Open letter to the board members of Attac-Liège and Beau-Mur

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On July 24, 2021, I had contacted Attac-Liège to organize a conference-debate « by the mpOC-Liège with the support of Attac » as we started to do regularly from January 2014, Attac-Liège and the mpOC-Liège sharing a number of points of interest. It was also an exchange of good practices, Attac-Liège generally taking care of finding a room while promoting these conferences to the French Community as a recognized association of permanent education (which the mpOC-Liège is not). A few days later, the announcement of the August 25 conference with Michel Weber, « Covid-19(84) — The political truth of the health lie » was broadcast on the web⁽¹⁾ and it will take place in one of the Beau-Mur rooms.

On August 24th in the early evening, the day before the conference, Attac-Liège informed me by e‑mail: « The Board of Attac has decided against supporting and participating in the conference of Michel Weber tomorrow ». Information taken by phone, it also turns out that the access to the room us (the mpOC-Liège) is withdrawn and that the decision is the joint one of the boards of Attac-Liège and the Beau-Mur.

The surprise is total, I would never have believed such a maneuver of censorship and sabotage possible with regard to the mpOC-Liège which collaborates with Attac-Liège for nearly 10 years, not to mention myself for whom it goes back even further, with the establishment of the collective of resistance to the Treaty of Lisbon in late 2007. I let you imagine the difficulty and the stress in which this decision put us. What to do? Cancel or rearrange by doing it in an outdoor park or finding another venue the same day? Finally we managed to find a room in extremis: thank you, we welcomed 120 people for a presentation and a debate which took place in the best of atmospheres (the conference was filmed, to see here: www.liege.mpoc.be/covid.htm#mw ).

In the above-mentioned e‑mail, there is only one small sentence to explain this decision, which is nonetheless incomprehensible: « The revisionist comments on the comparison of the vaccine with zyklon B were a determining factor in our change of position.

It is difficult to understand how people who have known us for a long time could have thought for even a second that we would have made « revisionist statements » or supported someone who would make them. This allusion to Zyklon B is doubly absurd: on the one hand, even if Michel Weber had written, as I was told by telephone, that the 3rd dose of vaccine would be the equivalent of an injection of Zyklon B, it would only be a dose of humor a la Hara Kiri, « a silly and nasty newspaper », not forgetting however that the anti-covid vaccines are still in the experimental stage ⁽²⁾that the clinical trials of these vaccines are under the exclusive control of the pharmaceutical industry⁽³⁾ and that we are therefore participating in or witnessing a mass experimentation under the certainly benevolent vigilance of this industry. On the other hand, checking the commentary in question, it is clear that it does not even mention vaccines! ⁽⁴⁾

What is Michel Weber’s point (and ours)? Referring to a historical period — in this case Nazism — to propose an interpretation of what has happened to us since the beginning of the year 2020. How would this be « extremist » or « abject » (terms used on the Attac-Liège website and by a « bell ringer », respectively — see below)? On the one hand, there lies freedom of expression and research, and on the other, learning from our history is the least we can do, even at the risk of being wrong. Unfortunately, events follow one another to prove us right, such as the ban on unvaccinated caregivers in France, the explicit or concealed calls ⁽⁵⁾ to do the same in Belgium and the increasing use of the health pass (« Covid Safe Ticket » and others), which means that our governments are creating a category of citizens who will not be able to live like the others — the new pariahs. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

In her book « Freedom », the philosopher Nadia Lamm does not hesitate to illustrate it with a photo of deportees reading an inscription in which the observance of the virtues of the perfect deportee is presented as « the path to freedom » (the inscription reads: « There is a path to Freedom. Its steps are called obedience, diligence, order, cleanliness, humility, truthfulness, spirit of sacrifice and love of the Fatherland! »)⁽⁶⁾. She is also concerned about the posture of those who criticize the policies of our governments in hushed tones and without much risk because « it excludes in principle an intention to do wrong by the government while guiding texts exist such as the Agenda 2030 on the site of the World Economic Forum, the manifesto of the President of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab assisted by Thierry Malleret: « Covid 19: the great reset »; a project of the French Senate — which allow us to question the benevolent nature of the intention that presides over the acts of government. Without forgetting the books of Jacques Attali who announces for a long time the entry of the West in a New World Order, an iron market order without counter-power « . Similarly, Ariane Bilheran in a brilliant interview « Naming Evil » (Ariane Bilheran is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a clinical psychologist, a doctor of psychopathology, a university lecturer and the author of numerous essays)⁽⁷⁾. And again, Vera Sharav, Holocaust survivor: « I must say that since that time in my life [période nazie]When governments get away with crimes, with suppressing human rights, constitutional rights, in what they consider an emergency, well, governments will just create emergencies, declare an emergency and suppress rights. This is a major parallel between the Nazi regime and today »⁽⁸⁾.

We, at mpOC-Liège, are degrowthists and, as everyone knows, the socio-political project of degrowth is a left-wing project ⁽⁹⁾. Certainly, but not from the institutional left regularly in power, nor from the one to which you contribute today, a frigid, sectarian left, sacralizing the « life »⁽¹⁰⁾ and hygienist to the extreme, rolling out the red carpet to an increasingly discretionary power and at the same time to the extreme right, by its blindness, the abandonment of critical thinking and the refusal of debate. Confirmation from a member of the Board of Directors of Attac-Liège who recommended that I read a « sensible » article by a certain Philippe Marlière who, in the title, was quick to use one of the latest neologisms in fashion for anyone who wants to propagate the doxa of power: « Gauche et pass sanitaire: les impasses d’un combat confusionniste » (Left and health pass: the dead ends of a confusionist fight).⁽¹¹⁾. « The left should militate in favor of vaccination, » he says from the outset, because « scientific opinions converge on the question: only the vaccination of all or part of the French and world population will make it possible to overcome the pandemic. Doesn’t the « left » have better things to do than to deal with vaccines by wanting to deprive us of an additional freedom, the natural right to be the sole judge of what is good for our health? Shouldn’t she also campaign for banning overweight or obese people from restaurants on the grounds that they are the majority of people in intensive care beds? And while we’re at it, punish in one way or another the cohorts of those who are addicted to sugar, tobacco and alcohol on the pretext that they put a heavy burden on the public health budget? As for the scientific opinions that would converge, this is only apparent to those who only read or listen to the RTBF and all other mainstream media: among many examples, this is not the opinion of a well-known virologist from Liège, former rector of the University of Liège, for whom « omitting from scientific and popular thinking the risks associated with a treatment, as was the case for the Dengue vaccine, is extremely risky. » « The long-term risk of vaccines « with genetic material » (mRNA and adenovirus vector) is unknown » and « the validity of a vaccination lies in a comparison of the known risks of the natural disease on the one hand and of the vaccination on the other hand, so as to establish a risk-benefit balance of the vaccination, specific to each individual [je souligne] « ⁽¹²⁾. As the long-term risk of genetically engineered vaccines against covid is not known, it is impossible to evaluate the risk-benefit balance of this vaccination today. This is therefore only an experiment and disqualifies its worldwide campaign. As for the short-term risks, they are increasingly numerous (including deaths), far exceeding what we have seen for other vaccinations ⁽¹³⁾, and therefore should have resulted in a total halt to the covid vaccination campaign from the first warnings.

It appears that you have been « pressured » by « bellwethers » as they call themselves, pressures that you have not been able or willing to resist. On a « social » network that I will not name, a local councillor of the city of Liège at the head of a « left-wing » nanopartite and known for his opportunism writes: « We take note, with horror, that the Political Movement of the Objectors to Growth  » [mpOC-Liège]This is the most abject confusion. The icing on the cake is a comparison between sanitary measures and Nazism. Only that […] After having sounded the tocsin during the day […] The Centre liégeois du Beau-mur, which had not been informed of the content of this confusing conference, decided this evening to refuse to host it. I am delighted. No pasarán! « . The republicans and anti-fascists who died in Madrid in 1936 must be turning in their graves! Fortunately for him, never a single revolutionary has been killed by ridicule.

Still on this « social » network, on a page entitled « Front AntiFasciste Liège 2.0 » (sic): « Although the author [Michel Weber] is not from the extreme right, it delivers false information (the exact opposite of critical thinking), its theses participate in a conspiracy reading of the pandemic sequence, and work — voluntarily or not — to an ideological confusion, which also affects a fraction of the left […] After these researches, we have contacted, for more than a week now, ATTAC Liège and the Liège Center of the Beautiful Wall (both signatories of the call of the Antifascist Front) in order to inform them ».

No one should be swayed by such poor argumentation, which refers any form of protest to the extreme right or to those neologisms of power that are conspiracy and confusionism, and thus, logically, make their bed.

That you have decided to censor and sabotage this conference in the manner of any totalitarian power is unacceptable and unworthy of those you represent. The board of Attac-Liège will therefore take note of my resignation as a member.