A Gandhi-King prize for Mr. Ferhat Mehenni

With the development of computing and the entry of the Net into many homes of the world, now the globe has become a giant screen where the noble actions of humans and the inhuman behavior of states scroll. No more state can assassinate behind closed doors and humiliate a people claiming their rights and equal dignity. Images of human abuse are violence against billions of connected human beings.

The President of the Anavad (Provisional Government of Kabylia) and through him, the Kabyle people, deserves the Gandhi-Luther King Prize for Non-Violence. The outright rejection of Mr. Ferhat Mehenni of any appeal to violence and his pacifist philosophy embody the straightforwardness of the two famous figures for whom the prize is named. And, in fact, a worthy heir. Educated to the philosophy of his people, he set up nonviolence as a sacred imperative and committed in the political struggle with an unwavering conviction to decolonize his Nation exclusively by means of the arguments of peace, of justice, those of intelligence and Law. On the basis of this humanist approach and a historical observation, he worked out a political thought and an ethic of liberation, centered on pacifism, reason, international law and the Kabyle awareness.

The birth of the M.A.K (Movement for Self-determination of Kabylia) crystallized the Kabyle intelligences. Straight away, the first liberation to which the movement was buckled down was psychological, that is to say, the Kabyle awareness that they constitute a people with a heritage that takes roots at the origins of human History. This step was the prime condition to start the mental decolonization. It has produced in the minds of the Kabyles an awakening which is similar to an intellectual and historical revolution leading to an awareness of their status as colonized people since 1857.

Since then, the Kabyle people have been leading a secular, humanist struggle against the subjection of their identity to the segregationist laws, the survival of a conception of inter-human relations that has spread distress throughout centuries. And, unfortunately, still contributes to trigger loads of terrible conflicts. A nonviolent struggle, nevertheless, led by a position of determined protest against the antidemocratic laws of a colonial State which turns its back on History as a whole in order to better falsify it and disregard the pacifist values in order to better trample them.

Determined, aware of their rights. Nothing would divert them from the way they have taken to reach their goal. The police suppression against pacifist activists reinforces their conviction. The administrative harassments against the entrepreneurs in order to ruin the Kabyle economy is increasingly motivating the solidarity of the diaspora. The evil laws which take advantage of the power conferred by the dictatorial power to use suppression draw the attention of the international institutions which tolerate less and less the demonstrations of violence and denial of human rights which are prejudicial to the democratic and humanist values as well.

The non-violence embodied by Mr. President of Kabylia, is not a rejection of conflict because of a weakness in spirit or lack of courage that is not revealed. The irreducible rejection to resort to an armed violence and subject the Kabyle Nation to a ferocious suppression falls within the Anavad project of society. A state, peace, justice and democracy do not necessarily have to be built on the smoldering ashes of a war and bloodshed on the battlefield. To peacefully decolonize and found a perfect democracy does not only involve the future of Kabylia, but takes part in the future of humanity as well.

The Kabyle people offer the example of a fight against the colonial rule without bloodshed with war weapons, except those used by their colonizer to suppress them, particularly during the massacre perpetrated in 2001. This people, loving justice and freedom are aware that the impact of the pacifist liberation of their Nation on history will be tremendous and will play a considerable role in the evolutionary process that is taking place on our globe. They are aware of their duty towards humanity and their fight will make them step further on the way of peace, which will allow to consider the resolution of the emancipation struggles under a different perspective from that of weapons.

Finally, beyond the comprehension of the global issues, the Kabyle people know perfectly the mechanisms and the ramifications which guide the colonizer character. Which, undermined by a political and endemic, pyramidal and economic corruption. Frozen in a rhetoric focused on a political discourse of which basis belongs to a former age. Economically maintained under perfusion by the mining wealth of the peoples of the South.

Conditioned by an institutionalized anti-Kabyle racism. It is allergic to international legal rules when they have to be applied to the Kabyle people. Particularly, the universal principle of the right of peoples to self-determination. This right signed by Algeria and besides, it claims it for other peoples, states that «all peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of this right, they freely decide on their political status and freely ensure their economic, social and cultural development ».

Kabylia will become a State
Rest in peace Dda Lwenas. Rest in peace martyrs of Kabylia.

Firmus. Un prix Gandi-King pour Ferhat Menni

Translated from French by Muhend u Rezqi