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" La force et le consentement sont les deux fondements de la conduite des Etats modernes, les deux piliers d’une hégémonie. Quand le consentement vient à manquer — comme ce fut par exemple le cas en 2011 dans le monde arabe —, les conditions sont réunies pour le renversement du pouvoir en place." Gramsci, une pensée devenue monde
"Today on the Western Front,” the German sociologist Max Weber wrote in September 1917, there “stands a dross of African and Asiatic savages and all the world’s rabble of thieves and lumpens.” Weber was referring to the millions of Indian, African, Arab, Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers and labourers, who were then fighting with British and French forces in Europe, as well as in several ancillary theatres of the  first world war . Faced with manpower shortages, British imperialists had recruited up to 1.4 million Indian soldiers. France enlisted nearly 500,000 troops from its colonies in Africa and Indochina. Nearly 400,000 African Americans were also inducted into US forces. The first world war’s truly unknown soldiers are these non-white combatants.   Ho Chi Minh, who spent much of the war in Europe, denounced what he saw as the press-ganging of subordinate peoples. Before the start of the Great War, Ho wrote, they were seen as “nothing but dirty Negroes … good for no more t
"What Assad needs in order to survive ...  is, someday, the end of resistance," says Valerie Szybala, executive director of the Syria Institute. "The only way he can get that, in certain places — certainly strategic ones like Damascus — is by repopulating them with people who will not oppose him." "Plan to rebuild Syria could be a recipe for another war"
We are hearing and reading a lot just now about a war for civilization. In some vague, ill-designed manner we are led to believe that the great empires of Europe have suddenly been seized with chivalrous desire to right the wrongs of mankind, and have sallied forth to war, giving their noblest blood and greatest measures to the task of furthering the cause of civilization.  James Connolly, A War for Civilization, 1915 Armistice Day How the civilised celeberate slaughter, selectively. Western-centric, arrogant and even xenophobic. The elites that sent millions to their death for the ruling classes geopolitical and imperialist interests , organise show annually every 11 November. Other people make money from selling poppies. It is also about how much the nation-state and nationalism have made us immune not only in front of barbarism (carried out by "the civilised" or by "the backward people"), but also towards human solidarity with the dead. Those who were k