In the aftermath of the historic American election, renowned French philosopher, prolific writer and human rights advocate Bernard-Henri Levy spoke exclusively to Weekend Review.
Levy, whose book Left in Dark Times was published in New York in September, has been an outspoken supporter of President-elect Barack Obama and was in New York on the election day.
“Completely euphoric.” That was Levy’s first reaction to the election of Obama as the next president of the United States.
“America is back, the Bush years have been so depressing, so desperate and they have given this country that I love such a disastrous image, that as a good friend of America, I believe this new face she has given herself is the very face of hope,” Levy said.
Excerpts:
You have been a friend of the US for a long time, how did that friendship start?
It started with Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and the rockers of the Sixties. When I was about 14 years old, I travelled for the first time to the US. My love for this country started with American culture: music, cinema and literature. My interest in American politics came later.
The feeling that one could have here about great democracy came later on. First it was American cinema and how it reinvented the notion we have of space; the way American literature gave a new approach to the question of the tragic; and the way American music gave rhythm to our imagination.
With Obama having secured the presidency, how do you think America’s relationship with Europe, the Middle East and China will be?
Bush was the “weak” force. Obama will be the sovereign force, which means the force that proposes, that negotiates, the one who gives a hand, the force that tolerates the other and who, therefore, is able to reshape international relations.
Bush had the force of the mediocre, one who only counts on force, which is in fact, weakness.
Obama is the force of the one who has the sovereignty, the charisma. That means multilateralism with Europe, respect for emerging countries and a larger sense of solidarity with poor countries.
And with China, America under Obama will achieve a real partnership. As a result, I believe America will regain its importance on the world scene.
I think that going back to multilateralism, America will find again its power and its radiance in the world.
This may seem a paradox but it is when you compose that you radiate and it is rubbing the mechanism, rather, that weakens.
Now that Obama is the next president, don’t you worry that some undercurrents will be awakened? After all, the black population in the US is not all Harvard-educated.
I have written about this in my book Left in Dark Times so I know what you are referring to.
Those forces exist, that undercurrent of regression and hate, which transform the legitimate claims of minorities into hate.
I believe that Obama’s victory, far from exacerbating them or stimulating them, will contain them.
And I also think that for that, Obama’s victory was very important. Let me say it clearly, Obama’s election is the epilogue of history that started with Martin Luther King.
I believe this war of the spirits, this cultural war, found its conclusion on the evening of his election.
There will still be racism among the white people. There will be still angry black men such as Farrakhan and his followers. But I don’t believe that it will be the same.
I believe the election of Obama is essentially re-creating the unity of the US.
Why do you trust Obama?
I know this country as much as any European could know her and I think Obama is the man.
I don’t believe in providence. In history there are no angels, there are men with weaknesses and mediocrity.
But Obama, for objective reasons, was the man for this situation and he is the man who can restore pride to America.
One underestimates the incredible depression in which America found itself during the Bush years and under Bush’s entourage.
Bush got America in a state of melancholy. And when a great country such as this is melancholic and in doubt, it is terrible, it causes moral and financial crisis.
It’s not the more than $500 billion of the Iraq War that engenders the crisis; it is the melancholy and doubt that cause the crisis.
Because I know what Obama says, I know this country somewhat and I feel and think that in the upcoming months there will be a shock of confidence that will happen.
Right now, it is a matter of adjusting capitalism to new standards; some even advocate that theoreticians and economists should set them anew.
However, with a compassionate capitalism, is not there the risk of adopting socialism?
No, socialism is definitely dead, since 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. So the world is condemned to reinventing capitalism.
And that’s what will happen. Men did not know how to do it. Men with political responsibilities have been beneath the task in front of them.
It should have been the job of the Left but they have not been able to grab this opportunity. I think reality will do what men have not done. Capitalism will reinvent itself.
That’s the good side of this economic and financial crisis. It will force men who were blinded by greed, by short-sighted selfishness and who were unable to set up the badly needed rules, now, crisis is going to do it and it is happening now.
We will see that an increasing number of countries will do — as the Swedes are planning — to reform and restrict the governance of firms to a minimum of ethical principles.
One will realise that ultimately there was a series of rules that were only good to destabilise the system.
One will also see how some banking transactions or the rise of oil prices and raw materials through speculation at the highest levels will result in impoverishing the poor even more and precipitate the richest people into a crisis. There will be a renewed stabilisation in countries.
Which do you think will be President-elect Obama’s priorities regarding the situation in the Middle East? Would he start with the Israel-Palestine question?
In my book, Left in Dark Times, there is a chapter in which I explain that it is only anti-Semites who argue that world peace depends on the Israel-Palestine question, which is the argument of Louis-Ferdinand Céline in the 1930s.
In my book Who Killed Daniel Pearl? I submit that even if the Israel-Palestine problem would be solved, for which I advocate the two-state solution, it would not have any impact on the jihad of Al Qaida because for them the problem is Kashmir.
It is clear that the problems within the Islamic world are moving eastwards. While the world is fixated on the Arab world, it is rather in Asiatic Islam where the real problems are: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia … the tempest zone is there. Naturally, the Arab world is having its own revolution as we speak, and anyway, it is not the most problematic region.
In your book, you describe your father as anti-Nazi and not anti-German, a differentiation universally accepted in that particular case.
How can you explain the sentiment brought on by anti-Islamism which allows for a generalisation of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic sentiment as politically correct?
This is terrible, I always say, and say it to all my friends that the only clash of civilisations is not between the West and the rest, or the West and Islam.
The real problem is inside Islam, between the extremist, radical, terrorist, fascist minority and the majority that more and more is looking for a normal life, peace and democracy.
What solution would you suggest for Georgia?
I have written about it already though it may be too late now. I was suggesting then that Ukraine and Georgia be granted a “pre-entry” status to Nato.
We have the duty to welcome these countries which have liberated themselves from Soviet power and then from the Neo-Sovietism, which is Putinism, because they were turning for help to democratically established countries.
But we did not help them. So we sent a terrible message, closing the doors of Nato on them. That is how Russia entered a defenceless country.
Now that Obama has been elected, what is the future of the Left in America and the world?
I hope Obama will help the resurrection of a moderate, modern Left turning its back to old struggles from the past. At the same time the Marxism but also the cultural differentials, the relativism, so I hope Obama will help reinvent the Left.
You have complete confidence in Obama?
Complete confidence, no. I am fundamentally pessimistic. But I think we have to think that things will get better. I don’t have complete confidence but I believe and hope that life will be better.
If you would be invited to the emirates, for a master course, par example, would you accept?
I have so little time! Time is so short! But the fact is that I don’t know the emirates and they are countries which interest me a lot. They will be some of the pillars of the new world. So, why not?
Bernard-Henri Levy’s new book, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against The New Barbarism, was published in September 2008 by Random House.
Eliana Benador is a public relations strategist based in New York and Zurich.
