John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Macron calls killing of ‘beheaded’ French teacher an ‘Islamist terrorist attack’”
Macron has no judgment.
This grisly crime was the work of one seriously deranged person who happens to be a Muslim.
Scores of people are murdered every day somewhere in the West.
Normally, we do not examine a suspected killer’s religious affiliation, and then proceed to declare the crime an act of terror and to pontificate about what is wrong with the suspect’s religion.
Of course, by calling the crime "terrorism," Macron gets to increase budgets for the French military and security services. He intimidates and frightens people into supporting things that they should not support.
That word “terror” has proved a powerful totem. As I’ve written before, its effect resembles declaring some poor unfortunate with a mental disturbance a “witch” in the 16th century. Only burning at the stake was good enough.
And if you know some European history, you will know France’s past is steeped in blood from the wars and savageries which followed the Protestant Reformation. Thousands of people literally had their throats cut while in bed and on the streets during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The Pope actually issued a gold medal to honor the French Queen for the achievement.
Of course, the long epoch of France’s overseas empire saw countless deaths and barbarities inflicted on the innocent in their own lands. Many observers have described French colonial rule as having been particularly harsh.
Louis XIV and Napoleon each drenched Europe in blood.
Is Macron so ignorant of his own history that he is unaware of these events?
Macron will earn some credit with the American power establishment, always keen to hear its prejudices supported, just as is the case with Russophobia. After all, America just spent the last twenty years killing a couple of million Muslims and turning millions more into hopeless refugees in its Middle East wars.
And, by the way, it is France with its bombing support for America in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and other places that has played the role of genuine terrorist. It has supported the mercenary armies so often now disguised as some kind of jihadis in hybrid-warfare efforts to overthrow governments America dislikes.
The boycott against French goods seems to be picking up steam.
Even though I am a longtime admirer of French culture and food, I hope that it does.
It is the only effective way to show this maladroit and rather malicious leader what he has done. He has insulted hundreds of millions of people. Good people, doing no harm. He has added, much like Trump, to the world’s stock of ignorance and prejudice.
And he has refused to condemn genuine hate-literature. The Charlie Hebdo cartoon is gutter literature, not satire. It should be condemned as surely as anyone scrawling hateful graffiti on a building.
What a remarkably arrogant man Macron has proven to be, as well as a man wrong in just about his every major policy. He is busy right now, as the EU Brexit deadline approaches, making demands and alienating Britain, a major importer of French products. He echoes American nonsense about a number of international situations.
His treatment of the Yellow Vest protesters in Paris was indistinguishable from what we would expect from a tyrant, killing about a dozen and wounding many hundreds, including some mangled for life.
Poor France. It has had in the past some towering leaders.
But in recent years, it has had Macron, Hollande, and Sarkozy – just pathetic, each of them.
