Aug '02 [Home]
Free Expression
Wild Goose or Just Canard? : Alain Cornec Slaughters Lieberman's French Boycott and Dishes Him Confit
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Aug '02 [Home] Free Expression Wild Goose or Just Canard? : Alain Cornec Slaughters Lieberman's French Boycott and Dishes Him Confit |
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An American "rainmaker" friend and colleague forwarded me yesterday, as she sent it "to hundreds", Senator Lieberman's May 15, 2002 "open letter to the French people", calling for Americans (and especially American Jews) to boycott France after what he calls a "wave of attacks" against Jews here. This friend thought I would be "interested". I was indeed so concerned that, though two months had passed, I had to answer Senator Lieberman personally. His message is unfair, untrue, and dangerous, for us all and for our children. For my friends throughout the world, for my countrymen, for me, I had to recall openly that, regardless of nationality, creed, or colour : He who sows exclusion and intolerance reaps racism and fascism. This also applies to Senator Lieberman. As a lawyer, I believe in fair discussion, so I attach his whole letter to this E-mail. For two months, it was spread by E-Mail as a virus of hatred, forwarded to millions of Americans. As a result, many Americans did not come to France. But this is far from being the worst. Frankly, the French are not the problem. Senator Lieberman believes he protects American Jews by attacking "the coward and forgetful French". In the long term, he does not. My American friends, my Jewish friends, read my answer, judge for yourselves. If you were moved initially by Senator Lieberman's powerful words and especially if you sent his ugly message on, please, please, pass along the antidote! Alain Cornec |
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Wed, 15 May 2002 TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE from Senator Joseph Lieberman TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE IN REMEMBRANCE Liberty, equality, fraternity! Does the French nation recall that slogan? The current French tolerance of and indifference to the wave of attacks upon French Jews speaks clearly of the decline of the French national character. The French have forgotten! Two hundred and some odd years ago the suffering French populace erupted in revolution against tyranny. They cried for and fought for liberty, fraternity, equality for all in every aspect of French society. The French have forgotten! But I remember! I still have in my mind the heartbreaking image of the Parisian gentleman from whose eyes the tears fell copiously as he watched the Nazi troops marching triumphantly into Paris. The face of that Frenchman still lives in my mind sixty years later. It is the same as the faces of so many French Jews today. The French have forgotten! But I remember! I remember the ecstasy, the flowers, the kisses with which the French people greeted their American and British liberators from Nazi terror. The French have forgotten! They have forgotten the dehumanizing result of terror upon themselves. They have forgotten the shame of Vichy France. Those who watch with indifference the attacks upon their neighbors sink into degeneracy themselves. The French have forgotten brotherhood and love of others than themselves. They have forgotten equal justice. They have forgotten that a nation without strength of morality and character is a nation already in the lower depths of degradation. So, just as the Swiss were part of the Nazi problem sixty years ago, the French are part of the problem of world terrorism today. As the French casually watch their Jewish citizens attacked let them remember how they, the French, acquiesced in cowardice at the rape of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis in 1938 only to suffer under the Nazi heel so soon after. My contempt for present day France is accompanied by great regret. We gave the lives of American boys to save them once. They have forgotten. However, we Americans have not forgotten. All Americans with integrity of character must boycott France. I hope large numbers of you will join me in this. If this e-mail is forwarded by just 1/2 of all recipients it could reach 10,000,000 Americans in a matter of days. Let's make the French remember! Joe Lieberman ~ . ~ |
Paris, 12 July 2002 A FRENCH CITIZEN'S ANSWER TO SENATOR LIEBERMAN Senator Lieberman,Because of recent attacks against Jews in France, which I deplore as much as you do, you characterize "the French" as "sinking into degeneracy", having "lost all their great values", "lost their national character" and "forgotten the past", including the American help during WWII. These unfounded accusations once made, you then urge all Americans to boycott France. And you demand that they spread your "truth" like an e-virus. In so doing, you exploit the very evil you pretend to condemn. Disgraceful attacks have regrettably taken place against Jews in France recently. And against Muslims. But contrary to what you say, Senator Lieberman, we do condemn them. We prosecute them. We do not, as a people, have any sympathy for the persons, French or not French, who commit such barbarian acts. We do not, as a people, "casually watch our Jewish citizens attacked", an unfounded accusation. I cannot let you slander my country and me "casually". I am certain there are crimes in America against Jewish victims. And crimes against victims from other minority groups. I am sure you deplore them. But do we, Europeans, boycott the US because the KKK exists ? Do we equate you, Senator Lieberman, to a Klansman and accuse you of "doing nothing"? No. In the French presidential elections in May of 2002, an unprecedented 80+ percent of voters united across all party lines to defeat the extreme right xenophobic candidate, J-M Le Pen, who is against all foreigners of any kind, whether Jews, Arabs, or Europeans. In the ensuing parliamentary elections of June 2002, his party did not get one single representative elected, in any one of the 550 individual voting districts of the country. In the USA, as the International Herald Tribune pointed out, your extremists are not outside the system. They are already inside the two big parties, in the House and the Senate. No less extreme in their opinions, but less visible to the outside world, much more active and more efficient in voicing and implementing their extremist views. At the time of this clear rejection of racist ideas, your equating today French nation to "Vichy France" is unfounded and slanderous. But you do worse. Senator Lieberman, you then call on your memories of wartime Paris and accuse us—me—of having "forgotten". At age 53, I do not "remember" personally a wartime as I was not yet born. But I am deeply aware, like the immense majority of the French people, of the weight of the Nazi heel, of the life losses in deportation to many Jewish or non-Jewish families (including mine), and of the essential American role in the liberation of Europe. Despite what you think, our values of "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" persist. I remember demonstrating as a student in 1968 to the cry of "We are all German Jews", and last September, in a significant echo, we shouted "We are all Americans". We, as a nation, have sided with and still side with the underdog, as when Lafayette came to help the American revolution. False labels, like those you try to stick on the French as a "visible" stigma, are libels. Should we, French, wear your labels visibly to designate us to the world [as fit objects of] hatred? I learnt, with the help of Voltaire, and of some Americans writers, an overriding truth, which you, Senator, seem to have forgotten. Some so-called "simple truths" are too simple and too easy and too dangerous : they are just not truths at all. They are political gimmicks, red capes waved in the political bull-ring. They also are the intellectual time-bombs of terror. The oldest and most dangerous such gimmick consists in designating to the hatred of one's "brethren" a simple collective "foe", such as (to give but a few examples): the Americans, - the Germans, - the Swiss, - the Vietnamese, - the Arabs, - the Blacks, - the Whites - the Jews, - the Muslims, - the Catholics, - the Protestants, - the Martians… Senator, this overriding truth you forgot. As a Frenchman, as a free man, I am proud that your sweeping bigotry includes me, a French citizen, in such a vast and select group of black sheep and scapegoats. Senator, the mildest name for your behaviour is "intolerance". Your intolerance is in line with your reference to the French revolutionaries of 1789 as "the suffering French populace". This open despise [sic] of our forefathers, we, the people of France, call "arrogance". Senator, do you realise your intolerant and arrogant crowd-driving rhetoric, so well-written but so badly thought out, has all the components of rampant racism of which you unjustly accuse "the French people" at large ? In calling for a boycott of "the French" and "France" you act in very way you pretend to condemn. Whatever you say about us, yours cannot be the values you invoke and try to enrol : those of Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine or of the GIs who came to liberate France and Europe from the Nazis. We have not forgotten that collective accusations and untruths like yours, that crowd-driving rhetoric like yours, were Hitler's stepping stone to power in 1933 : he blamed all the evils of Germany on the German Jews. We remember. Senator Lieberman, you have forgotten. Alain Cornec cornec@villard-avocats.com VILLARD ET ASSOCIES PARIS tel +331 5365 6600 fax 331 4405 9416 8 rue Bellini, 75016 PARIS FRANCE ~ . ~ [The Jewish Community Relations Council confirms the Lieberman letter to be an 'urban legend' or hoax. —Eds.] |
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