IN SUPPORT OF THE FRENCH INTELLECTUALS
During the last few months in France opposition to the Al–
gerian War has led to a rise of a broad movement of opinion whose
political and moral significance extends beyond the frontiers of
that country. This is so not only because what happens in France
is of concern to the world at large, but because the views expressed
in the course of this grouping raise questions of principle that are
valid everywhere.
The fact that the promoters and sponsors of such a movement
are intellectuals,
in
a period when reason seemed condemned to
silence or submission to the principles of "political realism," is in
itself a noteworthy and important circumstance. Hence, the main
example that the French intellectuals have set is appealing to
reason without taking expediency into account.
The open repudiation of the Algerian War through group
declarations and appeals, as well as through individual testimony by
the most active and thoughtful of those who form public opinion in
France (among whom are many militant Christians) does not only
signify condemnation of an unjust and savage war.
It
also re–
affirms the principle that
raison ,d'etat
and "national interest" are
valid,
if
at all, only insofar as they do not conflict with the dictates
of conscience and the claims of humanity. This has been expressed
with particular clarity and resoluteness in the
Declaration on the
Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War
whose sponsors and
signatories are now the victims of legal and illegal government
proceedings.
When we see intellectuals being prosecuted for having asserted
the citizen's right to refuse to obey unjust orders, we cannot help
recalling the lesson of recent history. Fascist and Nazi rule, the last
war, and the post war situation in several countries on both sides of
the so-called Iron Curtain, plus the judgement of Nuremberg have
amply demonstrated that unquestioning execution of orders and
blind obedience to authority can be criminal, while disobedience is
not only a right, but is sometimes a duty of the first order. The
barbaric slogan, "My country right or wrong", should have been
buried in the extermination camps with the victims of those who did
