Word or barbarism
In one way or another, most of us manage to encapsulate ourselves for a few days in summer when we're allowed to recover the basics, be it the scent of a fig tree or watching the clouds pass by. From the calm, current events seem even more like a stage driven by cruelty and arbitrariness. A sinister circus from which it seems worth protecting oneself, distancing oneself. This summer we have witnessed what seems like the end of the world: inextinguishable flames that incinerate trees, animals, and villages; narcissistic leaders and hypertrophied egos that set the pace of international relations, incapable of stopping the massacres in Ukraine or Gaza. History, in the case of the Alaska summit, has passed us by like a bad B-movie, where the supposed president of the free world, transformed into a capricious CEO, flatters the bloodthirsty Russian president by driving him around in the Beast, the presidential armored vehicle, while being unable to force an agreement. With the golden stage set dedicated to Putin, the US gave cover to those who believe that Russia's unity and stability can only be achieved through force and the distortion of history, those who believe that power thrives on cruelty, mystery, theatricality, and manipulation.
If it weren't so serious, we could look the other way. But making us feel detached from reality, distancing ourselves from the pain that surrounds us, is the beginning of the barbarians' victory. Authoritarianism advances when we give away words, normalize hatred, or inhibit ourselves, because democracies don't fall overnight: they slowly erode with each complicit silence and with each slogan accepted as truth.
In this context, two books help us reposition ourselves and react. Salomé Saqué warns of this inResist(Platform). The essay is written with urgency and commitment. It dissects the subtle mechanism by which the far right has imposed its framework: the use of a new vocabulary that becomes common sense, the massive dissemination of simplified messages on social media, the capture of major media outlets. Saqué offers a manual of resistance: from critical education to citizen mobilization, from the defense of independent media to the real regulation of digital platforms. His message is clear: to resist is to act, every day.
The second book isThe word that conquers death, by Rob Riemen (Arcadia). His is the trench of culture and memory. The book is a humanist meditation on the transcendent. In the face of the nihilism and emptiness of politics turned into a commodity, Riemen defends literature, philosophy, and music as the only tools capable of giving meaning to everything. The word is what connects us with the essence of the human condition and allows us to leave a trace beyond death. Humanism would be the compass in times of confusion.
These are two different books, two voices separated by generation and context, but united by a common conviction: the word is the only wall and the only bridge we have left.
The conclusion is that if we renounce the word, we are vulnerable to dogma, lies, and hatred. In that sense, the word is subversive. We see it in Gaza, where more than 200 journalists have been murdered. New, this summer only. In Gaza, if you explain what's happening, you're a military target. Names are known for a few days and then erased: Yahya Sobeih, who died a few days after becoming a father; Hasan Aslih, a photojournalist hospitalized in Nasser; Ismail Abu Hatab, who worked for the BBC and DW and died in a café full of colleagues; Anas Al Sharif, voice of Al Jazeera, murdered outside Al Shifa Hospital. The list goes on. Journalists who didn't carry weapons, only cameras and microphones.
It's no coincidence. When journalists are killed, the truth and the attempt to understand are also killed. Free information is the natural enemy of authoritarianism and propaganda, and absolute certainty is incompatible with critical thinking and freedom of conscience. In other words, as Bertrand Russell said when he said: "I would never die for my beliefs; I could be wrong."
Gaza shows us that words are the difference between life and death. If we renounce free speech, we renounce democracy and humanity. Resisting with words and taking action is more urgent today than ever, because when words fall under the bombs, only silence and barbarism remain.