"Serres (Mellaerts) est marqué sur ma carte d’identité. Voilà un nom de montagne (métier), comme Sierra en espagnol ou Serra en portugais (Molinaro en espagnol, Meunier en français, Miller en anglais ou Müller en allemand) ; (plus de) mille personnes s’appellent ainsi, au moins dans trois pays. Quant à Michel (Hélène), une population plus nombreuse porte ce prénom. Je connais pas mal de Michel Serres (Je connais quelques Mellaerts) : j’appartiens à ce groupe, comme à celui des gens qui sont nés en Lot-et-Garonne. Bref, sur ma carte d’identité, rien ne dit mon identité, mais plusieurs appartenances. Deux autres y figurent : les gens qui mesurent 1,80 m (1,62 m), et ceux de la nation française. Confondre l’identité et l’appartenance est une faute de logique, réglée par les mathématiciens. Ou vous dites a est a, je suis je, et voilà l’identité ; ou vous dites a appartient à telle collection, et voilà l’appartenance. Cette erreur expose à dire n’importe quoi. Mais elle se double d’un crime politique : le racisme. Dire, en effet, de tel ou tel qu’il est noir ou juif ou femme est une phrase raciste parce qu’elle confond l’appartenance et l’identité. Je ne suis pas français ou gascon, mais j’appartiens aux groupes de ceux qui portent dans leur poche une carte rédigée dans la même langue que la mienne et de ceux qui, parfois, rêvent en occitan. Réduire quelqu’un à une seule de ses appartenances peut le condamner à la persécution. Or cette erreur, or cette injure nous les commettons quand nous disons : identité religieuse, culturelle, nationale… Non, il s’agit d’appartenances. Qui suis-je, alors ? Je suis je, voilà tout ; je suis aussi la somme de mes appartenances que je ne connaîtrai qu’à ma mort, car tout progrès consiste à entrer dans un nouveau groupe : ceux qui parlent turc, si j’apprends cette langue, ceux qui savent réparer une mobylette ou cuire les œufs durs, etc. Identité nationale : erreur et délit."

US, French citizens and Europeans, let us not remain a long time any more indifferent and passive vis-a-vis the true war against the civilians which is currently held in Darfur, in the west of Sudan. The Sudanese army and the militia janjawids massacred by whole villages, mainly because of their black “African” identity, their fellow-citizens furnaces, massalits, zaghawas… who constitute the majority of the six million inhabitants of Darfur. Some speak about the first genocide of XXIe century. Already 400.000 men, women and children innocent died. Tens of thousands of people were violated, tortured and terrorized. More than two million and half of others were driven out from them. Each hour, each day, the number victims increases! UNO qualified the exactions made against the populations of war crimes and of crimes against humanity, and seized the International penal court. The humanitarian action is intentionally blocked by the Sudanese government: of ONG were thus obliged to suspend their programs and to leave the zone, when they were not quite simply expelled. Today according to the United Nations observers, more than two million and half of refugees or displaced persons do not have or more access to the international assistance and from now on are exposed to died by malnutrit ion and disease. This unbearable situation which perdure with Darfur destabilizes even more this already weakened area and worsens other humane disasters in Chad and in Republic Central African.
The world in which you and I live and in which The Counselors Academy functions is characterized by crises, by surprises, by new opportunities, by lost opportunities, by sands that shift and by two waves that are never exactly the same. The companion who walks at our side every hour of every business day is called by the name, Change
(Pétition signée en avril 2007)

Tonight I feel terrified and terribly sad. My country seems bent on setting a collision course with an ugly destiny. I must write this letter, tuck it into an e-bottle and cast it out into the electronic waves in the hope that someone will read it and recognize that here, on our increasingly isolated desert island, the one you call America, there are still some living, breathing, thinking, sensitive human beings left.
Those of you beyond our shores need to know that our country’s apparent decision to go to war with Iraq is no more a decision of and by the people of America than the result of the last presidential election was. Hopefully, the recent peace demonstrations reveal that our country is not united on this decision.
There are many of us who consider the decision to go to war with Iraq not only a failure of diplomacy and political process but also a failure of our entire system due to the ascension of greed and fear into the position of the primary motivators of our activity. A glaring example of this system-wide failure is our education system. How can we be claiming to successfully educate our people when so many of us are too afraid to examine evidence, analyze it independently from the claims of our leadership, and draw a logical and compassionate conclusion?
Maybe those men who support the decision to use preemptive military force against Iraq would think twice if they would imagine themselves as Iraq. What our government is doing is accusing them of having a terrorist weapon, a penis. How would they react if they were told they must be punished because the fact that they had penises meant they might be rapists? The situation is beyond absurd, it’s preposterous!
Our country’s supposition scares me to death. Where does this thinking stop? Not at the oil wells in the Middle East, no because we have 24 B-52’s on high alert in Korea. I am terrified because after this policy wreaks havoc beyond our borders, it will turn inward, like a new and more virulent form of McCarthyism, reeking of intolerance.
I am terrified because I feel so alone. Where are the independent thinkers? Many people here are no more than pundits responding to popularity polls produced by politicians. They only glance at the headlines. And if they do read the articles beneath them, the writing frequently fails to deliver in depth coverage of the situation. The profit motive has overtaken the quest for understanding. Our greed feeds our fear.
This makes me terribly sad. We already see evidence of massive losses in civil rights under way. Under the newly created department of Homeland Security we have basically granted our government the right to spy on us. No longer do we need to have committed a crime to be guilty of it. No, all it takes to be guilty is for someone in the government to have a hunch that you might violate the law. Imagine getting arrested for speeding because your speedometer shows that you could go 140 miles per hour!
If those of us surviving on this shrinking island have not yet united in our protest to the extent that you have heard our voice of dissent, please know we are aware we live on the same planet and breathe the same air as you. Please redistribute this letter and help us amplify our personal anguish at our nation’s bellicose indications and understand that many of us stranded here on this tiny island that occupies a huge place on the geopolitical map also wish for world peace.