Stephane Hessel

“TO CREATE IS TO RESIST.
TO RESIST IS TO CREATE”

Stephane Hessel died early this week. He was 95. I admired him greatly. Yet it was only two years ago that I first heard of him. This was true for most of the readers of his 2010 impassioned pamphlet Indignez Vous, later published in English as Time for Outrage. I wrote about Hessel soon after I read the book.

In an instant he captured a feeling, a belief that I had been harboring for years: Beliefs are not enough unless they are translated into action. Hessel wrote:

“The motivation that underlay the Resistance was outrage. We, the Veterans of the Resistance movements and fighting forces of Free France, call on the younger generations to revive and carry forward the tradition of the Resistance and its ideas. We say to you: take over, keep going, get angry.”

Hessel clearly believed that historical progress is made by successive challenges to injustices and that each individual is responsible for contributing to this task. The great challenges he feels most outraged against are the immense gap between the very poor and the very rich, “which never ceases to expand,” the gradual eroding of human rights and “the state of the planet.”

He felt passionately that “The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it: I’ll jut get by.” And throughout it seems that he is primarily addressing the young. “To the young, I say: look around you, you will find things that make you justifiably angry—the treatment of immigrants, illegal aliens and Roma. You will see concrete situations that provoke you to act as a real citizen. Seek and you shall find!”

In a talk to students at Columbia Hessel urged them to find their own personal outrage and then do something about it. “You will find something, and when you find it you must commit.” It is entirely too easy to do nothing. Hessel argues this is not a time for apathy, rather this is a time for outrage. “Never give up, never be indifferent.”

I write again about Hessel because of my own failures to act at various times in my life. It isn’t that I’ve been indifferent. Rather it’s that my beliefs, my convictions even when they were strong, were never followed by actions.

Hessel was of German Jewish ancestry and with his family moved to France in 1924. While serving in the French army in 1940, he was captured, sent to a POW camp, eventually escaped and joined de Gaulle’s band of Free French resistants.

The Gestapo captured him while serving in one of the resistance networks, sent him the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps. He escaped from both. After the war he was a key figure in drafting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

His short manifesto became a rallying cry to the Occupy Wall Street movement that has all but been forgotten about now. But surely this is just as much a time for outrage and active resistance as it was two years ago.

Hessel’s death reminds me, perhaps reminds everyone of the truths he so clearly enunciated.

Democracy Now

Democracy Now is an independent, daily, ultra-progressive news program that can be viewed on some cable television channels, the Web and on devices that have its app. Its reports and analyses are presented with a refreshingly liberal perspective compared to other media news programs.

If you have time this weekend, I encourage you to listen to its video interview with Stephane Hessel, the author of Indignez-vous that I’ve been writing about. I believe it will be well worth your time, both to hear and see Hessel speak about his convictions and the incredible life he has lived.

A Call to Action

The motivation that underlay the Resistance was outrage. We, the veterans of the Resistance movements and fighting forces of Free France, call on the younger generations to revive and carry forward the tradition of the Resistance and its ideas. We say to you: take over, keep going, get angry! Those in positions of political responsibility, economic power and intellectual authority, in fact our whole society, must not give up or let ourselves be overwhelmed by the current international dictatorship of the financial markets, which is such a threat to peace and democracy....

It is up to us, all of us together, to ensure that our society remains one to be proud of: not this society of undocumented workers and deportations…not the society where our retirement and other gains of social security are being called into question; not this society where the media are in the hands of the rich.

The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it: I’ll just get by.”

These are the words of Stephane Hessel in his powerful manifesto, Indignez-Vous, that was first published late last year in France as a short, stapled pamphlet. Indignez-Vous is a French term that literally means be indignant. I think of it more as a mandate to express your outrage, especially outrage against injustice.

It can now also be read in various English versions under the title Time for Outrage. Charles Glass, the London publisher of the book, writes that it was “a publishing sensation on its first appearance, and since then has provoked a heated debate about social justice, the power of protest and how to harness our common indignation.” The Guardian reported the essay topped the Christmas best-seller list in France last year.

No wonder: what could be more timely! Stephane Hessell is a remarkable person. He is almost 94, a hero of the French Resistance, captured by the Germans and sent to concentration camps where he was tortured, and was only able to avoid being hanged at the last moment. He finally managed to escape and soon thereafter met up with the advancing American army. After the war, he participated in drafting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Late last month Hessell spoke to students at Columbia University about his book. The Columbia Spectator reported the book’s message is widely “applicable: Hessel’s book is a call to action.” You didn’t have to look far down the street to realize his message is being clearly heard and above all practiced.

During his talk to the students Hessel urged them to find their own personal outrage and then do something about it. “You will find something, and when you find it you must commit.” It is entirely too easy to do nothing. Hessel argues this is not a time for apathy, rather this is a time for outrage. “Never give up, never be indifferent.”

I write about Hessel because of my own failures to act at various times in my life. It isn’t that I’ve been indifferent. Rather it’s that my beliefs, my convictions even when they were strong, were never followed by actions.

Yes, I made my share of contributions to the organizations I believed in. But that was easy, too easy and I was never really able to break away from the work I thought I needed to do. Individuals, like Hessel, who have more courage, more commitment to their convictions than I do, forcefully remind me that while important, outrage is not enough. It is also necessary to act.

Indignez-vous!

The other night I went to cafe here in Honolulu that I had been hoping to visit before leaving. I entered, was politely seated, handed the menu, and decided what I wanted.

Off in the corner a man sat at a table, alone, like I was. He was reading something intently. It looked like a periodical or magazine of some sort. But he was also reading with a pen in hand, writing on the pages from time to time, and underlining sentences.

I don’t see that often. In fact, I don’t see it anywhere these days except at the university. I wondered what he was reading, if he was a teacher or a scholar who lived here. The entire experience was refreshing.

As I was leaving the restaurant, I went over to ask him what he was reading. He showed me an issue of The Nation and pointed to an essay, Indignez-Vous, by Stephane Hessel, a writer-philosopher whose book of the same name recently was at the top of the best seller list in France

At once I set out to find the issue with Hessel’s essay. In his introduction to the piece Charles Glass writes about the 93 year old Hessel who is of German Jewish ancestry and whose family moved to France in 1924. While serving in the French army in 1940, he was captured, sent to a POW camp, eventually escaped and joined de Gaulle’s band of Free French resistants. The Gestapo captured him while serving in one of the resistance networks, sent him the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps from which he escaped once again. After the war he was a key figure in drafting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Glass attributes the popularity of Hessel’s slim but forceful Indignez-vous! to the “public’s need for a voice to articulate popular resentment of ruling-class ruthlessness, police brutality, stark income disparities, banking and political corruption, and victimization of the poor and immigrants.” Will the book have any readership in this country? It is highly unlikely, although one might fervently wish so.

In the essay Hessel expresses his outrage at any betrayal of the Universal Declaration. He asks his readers in France to remember the history of their nation and reaffirm its highest achievements. “It is up to us, all of us together, to ensure that our society remains one to be proud of: not this society of undocumented workers and deportations…not the society were our retirement and other gains of social security are being called into question; not this society where the media are in the hands of the rich.”

He says all of these social rights were at the core of the Resistance’s program but now they are under attack. “The motivation that underlay the Resistance was outrage. We, the Veterans of the Resistance movements and fighting forces of Free France, call on the younger generations to revive and carry forward the tradition of the Resistance and its ideas. We say to you: take over, keep going, get angry.”

Hessel clearly believes that historical progress is made by successive challenges to injustices and that each individual is responsible for contributing to this task. The great challenges he feels most outraged against are the immense gap between the very poor and the very rich, “which never ceases to expand” and the gradual eroding of human rights and “the state of the planet.”

He also feels passionately that “The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it: I’ll jut get by.” And throughout it seems that he is primarily addressing the young. “To the young, I say: look around you, you will find things that make you justifiably angry—the treatment of immigrants, illegal aliens and Roma. You will see concrete situations that provoke you to act as a real citizen. Seek and you shall find!”

The spirit of the French resistance lives on and Hessel’s reminder is a powerful manifesto of outrage against the many injustices that remain in contemporary society today. “To you who will create the twenty-first century, we say, from the bottom of our hearts,

TO CREATE IS TO RESIST.
TO RESIST IS TO CREATE”

I don’t think I’ve ever read a more compelling call to action. How fortunate that I went to the cafe that night, that a person was reading Hessel’s essay and that I didn’t succumb to my normal hesitancy to ask someone what they are reading.