Vredesduif met olijftak in snavel.

Union Pacifiste de France

18-7-2016 De Franse zusterorganisatie van Vredesbeweging Pais in het netwerk van War Resisters' International, de Union Pacifiste de France heeft naar aanleiding van de afschuwelijke gebeurtenis in Nice een verklaring uitgegeven met de oproep: Samen voor vrede!

 

Union Pacifiste de France, the French section of War Resisters' International, extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the massacre of 14 July.

 

The scene of the attack, the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, is now, as it has always been, a rich ghetto at the edge of the Mediterranean, frequented by tourists from the world over. Does this explain the choice of that symbol, and that of France's national holiday, by a deeply troubled and violent truck driver? Is it coincidence that more than a hundred men from such a segregated city as Nice are fighting among the jihadists in Syria?

 

When spirit, heart, intelligence and humor leave a human being, is when violence comes to the fore--violence that is found, of course, in the killers, but also, at different levels, in all the members of a militarised society that prepares war here, that exports military interventions around the world, all primarily to protect the interests of the French merchants of death, i.e., the arms manufacturers and merchants.

 

In our time, the state religions are the only ones that still require human sacrifice. The people in arms reveal their own absurdity pretending to protect the civilian population, when it is clearly the arms themselves that pose mortal danger to all of us. The politicians come like vultures, circling around the blood of the innocents. A nauseating scent of manure rises from the holy war against pre-designated scapegoats. The French clap their hands for the "Marseillaise" on the minefields of football and are happy to have France hold second place in the global arms trade, all the while deploring the inevitable results that are these massacres.

 

The voice of logic that is pacifism continues to gather the opponents of those policies. It will end by burying the crosses of militarism and the lackeys of all the bellicose, nationalist, and religious hierarchies.

 

The time is now or never to disarm and to exercise the right to refuse to kill, because, in the words of Mohandas Gandhi, "Violence is not the solution, it is the problem."

 

Union Pacifiste de France, 2016 July 17th

UPF-WRI-Pais