The following statement from Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese Communist struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for over 35 years, was read in Paris on 12 September 2020 as part of the solidarity evening organized by the Unified Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Abdallah. Issued from Lannemezan prison, where Georges Abdallah remains jailed despite being eligible for release since 1999, the letter calls for greater mobilization to confront imperialism and reactionary regimes.
The event was organized and the letter issued in the lead-up to a month of action for the liberation of Georges Abdallah, including the 24 October mass rally and march from the Lannemezan train station to the prison, to demand his liberation.
The letter text follows below (original in French here):
Dear comrades, dear friends,
In these times of crises, catastrophes and great struggles, your gathering this evening fills me with strength and warms my heart as well.
Certainly, neither the great displays of compassion with neocolonial overtones, nor the strategy of tension with staggering catastrophes, nor the “civilized” repression with sting-ball grenades and even less the brutal repression and assassinations of demonstrators could put an end to the ongoing mobilization of the popular masses all over the world.
With or without a pandemic, blockade coupled with intermittent bombardments in Gaza, and almost daily roundups in the early mornings in the West Bank and elsewhere, the struggle continues in all its forms and asserts itself with ever more determination and self-sacrifice.
Despite media hype, disinformation and other manipulations, nothing changes, and the crisis of the system is of such magnitude that the popular masses from one country to another are pushed to burst onto the front of the political scene. Unable to remain indifferent to the worsening of their precarious conditions of existence, they come out of their torpor, as if by magic, and demand accountability from those who believed themselves untouchable. And suddenly a new era begins to form and take shape before our eyes and so many hopes are beginning to emerge on the horizon.
In the countries of the southern rim of the Mediterranean, the protest continues to spread and flourish in quasi-insurrectional uprisings of a particular type. However, the diversity of expressions of the current struggle, as well as the enthusiasm and the obvious determination of certain fractions of the popular masses, cannot make us forget the real contradictions within the movement. The stratification of the class and its structural weakness, the generalization of existential insecurity, and above all the extent of informal work on a global scale and especially in the countries of the South, mean that the petty bourgeoisie and its various proposals have a considerable weight at all levels and not only at the level of the political leadership of the movement. This gives quite a lot of space for the manipulation of the imperialist forces and their reactionary watchdogs.
Nevertheless, it is only together, and only together, that the proletarians and the various components of the popular masses will win.
Certainly, it is a long journey full of pitfalls and contradictions and, above all, ideological struggle. We know for a fact that the various social movements that are taking center stage these days can only win if they manage to get rid of the dross of the bourgeoisie. And it is then and only then that the “revolutionary social bloc” will fulfill its task as Subject of History.
It is in the process of the struggle that the identity of the class is constructed and that its political role becomes clearer. We must never lose sight of the fact that the historical bloc of workers is being built and structured in the global dynamics of the struggle in all its components.
This is why Comrades, we are called to always do what is necessary to promote the various processes of convergence of struggles, at the local level as well as at the regional level and even more so at the international level.
As you can see Comrades, the Arab bourgeoisie, for the most part, is now showing its unvarnished alignment with the enemy camp. This does not fail, on the one hand, to influence the struggle of the Palestinian popular masses and, on the other hand, to affirm the special place of the Palestinian cause as one of the main levers of the Arab revolution. And obviously, the struggle within the social bloc of the revolution should put an end to the procrastination and other compromises of the bourgeoisie in order to be able to confront all the “liquidationist” proposals. The Palestinian Resistance has and will have to confront the “reactionary Arab-Zionist bloc” led by the imperialist powers.
Quite naturally in Lebanon, the Resistance, this historic achievement, is the red line that we must imperatively keep as a marker of what is progressive and revolutionary and of what is not. Any claim that does not fit with the affirmation and and development of the Resistance can only be condemned. Gouraud’s Lebanon is dead. It remains to build ours, which is combined in its Arab horizon with the liberation of Palestine on the basis of the consolidation and the generalization of the Resistance that overcame the occupation and thwarted the Zionist aggression of 2006.
May a thousand solidarity initiatives flourish in favor of Palestine and its promising Resistance!
Solidarity, all solidarity with the resistance fighters in Zionist jails and in isolation cells in Morocco, Turkey, Greece, the Philippines and elsewhere around the world!
Solidarity, all solidarity with young proletarians from working-class neighborhoods!
Solidarity, all solidarity with the struggling proletarians!
Honor to the Yemeni popular masses in struggle against the imperialist forces!
Down with imperialism and its Zionist watchdogs and other Arab reactionaries!
Capitalism is nothing more than barbarism, honor to all those who oppose it in the diversity of their expressions!
Together Comrades, it is only together that we will win!
To all of you, Comrades and Friends, my warmest revolutionary greetings.
Your Comrade Georges Abdallah.
