Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Shock , Love and the Revolution

  Last week, The New York Times published a story about the two Mobarak sons who were recently thrown in jail. The two men apparently are so stunned to find themselves in the very cells that they had previously ordered built, that they  forget to ask questions and follow orders with  calm docility .

  But their shock must pale when compared to the shock of the Egyptian people who probably are pinching themselves many times a day to make sure they are not dreaming. Let us bet that within a short period of time, the Mobarak sons will drown in a sea of boundless  hilarity and a gallery of funny anecdotes , courtesy of the Egyptian people.

  And let us not forget the Israelis . They must be thinking they may as well invest in a Sphynx to predict the future.  For the past 60 years and  until only a few months ago,  they have been going to bed  every night secure in their belief that the Arabs have been so well beaten and starved into an idiotic stupor by their leaders ,they could not have done it better themselves .

  But in truth,every sign points to a spontaneous and sudden beginning to hose movements and effectively proving philosopher Hanna Arendt's view that if politics still carried any validity at all , it was because it was still capable of creating "miracles" .

 On Januray 13, 2011, "Les Nouveaux Chemins  de la Connaissance" from France Culture  hosted a full hour discussing Hannah Arendt's concept of the " beginning" or more aptly said the "commencement". The program could not have come at a more convenient time as the Tunisian Revolution ,carried with a rare dignity and limitless courage, had just started. The conversation , hosted by Raphael Enthoven, included Etienne Tassin, a specialist of Hannah Arendt's polictical work .

   For Arendt, in a  true Nietzschean vein  , political action is not only the " main condition of history" , but also , and this is where Arendt breaks with conventional ways of thinking,  it is what reveals the agent or the actor to himself. For her, a political act such as a revolution is never the result of a group of people coming together one morning and deciding to make the revolution, therefore labeling it  a product or a consequence of such a decision.

  Quite the contrary says Arendt, it is the revolution that gives birth to the actor or agent and makes him visible at the same time . The subject is the result, or as Tassin says , "the child of such an action". The action is justified by itself: It does not need a subject to justify it.
( Mohammed Bouazizi is the young man who ignited the Revolution but he does not justify it. )

  And  the action that gives birth to this new subject also guarantees his freedom for every commencement ,says Arendt, is also the commencement of one self. Man's freedom lies exactly in this possibility of commencing something new every day , something radically
 different, something that would give birth  to a new " who I  am", totally different from the old " what I am".

  Political action for the plurality finds its counterpart in the possibility of falling in love for the singular. We may wish for it ,but we can never plan for it. 
It can take us quite by surprise and change our  lives and our innermost being . We are born again , for best or for worst ,every time we have fallen in love  .

 Rafael Enthoven gives the example of Julien Sorel, the hero of 19th- century Stendhal's masterpiece "le Rouge et le Noir" . Sorel is Mr and Mrs de Renal' children preceptor, is housed on their property and falls hopelessly in love with Mrs de Renal . Tormented by a passion that he is unable to freely express , he decides one morning to find in himself the courage to hold Mrs de Renal's hand , or else he would be unfit to live , and therefore  will blow his brains.

 Although Sorel decides, he does not and cannot plan. The gesture remains totally spontaneous. " Julien Sorel's hand detaches itself from his body and  moves to join Mme de Renal's hand", says Tassin .At that moment, Julien becomes a totally different person and commences a new chapter in life . And the one who is actually the most stunned by this gesture is not Mrs de Renal, but Sorel himself ."There there are two Julien Sorel" , comments Tassin. "he one who decides to take Mrs de Renal's hand and the one who
takes it" .


 All of us , hopefully of course, have at some point in our lives "held Mrs de Renal's hand". We have closed our eyes and in a true state of disbelief, have plunged into the unknown .

 In both realms, the personal and the public, courage in action is what gives birth to the new born and reminds him every step of the way that he needs to remain faithful to that first day of commencement. 


Mohammed Bouazizi is the flame that will always remain in our hearts and light our paths 
 for he alone by his act, has restored its full meaning to what we call " freedom".
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