War and peace

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches war through its silence. He takes up Freud's phrase, "the death drives progress in silence," to point out the media's indifference to the deaths in the Sahel. He links the chief of staff's announcement of a high-intensity conflict to NATO's military build-up around Russia1. He rejects the opposition between warmongers and pacifists and reads a letter by Rimbaud against "patrouillotisme." He connects this silence with amnesia, drawing on Halbwachs, Thomas Mann and Jacques Pauwels's "The Myth of the Good War." Through the Spanish Civil War and Munich, he shows that a pacifism can let things happen. In his view, "bad divisions" drawn along societal lines hide the preparation for war. In 2024, he makes the opposition between peace and war the only political divide that has real content. He sees Bardella's rallying to NATO as proof that the far right is joining the camp of war2. In 2026, he judges the war at our doorstep more urgent than any other threat. He then links antifascism to activism for peace, against Russophobia and Sinophobia3.

1. 110#6 Guerre et Paix : "Les pulsions de mort progressent en silence..." (Freud)8 Dec 2021
2. 2Pour une apocalypse "fraiche et joyeuse" ?24 Jun 2024
3. 3Le retour du fascisme4 Feb 2026

Introduction produced automatically from the 3 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.