The only dangerous enemy of the people
"The people has only one dangerous enemy. Its government ", said Antoine of Saint Just, the theorist of
terror during the French Revolution. Saint-Just is the one who opposed the Constitution he conceived
and wrote himself.
Since the government's role is ensuring the security of the people, in addition to its commitment to also
ensure the people's wellbeing, theoretically the people should not any more have any dangerous enemy.
When insecurity develops within the society, it is the responsibility of the government to get rid of it. A
government that would miss with such a duty is dangerous for its people.
The government also has the role of protecting the people against all external dangers, such as attacks
coming from other nations. To cope with those dangers, the government is entitled to the monopoly of
violence and has an army and other armed bodies, in addition to the secret services.
The terrorist attacks perpetrated on September 11, 2002, which made thousands of American civilian
victims, are a confirmation of the fact that the only dangerous enemy of the people is its government. Not
only the American security services had failed in their duty of protecting the people, by appearing unable
to anticipating and discovering the planning of the terrorist attacks, moreover announced by the Philipines'
terrorist networks of the since 1995, but especially the terrorists justified their macabre acts as being a
revenge against the American government's foriegn policy.
They advanced that the positioning of American armed troops (especially on the "Holy Land" of Saudi
Arabia) as well as the support of the United States for Israel are among the main reasons advanced.
Thus, the American administration's decisions to position its troops in foreign countries - similar to their
often blind support to the Zionist state of Israel which occupies the Palestinian territory - had cost
thousands of lives of civilians and first-aid workers on September 11, without accounting for the many
other American victims of other similar attacks.
One can rightly doubt the security argument of the "American interests" generally advanced by the White
House to justify the presence of American troops in the Gulf and elsewhere. The oil interests are the
principal reason set forth. But do all the countries which have significant commercial interests in several
locations throughout the world maintain as many military troops to protect such interests as the US? The
answer is No, and it is understood that the American administration simply remains inseparable from a
costly vision which wants the United States to being regarded and feared as the gendarme of the world.
When we remember the Bush administration's attitude of contempt vis-à-vis the conference of the United
Nations against racism held in South Africa one week before these terrorist attacks, thus refusing to
recognize that the Zionism is a racist ideology, we may understand that the government had easily lent
arguments to Al Quaida.
Another observation is that an anti-American feeling is spreading throughout the world, at the very time
when the American administration is obstinate to going in war against Iraq. This negative feeling had been
exacerbated by George W. Bush's intransigent positions against international ecological conventions
(such as the conference of Kyoto) from the very start of his mandate. Moreover the United States is
sometimes perceived as a model of unpleasant inconstancy with regards to its foreign politics. Every four
years indeed, when the tenant of the White House is not maintained, the American policy must change
literally. After Clinton, who managed a fashion to cool the disastrous desire of both Israeli extremists and
Palestinian terrorists to massacre the foe people next door, George W Bush came out with the hard line
of a blind support for Israel and of finishing a war started by his father George Bush.
It is certain that after the war against Iraq the anti-American feeling will grow even more within the Arab
world and will legitimate the Al-Quaeda's terrorist methods of "holy" war in much of consciences
throughout the world. Thus the decisions taken by the White House will reveal themselves, once again, as
the only dangerous enemy of the American people.
Ndzana Seme
-02/15/2003 Original article in French
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