Workers Solidarity Movement

Defending Free Speech in France Does not Stop with the Mainstream Press - Support Saïdou and Said Bouamama

(Translation of article from Alternative Libertaire)

On January 20, 2015, the rapper Saïdou and Bouamama Said, a sociologist and activist, will appear before a Paris Court, following an investigation for "public insult" and "incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence" on foot of a complaint from a far right organisation.

Saïdou, lead singer of popular expression Area (PTA), and Said Bouamama, sociologist and activist, are being sued for "public insult" and "incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence "by the General Alliance against Racism and for the defense of the French and Christian Identity (Agrif), following the release of their book and album "Fuck France. Duty insolence".

We can only agree fully with the words of the song into question: 

"Fuck France and its past colonial 
Its smells, hints and paternalistic reflexes 
Fuck France and its imperialist history 
Its walls, ramparts and capitalist delusions. »

The complaint was filed in October simultaneously with the controversy launched by Cope's book about the "anti-white racism". The concept is not new: Frantz Fanon spoke of it as a weapon against the claims of the colonised.

This attack illustrates the injunctions to silence that are made against the children of immigrants. Said Bouamama asks "Why does Michel have the right to insult the flag and not Mohamed? "By understanding this as" anti-white racism "the fact of insulting France, the fascists of Agrif just want to say that being French is to be white!

The fight back is on, a petition has quickly been uploaded with the aim to reach 100,000 signatures by February and a national support campaign is growing - "antiracist insolence of Duty" - including Alternative Libertaire as a signatory.

We must fight the injunction to silence, or what the immigration sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad called the injunction to politeness against immigrants. This was the objective of Saïdou and Bouamama and the trial illustrates the fate of those who refuse to comply with the injunction to politeness.

Thank you Madam France! Well no, there is no thank you for discrimination, police brutality, poverty, insecurity, and colonial crimes of yesterday and today. With this trial comes the criminalisation of a call for equality.

Alternative Libertaire demands the abandonment of legal proceedings against these two comrades, supports the anti-racist campaign "Duty insolence" and calls for investment there. Refuse to be silent! Their speech is expressed in all their radicalism!

Alternative Libertaire, January 5, 2015

(This is a translation of an article from the website of the Anarchist organisation Alternative Libertaire - there are a couple of sentences that I was unable to translate removed. The original can be found here:http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Soutien-a-Saidou-et-Said-Bouamama You can also read AL's statement on the Charlie Hebdo killings here:http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Charlie-Hebdo-la-tristesse-et-la - the google translate version is a bit sketchy)