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From: tombre@crin.UUCP (Karl Tombre)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Il accuse...
Message-ID: <132@crin.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 09:20:34 EST
Article-I.D.: crin.132
Posted: Mon Oct 28 09:20:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 00:33:41 EST
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     I got several flames  after my entry about  Greenpeace. Well, I admit I
was perhaps not precise enough. I'll try better now.

     First, as  to the   fact that   waters and  soil in   Mururoa are   not
dangerously contaminated,  but rather   less radioactive  than many   common
places: I  read this  in one French newsmagazine, but unfortunately  I don't
remember if it was in "Le  Point" (center-right)  or "le Nouvel Observateur"
(leftist - rather socialist). These facts  were not based on some government
assertion,  but  on  a study conducted  by several scientists. If I remember
well, they  gave as   a reference the radioactivity   of the French city  of
Lille, which was much higher. Well,  perhaps it was not  Lille, but at least
one major  French city... Then of course you  are free to claim that this is
only government propaganda, but  please then let me  keep my  illusions that
France  is  not  like the Soviet  Union, that the  French  press  is not the
Pravda; in addition, you  cannot use  to its full extents the facts found by
the French media about the Rainbow Warrior affair and in the same time claim
that these media are entirely government controlled...

     Now to the main  argument. What  I wanted to say  is that there are  at
least two ways of  fighting for something you  think is right: you can speak
out, let  your ideas be known,  that is  fight on the intellectual level. In
this case, there is no reason  for those attacked to fight back  with deeds.
Of course, in many countries, you are detained and condemned for saying what
you mean; that is fortunately not the case for our western countries (NO, it
isn't... No   argument will be started with those  people who state that our
countries are  not better than say the Soviet Union, that it is all the same
and so on... Open your eyes, please...).

     The second  way of  fighting for  your ideas  is with deeds, with acts.
Here, I do not  want to   argue about who is right and  who is  wrong in the
Greenpeace affair; but it is obvious that the Greenpeace organization is not
only fighting with words: they wanted  to enter prohibited areas, and in the
past years they have done many things like blocking ports and so on. I don't
say that  their ideas are wrong, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to them
and  to  the  world  when  the  other side  fights back. As  an example, the
resistance fighters,  during  the  last world war, went  to  war against the
nazis; they were not  wrong in doing this, of course, but nevertheless, they
were  not surprised  when  the nazis  fought back... Well, they often fought
back  with  disproportioned force, as  can  certainly be  said of the French
action too, but the fact remains that acts are encountered with acts...

     Finally, I  want to give my   own opinion  about fighting for peace.  I
think that  the fact  that I  mixed these  personal views  with the argument
above in  the previous entry made  things a  bit difficult to understand, or
perhaps too  easy to  misunderstand. I    think that  if you  want to   make
something positive for peace, the only way is to be a man of peace yourself,
in your surroundings. I have often   expressed that I find a bit  ridiculous
that people who got  the Nobel prize for peace were not even able to live in
peace with  their own wife; I  know at least of one of them who has divorced
and remarried  twice or thrice. Let me also mention the women in England who
camped at an air base to  fight for peace, but they stayed there for so long
that some  of the husbands divorced...   Of course,  you could say that  you
cannot do enough by just staying in your own small surroundings; I think you
can, and that if  you have  got peace *inside* yourself,  if you are able to
live in  peace  with your family,  your neighbours,  your collegues at work,
then and only then you are a man or a woman of peace.

    Ladies and gentlemen, these were my views. The argument about Greenpeace
vs. France  can be flamed, but I don't  think you can flame somebody for his
opinion, at least not in our  countries. But I am open to  exchange of views
and disagreements; it is your right to disagree and to have another opinion,
I won't flame you for that. Therefore, *flames* about the previous paragraph
will   be  ignored, but  open-minded discussion   will  be accepted  without
hesitation.

-- 
--- Karl Tombre @ CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy)
UUCP:    ...!vmucnam!crin!tombre  or    ...!inria!crin!tombre
COSAC:   crin/tombre
POST:    Karl Tombre, CRIN, B.P. 239, 54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX, France

I have found peace with God and with all humans.