Friday, January 7, 2011

The little red book that swept France

The little red book that swept France

The latest call to (non-violent) arms has turned a 93-year-old war hero into a publishing phenomenon. John Lichfield reports

Monday, 3 January 2011



[caption id="attachment_12423" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="He's Seen A Thing or Two..."][/caption]



Stéphane Hessel, centre, at a rally in Paris with the singer Jane Birkin and the writer Dan Franck.

Take a book of just 13 pages, written by a relatively obscure 93-year-old man, which contains no sex, no jokes, no fine writing and no startlingly original message. A publishing disaster? No, a publishing phenomenon.

Indignez vous! (Cry out!), a slim pamphlet by a wartime French resistance hero, Stéphane Hessel, is smashing all publishing records in France. The book urges the French, and everyone else, to recapture the wartime spirit of resistance to the Nazis by rejecting the "insolent, selfish" power of money and markets and by defending the social "values of modern democracy".

The book, which costs €3, has sold 600,000 copies in three months and another 200,000 have just been printed. Its original print run was 8,000. In the run-up to Christmas, Mr Hessel's call for a "peaceful insurrection" not only topped the French bestsellers list, it sold eight times more copies than the second most popular book, a Goncourt prize-winning novel by Michel Houellebecq.

The extraordinary success of the book can be interpreted in several ways. Its low price and slender size – 29 pages including blurbs and notes but just 13 pages of text – has made it a popular stocking-filler among left-wing members of the French chattering classes. Bookshops report many instances of people buying a dozen copies for family and friends.

But Mr Hessel and his small left-wing publisher (which is used to print runs in the hundreds) say that he has evidently struck a national, and international nerve, at a time of market tyranny, bankers' bonuses and budget threats to the survival of the post-war welfare state. They also suggest that the success of the book could be an important straw in the wind as France enters a political cycle leading to the presidential elections of May 2012.

In a New Year message Mr Hessel, who survived Nazi concentration camps to become a French diplomat, said he was "profoundly touched" by the success of his book. Just as he "cried out" against Nazism in the 1940s, he said, young people today should "cry out against the complicity between politicians and economic and financial powers" and "defend our democratic rights acquired over two centuries".

In a party-political aside which might or might not undermine his new status as political prophet, Mr Hessel went on to imply that "resistance" should begin with a rejection of President Nicolas Sarkozy and a vote for the Parti Socialiste.

The book has not pleased everyone. It also contains a lengthy denunciation of Israeli government policies, especially in the Gaza Strip. Although the final chapter calls vaguely for a "non-violent" solution to the world's problems, the book also suggests that "non-violence" is not "sufficient" in the Middle East. Mr Hessel, whose father was a German jew who emigrated to France, has been accused by French jewish organisations of "anti-semitism".

Mr Hessel was born in Berlin in 1917. He emigrated to France with his family when he was seven. He joined General Charles de Gaulle in London in 1941 and was sent back to France to help organise the resistance. He was captured, tortured and sent to concentration camps in Germany. After the war, he helped to draft the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

Jean-Pierre Barou, the joint head of the small Montpellier-based publishing house Indigène, which commissioned the book, said Mr Hessel had revealed a "deep sense of indignation in France".

As a political tract, the book contains no especially original analysis of the world's problems.

"They dare to tell us that the State can no longer afford policies to support its citizens," Mr Hessel says. "But how can money be lacking ... when the production of wealth has enormously increased since the Liberation (of France), at a time when Europe was ruined? The only explanation is that the power of money ... has never been so great or so insolent or so selfish and that its servants are placed in the highest reaches of the State."

The originality of the book is the suggestion that an organized "Resistance" is now called for, just like in 1940. "We, veterans of the resistance ... call on young people to revive and pass on the heritage and ideals of the Resistance," the book says.

How people should resist the power of money and the markets – by peaceful means, the book insists – is not made entirely clear.

A message of resistance

* "I would like everyone – everyone of us – to find his or her own reason to cry out. That is a precious gift. When something makes you want to cry out, as I cried out against Nazism, you become a militant, tough and committed. You become part of the great stream of history ... and this stream leads us towards more justice and more freedom but not the uncontrolled freedom of the fox in the hen-house."

* "It's true that reasons to cry out can seem less obvious today. The world appears too complex. But in this world, there are things we should not tolerate... I say to the young, look around you a little and you will find them. The worst of all attitudes is indifference..."

* "The productivist obsession of the West has plunged the world into a crisis which can only be resolved by a radical shift away from the 'ever more', in the world of finance but also in science and technology. It is high time that ethics, justice and a sustainable balance prevailed..."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-little-red-book-that-swept-france-2174676.html?action=Gallery


22 comments:

  1. P.D., Nice Heada!

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  2. This is an interesting development considering predictions I made for France this year. I have no doubt they have planned a diversion or triad to squelch any movement and as always another notch pegged down for Freedom under GOD.

    Great Post Boom.

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  3. Everything in this system is a lie. There's no business like bullshit and that's business as usual.
    It is a racket—the grand racket of “government”, the big business of “government”. A game of monopoly, complete with phony money, 'Get Out of Jail Free cards' and little plastic houses.
    The herd of Homo Vishnu Amerikanus chews their cud and stare blankly at the flashing lights coming from TV.

    Which leaves me with two minds...a struggle.

    Because what do you do about a people who won't help themselves? Talk talk talk 'till you're blue in the face?

    Do you try to hold back the herd as it hysterically leaps off the cliff into tyranny?
    I have more of a sense of self preservation than that, and am more inclined to dodge, and stay out of the way.

    But then again I have known myself to intervene in terribly dangerous situations...and I have this instinctual hatred of abused authority and have stood against it alone at times...and have survived..???...grace from above?

    I don't know. All I seem to know is how to make a rational argument, all the while knowing how lacking in rational senses the majority are.

    And I have the sense that this is all yada at any rate. What is coming will be like a hurricane, and our actions will be contingent--moment by moment.

    Remember the words of Bruce Lee, "When standing still be like a mirror. When moving, like water."

    \\ll//

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  4. Viva Stephan and the resistance and Viva La France! Power to the people! Wish we had half the spirit to protest govt policies that the French do. I really do wish I lived there. Did everybody see/hear Max Keiser(who lives in France) rant about Monsanto ?





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  5. I agree PD.. Another stunning header!

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  6. I'd rather live in Tahiti thank you.

    \\ll//

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  7. Breaking:

    At least 1 envelop ignites at DC mail distribution center --Ignited DC Package Addressed to Homeland Security Chief Napolitano --Bomb squad en route to scene, site of 2001 anthrax attack --Site has been evacuated --Second package investigated 07 Jan 2011 V Street is shut down as a precaution. At least one package ignited at this distribution center in Northeast Washington. Fire trucks and ambulances are on the scene. A second suspicious package is being investigated at this location. [This story will be updated.] Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 3:16 PM

    \\ll//

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  8. 3rd generation Monsanto GM eating rodents were sterile...
    Why does Keiser act like such a fruitecake?

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  9. Aye Rogee! Just 1 envelope? I'm sure the situation is going badly, and I'm sorry for any collateral damage (but that was of course figured into the exercise), but I must state that it seems but a harbinger of things to come...righto ole chap? At least no one was wearing the fashionable yet loathsome Exploding Thong! Truly designed by sicko maniacs. You say this was an envelope? Shouldn't the Addressee do the opening? We'll cross our fingers. Crmnals caint trust crmnals. Ha Ha Ha!!! fitting.

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  10. What's the update on that story Will? Keiser does act like a loon but I like his message and find him highly entertaining at the same time!

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  11. purrrrrrr ...

    ' suspicious package '

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6JaHSI4Tc8&feature=related

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  12. "entertaining"...yea well, there's always that.

    The information I am actually happy with--the clown act tightens my jaw.
    But then, I'm one of those cranky old men who sees little value in hysterical mannerism, where ever they arise.

    The updates were "to come" on the initial breaking news I got...I think our tiger has something here for us...
    \\ll//

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  13. That scared the shit out of my parrot...ha ha ha
    When it started she walked up my hand towards the screen...then the pop goes the... and she jumped and said "Woooo".

    \\ll//

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  14. ‘ suspicious package ‘ LOL...hey that kinda reminds me of max keiser!!

    I hate jack in the boxes because they have creepy CLOWNS in them.

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  15. I love jack in the boxes because they have creepy CLOWNS in them...Lol

    \\ll//

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  16. ...At least you can laugh and stuff them back in the box...unlike our Shock'N'Awe Daddio.
    ww

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  17. Fine then Will, here are some CLOWNS for ya! Btw, lest we forget John Wayne Gacy, evil serial killer, entertained the kiddies as a CLOWN!





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  18. This is a Great Kaiser Report, JG. Thank! It probably deserves it's own thread, with additional Kaiser videos and other documentation put up for consideration and awareness.

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  19. We're ALL Bozos on this bus.
    Killer Clowns From Outer Space.
    Roller Madens From Mars.
    The Mount of Cunty Christo.
    The Nark Dight.

    Yes the "Litrature" is full of the 'Joker', the 'Clown', the 'Jester'..and Lester the Molester. Seal it up, keep it moist, let it fester.
    \\ll//

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  20. They are now confirming Judge Roll has died, the Director if the FBI is coming here to take over the investigation and doctors that operated on Giffords won’t say what direction the bullet came from.

    There was someone else with Loughner when he arrived.

    This is staking up MK...Where's a COTO post on this?
    ...I can't do it, I'm froze out at Wordpress.

    What? Is everybody drinking wine and partying again?? Damnit.
    \\ll//

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  21. purrr ...

    total MK !

    I read they have
    a picture of the
    "person of interest",
    which arrived with 'Laugh'ner

    I'm sipping catnip tea !

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  22. Done Underground! Let's watch them ratchet up the protocols to offset the massive crime spree underway. Great job JG on the Keiser Report.

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