Blog Name:	Elie Wiesel, and Totalitarianism
Url:	http://miguelsedamanolecture.wordpress.com/2009/04/0...
Language:	English
Topics:	History, Political Science, Sociology
Description:	When the French writer Francois Mauriac met to Elie Wiesel ( A Jew survival from the concentration camp of Auschwitz, during the World War II), Mauriac immediately recognized in the cold gaze of Wiesel, the living testimony of heroism, human survival, and unconditional faith to life of an young Jew, victim of the most oppressive circumstances of death never before existed, struggling in the most frightening human circumstances, his unconditional right to live as human, under the oppressive environment of oppression and horror of our own irrationality, embodied in the Nazi’s apparatus. Elie Wiesel’s life is in itself the proof undisputed of our moral grotesque, and the failure for bringing a steady and firm system of human justice, based in the name of Reason, and dignity. “Night” written by Elie Wiesel ( Nobel Peace Prize, 1986, and Presidential Medal of Freedom) is the statement of death of an Old order, and the unpredictability of our condition. It is the “end of an era, and the beginning of another”, the culmination of an romantic generation who deeply believed in the benefits of our Western philosophical, and the superiority of western social system, in the eradication of our human miseries, with our science and Political system. Now, the victims, as Elie Wiesel, and others, are witnessing the ashes of our fairness, and classical European utilitarianism, in the bonfire of totalitarian madness. No longer, the abstraction theorist of John Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, or John Stuart Mill means a breathe of hope against injustice, unfairness and human oppression. No longer the German’s romanticism, and the works of Johann Gottfried Von Herder with his theories of cultural relativism, pluralism, tolerance and relativism would become a guarantee to a system of openness, and justice for any human being and social groups. The world as we knew it before, it was not the same, the barbarism took place our western Reason, and the dreams and hopes of our westerns intellectuals were replaced by the ignominy and cruelty of our human fanatism, that is, barbaric and unintelligible. In any case, the tragedy of World War II, and the cost of millions of human lives would be impossible to analyze without the historical perspective of the German’s thought during the previous centuries. One of the most interesting books, about History of Ideas is “The Crooked Timber of Humanity” (Isaiah Berlin: 1990), in this elaborated, exhaustive and academic work, Berlin, explains with tremendous academic rigor, the evolution (indivertible), of western thought, from the vision of Plato, and the stoics, ending up with the biggest academic of intolerance, irrationalism, and slavery :Joseph de Maistre. Joseph de Maistre (Born in France, in 1753), is considered by many academics, as the enemy of the Enlightenment, Reason, and Democracy, and is in certain point the father of our Modern Fascism, and all the contemporaneous collectives ideologies of XX century. The hate of Maistre toward liberal movement has not precedent. (Maistre used his logic, world experience and historical knowledge in the building of the most horrendous ideology of human repression and slavery, attacking the European enlightenment since his traditionalist logic of destruction, attacking values of equality, freedom and democracy, using his portentous prose, under the service of the enemies of human freedom. More about the Joseph de Maistre’s work, is found in the book (Considerations sur la France). The triumph of French Revolution (1789), and the propagation of the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Kant, and Voltaire, didn’t bring a consensus about our human identity, political liberties and Economical rationalism in Europe. Far from it, these new values of democracy, religious freedom, and knowledge brought certain opposition the German identity. These values of “Enlightenment” were more linked to the French’s values, rather than be related to human values”. The opposition of German’s academicism toward the French’s enlightenment originated the German’s Romanticism” during the XIX century, and the rising of the works of Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Fichte and Schelling. Even, some earliest Beethoven’s compositions are linked with the German’s Romanticism, National Identity, and the notion of the “Absolute”, as the new strength, and spirit in the German Nation. Nationalism is another strong component to study and interpret in this framework of historical meaningless. Sometimes when we refer the study of “Nationalism”, our intellectual perspective is dragged to the delirious Third World’s political spectrum. That is valid, and we can approach it with sociological and historical interpretation. There are several works about nationalism since the Third World perspective, but recently I’ve read “The Shadow of the Sun” by Ryszard Kapuscinski. In this book, the author, explores the new waves of nationalisms in Africa as the result of dignity and recognition of these new countries toward Europe. It’s the furious answer to a new order of sovereign against the chains of slavery from their old lords. It’s the picture of glorification, exaltation, and aggressive spirit of self-assertion, in which the new “collective identity” is everything, absolute and the reason of any existence. In that context, Nationalism emerges from the dark waves of resentment, and allows to cover the social gap in the collective soul in the new nation. It’s the new social drive in which all the questions and traumas are answered and forgotten. However it is irrational and fanatic, because in the nationalist logic, diversity, and multiplicity of thoughts, and interest against the “nationalist project” are not allowed. The moral in an environment nationalist is repulsive. Our basic instinct of freedom is suppressed under the red flag of “National Interest”. Any kind of human barbarism in the name of the nation is often tolerated. Because we don’t belong to the design of our Reason, or our individuality. We no longer are allowed to criticize, or to think in the way different to the group, that’s heresy, or let’s say, Social threat, and as the dangerous tumor, any opposition, any original idea, any threat to the nationalist ideology, or group feeling are eradicated without any kind of sentimentalism or democratic moral. It is in this perspective, that we can understand the lack of humanism in the nationalist barbarian. Human Moral in the nationalist logic is based in the project of Nation, and the interest of the group or “homeland”, dispossessing the capacity of free choice and creative thinking from individuals. In the Nationalist project, the individual, and personal freedom don’t exist anymore. It’s the absurd logic nationalist of force against any individualist residue. Group belonging, and tribal feelings along with xenophobia are recurrent phenomenon in the structure of nationalism, and that explains the social trauma in Africa, a failure picture of modernization, and liberalism, in which the drama, and the scenario of hopelessness are integrated with social genocides, cultural fanaticism and the ruin of human spirit, at least, in the democratic definition of enlightenment, and social utilitarianism, in the whole context of our modern project. We can see the birth of the modern nationalism in the old Prussia during the XVIII, in the spirit of German Reformation against the structure of power of the old Roman Catholic church, for bringing a feeling of cohesion and identity in the German’s soul. The way in which Germans wrote poetry, the style of their customs, or the way to write literature and History, the exaltation of the German rivers, and mountains, it marked the beginning of the nationalist phenomenon, as a reaction to foreign influence, and symbol of recognition and identity. The French Illustration, and the works of Rousseau, Voltaire, or Montesquieu were interpreted as foreign cultural wave in Germany. The foreign project of Modernity brought from France, just originated a feeling of suspicion and insecurity. Germans felt didn’t need to learn from the French illustration or from the Modern Ideology. They built their own ideology and Nationalist way of thought as the German’s romanticism and the intellectuals of “Sturm and Drang”, in which the work “Werther” from Goethe is the symbol of the movement. In this period of confusion for an national identity, in which the ideas of “German blood” “Racial Purity” and “Nordic power” emerged in the German’s romanticism of XVIII century. Georg Wilhelm Hegel’s Philosophy, and his notion of “Geist”, explained in his book (Phenomenology of Spirit), helped to increase the proud of the German Nation during the XIX century, uplifting the level of confidence in the German collective, in reference to Latin tradition of France, Spain or Italy. Arthur Schopenhauer, built a Philosophy of absolute attack to Reason, and Enlightenment project. In his book “The World as a Will and Representation”,(2 Volumes), Schopenhauer, holds the idea that human beings are not longer ruled by the principles of Reason, and objectivity. His rejection to human dignity is surprisingly pathetic. His irrational supernatural force “The Will”, is the engine and the blind drive in every human action, ruling our consciousness, and choices. All these movements of romantic, and nationalist exaltation in Germany during the XVIII, and XIX, will constitute the primary intellectual on the basis to the modern Nationalism, and Fascism during the XX century. It’s impossible to understand the works of nationalists, and irrationals such as: Joseph de Maistre, Arndt, Korner, Gobineau, or Houston Stewart Chamberlain, ignoring the causes of the Romantic project, the rising of German Nationalism as a reaction to the French enlightenment, and the desire of Germany to occupy a position of recognition, and leadership in Europe, after centuries of discrimination, and opprobrium for the rest of the European countries. In any case, Nationalism as Political phenomenon, and social experience has an historic trajectory in which all us we need to understand, Otherwise, our political perspective and representation social would be inadequate to the historical truth. ------- - And this is the world of Elie Wiesel, a young Jew, victim of the Nazi’s barbarism, and witness of the most savage, and horrendous system of hate and death. Wiesel’s world, is a reality of anti-Semitism, and irrationality. It’s a world in which most important is the conviction of your inner beliefs, rather than finding the truth. It is a world designed by the Romantic’s movement, with the notion of “Idea” or “Heroes” dying for their own convictions, as a engine of glory of German’s nation. This is the world and the ideology of Hitler and Mussolini, and the negation of human dignity…This is the world, in which “Night” the passionate testimony of Elie Wiesel is all about. - When Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on December 10, 1986, He mentions the words of his father, about the barbarism of the World War II with the following words…”Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent…” -Yes, Wiesel’s dad couldn’t understand the barbarism in the Twentieth century, and the culture of silence, including the complicity of Catholic Church. Part of the problem, was the lack of COMMITMENT, and take position, and action…According to Wiesel’s words, these are his words: “We must take sides, Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence, encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere…” But taking position, action, is part of our culture of freedom, rather than a repressive society in which rational debate, critical thinking, and diversity of knowledge are not encouraged. When people, live in a open society, debate and action are the instruments of resistance against any totalitarian thought, threatening our human dignity, and the words of the author, witness of the shadow of death and pain about the need of action and commitment should be heard, or at lest keep in the conscious of our current generations, as a collective memory, if we see the same pattern of self-destruction in another parts of the world. - “Night” the classic book of Elie Wiesel, was written as a mirror of the most tragic consequence of ideological barbarism. In my dialectic interpretation, Jewish didn’t fit in the spirit of propaganda and Nationalist exaltation. The Jewish’s universalism was an obstacle to the dark interests of the enemies of human dignity.
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