There is a lot of remarkable news in Gabriel Syme’s posting about Sabine Herold, the young French woman who is spear-heading a brave fightback against the bolshevik hegemony that squats on her country like a poisonous toad.
That someone so young should be prepared to shoulder such a herculean (or perhaps even quixotic) task should be enough to earn her unqualified praise but what takes her stance onto a higher plane of bravery is the fact that she is prepared to do this openly. As this e-mail letter sent to Steve Den Beste reveals, France is a country where dissent against the prevailing orthodoxy is really dangerous:
As you may now, France is now undergoing a series of strikes protesting the government’s pension reform. Among the strikers, the Communist Union “Confederation Générale du Travail” is using unacceptable methods that violate the most basic human rights. Today it has vandalized and burnt the employers’ union offices in several cities. Worse, this organization has prevented, in the city where I leave, a meeting by a democratic political party and violently intervened in a demonstration by people who protested the strike, in order to make sure that demonstration would fail.
Furthermore, the government is taking no steps to maintain public order and guarantee people’s freedom of goverment and expression. The city of Toulouse was blocked during the morning of yesterday and not a single step was taken by public authorities to end this blocking. On the contrary, the police collaborated with the unions in order to make sure that people could not pass. In the demonstration I just mentioned, not a policeman was dispatched to protect us against the assaults of the communist union’s members.
I realize that this is small stuff compared to the atrocities taking place in several countries. Nevertheless it is taking place right in the middle of Europe and it would be of great help if this state of things were publicized by your organization. I can provide you with further testimonies about the events I am referring to, if needed. We badly need the help of the international community in fighting these constant violation of human rights by the communist union.
Yes, this is happening right smack dab in the heart of ‘civilised, sophisticated, nuanced’ Europe. What a stark contrast it provides to the baseless squealing of the spoilt brats of Hollywood as they wrap themselves in cloaks of martyrdom at the first sign of a drop in CD sales. France is a country where it is not just your dissent that can get crushed; you can get crushed along with it. The letter to Steve ends with this plea:
Could you help by mentioning that or tell me any organization or other blogs I could contact? Could you also NOT cite my name? I am afraid of reprisals. Today they beat a businessman who declared in the newspaper he was going to sue them for the blockade.
I am honoured to be able to provide some space on this blog not least because this is the kind of ugly truth that the mainstream British press would rather not touch with bargepole. It almost seems as if there is an unspoken policy of ‘no negative news about Europe’. Far better to send off some supercillious scribbler to Texas to uncover the ‘shocking truth’ about ‘George Bush’s Amerikka’ (pornography for the Guardianistas).
But the real barbarity lies across the Channel not the Atlantic. When communist thugs can rule the street unhindered you know for sure that there is no devil to whom the French political elite are not prepared to surrender. Nor is all the sanctimonious mummery about ‘human rights’ and ‘democratic values’ anything more than a sham. It is a smoke and mirrors act designed to provide a wafer-thin veneer of decency to what is, to all intents and purposes, a gangsterdom. Despite the size of the French state, it is apparently powerless (or unwilling) to come to the aid of even its own citizens when threatened with totalitarian evil. Apparently paralysed with fear and moral cowardice, the likes of Jacques Chirac content themselves instead with insufferably self-righteous finger-wagging to the rest of the world.
To add insult to injury, not only is there a blind unwillingness in this country to confront this reality, there is an active and well-funded movement to promote and spread its influence. The French social and political model is the one that British federasts (and I suspect no small number of metropolitan lefties in the USA) want the rest of us to sign up to. Our reluctance is, according to their mephitic propoganda, driven only by ‘narrow-mindedness’ and base ‘xenophobia’. They constantly urge us to rely on the copious ‘human rights laws’ issued in Brussels to protect us from the enemies of civilisation both internal and external. But what, I ask, is the EU going to do about the beleaguered people like our correspondent from France? The answer is ‘nothing’. All those grand-sounding conventions and lofty abastractions turn out to be not worth the paper they are written on.
No, if France is going to be rescued then it is going to be rescued by the likes of Sabine Herold and the above correspondent and by and this man and this man. These people constitute the true French Resistance and they need all the help and luck they can get.
There has been a lot of debate across the blogosphere recently about the role it may or may not have played in the downfall of Howell Raines. I do not know whether Bloggers made a difference or not in that saga. I do know that where we can make a difference is in making sure that stories about the reality of life in the rotten heart of Europe continue to be told and spread. We may not be able to help Sabine and her friends to overcome the forces of darkness but what we can do for them, the very least we owe them, is to bear witness to their noble and heroic struggle.
I was astonished at the things apparently going on in France as report here and at Instapundit. So I went to some English language news sites (CNN, Fox, etc.) to learn more.
Nothing. Not so much as an “Oddly Enough”. Other than a few sports stories about Mlle Henin-Hardenne, one might think that France has dropped off the face of the earth (food for thought).
France’s newly marginalised position may be long overdue. Good luck to the young lady, but it should be a bit embarrassing for France that someone like her can make a difference in a country.
Suggests that gesture, appearance, image already matter more than general discussion because there is so little of the latter that only a desperate pop-star approach has any hope. Many 3rd-world basketcase nations get thrilled by the courage of one brave woman (and not much else), and sometimes thereby galvanised into action – but it’s rather pathetic it can even get to the point where nothing else but that works.
Despite her obvious intelligence and nerve, the overall fact she’s emerged as the leader doesn’t give me much hope longterm. What were all the men doing to let it get that far?
Mark, be grateful for the help that is hand. And if the lady’s youth and other credentials are unusual, well, that will help her publicise the terror of ther left (which is probably as much as she can hope to achieve, for all pluck).
I was pleased to see David Carr use the phrase Bolshevik hegemony. I am trying to work into as many posts as possible my conviction that the liberal-left, wrong-headed though it is, is not our problem. Our problem is the ownership of the liberal-left, and thereby the political agenda, by cultural marxists in our academic, legal, political, governmental, voluntary and media sectors. In France, it seems, the position is more extreme and therefore easier for dissenting voices to emerge. In a sense, that is preferable to the complacent silence which obtains in Britain and America (to which George Peery’s comments appear to give credence).
Vive la liberation.
Why not get in touch with RushLimbaugh.com?
He’d love it!
Sylvain Galineau also writes about this.
I’m beginning to have the sneaking fear that someone’s been planning a revolution and that this is the first stage of it.
Well, yesterday I got a train from San Sebastian in Spain to the French border. One has to change trains at the border due to Spain and Portugal using a different gauge to the rest of Europe. On walking into the SNCF station (the same station where Hitler and Franco met in 1940, but I digress) I found the place deserted, very few trains running, and a group of American college students wondering how they were going to get to Bordeaux. (My flight from London to Spain was delayed a couple of days ago due to the great difficulty of flying over France with most of their air traffic controllers on strike). All round, this is deeply unimpressive for a so called “advanced” country.
This can hardly be surprising at all.
Given the history of the communist terror, unleashed by European intellectuals and perfected in Russia, what can we expect from the near future?
The ruling left in Czechia regularly attacks eurosceptics here as “eurorednecks” and “euroidiots”, and proudly states that no such “fools” hold positions in their respective parties.
The dividing line between verbal and physical violence can be thinner that we’d think.
A very interesting comment, Tomas.
The thin dividing line you describe between verbal and physical violence applies as well to civilization and barbarism. It’s mostly a matter of scale.
George:
Justine Hénin-Hardenne is a Mme, not a Mlle — but more importantly, she’s Belgian, not French. 🙂
Ted, but of course. Well, she was a “miss” until recently (as is true of most married 20 or 21-year olds).
Fuck the French. Why should we help them…putains!
Skeej, your sentiments are understandable, but wrong. We must support the good, the moral, and the civilized people whereever they are, even in France. We can’t let the brutes carry the field.
In case anyone’s interested, I’ve received a couple more letters from people in France and posted them.
The second one points out the way that free expression against the unions is being less-than-subtly suppressed by what amounts to veiled threats of reprisals.
This is all very reminiscent of the situation in this country ie the UK in the 1970s. Then, too, the unions were able to run the show and heaven help anyone who got in the way (remember Grunwick?)
Getting ourselves out of that mess was a mightily close run thing. We were very fortunate to have people with not only the determination but the tactical nous and (frankly) luck to face down the bully boys.
Hey, I remember Grunwick!
The Grunwick photo-processing labs, were situated about 400 yds from where we lived (terraced street). I remember watching a stream, nay, a river of people with their banners held high, all walking down our street to amass outside Grunwick. The river of people rolled by for what seemed a lifetime (I was fifteen or so – my perception of time was therefore distorted) – but at the height of the dispute, there was something like 8000 people involved. This happened a few times IIRC.
It’s generally accepted that Grunwick laid the foundations for the 80’s union-taming legislation of Thatcher and co.
Do a google for ‘grunwick industrial dispute’ and you’ll find a wealth of fascinating information.
As to what’s happening in France – good.
It is harsh of me to say this, and probably wrong, but…
Can we please stay out of it, this time, if Paris gets sacked again?
Eric, that would probably be prudent in some ways, but then again, there is the pesky matter of nukes in the hands of the sackers …
Ok