Bin Laden, Dostoevsky and the reality principle: an interview with André Glucksmann

Open Democracy ^ | 31 - 3 - 2003 | Liss Gehlen/Jens Heisterkamp

[Leisler]

12 Years of The UN.

This is the bitter fruit of the left and their useful idiots.

"This is all because of Saddam!" shrieked Ali Majid al-Shamali, in tears, as he waved his arms at the long rows of graves marked with metal signs, well over 1,000 of them. "My brother! My brother!"

He sat on the ground and stroked the dirt on the grave of his only brother, Walid, arrested in October, 1993. A man from another family at the graveyard tried to comfort him. "You lost only one person?" the man asked. "We lost eight here."

Two women in black wailed. Both men started to cry.

[expatpat]

Didn't this whole nihilist attitude start with Nietsche? Or have I got the wrong gloomy, screwed-up German philosopher?

[lilylangtree]

With all things constant, the variable is and always will be human mind.

[B-Chan]

André Glucksmann: At the opening of the University of Salamanca, one General Millán Astray shouted Viva la Morte. Miguel de Unamuno, who was in charge of the occasion, was a conservative, the protégé of Franco’s wife, a philosopher of the right. He reproved the general for this impermissible, unacceptable statement, and added: “You, my general who has lost an eye in the war, are a handicapped man not because you have lost an eye but because you have shouted ‘Long live death’’’

With all due respect to Mr. Glucksmann, his knowledge of history (and of Castilian Spanish) appears to be lacking. First, the cry was "Viva el Muerto!", not "Viva la Morte" (which is not even a Spanish phrase). The slogan, which indeed means "Long live Death!", is the motto of the Tercio de Extranjeros -- the Spanish Foregn Legion, which was founded by José Millán Astray. Far from being a cry of nihilism, as Gluckmann suggests, Viva el Muerto is a battle cry, implying thoughtless bravado and fierceness in battle rather than a generalized desire to kill for the sake of killing.

I hate it when people who know nothing of Spanish history attempt to refer to Spanish history to make a political point. The history of the Civil War in Spain is a fascinating and complex subject, and one that deserves careful study instead of superficial sampling.

Viva España!

[dennisw]

btttttttttttttttt

[dark_lord]

A great line from the article: "In the beginning you are in the minority, but in the end there is the reality principle. "

[microgood]

Nihilism was first applied to Christian heretics in the Middle Ages and then some Russian revolutionaries in the 1850s and 1860s who repudiated Christianity and contemporary Russian values.

[dark_lord]

First, the cry was "Viva el Muerto!", not "Viva la Morte" (which is not even a Spanish phrase).

I think he was giving the expression in French.

[zechariah]

Thanks for the post.

[z]

[Madame Dufarge]

"Two women in black wailed. Both men started to cry."

But I misjudged mankind’s need to sleep

[Leisler]

The article was in French, and then translated to English. So, some grace must be given.

[Leisler]

I believe most any philosophy can be found expounded upon, in volumes, by the Germans, provided that the paperwork is in order.

[B-Chan]

I understand that errors of translation occur. However, "viva la mort" seems neither fish nor fowl; "Long Live Death!" would be vive la Mort in French, and viva el Muerto in Spanish. The quote as given makes me suspect that M. Gluckmann was unaware both of the history and use of the idiom Viva el Muerto! as the motto of the Spanish Foreign Legion and of Sr. Astray's role as the founder of that organization.

[moni kerr]

Back to the problem that confronts us all; nihilism. It seems to me that those on the left who argued for a war against Saddam invariably recognized that the threat posed by nihilist ideologies to civilization is far greater than the threat to world peace posed by the US. Sometimes the cost of that 'peace' outweighs the cost of war.

[zechariah]

I understand that errors of translation occur. However, "viva la mort" seems neither fish nor fowl; "Long Live Death!" would be vive la Mort in French, and viva el Muerto in Spanish.

Ok, sorry to nitpick here, but is viva el Muerto supposed to be Old Spanish, or something? 'Cause in modern Spanish "Long live death" would be translated: Que viva la muerte.

[z]

[B-Chan]

My workaday knowledge of Tex-Mex newspaper Spanish (I live in Texas) certainly doesn't qualify me as an expert , but if I'm not mistaken the idiom el Muerto refers to Death personified, as in the Grim Reaper, while la muerte is just plain old biological death.

The phrase itself is Castilian. The quote and information to which I refer in my post is taken from El Caudillo: a Political Biography of Franco (J.W.D. Trythall; McGraw-Hill, 1970, LCCCN 0-107298, p. 34).

[TheMole]

Good post. I hadn't seen this one. Thanks.

[betty boop]

...there is something worse than war, and that is Auschwitz.

Thank you, Leisler, for this brilliant post.

[Bonaparte]

Right. El Muerto means "the dead one."

[Bonaparte]

Here's a guy who is known as El Muerto.