Letter to my friend Alvaro Mutis

One day in the 1990s, we were walking down the street, we were leaving the Hôtel des Saints-Pères, and Alvaro Mutis 1 stopped short. We were almost at the corner of the rue de Grenelle, and he said to me: “Emmanuel, I have the impression that we walked like this together a long time ago in a street in Cadiz. And we were having the same discussion. I confess that I no longer remember our remarks. I am certain that if Alvaro Mutis were still alive, he would remember it.

Alvaro Mutis had a special relationship with life. He lived by handling memory and immediate reality. He always put one foot in one and one foot in the other. With him, these two worlds never left each other, they were close, went hand in hand, like conjoined twins, like a one-way life, for the better. Alvaro Mutis was living his life and other lives, lives he had lived before, or would live later. Above all, Alvaro Mutis lived, at all times, accompanied by a young boy, this still child was called Alvarito, he was always with us. Carmen, Alvaro's wife, accepted his presence even though it was not her son. I have never met someone like Alvaro Mutis. I mean there was something terrifying and intriguing about his presence, his presence as a child next to the same middle-aged adult. I told him that often. I told him that Bernanos, whom he loved, also had to live like this with the incarnated afterglow of a young self by his side.

I come here to tell what I know of Alvaro Mutis, Maqroll el Gaviero and a few others… These last years have been slow and long. We corresponded much less. He no longer wrote. He hadn't written for so long. The tremors had taken over. A certain emptiness too. Everything was doomed to disappear like the stump of a dead tree that disappeared in a week in the damp furnace of the Amsud. Everything had to pass, and this spectacle of life in action never ceased to amaze Alvaro Mutis throughout the ninety years he spent on this earth.

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Speech by Donoso Cortes (1850)

“Regular armies are the only thing today that prevents civilization from losing itself in barbarism.
Today we see a spectacle new in history, new in the world: when, gentlemen, did the world see, except in our day, that we are heading towards civilization through the arms and towards barbarism through ideas? Well, the world is seeing it as I speak. This phenomenon, gentlemen, is so serious, so strange, that it demands some explanation on my part. All true civilization comes from Christianity. This is so true that the whole civilization has been concentrated in the Christian zone. Outside this zone there is no civilization, everything is barbarism. And this is so true that before Christianity there were no civilized peoples because the Roman people and the Greek people were not civilized peoples. They were cultured people, which is very different. “Christianity has civilized the world by doing these three things: it has civilized the world by making authority inviolable, obedience a holy thing, self-denial and sacrifice, or better, charity a divine thing.
In this way Christianity civilized the nations. Well (and here is the solution of a great problem), the ideas of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of sacrifice, these ideas no longer exist in civil society. : they are in the churches where we adore the just and merciful God, and in the camps where we adore the strong God, the God of battles under the symbols of glory. And because the Church and the army are the only ones which have preserved the notions of the inviolability of authority, the sanctity of obedience and the divinity of charity, they are also the two representatives of European civilization. "I don't know, Gentlemen, if your attention will have been drawn like mine by the resemblance, the quasi-identity between the two persons who seem to be the most distinct, the most opposite, the resemblance between the priest and the soldier. Neither of them live for themselves, neither live for their families. For both, it is in sacrifice and self-denial that their glory is found. The soldier's job is to ensure the independence of civil society. The office of the priest is to watch over the independence of the religious society. The duty of the priest is to die, to give his life as the good shepherd for his sheep. The duty of the soldier, like a good brother, is to give his priestly life, the priesthood will appear to you, and indeed it is, like a veritable militia. If you consider the sanctity of the military profession, the army will seem to you a veritable priesthood. What would the world be, what would civilization be, what would Europe be if there were no priests or soldiers? »

In the heart of darkness, life

The-Tree-of-Life

After seeing "Tree of Life", I have long forbidden myself to write about this film. Two forces clashed in me. Subjugated by poetry, by the state of bliss in which I was plunged, I was afraid of disturbing the surface of this work. I got so tangled in the mystery of this film that I did not understand the negative reactions and was unable to have a critical mind 1 . "Tree of Life" is based on a book from the Bible, "Le Livre de Job". And this dark book speaks of the life and relationship of man to God. Which is present in many books in the Bible. But Job's book begins with a dialogue between God and Satan who play man. The impression that this inaugural dialogue leaves us is strange. Of course, the start dialogue would not be entirely from the same era as the central story. No matter in fact, the impression left is during the book. How can God play with his beloved creature? A hasty conclusion reports on the improbable of the situation. In truth, once the bark has been removed, Job's book delivers the heart of the relationship between God and man. And "Tree of Life", the film of Terrence Malick, has this same ambition.

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In the shadow of Ernesto Sabato

When Ernesto Sabato died on April 30 at 99, he repeated the words of Maria Zambrano: to die this elusive action that is carried out by obeying, happens beyond reality, in another kingdom . In his house in Santos Lugarès ("holy places" near Buenos-Aires), Ernesto Sabato obeys this last injunction. He prepared for a long time. In Resistance , his moving literary will published in 2002, he wrote: I forgot great sides of my life, but, on the other hand, certain meetings, moments of danger and the names of those who have drawn me depressions and Blepitum still piles in my hands. And yours too, you who believe in me, who have read my books and go help me die.

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Notes on the French Revolution

Most of the quotes concerning the French Revolution given in this article come from the " Historically Correct " book by Jean Sévillia.

Solzhenitsyn: “Men not being endowed with the same capacities, if they are free, they will not be equal, and if they are equal, it is because they are not free. »

There is a revolutionary idea of ​​permanent invention that still continues today. It is an idea that is also contained in the idea of ​​progress. That everything remains to be invented. René Guénon said: "There are no new ideas on earth. "" 

Robespierre: “If Louis can be the subject of a trial, he can always be absolved; he may be innocent: what am I saying? He is presumed to be so until he is judged; but if Louis can be presumed innocent, what becomes of the Revolution? »

Westermann at the Convention: “There is no more Vendée: it is dead under our free sword. I crushed the children under the feet of our horses, massacred the women who will no longer give birth to brigands. I don't have a prisoner to blame me for. I wiped it all out. »

Carrier (after drowning 10,000 innocent people in the Loire): “We will make France a cemetery, rather than not regenerating it in our own way. »

“The Vendée must be annihilated because it dared to doubt the benefits of freedom. »

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Oshio Heihachiro, rebellion samurai

To fully understand the actions of Oshio Heihachiro, it must be understood that they are dictated by an anti-revolutionary character and will. Nothing in the attitude of Oshio Heihachiro wishes to question the established order. Oshio Heichachiro knows the system can be improved, but also functional. What makes the system less efficient has more to do with people than with the system itself.

Oshio's anger is directed at men, at whatever corrupts the system.

Letting people believe that a worm in the fruit is the cause of all evil is the philosophy that has always accompanied our revolutions. Who wants to drown his dog accuses him of rabies...

There is a Western arrogance that believes man is infallible. This Western arrogance has been and continues to be the essence of its anti-traditional character; and provides ever-soft ground for the will behind the egalitarian society.

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