The Revolution comes to Kanaky, as France moves to reclaim her former colony by granting voting rights to her own citizens at the expense of self-rule by the indigenous Kanak people, who are resisting first with protest, and now with fire and fury in direct action and anticolonial struggle.
Fire catches.
In Kanaky, Haiti, West Papua, East Timor, Palestine and Israel, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Philippine Islands, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Kashmir and India, and allied movements in Russia and the many theatres of her imperial conquest and dominion in World War Three including Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Africa, and the Dominion of Iran which includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, the fires of liberation struggle rage and consume the legacies of our history in unequal power and systems of oppression. And the Revolution is not only ongoing in all of these nations, but among them as well, for all are members of networks of alliance which will one day transform our world as a United Humankind.
Guillermo del Toro, in his magnificent epic of migration and racial equality Carnival Row, has a scene in which two young successors to leadership of traditionally rival factions find themselves in love and in need of allies in a subplot which reimages Romeo and Juliet; the rebellious hellion Jonah Breakspear asks his Machiavellian lover Sophie Longerbane, “Who is chaos good for?” To which she replies, “Chaos is good for us. Chaos is the great hope of the powerless.”
Let us bring the Chaos.
As written by Julien Mazzoni in The Guardian, in an article entitled ‘We will fight until Kanaky is free’: how New Caledonia caught fire: The frustration that erupted into deadly violence in the French territory last week has been building for years; “In the middle of the main road in Rivière-Salée, north of Nouméa, sits a burnt-out car. After days of rioting, young men with masked faces wave a Kanak flag as vehicles pass. All around is desolation. Shops with gutted fronts, burnt buildings, debris on the pavements and roads. Gangs of young people roam the area.
The violence that erupted last week is the worst in New Caledonia since unrest involving independence activists gripped the French Pacific territory in the 1980s.
Anger over France’s plan to impose new voting rules swelled in the archipelago of 270,000 people. The plan would expand the right of French residents living in New Caledonia to vote provincial elections, which some fear would dilute the indigenous Kanak vote. Kanaks make up about 40% of the population.
The images flooding out of Nouméa have been alarming: black smoke billowing above the capital as cars, shops and buildings were set alight. Rioters angry with the electoral change have also set up road barricades, cutting off access to medicine and food. On 15 May, a state of emergency was declared for 12 days and a nationwide curfew remains in place.
Hundreds of military and armed police have been deployed to restore order and keep the peace. As of Friday, five had been killed, including two police officers. The three other people were Kanaks.
On Friday, local authorities said the situation was “calmer”, after hundreds more French marines began arriving.
However, despite appeals for calm from political groups – in particular, the pro-independence parties most angered by the planned voting change – unrest has continued to be reported.
“We don’t want to let our people disappear, we’ll fight until Kanaky is free,” say two rioters, who did not want to be named. They stood near a roundabout in the New Caledonia capital, Noumea, as a vehicle burned.
The men, aged in their 20s, clash with police but say they hold back from vandalism.
“We don’t loot the shops, we try to tell the younger brothers not to do that, not to set fires, but they don’t listen to anyone any more,” one says.
In the southern districts of the city, where mostly Europeans live, fear dominates. People have organised themselves into collectives and set up barricades to defend their homes. Many have guns.
Jérôme’s family has lived in New Caledonia for several generations. He lives in the Sainte-Marie district and is married to a Kanak woman. He says his heart is broken.
“The neighbours have gone mad, they’re armed and ready to shoot, and I’m trying to calm them down. How are we going to get back together after that?” he says.
The frustration that erupted into deadly violence this week has been building for years. The proposed change to electoral law marks the latest flashpoint in long-running tensions over France’s role in the island.
Although New Caledonia has on three occasions rejected independence in referendums, the cause retains strong support among the Kanak people, whose ancestors have lived on the islands for thousands of years. The third referendum, held in 2021, remains contested by pro-independence groups, who had sought to postpone the vote due to the Covid crisis. It nevertheless went ahead and was boycotted by independence groups. This has contributed to rising discontent ever since.
Colonised by France in the second half of the 19th century, New Caledonia has special status with some local powers that have been transferred from Paris.
French lawmakers this week pushed forward plans to allow outsiders who moved to New Caledonia at least 10 years ago to vote in the territory’s elections. Pro-independence forces say that would weaken the Kanak vote.
The proposal must still be approved by both houses of the French parliament later this year. The president, Emmanuel Macron, has said French lawmakers will vote to adopt the constitutional change by the end of June, unless New Caledonia’s opposing sides can strike a new deal.
Opposition to the voting changes within the French territory has been building for months. The Field Action Co-ordination Cell (CCAT) created last November has been driving the protest movement. It is an offshoot of Union Calédonienne, the radical fringe of the pro-independence FLNKS party.
Fiercely opposed to the French interior minister Gérald Darmanin’s proposed constitutional reform that aims to enlarge the electorate – and disappointed by the inability of pro-independence politicians to make their voices heard – it has been mobilising young people in working-class neighbourhoods for several months.
When the CCAT called for people to mobilise against the electoral law change in April, tens of thousands of people – including many young people – flocked from across the territory to march through the streets of Nouméa.
In a country marked by inequality, where much of the population is young, the message is appealing. New Caledonia has mineral resources – it is one of the world’s largest nickel producers – but wealth is spread unevenly.
Despite attempts to reduce gaps in equality and improve access to employment, Kanak people remain under-represented in positions of power and responsibility.
Kanak people typically have lower levels of education than non-indigenous Caledonians. They are also make up large numbers of the prison population – which has helped fuel a sense of frustration, particularly among young Kanaks living in urban areas.
France’s justice minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has called on prosecutors to “take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators of the violence”, while a local business group estimated the damage, concentrated around Noumea, at €200m.
Thierry de Greslan, a representative from the hospital in Noumea, said he was predominantly concerned for his patients amid the deteriorating situation.
“We estimate that three or four people may have died due to lack of access to medical care,” he said, adding that there was a difficulty getting patients and healthcare works to the facility due to road blocks.
With the hospital’s operating rooms running around the clock and his staff prepared for any crisis, De Greslan said his concern was for future.
“We are in an urban guerrilla situation with nightly gunshot wounds,” he said. “We are ready to face this.”
As written in The Guardian in an article entitled Why is there unrest in New Caledonia? Everything you need to know: Deadly riots spiralled into wider crisis over constitutional voting changes to increase number of French nationals eligible to vote in Pacific territory; Deadly violence has paralysed New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the South Pacific, for more than a week after lawmakers in Paris approved a constitutional amendment to allow recent arrivals to the territory to vote in provincial elections.
The amendment, which some local leaders fear will dilute the vote of the Indigenous Kanak people, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long tussle over France’s role in the island.
At least six people have died in the protests, which has prompted authorities to shut the international airport and schools and impose a curfew in the capital, Nouméa, where businesses and vehicles have been set alight.
France has launched a major security operation in a bid to quell the violence, and this week Australia and New Zealand are sending government planes to evacuate their nationals.
Where is New Caledonia?
Located in the warm waters of the south-west Pacific, 930 miles (1,500km) east of Australia, New Caledonia is home to 270,000 people, 41% of whom are Melanesian Kanaks and 24% of European origin, mostly French.
The archipelago was named by the British explorer Capt James Cook in 1774. It was annexed by France in 1853 and was used as a penal colony until shortly before the turn of the 20th century.
Why does it matter to France?
New Caledonia, one of five island territories spanning the Indo-Pacific held by France, is central to Emmanuel Macron’s plan to increase French influence in the Pacific.
The world’s No 3 nickel producer, New Caledonia lies at the heart of a geopolitically complex maritime region, where China and the US are jostling for power and influence in security and trade. Without naming China, the French president has previously said France’s drive to expand its influence in the Pacific was to ensure a “rules-based development”.
What is its history with France?
After France’s colonisation in the 19th century, New Caledonia officially became a French overseas territory in 1946. Starting in the 1970s, after a nickel boom that drew outsiders, tensions rose on the island, with various conflicts between Paris and Kanak independence movements.
A 1998 Nouméa accord helped end the conflict by outlining a path to gradual autonomy and restricting voting to the Kanak and migrants living in New Caledonia before 1998. The accord allowed for three referendums to determine the future of the country. In all three, independence was rejected.
Why have tensions exploded recently?
Under the terms of the Nouméa accord, voting in provincial elections was restricted to people who had resided in New Caledonia before 1998, and their children. The measure was aimed at giving greater representation to the Kanaks, who had become a minority population.
Paris has come to view the arrangement as undemocratic, and lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment to open up the electorate to include people who have lived in New Caledonia for at least 10 years.
Macron has said he would delay rubber-stamping it into law and invite representatives of the territory’s population to Paris for talks to reach a negotiated settlement. However, he said a new agreement must be reached by June or he would sign it into law.”
In the glorious struggle for liberation, one must begin by Bringing the Chaos and becoming ungovernable to create the conditions for change. And as I have written often, all Resistance is war to the knife, for those who would enslave us and who respect no laws and no limits may hide behind none.
As written by Helen Livingstone in The Guardian, in an article entitled Like a ‘civil war’: Nouméa residents describe terror as deadly riots sweep New Caledonia capital: Some locals say they have been too scared to leave their homes as protests over changes to the voting law grew into deadly riots; “Lizzie Carboni knew that life in New Caledonia had changed forever when the school she had attended as a child went up in flames on Wednesday night.
“I could hear people yelling, screaming and grenades being fired,” she says, adding that it was “the worst night of my life” and likening the scenes unfolding in the capital, Nouméa, to “civil war”.
Carboni lives in the residential neighbourhood of Portes de Fer and has watched as waves of violence have gripped the country this week, and protests over changes to a voting law grew into riots.
Now, armoured vehicles patrol the streets of the city, and locals describe being afraid to leave their homes.
Burnt detritus amassed over four days of unrest is scattered on Nouméa’s palm-lined major thoroughfares, which are usually thronged with tourists. Fist-size chunks of rock and cement that appeared to have been flung during riots lie on the ground.
In the wake of the violence, Paris has deployed troops to the French territory’s ports and international airport, banned TikTok and imposed a state of emergency. Four people, including a police officer, have died in the clashes and hundreds have been wounded.
Carboni, a freelance journalist, is horrified.
“We have bags ready if we need to leave our home for whatever reason,” she says, adding that local supermarkets had been looted and that she and her family were relying on the food they had remaining in their pantry. “We were, and are still, terrified by what’s happening.
“Life will never be the same from now on. It will take months and months to rebuild everything, if it can be done at all,” she says.
Speaking to broadcaster France Info on Wednesday, Anne Clément, another Nouméa resident, hailed security forces reinforcements, saying the unrest had morphed into “a real urban guerrilla war”.
People have been confined to their homes, terrified by “shooting from all sides”, Clément, a nursery director, told the broadcaster. “We’ve stopped eating, we’ve stopped living, we’ve stopped sleeping,” she added. “I don’t see how we could get out of the situation without the state of emergency.”
Another resident, Yoan Fleurot, told Reuters in a Zoom interview that he was staying at home out of respect for the nightly curfew and was very scared for his family.
“I don’t see how my country can recover after this”, Fleurot said.
Residents in some neighbourhoods strung up improvised white flags, a symbol of their intention to keep peaceful watch over the streets.
French broadcaster La Première posted footage on Twitter showing a supermarket in the town of Dumbéa, next to the capital, which it said had been looted on Wednesday night. Elsewhere, residents formed queues outside petrol stations and supermarkets in a bid to find supplies.
One woman said she felt she had been forced to take food from shops. “We just grabbed what there was in the shops to eat. Soon there will be no more shops,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We need milk for the children. I don’t see it as looting,” she told AFP.
The pro-independence, largely Indigenous protests were sparked by planned changes to voting laws that will allow more long-term French residents of the islands to vote in local elections. The move has sparked fears among the indigenous Kanak population that their influence will be further diluted.
The protests turned violent this week as the bill was voted on in the French parliament. The reforms must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament.
“A few days ago, we were going out, sitting at cafes, laughing together but in just a few hours, everything changed,” Carboni says.
“The future is uncertain for everybody. What will tomorrow be like?”
Where Revolution blossoms, forces of reaction follow. As written in The Guardian in an article entitled French forces launch ‘major operation’ in New Caledonia, as unrest claims another life; Operation will aim to retake road linking airport with Noumea, as the capital’s mayor says the situation is ‘not improving’; “French forces have launched a “major operation” to regain control of a road linking New Caledonia’s capital Noumea to the main international airport, as another person was killed in a sixth night of violent unrest.
Officials said more than 600 heavily armed gendarmes were dispatched to secure Route Territoriale 1, the main road connecting the capital with the airport. Flights to and from New Caledonia’s main island have been cancelled since the unrest began, stranding travellers and cutting off trade routes.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin said “a major operation of more than 600 gendarmes” was being launched “aimed at completely regaining control of the 60 kilometre main road” and allowing the airport to reopen.
On Saturday, Noumea’s mayor, Sonia Lagarde, said that while overnight violence has eased somewhat, thanks to a 6pm to 6am curfew, “we are far from a return to normal.”
“The situation is not improving – quite the contrary – despite all the appeals for calm,” she said, describing Noumea as “under siege.”
“The damage is incredible … It’s a spectacle of desolation.”
For almost a week, the usually calm oceanside city has been convulsed with violence.
On Saturday, a sixth person was killed, after an exchange of fire at one of the many impromptu barricades blocking roads on the island, a security official told the AP news agency. Two other people were seriously injured in the clash, French media reported.
Two gendarmes and three other people, Indigenous Kanaks, have also been killed.
The unrest has been blamed on economic malaise, social tensions and – above all – a political fight between mostly Indigenous pro-independence activists and Paris authorities.
Unrest broke out on Monday, sparked by plans in Paris to impose new voting rules that could give tens of thousands of non-Indigenous residents voting rights. Pro-independence groups say that would dilute the vote of Indigenous Kanaks, who make up about 40% of the population.
Despite the state of emergency imposed on the territory by the government in Paris – as well as hundreds of reinforcements for security services – residents say violence continues to make venturing out dangerous.
AFP reporters in the city’s Magenta district saw vehicles and buildings torched, with riot police on the scene trying to reassert control. Overnight on Friday, residents reported hearing gunfire, helicopters and “massive explosions” – which were reportedly caused by gas canisters blowing up inside a burning building.
Hundreds of heavily armed French soldiers and police patrolled the debris-filled streets of Noumea on Saturday.
The violence has prompted French prime minister Gabriel Attal to take New Caledonia off the globe-trotting itinerary of the Olympic torch slowly making its way to Paris for the 26 July opening ceremony of the Paris Games.
A local business group estimated the damage from the unrest, concentrated around Noumea, at 200m euros, but the damage to the islands’ reputation may cost even more.
Tourism is one of New Caledonia most profitable sectors, but an estimated 3,200 tourists and other travellers have been stranded inside or outside the archipelago by the closure of Noumea’s international airport.
One Australian family stranded in the capital told the Reuters news agency that they were rationing food as they waited for a way out of the Pacific island territory.
“The kids are definitely hungry because we don’t really have much option of what we can feed them,” Joanne Elias told Reuters by phone.
Elias, who has been in the territory since 10 May with her husband and four children, said she had been told to fill a bathtub in case water ran out, as food stocks dwindled.
“We don’t know how long we’re going to be here for,” she said, adding that her family was among about 30 Australians stuck at a local resort.
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said Canberra was “working with authorities in France and New Caledonia, and like-minded partners including New Zealand, to assess options for Australians to safely depart”.
Aircalin plans to resume flights on Tuesday when Tontouta airport is expected to reopen, while Air Caledonie has no flights planned for the time being, the airlines said.
The New Caledonia government said on Friday the island had stocks of food for two months, but the problem was distribution.
Operations to supply food and medicine to the public will begin with teams including specialists in mine-clearing removing road barricades booby-trapped by activists, French officials have said.”
The people of Kanaky will not sell their liberty for your glass beads, Macron, nor do I believe the people of France will allow their government to do so, nor to dispatch armies to steal the hope of liberty from others. There are reasons why, when asked to identify my political ideology, I claim to be a Jacobin.
When I describe and think of myself as a Jacobin in terms of political identity, I am thinking of the relationship between Robespierre and de Sade as negative spaces of each other as dramatized in the great play Marat/Sade, and of systemic unequal power as the origin of evil and the Wagnerian Ring of fear, power, and force which subverts revolutionary seizures of power as tyranny.
How if the soldiers sent to repress dissent and terrorize free people into submission to a fallen colonial empire which the hegemonic elites of France would very much like to refound instead join with them in solidarity? How if the citizens of France call a General Strike and seize the streets of Paris until the sovereignty and independence of the Kanak people are recognized?
Here in Kanaky, where the echoes and reflections of Algeria and Vietnam find new and terrible forms, we will see if France still remains the land of Liberté, égalité, and fraternité.
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort!
Les Misérables – Do You Hear The People Sing?
Salute of the Revolution
Marat/Sade film
Independence Leaders of the Melanesians in New Caledonia | SLICE | FULL DOCUMENTARY
A week of unrest in New Caledonia – in pictures
‘We will fight until Kanaky is free’: how New Caledonia caught fire
Why is there unrest in New Caledonia? Everything you need to know
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/15/why-riots-new-caledonia-france-voting
Macron in New Caledonia: why is the territory divided and will it break away from France?
Like a ‘civil war’: Nouméa residents describe terror as deadly riots sweep New Caledonia capital
French forces launch ‘major operation’ in New Caledonia, as unrest claims another life
The French Revolution, a reading list
https://jacobin.com/2015/07/french-revolution-bastille-day-guide-jacobins-terror-bonaparte/
Citizens, by Simon Schama
The Days of the French Revolution, by Christopher Hibbert
A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel
City of Darkness, City of Light, by Marge Piercy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/862108.City_of_Darkness_City_of_Light
A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution, by Jeremy D. Popkin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45031867-a-new-world-begins
The Coming of the French Revolution, by Georges Lefebvre, R.R. Palmer (Translator), Timothy Tackett (Introduction)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189555.The_Coming_of_the_French_Revolution
Liberty or Death: The French Revolution, by Peter McPhee
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26876327-liberty-or-death
A People’s History of the French Revolution, by Eric Hazan
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20177066-a-people-s-history-of-the-french-revolution
Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution, by Lynn Hunt
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/381792.Politics_Culture_and_Class_in_the_French_Revolution
Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre, by Jonathan I. Israel
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18118675-revolutionary-ideas
Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution, by R.R. Palmer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196977.Twelve_Who_Ruled
Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France,
by Lucy Moore
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135019.Liberty
Virtue and Terror, by Maximilien Robespierre, Slavoj Žižek (Introduction)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90565.Virtue_and_Terror
Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, by Ruth Scurr
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/626414.Fatal_Purity
Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution,
by Marisa Linton
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18263288-choosing-terror
Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo, Norman Denny (Translator)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33175.Les_Mis_rables
de Sade, a reading list
The Fan-Maker’s Inquisition: A Novel of the Marquis de Sade, by Rikki Ducornet
The Marquis de Sade: A Life, by Neil Schaeffer
The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography, by Angela Carter
The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde, by Alyce Mahon
Literature and Evil, by Georges Bataille
The Marquis de Sade: An Essay by Simone de Beauvoir
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141422.The_Marquis_de_Sade
French
22 mai 2024 La révolution arrive à Kanaky, appelée Nouvelle-Calédonie par les colonialistes français
La Révolution arrive en Kanacky, alors que la France s’apprête à reconquérir son ancienne colonie en accordant le droit de vote à ses propres citoyens au détriment de l’autonomie du peuple autochtone Kanak, qui résiste d’abord par la protestation, et maintenant par le feu et la fureur. action directe et lutte anticoloniale.
Le feu prend.
En Kanaky, Haïti, Papouasie occidentale, Timor oriental, Palestine et Israël, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chine, Thaïlande, Birmanie, Sri Lanka, îles Philippines, Brunei, Malaisie, Singapour et Indonésie, Cambodge, Laos, Vietnam, Cachemire et l’Inde, ainsi que les mouvements alliés en Russie et sur les nombreux théâtres de sa conquête impériale et de sa domination pendant la Troisième Guerre mondiale, notamment l’Ukraine et l’Europe de l’Est, le Moyen-Orient, la Méditerranée et l’Afrique, ainsi que le Dominion de l’Iran qui comprend l’Irak, la Syrie et le Liban. , et au Yémen, les feux de la lutte de libération font rage et consument l’héritage de notre histoire dans un pouvoir inégal et des systèmes d’oppression. Et la Révolution n’est pas seulement en cours dans toutes ces nations, mais aussi parmi elles, car toutes sont membres de réseaux d’alliances qui transformeront un jour notre monde en une humanité unie.
Guillermo del Toro, dans sa magnifique épopée sur la migration et l’égalité raciale Carnival Row, présente une scène dans laquelle deux jeunes successeurs à la direction de factions traditionnellement rivales se retrouvent amoureux et ont besoin d’alliés dans une intrigue secondaire qui réimagine Roméo et Juliette ; le diable rebelle Jonah Breakspear demande à son amante machiavélique Sophie Longerbane : « À qui le chaos est-il bon ? Ce à quoi elle répond : « Le chaos est bon pour nous. Le chaos est le grand espoir des impuissants.
Apportons le Chaos.
Dans la glorieuse lutte pour la libération, il faut commencer par amener le chaos et devenir ingouvernable pour créer les conditions du changement. Et comme je l’ai souvent écrit, toute Résistance est une guerre au couteau, car ceux qui veulent nous asservir et qui ne respectent aucune loi ni aucune limite ne peuvent se cacher derrière aucune.
Le peuple de Nouvelle-Calédonie ne vendra pas sa liberté pour vos perles de verre, Macron, et je ne crois pas non plus que le peuple français permettra à son gouvernement de le faire, ni d’envoyer des armées pour voler l’espoir de liberté aux autres. Il y a des raisons pour lesquelles, lorsqu’on me demande d’identifier mon idéologie politique, je me déclare jacobin.
Lorsque je me décris et me considère comme jacobin en termes d’identité politique, je pense à la relation entre Robespierre et de Sade comme des espaces négatifs l’un de l’autre, comme le montre la grande pièce Marat/Sade, et au pouvoir inégal systémique comme le l’origine du mal et l’anneau wagnérien de peur, de pouvoir et de force qui subvertit les prises de pouvoir révolutionnaires en les transformant en tyrannie.
Et si les soldats envoyés pour réprimer la dissidence et terroriser les peuples libres pour les soumettre à un empire colonial déchu que les élites hégémoniques de France aimeraient beaucoup refonder se joignaient plutôt à eux en solidarité ? Et si les citoyens français appelaient à la grève générale et s’emparaient des rues de Paris jusqu’à ce que la souveraineté et l’indépendance du peuple kanak soient reconnues ?
Ici en Kanaky, où les échos et les réflexions de l’Algérie et du Vietnam trouvent des formes nouvelles et terribles, nous verrons si la France reste encore la terre de la Liberté, de l’égalité et de la fraternité.
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort !
Torch of Liberty 
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