reality, what matters is how many young nihilists are willing to believe and to die for it. If anyone thinks that the propaganda of the Isis is naive and not very credible, carefully read the study published by ISPI that will perhaps explain why tens of thousands of people continue to be attracted by its proposals.
The Caliphate is a real ideology, and has nothing to envy of Western ideologies that, as socialism or anarchism, communism have seduced generations of young and old. Indeed the Caliphate is guaranteed by God and its dogmas find in him their legitimacy. A theocratic state is a political proposal; a strong proposal and does not serve to get scandalized or to ridicule it. Especially we do not need to allow it to terrorize us. This ideological monster, as it was called, was not created by accident. Every day we complain of the corrupt, incompetent and inadequate political system we live in, the same that immerses us up to our necks in the hypocrisy of democracy that does not exist and that only represents the interests, often criminals, of castes, lobbies, oligarchies immovable, and multinational groups of power. Better than a theocratic state, it will be said. Well, not for everyone. Not for those young nihilists whose hopes of just society have been brutally betrayed by systems of government that our democracies have inspired, supported, financed and defended to the benefit of interests of a few out of control. Oriana Fallaci is suddenly back in fashion, precursor of Salvini in a better style, her terrible criticism of Islam and the invasion of Muslim immigrants, is retrieved with pleasure to show that yes, we are at war. Because "Islam is the Koran, my dear. In any case, anywhere. And the Koran is incompatible with freedom, it is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with human rights. It is incompatible with the concept of civilization." (Those who want to enjoy the strength of the passionate and sharp prose of Oriana Fallaci can find a nice collection in questa pagina dell'Uffington Post). But the key question, which no one cares, is that our model of society can in no way be considered a guarantee nor for Freedom, nor for Democracy (the real one), nor for Human Rights. Western thinking has theorized and applied the use of violence as a revolutionary force essential in the social class struggle; indispensable in the overthrow of that very model that today we say with pride we want to defend in a war with no exclusion of blows against the barbarism of terrorism; Nazi violence had the same goals. We do not realize that this barbarity was brought up by ourselves in our own houses and that the only way to defeat it, it is to take away the reasons it has to exist; our political system has been rotten for some time now, and has infected the world, it is time to change it to purify it opening it to the participation in decision-making of all responsible citizens. It 's time to lay the foundations of a smart society, where you do not uphold dogmatic and unrealistic values, but instead practical purposes aiming at public welfare in the knowledge that this wealth belongs to all, because uncontrolled interdependence threatens to suffocate us all, confirming that alone there is not salvation either individually or socially, as Mounier said.
The Caliphate is a real ideology, and has nothing to envy of Western ideologies that, as socialism or anarchism, communism have seduced generations of young and old. Indeed the Caliphate is guaranteed by God and its dogmas find in him their legitimacy. A theocratic state is a political proposal; a strong proposal and does not serve to get scandalized or to ridicule it. Especially we do not need to allow it to terrorize us. This ideological monster, as it was called, was not created by accident. Every day we complain of the corrupt, incompetent and inadequate political system we live in, the same that immerses us up to our necks in the hypocrisy of democracy that does not exist and that only represents the interests, often criminals, of castes, lobbies, oligarchies immovable, and multinational groups of power. Better than a theocratic state, it will be said. Well, not for everyone. Not for those young nihilists whose hopes of just society have been brutally betrayed by systems of government that our democracies have inspired, supported, financed and defended to the benefit of interests of a few out of control. Oriana Fallaci is suddenly back in fashion, precursor of Salvini in a better style, her terrible criticism of Islam and the invasion of Muslim immigrants, is retrieved with pleasure to show that yes, we are at war. Because "Islam is the Koran, my dear. In any case, anywhere. And the Koran is incompatible with freedom, it is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with human rights. It is incompatible with the concept of civilization." (Those who want to enjoy the strength of the passionate and sharp prose of Oriana Fallaci can find a nice collection in questa pagina dell'Uffington Post). But the key question, which no one cares, is that our model of society can in no way be considered a guarantee nor for Freedom, nor for Democracy (the real one), nor for Human Rights. Western thinking has theorized and applied the use of violence as a revolutionary force essential in the social class struggle; indispensable in the overthrow of that very model that today we say with pride we want to defend in a war with no exclusion of blows against the barbarism of terrorism; Nazi violence had the same goals. We do not realize that this barbarity was brought up by ourselves in our own houses and that the only way to defeat it, it is to take away the reasons it has to exist; our political system has been rotten for some time now, and has infected the world, it is time to change it to purify it opening it to the participation in decision-making of all responsible citizens. It 's time to lay the foundations of a smart society, where you do not uphold dogmatic and unrealistic values, but instead practical purposes aiming at public welfare in the knowledge that this wealth belongs to all, because uncontrolled interdependence threatens to suffocate us all, confirming that alone there is not salvation either individually or socially, as Mounier said.