Open letter from Arab intellectuals, including the poet Adonis or the composer Marcel Khalifa, surprised by the silence of Western intellectuals in this context of a Palestino-Israeli war.
“An unprecedented massacre is currently being perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and its environment.
With the exception of the media which cover this massacre by justifying it, an almost general indifference reigns with regard to the destruction and massive crimes under the Palestinian people. This is hardly surprising having regard to the infernal propaganda machine used.
But we, Arab intellectuals, are still surprised by the freezing silence of thinkers of Western countries, their writers and their artists. We were expecting from them, in this context of duty of humanity and responsible commitment, clear support for the Palestinian people in the struggle for their national, just and legitimate rights.
We are indeed all the more surprised since this attitude is offset from that of the living forces of their peoples, whose solidarity with the Palestinian people takes the form of recurring manifestations supporting their rights, denouncing the forms of oppression, murder and colonization, encirclement and damage to the historical and religious specificities of Palestine – which is practiced with the war in 1967.
This same solidarity is also expressed, with a sense of honor and courage, by a voucher of intellectuals, creators and academics in America and other continents.
Clearly, we were waiting for the same firm position of Western intellectuals vis-à-vis the atrocities committed towards the Palestinian people. And for good reason: we see in them the living elite, guaranteeing in their society of the defense of values which have shaped modern and contemporary human civilization, human rights, the protection of human dignity.
We also share with these intellectuals the same faith in these principles: freedom, justice, equality, human rights, the refusal of dogmatism and racism, the denunciation of war and attachment to peace, the rejection of occupation, the recognition of the rights of peoples to the recovery of their colonized lands, to self -determination and national independence …
Arab intellectuals, signatories of this open letter, unfortunately note a gaping gap between what, on the one hand, culture in the West inclines to theoretically praising as visions, conceptions and representations inspired by the referentials specific to the values and principles mentioned; And what, on the other hand, a large number of Western intellectuals embody as a position tending, on the contrary, on the contrary, to take the side of the aggressor to the detriment of the rights of the victim whose land is occupied, as well as to remain silent on his incessant crimes …
However, it should be remembered that the Palestinian cause is considered internationally as a just cause, and the rights of the Palestinian people are the subject of a particular interest in the United Nations.
So we would not be tempted to question us: is the attitude of Western intellectuals not, alas, undergoing a flexibility towards the approach of “two weights, two measures” characterizing the official policy of their countries? A approach that we challenge because it strikes in its heart the mission of culture and intellectuals.
If the western official policies acquired in Israel, systematically camouflaging its crimes, aim to falsify the struggle of the Palestinian people and its nationalist movement taxed by terrorists, it cannot be admitted for the Western intellectual elite to align themselves with the lies spread by these policies made by interests which are in no way those of their peoples or their own.
Furthermore, the fact of accusing the Palestinian resistance of terrorist movement, constitutes a blatant violation of the principles of international law: which recognizes the peoples the right of liberation of their lands colonized by all means, including by the use of weapons.
This same amalgam wanted to aim, between resistance and terrorism, has no other goal than to allow the expansion of colonization, the liquidation of any legitimate resistance, to falsify its reason for being and its nationalist scope. The crucial question that arises is the following: is it within intellectual circles in the West someone who would be ready-intellectually, psychologically and morally-to consider the movements of nationalist resistance in Europe, engaged in the fight against Nazism and the Nazis, of terrorist movements?
It is in no way allowed, on our side either, to excuse or tolerate any form of damage to the life and dignity of an individual belonging to another culture, identity or nationality.
We, signatories of this letter, writers, researchers and artists of the Arab world, invite our partners, among intellectuals and creators in the West, to lead together a reasoned dialogue on the values and principles that we have in sharing and, in particular, on the cause of the Palestinian people.
We cannot consider ourselves, continue to steal from it because it is important to say what place to reserve for this people and their rights, in the light of the values of our time, without exclusion or discrimination which Western policies use.
We are confident that the awareness that we have of the urgency of this question is able to allow a deep revision of the erroneous visions and the faults in which a good number of intellectuals and creators fall in the West. We know that they have never ceased to prejudice Palestine, its nationalist liberation movement and the rights of its people.
It is therefore important today to correct them so that in terms of intellectual elites the Palestinian cause could be gauged in the light of the principles and references that humanity had endeavored to forge in common.
With objectivity, sincerity and transparency. Far from any hypocrisy, deception or duplication of standards and measures.
This is the aim of this letter through which its signatories insist on the need to cancel any form of arbitrary in the application of laws resulting from such principles to peoples and nations ”.
Signed this open letter addressed to Western intellectuals, notably Adonis (poet), Marcel Khalifa (composer), Chawki Bazi (poet), Mohamed Berrada (writer), Mohamed Bennis (poet and writer), Nabil Slimane (novelist), Alowiya Sobh (Romancière), Mohamed Achari (poet and novelist) Chamma (composer), Moncef Al Wahabi (poet), Magdi Ahmad Ali (cinema director), etc. And many other researchers, artists and musicians.
