LOURDES

Author: Émile Zola

Year: 1962 (1894)

Publisher: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy

Language: Polish (Translator Eligia Bakowska)

“In faith, there is enough light for those who believe, and enough shadows to blind those who don’t”, French mathematician Blaise Pascal resigned. How many of the army of priests, pastors, and preachers that populate our churches, shrines, and temples really believe in the God that they purportedly serve? Their mission is to strengthen the commitment of others to God, but what about their own convictions? And to what extent is the love for God their primary concern?

French realist Émile Zola, toward the end of his life, launched a fierce attack on the Roman Catholic Church across three books, collectively known as the Three Cities Trilogy, each titled after the city in which the story takes place. In the opening volume, “Lourdes” which first saw the light of day in 1894, Zola introduces us to Father Pierre Froment, a reluctant priest struggling with his faith, and his childhood friend and one true love, Marie de Guersaint, who suffers from paralysis. We follow them as two of a multitude of travellers over a five day pilgrimage to the sacred water well in Lourdes, by the vicinity of which the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared before Bernadette Soubirous, and where Marie now hopes for a miracle that will return to her her ability to walk and to Pierre his ability to believe.

On their pilgrimage, Pierre and Marie encounter a diverse universe of people, all more or less loosely connected with the holy site of Lourdes. There is the nobleman who invests all his social prestige into guarding the well, the physician who proudly protests to make independent and objective assessments and documentations of each miracle while failing to notice or pretending not to notice his nonsensical use of evidence, the mother who carries around the remains of her dead infant in her arms refusing to accept that the Holy Mother of God would not hear her prayers, just to mention a few.

Most fascinating of all these characters is perhaps Dr Chaussaigne who is the complete anti-figure of Pierre. While Pierre is a priest who has lost his faith in God in favour of science, Dr Chaussaigne is a physician who, following the death of his wife and children in an epidemic, has lost faith in medicine and attached his hope to seeing his beloved ones again in the afterlife.

Zola based this novel on his own observations during his two visits to Lourdes in 1891 and 1892. His is a crowded, corrupt, putrid, and filthy Lourdes drawing its energy from the naïve beliefs of the infantile and simple minds which have access to no other hope for help or comfort than the possible intervention of an imagined being which embodies all the powers they themselves lack. It is a realist’s study of despair, ignorance, and misery.

It is no secret that Émile Zola was a staunch atheist, and his attempt to expose, as it were, the Catholic Church for the swindle that he perceived it to be is a thing of beauty, elegance, and pathos crafted by the daedal pen of a genius. But it is also a work of anger, animosity, and blind resistance of a warrior. The holy site in Zola’s eyes is not a place of worship but profit maximising enterprise. Traders, handymen, and innkeepers all constitute the industry that the legend has brought to the poor village. But the main beneficiary of the economic activity around the well, however, seems to be the Church itself, through the local monastery dedicated to angrily watching over the cash flow generated by the holy site, much like a modern corporation would furiously protect their trademark brands. “No one can serve two masters” - Matt 6:24. There is no doubt in Zola’s mind that the clergymen in Lourdes have made their choice whom to serve, and it is it not Christ.

Spoiler alert!

So what about the miracles? What about poor devout Marie de Guersaint and miserably sceptical Father Pierre Froment?

St Augustine allegedly said that “faith is to believe what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe”. There have been many modern examples where faith has expelled seemingly incurable diseases. Psychosomatic physical ailments, handicaps, and diseases are well documented in medical journals (there is even a peer-reviewed journal, “Psychosomatic Medicine”, dedicated to this branch of medicine). There have also been examples of miracles which modern science has until now not been able to explain (Grenholm, “Documenterade mirakler”).

Indeed, Marie de Guersaint is healed. She stands up to walk and dance again. Her legs are strong and her body nimble. As a demonstration of strength, she pushes her wheelchair all the way to the Virgin Mary’s grotto to make a sacrifice of gratitude. Father Pierre’s ailment is of a different kind. His condition does not improve. If anything, he sinks deeper into doubt.

Whether there is a God or not, Zola thus concedes that faith, by any definition, can move mountains. "Go, said Jesus. Your faith has made you whole." - Mark 10:52

SWEDISH HATRED

Author: Gellert Tamas
Year: 2016
Publisher: Natur & Kultur
Language:  Swedish


There is something rotten in the state of Sweden. In fact, there is something rotten in most kingdoms, princedoms, priestdoms, trumpdoms, and other more or less established kakistocracies in the western world. It is eroding democracy, rule of law, and human rights, and ultimately our freedom, prosperity, and way of life.

The rot has many faces. Racism is one and it is the subject chosen by Swedish journalist and writer Gellert Tamas for his book “Det svenska hatet” (not available in English but a simple translation would be “Swedish Hatred”). Tamas has previously written about racism and migration, e.g. “Lasermannen” (“The Laser Man”); an account of a would-be serial killer who shot at people of foreign heritage in the early 90s using a hunting rifle equipped with a laser sight.

By “Det svenska hatet”, Tamas sets out to turn the spotlight to the various movements in modern day Sweden that promote anger and violence. He does this by following the political career of Kent Ekeroth, one of the better known far-right Sweden Democrat party members. Ekeroth, is no doubt an interesting person, and a lot of his activities coincide with - and help to promote - the growth of extremist ideas in Sweden in the past decade. By outlining Ekeroth’s career and putting it in context, Tamas seeks to give us a comprehensive history of neo-Nazi movement in Sweden which he, in turn, helps us locate in the web of global anti-Semitism, fascism, and white supremacy. Ekeroth is portrayed as being the embodiment of the far-right irrationalism, inconsistency and self-depreciation. Born of a Jewish immigrant and growing up with a single mother he joined an anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist political party. We learn about his childhood, fascination with role-playing games, shyness around girls, and temper tantrums. We learn about his contributions to the internationalisation of the Sweden Democrat party, his agitation techniques and his infamous “night out with the lads” when three of them arm themselves with steel pipes that they find at a construction site in the middle of the night as makeshift melee weapons in order to punish an elderly drunkard that insulted them at a bar hours earlier while barely being able to stand up straight, and later blame him for attacking them. In the process, we learn about how the Sweden Democrats rise from the ashes of the openly xenophobic Bevara Sverige Svenskt-movement, how it communicates with, and accepts advice, funding, and inspiration from international Nazi sympathisers, how they create disinformation campaigns and use the internet to willingly and knowingly disseminate untruth and propaganda.

Tamas is an exquisite journalist and writer, and his research is solid and comprehensive. His writing is sharp and engaging and constitutes a potent amalgam of logos and pathos. The language used is journalistic rather than literary and some chapters read like columns in a newspaper. 

Even still, it does not take long to realise that he will fail with his ambition. This book is not about Swedish hatred as a whole. It is about a particular kind of hatred: racism. Issues, which are advertised on the book cover, such as Islamic fundamentalism, are reduced to anecdotes and serve as trigger points for the continued narrative of Ekeroth’s life. By focusing on the Sweden Democrats, Tamas seems to argue that the “Swedish” hatred is concentrated to the far-right. In so doing, Tamas inadvertently supports the notion that Islam does not belong to the Swedish society and that Islamic terrorism does not make up part of Sweden of today. As if Islamist haters were not Swedish enough to count as contributors to Swedish hatred. Violence born from class struggle, misogyny, and homophobia is also largely ignored by Tamas.

Furthermore, Tamas falls into the trap that many skilled researchers have fallen into before him: he wants to share ALL his findings. As a consequence, the book is filled with tangents, rabbit holes, and side quests which give no additional value to the investigation of the rise of extremist views. By turning the book into a biography on an individual whom Tamas has appointed the figurehead of Swedish far-right extremism, his research sometimes veers from the declared intention of the book and steers into the territory of the personal and individual, which can by no stretch of the imagination be extended to becoming a universal truth about hatred and racism at large.

It has been clear to me for some time that the world is currently witnessing the end of the straight, white man’s hegemony. The populist upswing in recent years is a reaction to the challenges against a world order that has prevailed for hundreds of years. Patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, and European cultural centrism have been unquestionable anchor points of Western civilisation which in turn has forced its values on the rest of the world. As the world order is inevitably and irreversibly changing, there is bound to be a reaction. From this perspective, the snowballing disdain for the rule of law, human rights, and equality makes sense. Democracy, voting rights, feminism, and equality were never inherent values of the Western dominion. European world domination was not based on general elections, free press, independent courts and equality between the sexes. These are not accomplishments of the white man. They are rights that had to be conquered and won in conflict with the white man. It follows logic therefore that when the Sweden Democrats and their ilk fight for the ancient world order, these institutions have little to no value. And this is far more dangerous than a band of bibulous bozos armed with steel pipes in the middle of the night.

“Det svenska hatet”, will not convince anybody who is not already aware of the dangers of the far-right wave. By tying his narrative so tightly with the biography of one person, Tamas has also ensured that his book will soon become outdated and irrelevant. Ekeroth is already fading from memory after having been ousted from the party and settled in Hungary. It is quite possible that this book will be banned in Sweden in ten or twenty years. Unless Ekeroth returns to the stage it will not matter much. No one will read it anyway.