Sciences PoDebate29 March 2024
Speaking of it differently: a dialogue with Kamel Daoud
Dialogue avec Kamel Daoud · 1h 42min
In the aftermath of October 7, a rabbi and an Algerian writer choose to talk, publicly, at Sciences Po. On the conditions of dialogue, its limits, the ghosts who speak too loudly, and what war does to words. In French.
“The condition of dialogue, if it had to be summed up in one sentence, is accepting that in the encounter with another, we will be altered in the etymological sense: to stop speaking in slogans and accepting that something in us alters, not damaged, but made other.”
“We cannot talk from the moment the other denies your right to exist. It is rather basic, you will agree, but I consider it a basis for discussion.”
“That “but”, so often used to contextualize, is in truth always a will to relativize empathy, as if we had evacuated the other conjunction, the only one in this debate that is not abject: the “and”.”
“History turns violent when the power of words is reduced. When suddenly a word can mean only one thing, when there is no room left for exegesis, for the other reading, then yes, we are in a violent society.”