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Debray, Régis
3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Regis Debray uneasy about 'competition for remembrance'
In an interview with Jean-Marie Guesnois, French philosopher Régis Debray responds to a recent proposal from Nicolas Sarkozy to "entrust the memory" of a deported Jewish child to every primary school child [in France]. "As much as it is a duty to remember, abusing remembrance is counterproductive. I think [Sarkozy's suggestion] is abuse of remembrance because it gives emotion pride of place, whereas the aim of schooling is neither emotion, compassion, or brooding over the dead ... There is a risk of escalation, of one-upmanship, of a competition for remembrance. In France's big city suburbs this remembrance could soon prompt a demand to adopt Israel's victims in Palestine. Then there are Gypsies, Armenians, and above all black people ... Rather than unify, this initiative will, I fear, cause division along community and religious lines."
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More from the press review on the subject » History, » France
All available articles from » Jean-Marie Guesnois
Régis Debray finds centrifugal forces in Europe
The French philosopher Regis Debray, interviewed by William Bourton and Baudoin Loss, considers that the rise of separatism in Belgium reveals challenges that lie ahead for Europe. "Fundamentally, the construction of Europe fuels its regionalisation and even favours the return of separatist movements. In this sense, Europe can be considered a divisive factor as much as a factor of unification ... . Those who built Europe ... conceived Europe as a centripetal entity ... And now we are discovering that it is centrifugal, with the extremes gaining power. We may ultimately end up with a Europe of regions as in the 16th century. History is not circular, but advances in spirals: it goes through the same cycles... One thing is certain: an atomised Europe undergoes subordination to the strongest foreign power [The United States]."
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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Domestic Policy, » Integration, » Belgium, » Europe
All available articles from » William Bourton, » Baudouin Loos
Régis Debray on the end of the European dream
In his work 'Aveuglantes Lumières' ('Blinding Enlightenment'), the French philosopher Régis Debray does away with some of the founding concepts of 18th century European thinking. He explains in an interview with William Bourton the reasons why "Europe is a dissolving dream. ... On cannot but notice that Europe is at its lowest, as is its capacity to act on the running of things political and economic. We may well ask ourselves whether this dream, rationalist and technocratic, was not the child of the Enlightenment. The notion that Reason is the faculty of unity, that economic and technical Reason will be the death of national cultures, that 'economics is clean, politics is dirty', that no conflict between nations is insurmountable, that we can adopt a common language ... All of these postulates are oblivious to an historical fact, which is that all identities are formed 'by opposition'. One takes position through opposition: what counts for individuals counts for nations and even federations."
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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Philosophy, » Europe
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