Aimé Césaire in the Panthéon... and her mortal remains are still in Martinique. A commemorative plaque recalls the poet's presence. Politics awakens sentiments in the name of "Man". The president of the French Republic decided it. Nicolas Sarkozy opened the gate to the Panthéon to Césaire, as Jacques Chirac had opened to Emile Zola the gate to the monument that brings together the great ones to whom the nation is grateful. In Lebanon we have no Panthéon, but rather Panthéons, each one containing great men according to one's humor and criteria. Sometimes the Lebanese Panthéon is in the street, as in every country on the planet, on the anniversary of independence. In Lebanon that day falls on November 22. On that day the gate of the Lebanese Panthéon opens. Our officials lay wreaths on the anniversary of Independence in 1943. The statue of Beshara el-Khoury is the only one among these statues of Independence leaders to be neglected. But the man was the first president of the Republic of Independence... Its first president deserves the respect due to a man of his stature. Once again, I urge respect to be shown to the man who was a sure presence safeguard the independence of the nation liberated from the traces of the mandate in the text of the Lebanese Constitution... an amendment which caused the arrest of Beshara el-Khoury and Riad Solh and their confinement in the Rashaya Citadel, to which they had been escorted by Senegalese soldiers. Senegal was a French colony before receiving its independence in 1960 and before an ephemeral union with Mali. The Senegalese entity came into being in 1890, when General Faidherbe occupied the interior of the country. Léopold Sédar Senghor was the first president of the independent Republic, as he was also a striking Francophone figure in the culture of "Man". Thus we see the relationship between Aimé Césaire, Beshara el-Khoury and Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Men are greater than statues, because it is the memory of them that imposes their construction. The recognition of their merit by the nation built the world Panthéon. Emir Fakhreddin el-Maani II's statue stands in front of the Lebanese Defense Ministry. He remains the beautiful face of a united Lebanon aspiring to ambitious frontiers... the frontiers of the Lebanese Republic followed the proclamation of "the State of Greater Lebanon".
Aimé Césaire was a man of confrontation. He spoke of imperialism with a word of liberation. And when it pleased a certain French party to speak well of imperialism, Césaire denounced the "law of shame", recalling the "train of shame" carrying French thinkers... like Robert Brasillach... to the headquarters of the Naxi governor during the occupation after July 14, 1940. This stage was considered the first chapter of the Second World War.
Imperialism... being a mentality of paternalism... persists even among partners. The presidency of the European Union has passed to the Hungarian president... which was not well received by the great ones of Europe. They thought it wrong that the presidency of Europe should go to a "non-European" who therefore had no right to assume the presidency of the Union of the twenty-seven. North America looks with a jaundiced eye the ascent of South America. And if the South American republics had been unified, the United States of South America could hold its head up in the face of the giant of the North.
Simon Bolivar tried to unify the southern continent. He liberated Venezuela and New Granada. His name was given to Upper Peru, which was named Bolivia. But he failed in his attempt at unification and the conference in Panama in 1826 was the conference of Bolivarian disappointment.
The North feels its priority and does not look kindly on the South. But 2010 was not the year of the northern West. 2010 called this West to an hour of meditation after repeated Western setbacks.
Nations emerged then which said no to the international community, such as the Turkish-Iranian-Brazilian grouping as well as the development race won by Asia after the Wall Street crash.
The West sees things rightly. But it closes its eyes and refuses to acknowledge its decadence, although recognition of decadence may sometimes be a constructive act on the path of recovery. America is afraid... yes, it is afraid of a man named Julian Assange. Because WikiLeaks has denuded occult diplomacy, making it open and showing its manifold scandals.
The American statements about the French president did not prevent Nicolas Sarkozy from embracing Franco-American complementarity, lending an ear to complaisant American tribute in order to efface what WikiLeaks had denounced. Lebanon was certainly present at the White House between Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy. But no white smoke emerged from the meeting of the duo, who were united in a marriage of reason, which brought about the fall of the Lebanese government, opening the door to all possibilities.
The international tribunal is still active, and its indictment is no less menacing to Lebanese security. As if a resolution of the Security Council is an unmovable international constant. In Sudan, the decision of the Security Council has been subjected to a compromise: the arrest warrant of General Prosecutor Ocampo against Omar al-Bashir will never be implemented, because Bashir said in Juba that he would recognize the new state of South Sudan so greatly desired by Washington.
That is why it is not acceptable to be told that justice instituted by the fiat of the Security Council is something untouchable. Let them rather tell us that the UN's judicial resolution has reached its political end in Sudan... We then understand that the UN's judicial resolution has been short-circuited by Lebanese politics.
Once more: it is not thus that international authorities respect their judges!
And once again: it is regrettable that international justice should accept being subjected to the diktat of international politics.
© Monday Morning 2011
