The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: Resistance, Rebellion and Death

Posted by Marcello (Guest) georgiomalik@yahoo.com - Tuesday, December 28 2010, 20:58:46 (UTC)
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For we shall be victorious, you may be sure. But we
shall be victorious thanks to that very defeat, to that long,
slow progress during which we found our justification,
to that suffering which, in all its injustice, taught us a
lesson. It taught us the secret of any victory, and if we
don't lose the secret, we shall know final victory. It
taught us that, contrary to what we sometimes used to
think, the spirit is of no avail against the sword, but
that the spirit together with the sword will always win
out over the sword alone. That is why we have now accepted
the sword, after making sure that the spirit was
on our side. We had first to see people die and to run the
risk of dying ourselves. We had to see a French work-
man walking toward the guillotine at dawn down the
prison corridors and exhorting his comrades from cell to
cell to show their courage. Finally, to posses ourselves of
the spirit, we had to endure torture of the flesh. One
really possesses only what on has paid for. We have
paid dearly, and we have not finished paying. But we
have our certainties, our justifications, our justice; your
defeat is inevitible.

I have never believed in the power of truth in itself.
But it is at least worth knowning that when expressed
forcefully truth wins out over falsehood. This is the dis-
tinction that gives us strength as we fight today. And I
am tempted to tell you that it so happens that we are
fighting for fine distinctions, but the kind of distinctions
that are as important as man himself. We are fighting
for the distinction between sacrifice and mysticism,
between energy and violence, between strength and
cruelty, for that even finer distinction between the true
and the false, between the man of the future and the
cowardly gods you revere.

This is what I wanted to tell you, not above the fray
but in the thick of the fray. This is what I wanted to
answer to your remark, "You don't love your country,"
which is still haunting me. But I want to be clear with
you. I believe that France lost her power and her sway
for a long time to come and that for al long time she will
need a desperate patience, a vigilant revolt to recover
the element of prestige necessary for any culture. But I
believe sha has lost all that for reasons that are pure.
And this is why I have not lost hope. This is the whole
meaning of my letter. The man whom you pitied five
years ago for being so reticent about his country is the
same man who wants to say to you today, and to all those
of our age in Europe and throughout the world: "I belong
to an admirable and perserving nation which, admiitting
her errors and weaknesses, has not lost the idea
that constitutes her whole greatness. Her people are always
trying and her leaders are sometimes trying to express
that idea even more clearly. I belong to a nation
which for the past four years has begun to relive the
course of her entire history and which is calmly and
surely preparing out the ruins to make another history
and to take her chance in a game where she holds no
trumps. This country is worthy of the difficult and
demanding love that is mine. And I believe she is
decidely worth fighting for since she is worthy of a higher
love. And I say that your nation, on the other hand, has
recieved from its sons only the love it deserved, which
was blind. A nation is not justified by such love. That
will be you undoing. And you who were already conquered
in your greatest victories, what will you be in
the approaching defeat?"

by Albert Camus
July 1943

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The full topic:

Resistance, Rebellion and Death Marcello - Tuesday, December 28 2010, 20:05:02 (UTC)
- Re: Resistance, Rebellion and Death Marcello - 12/28 20:31
  - Re: Resistance, Rebellion and Death Marcello - 12/28 20:58

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