J'Accuse
____________________
So who do you think said this:
"It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name, it’s not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment on yourself.
I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues. Eight years of silence; what degradation!
And your silence is all of no avail; today, the blinding sun of torture is at its zenith; it lights up the whole country. Under that merciless glare, there is not a laugh that does not ring false, not a face that is not painted to hide fear or anger, not a single action that does hot betray our disgust, and our complicity.
It is enough today for two French people to meet together for there to be a dead man between them. One dead man did I say? In other days France was the name of a country. We should take care that in 1961 it does not become the name of a nervous disease. Will we recover? Yes. For violence, like Achilles’ lance, can heal the wounds that it has inflicted. Today, we are bound hand and foot, humiliated and sick with fear; we cannot fall lower...
Thus the day of magicians and fetishes will end; you will have to fight, or rot in concentration camps. This is the end of the dialectic; you condemn this war but do not yet dare to declare yourselves to be on the side of the Algerian fighters; never fear, you can count on the settlers and the hired soldiers; they’ll make you take the plunge.
Then, perhaps, when your back is to the wall, you will let loose at last that new violence which is raised up in you by old, oft-repeated crimes. But, as they say, that’s another story: the history of mankind. The time is drawing near, I am sure, when we will join the ranks of those who make it.
[--Jean-Paul Sartre, preface to "The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon, 1961]
Labels: governmental abuses, PWOT, silence is complicity
posted by Lisa at 1:20 PM
13 Comments:
i think it is also very telling to note that this was written during the dirty, and dirty even by african standards, terror war in algeria. where the vileness and horror infected all sides. there can never be a true victor in that type of conflict. the long duration, the tactics resorted to by all sides make the good and noble, who always die first, happy and comfortable in the grave with the knowledge that they don't have to be alive to see the degredation.
our descent into torture, into bribery, into callous playing of one side against the other, the support of one genocide, then another, all the while proclaiming our just goodness and spread of "freedom," make any so-called victory bitter and hollow.
well general taylor won the day
walk him along, john, carry him along
general taylor won the day
carry him to his burying ground
call me way, hey, so stormy
walk him along, john carry him along
call me way, hey, so stormy
carry him to his burying ground
dig his grave with a silver spade
walk him along, john carry him along
his shroud of the finest silks shall be made
carry him to his burying ground
call me way, hey so stormy. . .
lower his box with a golden chain
walk him along, john carry him along
on every link we shall carve his name
carry him to his burying ground
call me way, hey, so stormy. . .
general taylor he's long dead and gone
walk him along, john, carry him along
general taylor is long dead and gone
carry him to is burying ground
call me way, hey, so stormy
walk him along, john, carry him along
call me way, hey, so stormy
carry him to his burying ground
"general taylor" funeral dirge from the mexican war. we are still burying children to serve the old men's lies.
Yes, how can anyone call "victory"? I believe we could call it a pyhrric victory, if we wanted to use the "V" word. Thank you for the apt dirge.
All Along The Watchtower
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
-Bob Dylan
the wretched of the earth...... introduction by Sartre....... colonialism....... imperialism......violence........
internationale
.......whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Vive le mort! Vive la guerre! Vive le sacre mercenaire!
ghost dansing,
Seems I've read that somewhere. . .
Yeah, and the responsibility for doing that lies neither with the President nor the Congress. That awesome responsible is accorded solely to The People.
I wonder if the people, when they were taught -- if they were taught -- this stuff in social studies, understood this as a living document?
men have the right to devour the hearts of their oppressors.
jean-paul marat
MB,
A bit more impassioned. One has to be ready to face Marat's end, too. It's not all skittles and beer.
Good luck preaching existentialism to America. That crisis of identity and truth is staved off with all the electronic diversions our technophilic society can muster. But if the lights go out...
labrys,
"If the lights go out"... Oh, they don't have to get existentialism, but it would be nice if they'd just look around. So many live boxed in, like Sartre's prisoner, when they could get a view from off the couch. ..
So do the hard right Palinistas become the pieds noirs of the pre-post-imperial Obama Administration, longing for la gloire and the days when they could bash the wogs and their women with public abandon?
And does Obama become DeGaulle, pulling the cult of personality around him like a ragged toga as he leads the tattered colonial army home in disgrace?
Chief,
Ah, you get it! Nothing new under the sun. . . . Unless there were real bravery, but instead, we run trails.
We were out to dinner with several couples tonight and while I was talking to a guy with whom I'm friendly about the Roman Empire, the subject of our American future came up. Without really thinking about it, I blurted out, "we're not going to make it. We will fall, not in our lifetime, but this country won't make 300 years."
That's how I see it. The only hope might be a real revolution, but it would have to be a violent one to have any effect, and I see little likelihood of that happening.
A far better thinker than Sartre, our own Mr. Jefferson, was right.
Publius,
I am with you in your thoughts on American empire. I wonder how your correspondent reacted. The U.S. citizens do seem a complacent lot.
We have seen time and time again how cultures become fascinated by and covetous of the most trivial shiny baubles, trading away things of real value to enter into our consumer (barter) model. You may then lead them by the nose, ergo, the U.S. ca. early 21st century.
Among my associates, I see a simmering dissatisfaction that trips to the mall cannot quell, but what will they do? Their faith, psychiatrists and holistic healers kindly step in to fill the breech.
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