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Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is by far one of the most profound and important questions facing the West in the next few decades. Speaking is Hubert Védrine, France's former Foreign Minister and Secretary-General of the French presidency under president Mitterrand. He says the West, "descendants of Christendom", is "consumed by the spirit of proselytism". That Saint Paul's "go and evangelize all nations" has become "go and spread human rights to all the world"... And that this proselytism is extremely deep in our DNA: "Even the very least religious, totally atheists, they still have this in mind, [even though] they don't know where it comes from." He believes this is "one of the biggest questions that towers over the daily question of diplomatic life", whether we can imagine a West that manages to preserve the societies it has birthed but "is not proselytizing, not interventionist?". In other words, a West that can accept alterity, that can live with others and accept them for who they are. He says this "is not a problem of the diplomatic machines, it's a philosophical issue, it's a problem for thinkers, analysts, historians, philosophers". In short, it's a question of profound soul-searching, a deep cultural change that needs to happen. He doesn't seem to be particularly optimistic this change will occur: "In the elites, [or at least] people who have access to the public debate, only 5 or 10% of them don't think our main mission is to spread our values around the entire world. By means of lectures, sanctions, and bombings." He says however that there's no choice as "we are not going to become the bosses of the world that's coming. So we are forced to think beyond, we are forced to envision a new relationship for the future between the Western world and the famous global South." Can we accept to live with others, without seeking to transform them into us? Extremely profound question. And what happens if we can't get to accept this? Then we'll continue being marginalized, increasingly cut from the rest of the world, and increasingly despised for our misplaced sense of superiority.
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