By Y.Cheraiou
Before a struggle for freedom becomes a path of peaceful struggle, it is first of all a path of conscience, conviction and responsibility.
This struggle is not the idea, the responsibility and the incarnation of a person or a few individuals. It is a process that needs time and commitment, not stealthy or superficial, but substantial, ever-changing membership.
In my opinion, these are the most objective criteria for achieving a favourable and hoped-for outcome.
An individual, or even several, can instil an idea, open march, show a course, change the fight, make it more legitimate with growing a membership.
The opposite, to create a dogma, “a providential authoritarianism”, would only mislead the fight, even if the idea of freedom remains clean and sufficiently shared by all.
The idea, which is set out above, is a set of intrinsic criteria which I am convinced are in fact essential.
To base the success of a quest for the freedom of a people only on its will, is insufficient in the absence of an international interest.
Thanks to new technology and various means of communication, the world has become like a small village. However, it is immense in terms of inequality of rights, in terms of injustice, and obvious indifference of the “Free people” against those who are still gagged.
The case of the Catalan, Kurdish and Kabyle populations are all examples of people’s willingness to liberate themselves. On the other hand, it is the juridically inexplicable obstinacy of the great powers to undermine the right of liberty for all the people of the world.
Obviously, the answer is to look to the strategic and geopolitical side.
In national law, any individual who feels aggrieved or endangered, shall benefit from the protection of justice for reparation or protection. This is indisputably fair.
Except, that in international law, it is quite another thing. A people in danger is denied their right for protection.
In this case, we can cite “the right of people to self-determination” provided for in international law.
A problem of law naturally arises: why does one people have the right to dispose of itself and not another? Why does the American people, as an example, have the right to decide its future, whilst the Catalan people does not? There exists a flagrant discrimination which should be non-existing. If we consider that the international law, with its rules, mechanisms and structures incarnated, i.e., by the United Nations, is intended to guarantee peace and justice in the world, then every people should have access to this justice which is normally intended.
It is clear, that this right is created “by the strong for the strong”. The strength of the great has transformed the rules that are yet made by man into a divine book, or any challenge is rejected and perceived as sacrilege.
In the current state of international law, I have the feeling that injustice is legalized by “legislating colonialism”, by which I mean, the formerly colonialism raged on people by the force of tanks, rifles and barbed wire. Today, it operates with rules and laws which are not adapted to the post-decolonization realities.
An injustice that should be challenged and be corrected as soon as possible.
Furthermore, as freedom at the national level is not the mission of an individual or a few, similar to the international level. To defend freedom with all that it entails as values must have the support of all the people who make up this world, whether they are free or aspire their freedom.
The challenge facing us today is not only to raise awareness of our people’s rights, but also to raise awareness among free people and states that consider themselves “democratic powers” to forge a new vision of peace and freedom in the world.
Y.CHERAIOU