The following statement was provided by Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine imprisoned in French prisons for the past 36 years, to an anti-imperialist meeting convened online by the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, held on 15 January 2021. The statement below is republished from the original French:
Friday, 15 January 2021
Dear comrades, dear friends,
Allow me at the beginning of this short intervention to greet you all from behind these bars and, especially, to greet your call for the mobilization of the popular masses and their vanguard to better counter the recent developments on the borders of the country and throughout the region…
Certainly Algeria, our Algeria, retains a very special place in our hearts and our collective memory: This is the case throughout the Arab world and in quite a few African countries. Of course, we are no longer in the early 1970s, when Algiers was the Capital of the Third World, the flagship city of the Non-Aligned Movement; when revolutionaries from all over the world were welcomed there; which, at the time, made Amilcar Cabral say, “Christians go to the Vatican, Muslims to Mecca, and revolutionaries to Algiers.” However, after the devastation of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, it is the only Arab country that remains standing, although, as is the case for the others, it is a bourgeoisie of the state (of a particular type) which directs it. The Algerian popular masses, and behind them, all the Arab masses, even the martyred, will know how to stand up, as they have always taught us to do in the most difficult moments.
Quite naturally, we cannot ignore or underestimate the dangerousness and complexity of the situation, not only on the borders of the country, but also and above all throughout the Arab world. The capitulation of the Arab bourgeoisie in general and, more particularly, that of Saudi Arabia, the protectorates of the Gulf, and Morocco (not to mention others) and their unvarnished alignment with the Zionist camp always sharply accentuates the pressure on all of those who in one way or another resist the demands of the imperialists, especially American and European imperialism.
In the current political conditions, where the effects of the structural crisis which shakes the entire world system intertwine and interact, no geopolitical space, even the smallest, escapes these violent repercussions… It is clear, comrades, that nowadays, fulfilling national tasks and confronting the multiple factors which shake the foundations of various Arab entities, is more than ever conditioned upon the capacity of the popular masses and their vanguard to situate all of these factors within the framework of the global crisis of the world system. The latter is visible at all levels, all over the world.
Comrades, the more the crisis develops and the more “the power holders of globalized capital,” namely, the leaders of these imperialist states, these “officials of capital,” increase their interventions in the peripheries, increase their pressure on oppressed and subjugated peoples and sing praises about the bourgeois regimes in place. Recent developments in the region are more than enlightening in this regard. Certainly, there is room for other futures than submission to imperialist dictates whose harmful consequences can be seen at all times, in the form of the destruction of entire cities and the dismemberment of somewhat protesting states with processions of the dead, the displaced, and forced migration.
Certainly, the Algerian popular masses are fare more inclined to resistance than to submission to anyone, especially when it comes to a Zionist entity like the one that martyrs the Palestinian people and seeks by all means to destroy them for over a century… And of course, the Sahrawi people in the hearts of all those who fight for freedom and dignity cannot be left alone in the face of this dirty business of bargaining with such and such an imperialist power…
Comrades, certainly it is always according to your ability to counter this whole stratum of parasites who seek by all means in our countries to submit our whole existence to the interests of globalized capital, that our popular masses will be victorious.
Solidarity, all solidarity with the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples!
Down with imperialism and its Zionist agents!
Down with imperialism and its lackeys, all these Arab reactionaries!
Honor to the martyrs and to the struggling popular masses!
Capitalism is nothing more than barbarism; honor to all those who oppose it in the diversity of their commitment!
To all of you, my revolutionary greetings.
Your comrade, Georges Abdallah
