Writing about the past week and its pictures won’t take me long.
One pope left, another pope will soon arrive.
Stéphane Hessel died, but I don’t see anyone who can replace him.
Much has been said about both. Stéphane Hessel has been called both a “moderate French centrist” and a “good” right-wing reformer. This morning (3/3/13) on the radio program “Le Bien Public,” J. Louis Bourlanges called Hessel’s famous pamphlet, Indignez-Vous! ( Time for Outrage!) a “miserable little book” and complained about the instant canonization that followed his death. Yet he also finds something respectable about the “romanesque mystery of his origins” while admiring his “diplomatic skill” and the way he “courageously risked his life.”

Mr. Bourlanges, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, fails to understand that this “miserable” book is not a treatise of political theory but simply the writing of a concerned citizen, a reaction to the suffering of a very, very large majority of people across Europe and the world. It is a work of conscience, one far removed from the comfortable way of thinking where ideologies have found refuge. Of course the book “has no place in a discussion of reform.” But Mr. Bourlanges, before any such reform can take place, a certain level of consciousness must exist. Allow me to shamelessly quote Lenin, who wrote in his 1905 pamphlet “What is to be done?” that there exists a need for a “concrete analysis of the concrete situation.” This is certainly an author you’re not familiar with, but no problem!

For those who do not wish to see, I’m talking here about photography, the way it can be used or not used. But this professor at Sciences Po is teaching our students, or so they say. You can see what all this has to do with photography.

You’ll have to excuse me, this was not as concise as promised. But no one’s forcing you to read it. Look at the photos instead; they’re worth at least three hundred words.

Michel Philippot
philippot.m@wanadoo.fr