Georges Abdallah’s statement to the Paris demonstration on 18 June 2022

The following message from Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine jailed in France since 1984, was delivered to the march in Paris on 18 June 2022. The march, commemorating the Day of Revolutionary Prisoners, called for the liberation of Abdallah.

The film “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight” addresses the life and struggle of the longest-held political prisoner in Europe. It is available with appropriate subtitles in French, Arabic, English, German, Turkish, Italian, Catalan and Castilian Spanish. If you want to show Fedayin in your area, email us at samidoun@samidoun.net and contact the directors at vacarmesfilms@gmail.com. We will help you to get your screening organized, and the directors are available to attend your events in person or to join your in-person events via video link.

Dear Comrades, Dear Friends,

In this time of crises, war and great struggles, knowing that you are mobilized today, as every year, to commemorate the “International Day of the Revolutionary Prisoner” in the streets fills me with strength and warms my heart too. Your mobilization, Comrades, in the diversity of your commitment, is more than invigorating for those who, for so many years, have expressed themselves mainly from behind bars.

How can we not wonder, Comrades, in this time of global crisis of globalized capitalism and the exacerbation of all its contradictions, if there is not a need to give a more ambitious horizon to the “International Day of the Revolutionary Prisoner!” Perhaps it would be necessary to affirm on this occasion that it is no longer just a question of expressing unwavering solidarity with the Comrades imprisoned in Zionist jails or in Fascist jails in Turkey or elsewhere in the world; that it is no longer just a matter of supporting their just demands with all our might and thereby saluting the ongoing mobilization around the “hunger” strike of our two dear Comrades Khalil Awawdeh and Raed Rayan or our two other dear Comrades Sibel Balaç and Gökhan Yıldırım. Perhaps it would be time to affirm that the celebration of the “International Day of the Revolutionary Prisoner” is henceforth intended, above all else, to challenge and encourage the living forces of the revolution and its fighting vanguards, so that they implement all the necessary measures for the practical expression of their firm determination to rescue our comrades from the claws of their criminal jailers. Of course, Comrades, it is not a question here of affirming loudly and clearly any duty of a moral nature towards our captive Comrades, it is quite simply a question of combining the capacities of the revolutionary forces (at the national, regional and international levels ) and to register in the first priority the liberation of our Comrades, in the global dynamics of the struggles currently taking place.

Indeed, let us remember, Comrades, that on several occasions in the not so distant past, the vanguards of the Palestinian revolutionary struggle took on this task with great courage and abnegation, forcing the enemy to liberate thousands of captive comrades. Certainly the release of revolutionary prisoners has always been a moment of great popular enthusiasm and has always nourished and consolidated the bonds of solidarity on an international scale and thereby participated, in the most significant way, in the influence of the Palestinian revolution, and to the enrichment of the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist struggle, both at the national and regional level andt therefore at the international level.

As you can see Comrades, the inter-imperialist contradictions come to the forefront of the international scene these days. There is nothing to suggest that they will subside anytime soon. Against the background of the global crisis of the globalized capitalist system, these contradictions are destined to become more and more exacerbated and to spread on a planetary level. It is clear that the loss of hegemony of US imperialism at the world level pushes it in a headlong rush towards more aggressiveness vis-à-vis the other imperialist poles and above all towards more criminal hostility towards lives in independent states that are somewhat rebellious for its taste…

Quite naturally imperialist propaganda is in full swing these days. And it seems useless to dwell at length on the pseudo-arguments as to the wicked aggressors and the poor attacked…

Comrades, the inter-imperialist contradictions which are expressed in Europe at the moment remind us all, that in the space of a century, capitalism is throwing humanity on the brink of a world war for the third time… The crisis of this moribund capitalism in its phase of advanced putrefaction is the crisis of truly existing globalized capitalism. There is no way out of the crisis within the framework of capitalism. We can never repeat it enough: war is inscribed in the genetic code of capital. Globalized capitalism is the capitalism that really exists today and the agony of this world will only end in the overthrow of capitalism towards communism.

Comrades, certainly there is room for other futures than submission to the criminal dictates of moribund capitalism and the barbarity of its imperialist and inter-imperialist wars.

The conditions of detention in Zionist jails are getting worse day by day. And as you know Comrades, to confront it, international solidarity proves to be an indispensable weapon…

Quite naturally, the Palestinian popular masses and their revolutionary vanguards can always count on your mobilization and your active solidarity.

Administrative detention must not be ignored. Together Comrades let us denounce and fight these barbaric Zionist crimes!

The detention of the bodies of activists who died in prison is an outrage. Let’s denounce it and fight it by all available means!

May a thousand solidarity initiatives flourish in favor of Palestine and its promising Resistance!

May a thousand solidarity initiatives flourish in favor of Palestinian Flowers and Cubs!

Solidarity, all solidarity with the resistance fighters in Zionist jails, and in solitary confinement cells in Morocco, Turkey, Greece and the Philippines and elsewhere around the world!

Solidarity, all solidarity with the young proletarians of the popular neighborhoods!

Honor to the Martyrs and to the popular masses in struggle!

Down with imperialism and its Zionist watchdogs and other Arab reactionaries!

Capitalism is nothing but barbarism, honor to all those who oppose it in the diversity of their expressions!

Together Comrades, and only together will we win!

Palestine will live and Palestine will certainly win.

To all of you Comrades and Friends my revolutionary greetings

Your Comrade Georges Abdallah