One only has to watch the most successful television shows or have a look at this year’s literary prizes to have the impression that a great nostalgia is underway in France: We love our kings, our queens, our battles, even those we lost, our museums and our castles. This keen interest accurately communicates: « Everything was better before.»
This feeling, which is understandable for those who consider they are in the winter of their lives, takes on a completely different meaning amongst young people, revealing considerable pessimism about the future. This leads one to believe that, since nothing can be better, in the future, than the past, then every life project must focus on restoring its earlier greatness, or at least maintain the advantages acquired and the refusal of all risk and the rejection of all innovation. This is the way the political program of the National Front must be understood in particular: « The ruling elites are barking up the wrong tree. The best possible future is the past.»
This attitude is not specific to France: Against the backdrop of the current economic crisis, it is found in many other places and configurations: In Russia, nostalgic over the power of the Soviet Union, which itself was part of that of Peter the Great. In Israel, where certain extremists, unfortunately now in power, dream of a great Israel rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem to replace the mosques. In Mesopotamia, where Daesh sees itself as the return of the Caliphate as it existed in the region in the 9th century. In Turkey, where President Erdogan increasingly makes reference to the restoration of the Ottoman Empire. In China, where President Xi makes it a priority objective the return of Taiwan inside the remit of the Middle Kingdom.
All these nostalgias are suicidal: Dreaming about the world past means a return back to self-destructive nationalism, by the isolation that that causes; it also means sinking into a belligerent attitude, denying the interest of neighbors.
The past is a source of inspiration, food for the imagination, a fundamental aspect of identity constantly evolving; but it is never a future.
To remain prisoner there would lead to tragedy, as happened with the 3rd Reich, for example. If the former great powers continue to dream in this manner with no imagination, the future will belong to peoples with no nostalgia and to new nations, or at least very different today from those that existed previously on the same territory. This reinforces the prediction of a bright future for Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Ethiopia. And of course, for the United States, whose amnesia is one of the drivers.
To forget oneself in order to survive? Not necessarily. And anyone can solve this dilemma, by considering himself an adult in the making.
France, in particular, can rediscover the road to growth only by renouncing the deadly poison of commemorations, usually operating along the wrong lines (how absurd it was to celebrate in 2014 the centenary of the first world war of November 11, 1918!).
And what if we dared to debate in books, television programs and speeches made by public figures of what France can become in 30 years’ time, turning it into a new form of its past grandeur.
30 years is not a too-distant horizon: Statistically, two-thirds of all those living today will still be here in 2045 …
It is therefore worthy of further consideration.
j@attali.com
