Neither Victims Nor Executioners
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Author : Albert Camus

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November 30, 1946
Toward Dialogue



Yes, we must raise our voices. Up to this point, I have refrained from
appealing to emotion. We are being torn apart by a logic of history which
we have elaborated in every detail — a net which threatens to strangle
us.  It is not emotion which can cut through the web of a logic which has
gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which can meet logic on its own
ground. But I should not want to leave the impression... that any program
for the future can get along without our powers of love and indignation. I
am well aware that it takes a powerful prime mover to get men into motion
and that it is hard to throw one’s self into a struggle whose objectives
are so modest and where hope has only a rational basis — and hardly even
that. But the problem is not how to carry men away; it is essential, on the
contrary, that they not be carried away but rather that they be made to
understand clearly what they are doing.



To save what can be saved so as to open up some kind of future — that is
the prime mover, the passion and the sacrifice that is required. It demands
only that we reflect and then decide, clearly, whether humanity’s lot
must be made still more miserable in order to achieve far-off and shadowy
ends, whether we should accept a world bristling with arms where brother
kills brother; or whether, on the contrary, we should avoid bloodshed and
misery as much as possible so that we give a chance for survival to later
generations better equipped than we are.



For my part, I am fairly sure that I have made the choice. And, having
chosen, I think that I must speak out, that I must state that I will never
again be one of those, whoever they be, who compromise with murder, and
that I must take the consequences of such a decision. The thing is done,
and that is as far as I can go at present.... However, I want to make clear
the spirit in which this article is written.



We are asked to love or to hate such and such a country and such and such a
people. But some of us feel too strongly our common humanity to make such a
choice. Those who really love the Russian people, in gratitude for what
they have never ceased to be — that world leaven which Tolstoy and Gorky
speak of — do not wish for them success in power politics, but rather
want to spare them, after the ordeals of the past, a new and even more
terrible bloodletting. So, too, with the American people, and with the
peoples of unhappy Europe. This is the kind of elementary truth we are
likely to forget amid the furious passions of our time.



Yes, it is fear and silence and the spiritual isolation they cause that
must be fought today. And it is sociability and the universal
intercommunication of men that must be defended. Slavery, injustice, and
lies destroy this intercourse and forbid this sociability; and so we must
reject them. But these evils are today the very stuff of history, so that
many consider them necessary evils. It is true that we cannot “escape
history,” since we are in it up to our necks. But one may propose to
fight within history to preserve from history that part of man which is not
its proper province. That is all I have to say here. The “point” of
this article may be summed up as follows:



Modern nations are driven by powerful forces along the roads of power and
domination. I will not say that these forces should be furthered or that
they should be obstructed. They hardly need our help and, for the moment,
they laugh at attempts to hinder them. They will, then, continue. But I
will ask only this simple question: What if these forces wind up in a dead
end, what if that logic of history on which so many now rely turns out to
be a will o’ the wisp? What if, despite two or three world wars, despite
the sacrifice of several generations and a whole system of values, our
grandchildren — supposing they survive — find themselves no closer to a
world society? It may well be that the survivors of such an experience will
be too weak to understand their own sufferings. Since these forces are
working themselves out and since it is inevitable that they continue to do
so,there is no reason why some of us should not take on the job of keeping
alive, through the apocalyptic historical vista that stretches before us, a
modest thoughtfulness which, without pretending to solve everything, will
constantly be prepared to give some human meaning to everyday life.  The
essential thing is that people should carefully weight the price they must
pay....



All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect
on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who
accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of
murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being.
Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if
it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the
coming years an endless strugle is going to be pursued between violence and
friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a
thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have
always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he
who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the
only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble:
that words are more powerful than munitions.



     From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org

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     Neither Victims Nor Executioners -- Added : January 24, 2021

     Neither Victims Nor Executioners -- Updated : January 06, 2022

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