Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

 

 

We will be there.

We will present a video on one such red line

Human Sacrifice

1- Are Accidental Deaths Sacrifices?

2- Revelatory Sacrifices

3- Manufactured Sacrifices.

Can We Be Sacrificed By Justice Itself?

 

WHEN CAN THE SACRED BECOME A WEAPON?

HERE IS THE FULL DRAFT OF THE SCRIPT

The video will come later, and it will be shorter.

 

We shall focus this video on "Human sacrifice." We understand “sacrifice” as meaning to drop or abandon something you are justly entitled to have for any reason that has nothing to do with your own desire or interest. Ultimate sacrifice is to abandon your life for reasons that are beyond your immediate survival instinct. In the ultimate case, a sacrificial death is a non-natural death.

  

1- Are accidental deaths sacrifices?

1a- Road casualties

- The first case is that of self-sacrifice, and it applies to “bad drivers.”  Bad drivers are causing their own deaths when they cause an accident that is lethal to them. Generally, they may cause serious injuries and even death to their passengers or other people in another car or on the street and sidewalks. Some bad drivers even justify their carelessness by saying: “Well, we have to die, one way or the other.”

- In the same way, you have institutionalized accidents caused by bad roads. The bureaucrats, workers, and the city councilors or other political representatives are the agents totally responsible for such situations. Everyone knows dangerous spots on roads, and no one does anything. Public authorities have drawn a line across the problem and accept the death of people caused by their nonchalant negligence.

 

1b- Other cases

 - The case of cosmic accidents is just the same result of negligence that makes some people not ready for such accidents having to do with rain, snow, floods, and now “climate change,” as they say.

- We should also consider the people who do not regulate their food, their physical activities, their health, and just enjoy drinking alcoholic beverages, smoking tobacco or other stuff, taking all sorts of drugs to modify, at least temporarily, their mood or perception of reality, though they irreversibly modify their life expectancy and their living conditions. The stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA) people are teasing themselves with is such a self-sacrifice, or sacrifice on the side of medical personnel or social services, not to mention education.

 

2- Revelatory Sacrifices.

In this type of sacrifice, sacrificial victims are taking part in and assuming the event that becomes their objective.

 

2a- Self-sacrifice

- The most common case is someone who sacrifices his/her/their life to prove a point. We quote the case of June 11, 1963, when the Buddhist Monk, 66-year-old Thích Quảng Đức, let two younger monks pour gasoline on his robe, and he immolated himself to ask for an end to the violence of the war in Vietnam that came after the War in Indochina, in which the French were defeated at Điện Biên Phủ, leading to a negotiated peace agreement that led to the partition of Vietnam into two parts, and the southern half rejected the agreement as soon as they could and called for help from the USA.

- One form of self-sacrifice is a hunger strike. It is commonly used. I will quote two famous cases.

Mahatma Gandhi (India, 1932, 1943, 1948): Gandhi used fasts, a religious term for hunger strike, as a form of Satyagraha (non-violent resistance) to protest British rule in India, the treatment of the untouchable (Dalit) caste, and communal violence during partition.

Bobby Sands and the Irish Hunger Strikers (Northern Ireland, 1981): Ten republican prisoners, led by Bobby Sands at Her Majesty’s (at the time) Prison Maze, starved themselves to death to demand political prisoner status (the "Five Demands"). Sands was elected to the British Parliament while on strike.

 

2b- Collateral victims

- One of the most famous cases used by others to prove a point was June 8, 1972: a 9-year-old girl, Kim Phuc, was photographed running naked on a road in Vietnam, severely burned by napalm poured over her village by the South Vietnamese Air Force. The picture got a Pulitzer Prize. In this case, the sacrificee did not volunteer. She was a collateral victim, but the picture proved the horror of this war. Later on, the girl, then a woman, wrote a book on her war experience and officially and publicly forgave the USA. Fire Road: The Napalm Girl's Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace (English Edition)

- To commemorate or celebrate some event like an armistice, the end of a war, etc and some unknown soldier representing all victims or casualties: Mont Valérien in Paris is a special case. “A medieval place of worship, later a 19th-century military fortress, Mont-Valérien served during the Second World War as the primary site in France for the execution of Resistance members and hostages, who were shot by the German army. In the postwar period, the site was chosen to honor the memory of all those who fought and died for France between 1940 and 1945. The Memorial to Fighting France at Mont-Valérien was inaugurated by General de Gaulle on June 18, 1960.” ( http://www.mont-valerien.fr, and https://www.onac-vg.fr/hauts-lieux-memoire-necropoles/memorial-du-mont-valerien)

- L’Affiche Rouge is another case. “In mid-November 1943, the French police arrested 23 members of the Communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d'Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI), who were part of the French Resistance. They were called the Manouchian Group after their commander, Missak Manouchian. The group was part of a network of about 100 fighters, who committed nearly all acts of armed resistance in the Paris metropolitan region between March and November 1943.

Its membership included men of different backgrounds. 22 of them were Poles, five Italians, three Hungarians, two Armenians, three Spaniards, one Frenchman, and a Romanian woman; eleven members were Jewish.

After having been tortured and interrogated for three months, the 23 were tried by a German military court. To discredit the Resistance, the authorities invited French celebrities (from the world of cinema and other arts) to attend the trial and encourage the media to give it the widest coverage possible. All but one of the Manouchian Group's members were executed before a firing squad in Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944. Olga Bancic, who had served the group as a messenger, was taken to Stuttgart, where she was beheaded with an axe on 10 May 1944.” Poem by Louis Aragon, music and song by Léo Ferré. (after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiche_Rouge)

- Most of the time, collateral victims are ignored and remain anonymous.. 

 

3- Manufactured Sacrifices

Sacrificial victims are not at all willing to die. Such sacrifices are calculated by some groups of people

 

3a- manufactured by some criminal(s)

- The most recent case of mass hostage-taking happened on October 7, 2023. In the wake of the October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip, including children, women, and elderly people. Almost half of the hostages were foreign nationals or had multiple citizenships, and some hostages were Negev Bedouins. The hostages were held in different locations in the Gaza Strip. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks, accessed October 16, 2026)

- The most famous terrorist attack carried out by suicide bombers using commercial planes they hijacked to crash them on a chosen target is the attack against the Twin Towers in New York City. “The September 11 attacks, colloquially known as 9/11, were a coordinated series of suicide attacks perpetrated by the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. A total of 19 hijackers commandeered four commercial passenger airliners. The first two planes were flown into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City, while the third plane crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural field in Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt.” The USA decided to invade Afghanistan to hunt Al Qaeda, a war in which the USA was defeated nearly 20 years later.

 

3b- Manufactured by the masses

- Scapegoating: if it is not you, then it is your brother (La Fontaine, The Wolf and the Lamb). Any policy that determines one category of people as being responsible for any problem that emerges in daily life is scapegoating, no matter which group is chosen: the rich, the poor, the Jews, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the communists, the extreme left or the extreme right. It is commonly used in literature. Aging is a perfect scapegoat in daily life as soon as you step over middle age. Molière invented a famous sentence for this escape from reality: “Le petit chat est mort” (“The little cat is dead,” L'École des femmes, Act II, Scene 5). Renaud played with puppets in Paris for children, with a real cardboard alley cat that hunts and eats pigeons, till he falls one day and dies. Jacques Brel integrated the sentence into his song Les Vieux, a poignant description of what life becomes when the little cat is dead, and it is replaced by the clock that counts the seconds before your departure. Yes, the little cat, pussy cat or tom cat, may be dead, after all.

- Lynching: Recently, in Lyon, a young extreme-right man was beaten to death by a band of extreme-left young people, all males. “Nine people have been arrested in France following an investigation into the murder of a far-right nationalist student by suspected militants from the far-left. Those detained include a parliamentary assistant for a deputy from the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) party. Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old math student, died in hospital on Saturday - two days after being beaten and kicked about the head by a gang of masked young men in Lyon.” The word “lynching” comes from the name of a certain  William Lynch, who advocated this method to bring black slaves to obedience via and under fear.

 

3c- Pogroms

- “A pogrom is a violent riot incited to massacre or expel an ethnic or religious group. Until the mid-20th century, the term usually applied to attacks on Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement). Retrospectively, similar attacks against Jews that occurred in other times and places were renamed pogroms. Contemporarily, the word is also used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish groups. The characteristics of a pogrom vary widely, depending on the specific incident, at times leading to, or culminating in, massacres.” The genocidal attacks in Rwanda could be of the same nature. “The Rwandan Genocide was a 100-day planned campaign of mass murder that took place from April 7 to July 19, 1994.” About 0.5 to 1 million people were killed, between 5,000 and 10,000 casualties a day. 

- Tulsa Race Massacre (1921), “It took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a massive white mob attacked and systematically destroyed the affluent African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Known nationally as "Black Wall Street," Greenwood was one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States at the time. The assault stands as one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.” Private airplanes were even used to drop incendiary devices from the sky, marking the first aerial bombing of a U.S. city.  

- Rosewood Massacre (1923). “It was a racially motivated violent attack that took place between January 1 and January 7, 1923, resulting in the total destruction of the predominantly Black town of Rosewood in Levy County, Florida. A large white mob terrorized, tortured, and murdered Black residents, burning their homes and businesses to the ground and forcing the surviving population to flee permanently.” The Zinn Education Project adds: “On January 1, 1923, a young married white woman named Fannie Taylor from the neighboring town of Sumner claimed she had been assaulted by an unknown Black man. Historical evidence later revealed that she had actually been beaten by her white lover, but lied to cover up the affair. Despite having no evidence, local white men immediately blamed Jesse Hunter, a Black man who had recently escaped from a prison chain gang, and launched a manhunt centered on the thriving, self-sufficient Black town of Rosewood.”

 

3d- Sacrificed by justice.

- Mumia Abu Jamal: “Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954) is an American political activist, journalist, former member of the Black Panther Party, and author. Conviction: Sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Current Status: His death sentence was overturned by a federal court, and in 2011 prosecutors agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, due to new testimony casting doubt about his even taking part in the event. He just was there at the wrong time. He entered the general prison population in 2012.”

- Angela Davis: “On June 4, 1972, Angela Yvonne Davis is acquitted of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder in the death of Marin County Judge Harold Haley,” by an entirely white jury. The Event: On August 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson (the 17-year-old brother of Soledad Brother George Jackson) smuggled guns into a Marin County courtroom in San Rafael, California, in an attempt to free inmates on trial. The Casualties: In the shootout that followed, Judge Harold Haley, Jonathan Jackson, and two inmates were killed. The Accusation: Because the firearms used in the takeover were registered to Angela Davis, she was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy.

- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: “Julius Rosenberg (1918–1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (1915–1953) were an American married couple convicted of spying for the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  The Execution: President Dwight D. Eisenhower denied their appeals for executive clemency. They were executed via the electric chair on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. They were the first American civilians to be executed for espionage during peacetime.”

 

3e- THE 48 LAWS OF POWER, Robert Greene, A Joos Elffers Production, Profile Books, LONDON 1998. LAW 26 – KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN – JUDGMENT – You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency. Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s paws to disguise your involvement. (page 200) PART I – CONCEAL YOUR MISTAKES – HAVE A SCAPEGOAT AROUND TO TAKE THE BLAME – Our good name and reputation depend more on what we conceal than on what we reveal. Everyone makes mistakes, but those who are truly clever manage to hide them, and to make sure someone else is blamed. A convenient scapegoat should always be kept around for such moments. (Page 201) In the margin “CHELM JUSTICE – A great calamity befell the town of Chelm one day. The town cobbler murdered one of his customers. So, he was brought before the judge. who sentenced him to die by hanging. When the verdict was read a townsman arose and cried out, “If your Honor pleases – you have sentenced to death the town cobbler! He is the only one we’ve got. If you hang him, who will mend our shoes?" “Who? Who?” cried all the people of Chelm with one voice. The judge nodded in agreement and reconsidered his verdict. “Good people of Chelm,” he said, “what you say is true. Since we have only one cobbler, it would be a great wrong against the community to let him die. As there are two roofers in the town let one of them be hanged instead. (A TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE – NATHAN AUSUBEL ED. 1948)

And this Jewish scapegoating, trans-ferring, trans-lating and trans-languaging the sentence from one guilty person to a totally innocent person for purely selfish and ego-centered interest meets with a total rejection of such transference in the Quran (verses chosen by a believer).

 

Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage) 22:37: Neither their meat nor blood reaches Allah. Rather, it is your piety that reaches Him. This is how He has subjected them to you so that you may proclaim the greatness of Allah for what He has guided you to, and give good news to the good-doers.

Az-Zumar (The Troops) 39:7: If you disbelieve, then ˹know that˺ Allah is truly not in need of you, nor does He approve of disbelief from His servants. But if you become grateful ˹through faith˺, He will appreciate that from you. No soul burdened with sin will bear the burden of another. Then to your Lord is your return, and He will inform you of what you used to do. He certainly knows best what is ˹hidden˺ in the heart. (Translation https://quran.com/)

 

Original verses in Arabic from the same source:

 

Conclusion

Most of these sacrifices are based on an ideological conviction, be it religious, partisan, criminal, or political. Why not artistic or even poetical?

 

 

The Paris court has ruled against the municipality of Champigny-sur-Marne for erasing a mural by Chloé Wary without her consent, thereby violating her moral rights. The court reaffirmed that a property owner cannot destroy an artwork without authorization. The Snac (National Union of Authors and Composers) supported the artist, securing 1,100 euros in damages and legal fees.

[French Original – Le tribunal de Paris a condamné la commune de Champigny-sur-Marne pour avoir effacé une fresque de Chloé Wary sans son consentement, violant son droit moral. La justice rappelle qu’un propriétaire ne peut détruire une œuvre sans autorisation. Le Snac a soutenu l’autrice, obtenant 1100 euros de dommages et droits.]

 

Dr Jacques Coulardeau and Mohammad Merajul Islam

Olliergues and Rajshahi, October 18, 2026