Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Dieudonné Candidate for French Presidency
Popular black French comedian Dieudonné Mbala Mbala, announces his candidacy for the French presidential elections of 2007 Dieudonné Mbala Mbala is a French comedian (his father was born in Cameroon and his mother in the French region of Brittany). He is very popular in the banlieues, in the popular media and in the French colonies (Martinique, Guadalupe, Guyana, Reunión) but the mainstream mass media and Jewish organizations attack him for his self-professed anti-Zionism, for which he has been taken to court on twenty occasions, and found not guilty in every one of them. He was a candidate for the European Parliamentary elections in June, 2004, heading the "Euro-Palestinian" list, which obtained more than 20 % of the votes in some electoral districts, but did not manage to have any candidates elected. In 2002, Dieudonné also wanted to run for the presidency, but was unable to garner the support of 500 mayors, the necessary requisite to take forward his presidential campaign. Deiudonné may have become, now, the voice of the dispossessed, and so, obtain a significant number of votes in the first round. His candidacy is one step in the creation of a political movement and to this end, he works tirelessly with friends and supporters. It will be necessary for him to bring on his side 500 out of 36000 Mayors in France to support his candidacy.
Complete text of his speech, in the Main d’Or Theatre, Paris on 24 January, 2006
To learn about the campaign: http://www.dieudo.net/2007/
Dieudonné
Please permit me to now present to you my political wishes for 2006, which is a very important pre-electoral year just before the presidential and legislative elections, which will be held in 2007.
I have made the decision to be a candidate for the French presidency in the forthcoming elections.
I am doing this after very careful thought and consideration, as I also intend upon creating a political structure and present a program during the political campaign for the legislative elections, with candidates in every electoral district.
My main objective is to fight neo-liberalism, also called neo-conservatism, within every area of life in the national and international arenas. That bunch of people constitutes the extreme right wing of the 21st century.
Among all the experiences and the alternatives that are available to us to resist this neo-conservatism, so overwhelming and pervasive, one shines like a beacon of light: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, its president.
President Hugo Chávez's project of a social republic, which is Universalist and based on participative democracy, represents an immense hope for all peoples and I place my candidacy under the inspiration of his example. In French, my friends call me ‘Dieudo’, which rhymes with Hugo and in this campaign; we might as well proclaim the motto: Hugo-Dieudo are united!
The main threat of the neo-cons is their warmonger-neo-liberal ideology, which is, of course, antisocial and reactionary. Let's not deceive ourselves, in France, this current is growing unchecked and aspires to a gradual takeover of power.
We are very carefully watching how the mass media are behaving. Nicolas Sarkozy, the figurehead of neo-conservatism in France and Bush's lapdog, has already been given unlimited airtime and print space for a permanent self-promotion campaign, even though he does not hide his desire to import into France the US model and to dismantle whatever is left of our Republic.
Sarkozy, our French grown Bushy, advocates the dismantling of the State, so that liberalism can rein undisputed; the reversal of social policies, the review of the Work Laws, the abolition of social programs and social security, changes to the 1905 law that guarantees the separation of Church and State: our Bushy represents in France interests that are not ours, he is the agent of the “Axis of Good ”.
The French Socialist Party is adapting itself to the same political line. Nowadays, its main worry is that no one notice what they are doing or at least, that not too many people find out.How are Strauss Kahn, Kouchner, Hollande, Ségolène Royal [Hollande's wife] different from Sarkozy?
Deep inside its heart, the Socialist Party has already come to terms with neo-liberalism and anti-multiculturalism. Is there any real meaning to the word "reformist" that they keep spitting out all the time? This is a party of liars and traitors and they are not anything other than Sarkozy fans and followers in disguise. They hate me because I am the one who is tearing off their mask.
Nowadays, we can see all those who have political ambitions and want to run for the presidency doing a belly dance before those who represent "the Axis of Good". Each one of them wiggle their belly and gyrate their hips in the hope of being noticed, and curry favour with their masters. They are also desperate to look much more neo-cons than the others.
This way, we see Bushy-Sarkozy appointing an Israeli citizen, the lawyer Arno Karlsfeld, to head a commission on the relations between the law, history and memory [because of the official Algerian protest about a recent law that celebrates the “positive effects” of French colonization in Africa]. It looks as if our Bushy wanted to reward that man Karsfeld for having done his military service with the Israeli border police, denounced for their callousness and brutality even by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz!
Not to be outdone, the head of the Socialist Party, François Hollande, argued not long ago, for the cleansing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of all pro-Arab elements [to please all those who find French foreign policy too close to the third world].
It is quite possible that they will not invite me this time to the dinner organized by the CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France). This Zionist organization of the extreme right gathers all our leaders at the beginning of the year to share with them a roadmap or an agenda for the year ahead. I will be sorry to miss it because, I am sure, it will be a very amusing spectacle.
All these people, men and women, have betrayed the Republic and turned their back on the people to put themselves at the service of the powerful. As for me, I try to do the contrary: turn my back to the powerful as well as their rewards and trinkets, to restore or at least try to restore the Republic and put it to the service of all French citizens, no matter what their origin or religion.
Where many want docile consumers, I want rebellious citizens.
For the first time the citizens, and mainly those in the left, rebelled against the gatekeepers of neo-conservatism and a "liberal Europe in the American mould" when they had the opportunity to vote in the referendum for the Constitution. When the majority clearly voted against the Constitution, they voted for the rehabilitation of political power as opposed to economic power.
With the recent riots in the banlieues [in this context, poor districts, Note of the translator], the people expressed an identical rejection of neo-liberalism. Some are going to throw at me the idea that the rioters are nihilistic, that they lack political conscience and that they aspire to un-refrained consumption. So what? It does, still mean, that their anger strips bare naked, the inability of neo-liberalism to guarantee their dignity and provide a framework that will allow them to end successfully their formative years, get suitable employment and earn decent wages.This mercantilist society is not interested in the civil aspirations of young people. On the contrary, it fears them.
This is the meaning of that totally absurd law that forbids Muslim girls the use of the veil in the name of a fight against backwardness and obscurantism. The only thing those people have achieved is to stop these girls from going to school.
There also lies the root of the ambiguity of many so-called antiracist associations, encouraged and supported by the Socialist Party for approximately twenty years: it seems that the only thing they have achieved is to create and develop in young people an attitude of hostility to the Republic. This way they can force-feed them neo-liberalism and promote the community tensions, of which they are, nowadays, the social victims.
These men and women, the life-blood of the banlieues, aspire consciously or unconsciously to have a real and full citizenship; this is the real meaning of their rebelliousness, whatever form it takes.
My candidacy is directed to them, and I put before them the idea of building together a new Republic. A Republic that will give sense, real meaning and credibility to the Trinity of: Freedom, Equality, Fraternity.
In the rest of the world too, neo-conservatism continues to expand its mission of destruction and alienation. Through war, obviously, the ones devastating Iraq and Palestine, the threats against Iran, Syria and perhaps, Venezuela too.It is necessary to make very clear that neo-conservatism uses always and everywhere the same tools to try discredit its adversaries and to justify its ravages: the accusation of anti-Semitism.
Recently, president Chávez was violently attacked with similar accusations; everything began with an article of the newspaper Libération, property of Rothschild. The article distorted quite deliberately the words of the Venezuelan president.
Let's say it openly and clearly: this accusation is nothing less than a calumny, it is a naked lie, conceived and propagated with only one aim: to conceal and to cover up the hegemonic projects of the so-called "Axis of the Good."
The propaganda being spread at present concerning Iran fits perfectly with this logic, and I must say, that I am saddened to see that our mass media in France spread without any restraint whatsoever, this propaganda of war.
It is true that the Iranian authorities have, the same as the whole of the Arab world, many grievances against the State of Israel, and against its colonial and racist policies. This does not mean in any way whatsoever that they are anti-Semitic. On the other hand, the Israeli State is amongst the less qualified in the world to give lessons about racism or human rights.
Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation agreement, which expressly grants them the right to produce enriched uranium for civilian purposes but the propaganda in the mass media gives the clear impression that Iran does not respect the above-mentioned agreement. Actually, it is the US and the European triumvirate, who unfortunately, do not respect the agreement, since they deny to Iran the right that the agreement itself clearly recognizes.
On the other hand, how is it possible that they talk incessantly about non-nuclear proliferation in the Middle East without ever making any mention of the Israeli nuclear and biological arsenals? This ever-present set of double standards; one that applies only to Israel and the other which applies to all its neighbours, is not only totally dishonest, it also explains in many ways the tensions in the Middle East.
For an ultimate solution of this crises I propose the creation of one State in Palestine, which welcomes and nurtures all religions, with equal rights for all its inhabitants and which will live in peace an harmony with all its neighbours.
If the current situation and Israel's unchecked colonization moves, does not change drastically, there can only be one dire consequence: the perpetuation of the war and the whole region catching fire. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims should not have to pay with their lives for the neo-cons’ delirious delusions.
In this campaign I will oppose ferociously any new war in the region and, in a more general way, any war or threat of a war by the "Axis of the Good." To start, I demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupation forces in Iraq and the end of any economic sanctions imposed by the US and their collaborators, against any country in the world.
Economic sanctions, affect first and foremost the people, as it happens with the US blockade of Cuba, these measures are born of barbarism, and must disappear from the UN Security Council's arsenal.
I wish that France unites, as it did at the time of the aggression against Iraq, and oppose the ambitions of the warmongers and criminals in the "Axis of Good" who I denounce openly and clearly. The French Republic must join all those other nations who resist the new world order envisaged by the neo-cons, and work for the advent of international relations, which are founded on justice, mutual respect, fairness, dialogue and cooperation.
France must become the Venezuela of Europe and promote a real dialogue, as well as real cooperation with the south, and with Africa. The mention of Africa offers me the ideal transition to bring in one last point. The one that some who followed Marx [when he wrote his book "The Jewish question”], call now the “black question”.
The determination, every day more firmly stated, by the black population of gaining access to full citizenship, the elimination of all anti-black prejudices and getting all historians and the mass media to accept and declare that slavery and the trade across the Atlantic of black slaves were crimes against humanity. The road will be long, as making such an admission seems to be a very great problem for some people.
If now we have in France a “black question”, out in the open, black people know perfectly well how it happened: it is due to a certain comedian [Dieudonné, himself, Note of the translator] who refused to allow people to carry on treating the history of black people with contempt and also decided to denounce the monopoly of memory that some are trying to vindicate.
Recently, the law of “positive colonization” has created legitimate concerns. It has shown as a matter of fact that the job of deciding about historical questions does not belong in Parliament, and that what is valid in one historical period is valid in all others.
For this reason, I have proposed the repeal of all French laws that try to deal with history in a dogmatic way, as well as those that prohibit the debate on certain questions. The first of four laws in this category, the Law Gayssot of 1990 [that prevents the discussion on the magnitude of the Jewish holocaust during the Second World War, Note of the translator] is a model of dictatorship.
Black people must not be afraid of the debate, on the contrary. The ability to debate is freedom and freedom serves truth. To allow debate, to demand debate, will mean in the short term, to place the crimes of slavery and the trafficking of black people right next to the genocide of the Native Americans.
That's why I would praise the adoption in the Assembly of a “Mbala Law” that will denounce the deportation, the slavery, the trafficking of human beings and ethnic cleansing as crimes against humanity, without reference to precise historical events.
It is up to historians, in complete freedom, to determine what historical facts deserve to be labelled as such. I wish France to take a decisive initiative, in the matters relating to the trading of slaves. I ask for the creation of a commission Franco-African, that should include Antillean historians, charged with establishing the human, economic and cultural cost of Atlantic traffic of slaves, but also to clarify the philosophical, religious or political roots of these crimes.
I wish that France, as a permanent member of the Security Council, will present to the UN this report, and that she will request a fair restitution, commensurate to the damage suffered, is made based on the report, at a global level, to Africa for the benefit of all African peoples. I am absolutely sure that acting in that way, in a spirit of reconciliation, would add to the greatness of France, not in the past but in the present.
Thanks for your attention.
Dieudonné Mbala Mbala
Translated from French into Spanish by Maria Poumier and from Spanish into English by Ernesto Paramo, both members of Tlaxcala the community of translators for linguistic diversity (transtlaxcala@yahoo.com). This translation is copyleft.
To read the text in French: http://quibla.net/france2006/dieudone2006.htm In Spanish: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=25997
