For a Declaration of the Rights of Peoples

The following is an essay from the 15th Colloque national du G.R.E.C.E.1 (May 17, 1981).

According to Montesquieu, it is “simple and unique ideas” that lead to despotism. For his part, in 1772, Justus Möser wrote, “The current tendency to make general laws and ordinances is dangerous to liberty. In doing so … we are paving the way for despotism, which claims to subordinate everything to a few rules and renounces the richness created by diversity.” Finally, for Friedrich Schlegel: “Everything that is absolute is, by its very nature, inorganic and tends to destroy the component elements. One can say without being mistaken that the absolute is the true enemy of mankind.”

Here, from the outset, is the issue that brings us together today: the cause of peoples. These peoples, whose concept is always expressed in the plural and whose defense today constitutes the best means of fighting against absolutes.

This is a point we have often made: men exist, but man in himself, abstract man, universal man, that man does not exist. We can speak of the liberties of Russians, Afghans, and Poles — the liberties of peoples subjugated by American imperialism. To stick, on the other hand, to the abstract rights of a “universal” man is, in our view, the best way to grant them to no one.

For us who reject biological materialism as well as racism, man has no other nature than the culture through which he constructs himself. The isolated subject does not exist. It is a flatus vocis, a fiction. There is no real subject except as re-connected — connected to particular heritages, to particular belongings. In other words, there is no subject pre-existing the connection, no subject to whom properties could be attributed outside of any connection. Between the absolute of humanity and its specular correlate, the absolute of the individual, there is a point of balance, an anchor point: rooted popular culture, as an intermediate dimension, as a third way, as a place of permanent reconciliation of relative contradictions, which, in its measure, contributes to giving individual existence its efficiency, its significance and its survival.

The category of “people” is not to be confused with language, race, class, territory, or nation. A people is not a transitory sum of individuals; it is not a random aggregate. It is the gathering of heirs to a specific fraction of human history who, on the basis of a feeling of common belonging, develop the will to continue this history and to give themselves a common destiny. A people is an organism which, as such, has its own properties that are not found in its components taken in isolation. It too has rights, as it has duties. Likewise, the State that often historically concretizes it also has its own life. It is not a concept or an element of contract, as the “enlightened” philosophers inspired by the mechanistic and mercantilist thought of the 18th century believed. It is an idea that progressively finds its incarnation in history.

“Every man has his identity inscribed in his cells,” recently said Jean Dausset, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine in 1980.2 Now, this unique, irreplaceable, immeasurable character that researchers attribute to individuals, we must also recognize in peoples.

Indeed, identity cannot be solely individual. The consciousness of identity goes hand in hand with the feeling of inclusion, of belonging, which itself generates solidarity and cements common will. Lived and perceived subjectively, collective identity results from this consciousness of belonging to a group, defines itself as difference, and is grasped through a system of representations, intuitive or reasoned, through a certain number of symbols, myths, and images implying a worldview and particular reference values. Identity, in other words, is understood through a continuous reflection on the present, always connected to the deepest roots of our culture and history. This process of individuation brings our cultural origins into clear awareness, helping us to fully grasp who we are.

“A people without culture,” writes Albert Memmi, “would be deprived of past and future; in other words, it has ceased to exist as such. A people does not only die if all its members are physically dead. It is enough that its descendants individually integrate to such a point into other groups that they forget where they come from and that they believe their future has always coincided with that of their new fellow citizens. Their native humus has indeed ceased to exist since it has dispersed to the winds of history, going to fertilize other soils. We can then understand the determination of groups to defend their collective memory: it is the very condition of their survival.”3

Culture, one could say, is indeed the identity card of a people. It is their mental breathing. It is their passport for a future in the form of destiny. For it is when a people experiences itself as an organic, differentiated reality that it can, thanks to a “living popular spirit” (Achim von Arnim), reveal itself as fully creative.

Systematic analysis has established that the self-preservation of a system implies the existence, not of an impermeable barrier, but of a “filter” designed to control the entry of information from the outside and its transformation within the system. Similarly, maintaining the identity of a people requires a certain cultural and demographic continuity, a relative invariance of transmitters, because while it is true that excessive homogeneity would lead to a loss of energy, it is also true that disruptive heterogeneity would produce an erosion of the feeling of common belonging. The “filter” within a cultural system can only be constituted by a certain number of values.

Let us be very clear, nevertheless. It is not about establishing some kind of metaphysical boundary around cultures. Peoples are not Platonic absolutes. Identity, as constancy within change, can only be grasped dialectically and in its own evolution. The use value of a cultural acquisition is therefore not contradictory to its exchange value. But for there to be exchange, there must be something to exchange; that is to say, in this case, there must be an identity.

It is not about cutting oneself off from the universal, but rather affirming that one can only achieve it by starting from the particular. The more a cultural group deepens its own genius, as Schlegel already observed, the more it increases the richness of humanity. We are therefore not advocating for isolation, but for a form of self-centered historical-cultural development.

In his Götz von Berlichingen, Goethe evokes those men who, “through excessive erudition,” no longer know their fathers. Such are the universalists, who, by dogmatically deducing the singular from the universal, come to deny their own roots. The critique we are developing on substance is not a critique of the universal but a critique of universalism — that universalism which finds its origin in biblical monogenism and which has continually inspired secular egalitarianism since the 17th century, that universalism which we know well always emanates, in fact, from a particular thought, and that, as such, it always represents a masked attempt to dominate the Other.

Jung showed that, just like an individual, a people suffers from mental dissociation when it represses its most ancient past, when it denies that part of itself which comes from its deep roots, that part of itself which always stands on the threshold of its own consciousness, which challenges it and poses the riddle of the historical Sphinx: who is it? Where does it come from? What does it intend to do with itself to give itself a destiny?

Of all the forms of destruction and depersonalization of peoples, from exterminatory racism to identity-negating acculturation, one of the most perverse has probably been assimilationism, which, it must be said, found its exemplary version for two centuries in France’s colonial management model.

Assimilationism, as a classic form of colonial ethnocentrism, is striking in that one finds in it, on the ideological level, fundamental components such as the belief in “progress,” the “Westernist” and linear conception of history, the idea that there exists a universalizable optimum of society, and finally the implicit conviction of an objective reality of law, generally based on natural law theory.

It is, moreover, very remarkable that this doctrine, which ultimately appears as a particular technique of socio-national domination, found perfect consensus in France, both on the right and on the left.

As Alain Fenet writes, it was indeed “immediately judged to be in line with the spirit of the Revolution, because, for the revolutionaries, there could only be one good way to administer. It was then classified as ‘liberal’ since it allowed the overseas inhabitants to be recognized with the same rights as the citizens of mainland France in legal egalitarianism and to benefit from the production of the ideology of human and citizen rights enshrined in the laws of the Republic. Finally, it would benefit from a ‘progressive’ credit due to its project to give overseas inhabitants access to the political, legal, and social conditions created by European societies on the path of progress.”4

In practice, however, assimilationism found its own limit in the fact that it tolerated, even encouraged, a whole series of practices that deviated from its principles. It thus created, by itself, the conditions for its own decline and paved the way for decolonization.

The end of colonialism, precisely, and we too often forget to mention it, marked the failure of a unilateral globality and one of the universalist conceptions of the world. Decolonization, in fact, did not consist of the uprising of one class against another class. It saw the birth and affirmation of peoples wishing to live their own history on their own terms. In this sense, it represents a crucial event.

It is this movement that, today, tends to intensify worldwide. Peoples as peoples, as historical collectives transcending any other category, are rising up. Peoples want to determine their own fate. They want to reclaim their identity and take control of their destiny. Instead of being objects of others’ history, they intend to be the architects and subjects of their own history. Let us repeat: these are not class struggles but popular and national uprisings against everything that oppresses peoples in their very generality.

In relation to this movement, we must push it to its conclusion. The notion of “colonization,” in particular, must be systematized. It should not be reserved for third world countries or former colonies. It must be re-examined in light of new historical experiences. Indeed, there is more than just political and military colonization. Today, one can be conquered — and colonized — without a single shot being fired. One can even be colonized without realizing it. One can be colonized economically, culturally, ideologically, religiously, or spiritually. And these new forms of conquest, potentially seductive, potentially “transparent” forms, are only more dangerous. We will say that true decolonization is total decolonization. I would even add that it is reciprocal decolonization.

Let us not forget, moreover, that Europe, before being a colonizer, was itself also colonized — that it exported the Western-centric ideology and the biblical message after having it imposed upon itself. And we know how much Herder, in his Another Philosophy of History (1773), struggled to reconcile his favor for Christianity with his exaltation of national geniuses, in which one could see, not without reason, a “modern form of polytheism” and which leads him, among other things, to condemn Christian evangelization, missionary ethnocentrism, and the nascent colonization…

What is the right to self-determination? It is, first and foremost, the right to express the will to be independent. However, independence forms a whole. To be politically independent and not economically, culturally, or ideologically independent is not to be independent. It also poses the awareness of their deep being by peoples as a fundamental right: “One cannot,” emphasizes Guy Michaud, “speak of a people’s right to self-determination, or even a claim to self-determine, without there first being on their part an awareness of their identity.”5

It is notable in this regard that an organization like the United Nations has always refused to systematize decolonization. The notion of “colonization” has practically been reserved to justify the emancipation of third world countries subjected to European political-administrative tutelage. It has not played in favor of countries in the socialist camp. It has not played in favor of countries subjected to American economic-cultural influence. Nor has it played in favor of autonomist and regionalist claims in Europe.6 It is also observed that the claim to self-determination has been denied to the German people, as it would have implied a reunification that no superpower wants. Even within international bodies, we now see the emergence of the idea that self-determination does not extend to the choice of regime or that it does not extend to the ownership of wealth and natural resources.

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

Finally, it must be observed that the condemnation, in the name of universal conscience, of this or that political regime is in direct contradiction to the assertion that peoples, having the right to self-determination, also have the right to determine for themselves their political and social status.

For their part, the former third world intellectuals, once fascinated by wars of independence and national uprisings, increasingly tend to convert themselves, behind the American imperialism they denounced yesterday, to the ideology of human rights and universal evangelism. By designating the United States as the lesser evil in the aftermath of the war, Camus had prepared the ground. The “American left” rushed into the breach. Today it is Jean Cau who celebrates the memory of “Che” Guevara, while the intelligentsia, just a few months ago, was denouncing the “nationalism” of the communist party and making eyes at Jimmy Carter.

A similar evolution in the realm of ideas. Not so long ago, egalitarian ideologues, eager to combat the idea of a hereditary or constitutional nature of man, did not hesitate to emphasize the importance of culture and historical consciousness, which, indeed, are part of human specificity.

Since then, they have realized that “culturalism” does not lead back to the unique, quite the contrary; that cultures, far from eliminating differences, only bring them to a higher level, and that this plurality of cultures is no more a “stage” towards the world state than polytheism is a “stage” towards monotheism. This is why, from now on, they attack cultures themselves, asserting, with Guy Scarpetta, that “the very notion of rooted popular culture should be taken with a pinch of salt” and that we must fight against the “ideological apparatus of rootedness” thanks to the “decisive conjunction of the monotheistic axis and cosmopolitan uprooting.”7

Thus, we naturally arrive at the theme of the “death of man,” that is to say, a conception of man founded on nothingness. And in fact, the same egalitarian ideologues, backed into a corner, are now confessing to us that the “man” they defend is only an operational concept, a messianic idea intended for the negative interpellation of reality; that man in himself, as Guy Lardreau ingenuously writes, is only “what I postulate if I want to construct such a concept of connection that it includes something that escapes connection”8 — which amounts to saying that stating what does not exist is still the best way to suppress what does exist.

Undoubtedly, in light of this evolution, one should reread the pages that Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, devotes to the eminently revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie. Historically, it is with the rise of bourgeois values that a significant shift occurs in European thought: an ideology emerges that no longer seeks to transform social ties or renew a sense of belonging. Instead, this ideology advocates for severing connections, erasing cultural and historical markers, and dissolving communal bonds.

However, what Marx had not foreseen was that instead of the bourgeois revolution leading to socialism, it is, on the contrary, towards bourgeoisification that socialism would eventually ebb. Marxist internationalism, aiming at a universal government based on the internationalization of the means of production, is dead. It was even stillborn. The cosmopolitan ideal, on the other hand, remains very much alive. We can observe that it is liberalism, not Marxism, that is actively bringing about this change. The destruction of deeply rooted cultures is being more effectively achieved by multinational corporations than by Marx’s followers, who have shifted their focus to a superficial ideal of “better living.” This ideal, characterized by permissiveness, is a diluted version of the petty-bourgeois mindset.

The fundamental question that arises today, concerning the cause of peoples, goes far beyond knowing how to put an end to Jacobinism, how to decentralize, and how to respect local diversities. The problem is no longer a question of borders, nor of administrative autonomy, nor of state domination. What good is it for a people to enjoy formal independence if it is to continue to be alienated and colonized elsewhere? The real question that arises is: how to escape the grip of a cold, neo-primitive society, where social microprocessors give the illusion of change? How to resist the technomorphic tendencies that are being expressed? How to fight against the System?

The first task in politics is to identify the enemy. But here, the enemy cannot be designated in a personal or localized form. It is not the fault of Abraham, nor of Voltaire, nor of Rousseau. It is not even the fault of “the crisis.” It is not even the fault of “power.” Given the degree of complexity and fluidity of structures that characterizes societies today, “power” is less and less in its traditional places; it resides less and less in the decision-making margin of institutional and governmental centers. The enemy cannot be “designated.” One can only give a description of it.

The foundations of the System are the idea of “progress,” the belief in the unlimited powers of reason (of which market efficiency would be the best illustration), the illusion of a truth external to man, the negation of the autonomy of consciousness, and finally, the belief in a “universal good,” which the American way of life would allow to extend to the world, while impersonal decision-makers, endowed with advanced technical expertise, would “scientifically” determine the general optimums of decision-making.

The concrete result of the implementation of the System is the logical outcome of liberal individualism: this “culture of Narcissism” so well described by Christopher Lasch,9 which combines the hedonism of small happiness with the ideal of nomadism and disengagement. It is also the continuous spiritual impoverishment of humanity, the erosion of cultures, and the standardization of behaviors. Almost everywhere, to fight against their possible disappearance, peoples must become ethnologists of their own future. Almost everywhere, acculturated, assimilated, and murdered peoples are disappearing. The peoples who are inconvenient. The peoples who are not profitable in the eyes of this dominant ideology, which tolerates everything but respects nothing, where nothing has value anymore, but where everything has a price.

The enemy can no longer be “designated” because structures now act by themselves. Structures are now self-regulated, self-producing, and self-standardized. The confusion of men and things reaches its peak. Soon, there will be no more nations; there will only be zones. There will be no more cultures; there will only be markets. There will be no more possibilities for historical action; there will only be formal freedoms, all the more easily granted as they will no longer produce change — granted by those liberals of whom Herder said that they only abolished slavery after calculating that slaves brought in less than free men…

In permanent drift towards the insignificant, appearance, the immediate spectacle, peoples seem to have become creators of their own void — and history, which is ultimately only the narrative of their originality, also seems to be coming to an end.

We are living in a period of abolition of time, or more precisely, abolition of historical time. What kills peoples, writes Christopher Lasch, is the fraying of the feeling that we live in historical continuity. In other words, the loss of consciousness of their identity, the forgetting of their origins, and the inability to put themselves in perspective, all of which, writes Raymond Ruyer, are accentuated by “the claim of the right to lose interest in duration, in the survival of the people to which one belongs, and to live in the freedom of the present.”10 Peoples live in “presentism,” in the spectacular contemplation of a folklorized and museum-frozen past. In a “presentism” that itself corrupts the feeling of common belonging, since, as there is no long-term project with which members of society can associate themselves, each of them has an interest in maximizing his immediate demands at the expense of others.

Let us state it clearly: it is not true that there is, on one hand, a totalitarian socialist world and, on the other, a “free world” in the form of Disneyland, of which American thalassocracy would be the natural leader. This is a fable, where the Soviet bogeyman serves as an alibi for the establishment of a no less worrying “new internal order.”

The truth is that there are two distinct forms of totalitarianism, very different in their nature and effects, but both equally formidable. The first, in the East, imprisons, persecutes, and bruises bodies; at least it leaves hope intact. The other, in the West, ends up creating happy robots. It air-conditions hell. It kills souls. It generates an American-centric system where people, reduced to a state of neo-primitivism, follow predetermined paths within a world filled with objects. In this world, signs no longer correspond to reality but merely interact with each other, creating a closed loop of meaning. Meanwhile, people themselves are reduced to objects, constantly monitored by the unblinking gaze of surveillance cameras in the global hypermarket.

Between the East and the West: Europe. A Europe divided along its central axis, broken on either side of this heap of barbed wire and concrete called the Berlin Wall. This wall which is at once the symbol of our hemiplegia, the representation of our abasement, and the point of crystallization of the German11 and European neurosis.

On May 25, 1930, Jacques Bainville wrote, “The ultimate form of Americanization would be to list shares of the company France on the stock exchange.” Today, it is Jean-Paul Dollé who observes that the Soviet Union and the United States “embody, in an apparent opposition, the reverse and the dream — turned nightmare — of Enlightenment rationality.” And that “what other peoples experience as history, that is to say as destiny, Americans perceive as underdevelopment.”12

When Nicos Poulantzas claimed that “capital marches towards the nation,”13 he was fifty years behind. Today, capital “marches” towards the erosion of collective identities and national specificities. It “marches” towards a global market guided by laissez-faire and laxity. It “marches” towards the multinational corporation.

And yet, there are moments when possessions no longer matter. For soldiers fighting on the front lines, money has no value. And it is indeed at war that we find ourselves. A war in which the historical future and destiny of peoples are at stake — a war whose outcome is the cause of peoples.

What is at stake? It is about defending the value of all epochs against the linear conception of history and the myth of progress. About defending the value of all cultures against the global System that is in the process of eroding them. About making the past, present, and future converge towards the focal point where it is once again possible to make history. About awakening in peoples an increased consciousness of their identity and origins. About founding solidarity and social justice on a sense of common belonging and the will for a shared destiny. About promoting all forms of rootedness, not only geographical but also, and perhaps especially, spiritual, cultural, and historical. About developing a strategy of cultural resistance. Finally, about opposing the standardization of ways of life and thought with the ever-renewed diversity of human creations.

We are not advocates of turning back the clock. We want modernity. But is not modernity itself also dying? Today, writes Jean Baudrillard, nothing is modern anymore: everything is current. And therein lies the tragedy. To live only in the current, to dissociate the present from the past, is to disinherit the future and kill modernity. However, novelty without roots cannot, by definition, be new. It is to preserve the very possibility of modernity that we argue for spiritual rootedness.

The struggle that has begun has nothing to do with the confrontation between right and left, with the East-West dialectic, and with the North-South conflict. It is the struggle between peoples and the System. It is the struggle for the cause of peoples. It is also, and definitively, the struggle of life as an ever-changing plurality, against egalitarian regression, against despotism and totalitarianism, against programmed amnesia and the halt of history. It is the struggle against death.

To conclude, I will quote a poem by Padraig Pearse, one of the insurgents of the Irish Easter Rising of 1916:

O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith
And so I speak.
Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved, shall we not answer together?

Footnotes