From: book@katto.kaapeli.fi (Mikael Book) news:soc.culture.french Subject: Sarajevo / Moruroa Date: 6 Aug 1995 12:02:07 GMT Organization: Katto-Meny information cooperative, Helsinki, Finland Lines: 149 Summary: le lien Sarajevo/Moruroa et les intellectuels francaisAttn STOP ESSAIS
from: Mikael Book / Helsinki Finland
Email: book@kaapeli.fi
telephone maison +358-0-757 03 66
fax +358-0-777 3647 (mais donnez un coup de telephone d'abord)
adresse postale: Nastolantie 24, 00600 Helsinki, Finland
Salut les copains,
j' espere que vous etes en bonne condition. Tout a l'heure j'ai essaye de vous telephoner pour avoir des renseignements plus precis sur la discussion interne en France sur les essais qui ont ete annoncees. Les positions des intellectuels francais, dn particulier, m'interessent beaucoup. Qu'ont dit sur les essais nucleaires les intellectuels qui sont les plus actifs dans la question ex-Yougoslave: par exemple Finkielkraut, B-H Levy et autres? Sont-ils pour les tests a Moruroa et a la meme fois pour le bel mot d'ordre "Sarajevo est plus important que Maastricht"? Y a t-il des gens qui voient un lien possible entre les guerres entre les peuples de l'ex Yugoslavie et les preparations de guerre de la France a Moruroa? Moi, je pense que l'Europe commence a Sarajevo et qu'elle finit a Moruroa.
Y a t-il un echo du mouvement contre les essais dans les cercles litteraires et culturelles? Qu' est-ce que c'est, au'jourd'hui, ce mouvement?
Repondez a moi par email, je vous en prie. Si vous n'utilisez pas le email, donnez moi un coup de telephone. J'ai besoin de votre reponse tout de suite.
Je mets cette lettre-fax dans quelques forums de l'Internet aussi.
- Mika
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Bonjour Mikael,
merci de votre fax. -- Des intellectuels francais nous n'avons encore rien vu dans les journaux et le lien Sarajevo/Moruroa n'est pas fait par personne. Il y a peut-etre des cercles litteraires qui se mobilisent mais la presse n'en parle pas. Par contre nous avons des tres bonnes positions du Conseil des Eglises Chretiennes (Monseigneur Duval et pasteur Jacques Stewart + monsieur Coste de Pax Christi) et 400 chercheurs francais ont signe un appel a la non-reprise des essais - voici les copies de ces appels. Voici les positions des partis, journalistes et autres... parus dans la presse ces derniers jours... et aussi nos actions en cours. Bien solidairement votre
Marie-Pierre Bovy
Bonnecombe
12120 Camps Legrandville
fax 65 74 13 09
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Sarajevo / Moruroa
Chère Marie-Pierre,
je te remercie de ta lettre et de tous les telecopies. Excuse-moi mon mauvais francais. Tu confirme ma impression que les intellectuels francais, les ecrivains et les philosophes en particulier, se taisent sur cette activite particuliere de l'Etat francais: la construction et la maintenance des armes atomiques y compris les essais nucleaires dans l'outre mer, au milieu de l'Ocean Pacifique. Pire, au sujet des armes et essais nucleaires les exponents les plus visibles et adores de la civilisation francaise (parce-que en Scandinavie et dans mon pays, en tout cas, ils exercent toujours une influence considerable sur la vie culturelle) ne sont que des chiens de garde de l'Etat, c'est-a-dire de toute cette grande machine postmoderne - bureaucratie, conseils et departements, miltaires et specialistes, usines et atolles - dont la nation a besoin pour mettre en scene des propres systemes d'armes atomiques plus ou moins "credibles".
Certes, les 400 scientifiques contre les essais sont-ils aussi des vrais intellectuels; et je pense qu'on peut donner la meme epithete aux pretres, mais ces hommes des eglises (Monseigneur Duval, pasteur Jacques Stewart et monsieur Coste de Pax Christi), tout comme les chercheurs en physique et chimie d'ailleurs, ne jouent actuellement pas le meme role capital dans les mass-media et dans la formation de l'opinion publique en Europe que vos fameux philosophes et ecrivains.
Tu as note que dans ma premier lettre-fax, j'ai parle d'un lien entre Sarajevo et Moruroa. J'ai ecrit que l'Europe commence a Sarajevo et qu'elle finit a Moruroa. Dire que l'Europe d'aujourd'hui commence a Sarajevo n'est pas tout-a-fait faux d'un point de vue historique et geographique; c'est le coeur meme de notre continent, le centre de ses memoires ou tous les chemins se croisent. Cette ville est le symbole de ce que nous tous gardons dans nous-memes de l'histoire de l'Europe. Oui, "Sarajevo est plus important que Maastricht", comme ils ont voulu montrer par leur engagement et leurs actions, ces memes intellectuels francais. Et ma idee que l'Europe finit a Moruroa, elle non plus, n'est certainement pas completement fausse. C'est la, a l'autre cote du monde, qu'on trouve la forteresse ultime de l'Empire, cet Empire europeen qui et plutot un reve qu'une realite -- une reve francaise, dans ce cas particulier. Aussi, Moruroa est un symbol des chemins qui se croisent, les chemins maritimes globales de l'humanite, les routes q'a suivi le "Kon-Tiki" pour les retrouver (est-ce que tu connais le livre de Bengt et Marie-Therese Danielsson sur Moruroa et les essais nucleaires francais? -- l'ethnologue B. Danielsson etait un membre de l'equipe de "Kon-Tiki" -- sinon, je dois t'inviter a le faire parce que c'est en effet le livre "classique" au sujet.)
Qui peut nier qu'il y a un lien Sarajevo / Moruroa? Les bureaucrates, les militaires, les hommes d'affaires? Oui, eux peuvent le nier, parce-que c'est "normal", comme on est accoutume a le dire; en Europe il est toujours normal de faire la guerre entre nations et la guerre civile, et de fabriquer des systemes d'armes, et justement dans une maniere bureaucratique et systematique (ce lien sociologique entre Auschwitz et la societe moderne a ete etabli par Zygmunt Bauman et autres). Mais les philosophes et les ecrivains? Comment peuvent ils persister dans cette reve de la grande Empire? Comment ne reussirent-ils pas a voir que ces armes nucleaires sont pointees contre notre coeur? Si ces armes seront jamais utilisees, si jamais ce cauchemar se tourne en une realite, c'est bien sur a Sarajevo? Sinon a Sarajevo, ou?
J'espere que cette lettre-fax ne te reveille pas d'un sommeil bien merite, je l'envoie au milieu de la nuit, quand commence le 6 aout 1995, le jour de la commemoration de Hiroshima 1945 et Rainbow Warrior 1985 et Sarajevo 1995.
- Mika
8.8. Dear Marie-Pierre, I feel now, paradoxically, that writing in French would be too exhausting during daytime, when all kind of voices (and noise) disturb the concentration that takes for someone who has not spoken French or listened to French for several years. Recently, though, I ordered and received a volume of "Modern French Poetry", a very nice parallell edition in both languages (French and English) of, for instance, poems by Jules Supervielle and Jacques Prevert, published by "Forest Books" in London. I want to tell you this because in the newsgroup soc.culture.french where I have released our previous letters, I have received a reply from a Frenchman of the name Gilles Carpentier. He thinks that my effort to establish a link between "Sarajevo" and "Moruroa", i e between these two very hot subjects, is not only fruitless, but even "absurd". Also, he criticizes my choice of words when I call the planned French nuclear tests "preparations for war". I agree with him that these are strong words. Gilles Carpentier reproaches me for forgetting the we, too, have an army, the Finnish army. Does this mean that Finland, too, is preparing for war, he asks me. According to him, the French nuclear arms are needed for the national defense, he says, and adds that they are perhaps not needed right at this very moment but that the dissuasion (deterrence) that such weapons provide against an aggressor, could very well prove very valuable during the course of the next fifty years, or so. What if the aggressor delivers his strikes through the metro of Paris, I would like to answer him? And also: what if the aggressor is also in possession of atomic weapons? Will we then not witness a new round of the arms race and the "balance of terror"? Having myself thought through these questions already once before, namely during the last stage of "exterminism" (because that is, without doubt, where a new nuclear arms race would lead us) during the Cold War, I see no reason now to swallow the old rethoric of deterrence as a means of national defense. Especially, it does not apply in the present era of miniaturization of atomic and other weapons. Nor are the nuclear missiles an adequate defense against the crazy. As Jean-Marie Muller shows in the article that you sent me, and as people have also written in the Internet newsgroup, the so called 'dissuasion du fort au fou' is just an empty phraze. Saddam Hussein, for instance, was not deterred even by the very "credible" nuclear arsenals of the US army so why would some absurd Finns - just as an example of what kind of threats you may have to face in the next century - be scare of the French nukes? In the twenties, the Finnish army really had some crazy plans, resulting also in some unfortunate military activities across the border, for a "Great-Finland" (including the annexation of areas of Soviet Carelia; thus something rather like the present plans of Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic). Those things are so long past us now that I can mention them without anybody thinking that I am hinting at the intentions of our very peace-keeping and lovable armed forces of the 1990s, the present Finnish army. It goes to show, however, that the reason of existence of a standing army may very well fluctuate considerably during the kind of intervals that Gilles Carpentier is suggesting that we take as a starting point for our strategic thinking. Nor do I try to insult the French military or pretend that the French are, in a general way, "preparing war". I will, however, keep to these words in the case of the planned new tests at Moruroa. I would not need, of course, to explain this to you. By the way, I was not surprised to hear from you on the phone, that not only have you read the book by the Danielssons, which offers rich documentation on this point, but that you even know them personally. The world is small. Bengt Danielsson also has friends in Finland like the radio journalist Carita Backström, who made an excellent series of programs with him and his wife in Tahiti some ten years ago. Hopefully, the programs will now be broadcast again, Carita told me yesterday at the Sarajevo-meeting we had here in the Cable factory (I'll come back to that in a while). Anyway, here are my two reasons to call the present tests "preparation of war": Firstly, that activity endangers the very fragile and unstable nuclear situation of the present word; at least, it is the most clear case of preparation for a new nuclear arms race that I can think of. Such a develpoment implies, in turn, the perspective of a world war, be it then an atomic war or a "conventional" war. And, secondly, the testing at Moruroa implies itself an element of war, a colonial war. The testing of nuclear arms is, and has always been, an act of war against the people who live in the region were the tests are made. It may be remembered, once again, that the leaders of the French military-industrial complex started their nuclear testing in one of their colonies, in Reggane (Algeria), in 1960, thus in the era of the Algerian war of independence. They continued, first in the atmosphere and then in the underground, in another colony, on the Tuamotu islands of the Pacific. They never did it to the French themselves. It is not a thing that one does to ones own people. Yes, we had a Sarajevo-meeting here, yesterday evening. The initiative was taken by Kristin Olsoni, a theatre director, and other intellectuals. I did not speak about the link Sarajevo/Moruroa there, although, incidentally, precisely the question of armaments became the dominating theme of discussion. Remembering what you told me about your own activities in the peace movement the other day, the day of Hiroshima, I don't need to teach you about the importance of this theme. Instead, here is what I thought when I read the reply by Gilles Carpentier. It is not absurd to link Sarajevo and Moruroa. This should be a link in our head, if not in reality. In fact, let us hope that the link never becomes a reality, especially not in the sense that I have given it. In other words: let us hope that those French nuclear weapons will never be used in Europe or at the borders of Europe. Sarajevo is one of the places where Europe begins, one of its borders. This is a fact on which I believe that most geopoliticians will agree. But why should we carry this link in our heads? Because we are intellectuals. To this one could just add, like Gramsci, that although everyone is intellectual (like the cook, who has a vast knowledge, a vast intellect, on the preparing of the meals), all of us do not play the national and European role of the famous French intellectuals. Therefore I feel that those people are sometimes a little bit more responsible than others for the links, or blind spots, in our minds. I am eagerly waiting for your response. It will probably not reach us in time for the next issue of the magazine, where this is published. Maybe you will have time to write for the next issue. Yes, please ask Jean Chesnaux for details about the positions of Finkielkraut, B-H Levy, and others. We will certainly be happy about anything which indicates that they live up to their role. After all, it is they, to some extent, who have inspired our new Sarajevo-movement. More in particular, they have done a lot to awaken a sharpen our conscience on Sarajevo. Yours in peace - Mika