In early autumn, the Israeli air force devastated a 400-year-old souq in the city of Nabatiye, whose history dates back to the Ottoman and Mameluke times. Who would have said it?
“We have on this land all of that which makes life worth living. On this land, the lady of our land, the mother of all beginnings, and the mother of all ends. She was called Palestine. Her name later became Palestine. My lady… because you are my lady I have all of that which makes life worth living”. Mahmoud Darwish
Shortly thereafter, around November, Israeli attacks destroyed an entire wall of the citadel of Toron, a fortress constructed in the 12th century in times of the Crusaders in southern Lebanon. Astonishing. Not even Christian memory has been spared. Arab Christianity, to be more precise, which people claim to care for when it is supposedly threatened by the surrounding Muslim hordes, but never when it is in fact threatened by Europeans.
How many churches, monasteries and stained glass windows have been destroyed in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon by American, Israeli and French punitive expeditions? Who mourned the destruction of the Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza in 2023 by an Israeli attack? Who mourned for the destruction of the Great Mosque of Gaza? It was built on the site of a Crusader church,itself built on a proto-Christian holy site, making this a place of intense spiritual density of at least two thousand years old, for under Islam, Crusader Christianity and original Christianity, traces of a temple of an ancient religion remain. All this at the site of Gaza, which is only associated with a land of devastation, never with a land of history.
Omari Mosque, the oldest mosque in Gaza, destroyed by Israeli shelling. © Getty Images AFP
In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the three Buddhas of Bâmiyân, statues created between 300 and 700 AC in what is now Afghanistan. Emotions ran high around the world. But it was in the West that the pain was loudest and most resounding. It could even be said that it was the tears that flowed freely in the West that made this event a world event.
Why is Notre-Dame the cause of this gigantic lament and not the hundreds and thousands of historical works destroyed by colonialism and imperialism in the underworld?
The first obvious conclusion to be drawn is that it is not the destruction of immemorial works of human endeavor that generates general indignation or indifference. It is the identity of the criminals, and/or the identity of peoples dispossessed of their memory and their history. Or more precisely, whether they belong to the camp of freedom and civilization or to that of barbarism. In the case of the three Buddhas, the criminals were “our” enemies. So the crime was called for what it was: a crime. In the case of the citadel of Toron or the ancient souk of Nabatieh, the act of vandalism provoked nothing, moved nothing. Not even a blink of an eye.
No reaction = no victim = no crime = no criminal.
Moment of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bâmiyân in 2001, by the Taliban. © CNN.
Second conclusion: Taliban who destroy Buddhas are bastards. Westerners who destroy ancient souks are not. But I’m just spouting platitudes. And I’m tired of it. I remember the same ennui when Notre-Dame was destroyed by fire in 2019. I remember getting emotional. Not being prone to programmed emotions, I know that my feelings were sincere and could not be confused with Macron’s. But I also remember that I was quite irritated by the long lament of the “indigenous” about the eternal “double standards”. Why is Notre-Dame the cause of this gigantic lament and not the hundreds and thousands of historical works destroyed by colonialism and imperialism in the underworld?
And yet it is simple, because there are not two, but three conclusions:
Only the identitarian heritage, understood as a civilizational marker, has the right to its noble titles, identitarian Christianity included, recently (and since when?) transformed into “Judeo-Christianity”.
So I was irritated, not because the anger of the “natives” was unfounded, but rather because it was too well-founded, and reminding people of the truth is useless because the separation between the humanity that counts and that which does not count is so abysmal… In short, a resigned anger.
And now, in the midst of genocide, Notre-Dame is reopened. While tens of thousands of children have been massacred in Gaza, the stone is resurrected in Paris. Still jaded, I tell myself that all this is perfectly normal, that we know no other world than this one. That we have to accept this LAW. So what struck me about the sequence was not so much the old-fashioned and pathetic “double standard”, but the depth of the separation, the immensity of the abyss. Needless to say, measuring the extent of this separation is only useful to those who defy the LAW and still hope to pick up the pieces. To others, I understand.
Only the identitarian heritage, understood as a civilizational marker, has the right to its noble titles, identitarian Christianity included, recently (and since when?) transformed into “Judeo-Christianity”.
Let’s start with the essentials. The destruction of Buddhas or ancestral souks takes place in barbarian territory. Of course, the machine to provoke indignation or to silence it is always ready, but let it be clear that it is a question of “memorializing” and therefore of the identity of peoples who do not count. White emotion, however spectacular, is only skin deep. But the same cannot be said when what is at stake is the memory of Europeans, and in their memory, in particular, that which forms the basis of the national narrative.
Notre-Dame caught fire. It was not a terrorist act, much less an attack, but an accident. A believer would say “it is God’s will” and move on. Human works can disappear. That is part of life. Or let’s rebuild as best we can, modestly, without glitter. That’s not what happened. Notre-Dame benefited from an outpouring of “generosity”: 846 million euros from 340,000 donors from 150 countries, many of them Americans, but also from France’s biggest fortunes, the Arnault, Bettencourt and Pinault families. It is a fact that France benefits from its status as a world power and its international aura, inseparable from its colonial history from which it has known how to profit. Since the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, we know how important it is for France to remain an emblem. The ferocious attack on the myth of Notre-Dame had to be avenged and, as we can see, it has been.
As for the inauguration ceremony, it was attended by half a hundred heads of state, including Trump, 13 European presidents and numerous entrepreneurs, including the mighty and formidable Elon Musk. In short, it was a communion of Charlie. The truth is that we no longer have the right to be moved by the vulgarity of these people. So it was not the vulgarity that moved me this time, but the delicacy. Oddly enough, it was the beauty and elegance that attacked me.
It was violent if you think about it. Not just because Gaza is dying and the East is crumbling at the same time. Not just because the destroyed worlds are taking their carpenters, their sculptors, their blacksmiths and their knowledge with them.
What I found most disturbing (and perhaps I am not being understood?) was the mobilization of all the old trades, the exceptional trades to rebuild Notre-Dame exactly as it was: the stonemasons, the carpenters, the blacksmiths, the roofers, the sculptors, the glaziers, the coppersmiths, the rope makers, the skaters… All these fine trades that played a crucial role in the restoration of Notre-Dame by bringing their know-how and their unique skills. Each specialty had to respect the historical authenticity of the cathedral while incorporating modern techniques to reinforce its structure and durability. A multitude of talents, a goldsmith’s work to reproduce identically this or that damaged stained glass window. Statues and gargoyles, frescoes and wall ornaments were brought back to life… Commentators were filled with chauvinistic pride, foreign commentators with admiration. Ecstasy was at its height.
It was violent if you think about it. Not just because Gaza is dying and the East is crumbling at the same time. Not just because the destroyed worlds are taking their carpenters, their sculptors, their blacksmiths and their knowledge with them.
Violence is shamelessness, too much self-love, narcissistic indecency. The excessive emphasis on “authenticity”, the infinite care to heal a wound of identity, to repair an offense that in reality was not such (there is no victim, no executioner, no blood, no wounded), to flatter chauvinistic egocentrism and allow Jupiter to fulfill at least one promise, while he and his guests meticulously and shamelessly destroy the souls of the leftover peoples.
The Pope’s refusal to “collaborate” in this farce, and then his meditation, alone, in front of the little Jesus covered with a keffiyeh, is a striking contrast: crass vulgarity versus modesty and a sense of history.
The violence is the enormous symbolic burden of nationalized and colonial Christianity, which ends up being a Christianity of the empire (hence the presence of Trump) and which we are led to believe has been expelled from the history of France, when in fact it is the soul of France, as long as it accepts to serve the empire. The Pope’s refusal to “collaborate” in this farce, and then his meditation, alone, in front of the little Jesus covered with a keffiyeh, is a striking contrast: crass vulgarity versus modesty and a sense of history.
Violence is secular hypocrisy and its Islamophobic counterpart, all contained in this religious ceremony held in the public space and applauded by the greatest and most mediatic secular priests at a time when the temptation to drive Muslims out of that same public space is great.
Violence is the abyss. This abyss is not only dug by the monstrous hypocrisy of the West. It is also dug by its victims, who turn away and look elsewhere, not because the sky is bluer elsewhere, but simply because it is elsewhere.
I remember my uncle’s words. One day, when I was a teenager, I mentioned Notre-Dame in a family conversation. My uncle interrupted me sententiously: “It is not said Notre-Dame (‘our lady’), it is said Leur-Dame (‘their lady’)”. A loser’s resistance, you will say. True enough. But I was already digging toward that other place.
Houria Bouteldja
Source: QG Decolonial.
Cover image: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images.
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