The demon of Death, a letter from Paris

Police investigations outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, November 14. Demotix/ Jonathan Tessier. All rights reserved.It was like spring in
autumn. The weather had been turning warm, day after day, in this early
November 2015 in Paris. One month later the town will host the UN Climate Conference
COP21… Such unseasonable weather, the hottest November ever, must for sure have
something to do with climate change.

It was an evening of
football, with France
vs. Germany at the Stade de France, in Saint Denis, north of Paris.
Meanwhile the café’s terraces on the 11th arrondissement, the
“swinging quarter” of the City, were packed with people enjoying the equable
temperature. Nearby, 1500 people were gathering at the Bataclan, a well-known
and popular music-hall, to attend the hard rock concert of the group Eagles of
Death Metal.

But other Death Eagles
(or rather Demons), were on their way to kill. In Saint Denis, the murderers
were not able to enter the Stadium (where President Francois Hollande was
supporting the Team), so they blew themselves up outside. The audience was
evacuated from the stadium only after the end of the match, in a very well
organized way. But in the centre of the city, near Republic square, it was a
massacre: shooting from cars against peaceful customers in bars and
restaurants, an attack on the Bataclan concert hall, with dozens of victims in
no time followed by a three-hours-long hostage taking…  As I write this letter, already 150 people
are dead and the number will increase.

Of course it was a
Daesh (ISIS) operation. Claimed as retaliation against the French bombing on
ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq. But not only this.

In the coming hours
and days, police will identify the murderers. And for sure, they will be French
“jihadists”, coming back, or not, from a terrorist internship in Syria. But
above all, people from French society. They wanted to instil fear in us by
attacking ordinary people. They were not attacking the symbol of economic,
political and military powers (like the 9/11 attacks in the US): ISIS never
really does attack powers. They just killed people (mainly young people),
listening to a concert, having fun together in a bar, or sharing a meal with
friends in a restaurant… They wanted to kill others “guilty” of following a
football match… All these decadent habits in the “capital of abomination and
perversion” as is written in the communique of the so-called “Islamic Caliphate”.

But this is also a
conviviality which is not shared by some of those who feel excluded from French
society and who have taken refuge in radical “takfirism” (sectarian fanaticism
as Muslims refer to it).

Such bloody attacks
were expected. There have already been several attempts. What will come next?
Probably other attacks…

Of course, besides
stunning us with such a nightmare, there were a lot of signs of solidarity
between people, of their willingness to unite, to stick together… Liberté,
Egalité, Fraternité, for sure. But we have already seen after the January
attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the
Kosher supermarket, that this unity is not in evidence for everybody. Islamophobia
rears its head and French Muslims have to endure more harassment,
discrimination, even physical aggression. Xenophobic, antisemitic, racist,
discourses multiply in all directions. And these do not only come from a scared
periphery of the population, not only from the ever-growing far-right National
Front, but increasingly from the mouths of mainstream politicians, journalists,
intellectuals, from the “left” as from the “right” part of the political
spectrum. These discourses are not confined to “a Radical Islam problem”, but
also address the “migrant invasion” and the refusal to host “Muslim” refugees,
the social unrest in the popular districts and “banlieues”, the “enemy from
within”, etc.

Of course, facing
these murderers, intelligence, police and military measures are necessary. The
new  anti-terrorist laws already passed
are clearly already threats to liberty and not efficient means against
terrorism. The warmongering rhetoric used by the authorities does not make the
fight against ISIS more effective. But it does contribute to limiting freedom
of expression and debate, and the organisational capacity of civil society.

What are the goals of
ISIS and followers? To spread fear…  That
will not alleviate the military pressure on them in Middle East. But this
precise strategy of ISIS has always been clearly expressed: “the more you
attack us, the more we will gain support”. And it is true that the first effect
(and effective goal) of the Russian operation in Syria has been to undermine
the rebel groups opposed to ISIS while temporarily reinforcing ISIS’
“anti-crusader” prestige.

The real goal of the
attacks in France, as
well as those in the Shia southern suburb of Beirut a few hours before this,
is through fear, to spread division (in Lebanon to reignite an
“inter-confessionnal” war, in France to create an atmosphere of internal tension,
so that French Muslims are in one way or another considered as responsible for
the Paris attacks, and therefore as a threat of further attacks). This must be
a serious concern for the whole of French society.

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There is an acute and growing tension between the concern for safety and the protection of our freedoms. How do we handle this? Read more from the World Forum for Democracy partnership.