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'Hate,' the key word, describes the passions, often contradictory and always vile, that have torn and ravaged the twentieth century. Only the twentieth century? In truth, the word contains and illustrates the full recorded memory of human cruelty and suffering. Cain hated his brother and killed him; thus the first death in history was a murder. Since then, hate and death have not ceased to rage. Hate--racial, tribal, religious, ancestral, national, social, ethical, political, economic, ideological--in itself represents the inexorable defeat of mankind, its absolute defeat. If there is an area in which mankind cannot claim the slightest progress, this surely is it. It does not take much for human beings, collectively or individually, to suddenly one day pit themselves like wild beasts one against the other, their worst instincts laid bare, in a state of deleterious exaltation. One decision, one simple word, and a family or a community will drown in blood or perish in flames. Why is there so much violence, so much hate? How is it conceived, transmitted, fertilized, nurtured? As we face the disquieting, implacable rise of intolerance and fanaticism on more than one continent, it is our duty to expose the danger. By naming it. By confronting it. In our own way, with the limited means at our disposal, we do what we can. This goes for me in my writings as well as in my activities inside and outside the framework of the seminars organized by our foundation in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe. .... How is one to explain fanaticism's attraction for so many intellectuals, to this day? And what can be done to immunize religion against its pull? For once it absorbs absolutist trends, religion too becomes aggressive and to the same extent as the nations that flout the right of their neighbours or even that of their own citizens to security and happiness, by means of either ideology or force of arms. Wars between races, religions, political ideologies, economic interests--what they have in common is the faith of the fanatics and the moral power derived from their material superiority. Fanaticism is dangerous not only for the layperson who fights it, but also for the believer whom it fascinates. The fanatic inspires and breathes fear. It is the only tie that binds him to his fellow-man and God. So afraid is he of doubt that he pushes it outside the law. Whether his dictatorship is intellectual or theocratic, he pretends to possess a unique and eternal truth. Insist on a discussion, and he takes offense. He accepts questions only if he alone has the right to answer them. It comes to this: The fanatic accepts only answers--his own--while his tolerant adversary prefers questions. Since the beginnings of history, man alone suffers from fanaticism and hate, and he alone can stem it. In all of creation, only man is both capable and guilty of hate. The last decade of the twentieth century, also the last of the millennium, began rather auspiciously. A contagious current of freedom for desire for freedom electrified oppressed nations. It was as though society wished to purge itself of the phantoms and demons brought to life by the violence of the dictators under both Nazism and Communism. All of a sudden, people were moving toward the twenty-first century with confidence, looking forward to a radiant destiny under the sign of alliance rather than vengeance. Then came the dawn of disenchantment. Joy had lasted but one summer. Had it, too, fallen victim to fanaticism? We are back to the question: What is fanaticism? How ought one to deal with it? And at what precise point does a belief become integralist or fundamentalist? An idea degenerates into a fanatical postulate the moment it excludes those who oppose it. By denying the burgeoning independence of ideas or beliefs, religious or political fanaticism deprives them of their ability to function as well as of their right to exist. One confronts its closed fist in every one of the monotheist religions. Catholic integralism matches that of the Protestants, which matches that of the Muslims, which matches that of the Jews. It repels me in all its forms. Whoever declares that he knows the path leading to God better than others causes me to turn away. If he tries to take me there by force, I resist. Does this mean that I avoid a debate with him? Usually it is the fanatic who shies away from a real debate, a civilized dialogue. He is convinced that he does not have to fight to win, that he has won before hearing the first word. For him, used as he is to monologue, any exchange is an aberration. His discourse is monolithic, closed to doubt and hesitation, hostile to external influences. He listens to himself in order not to hear you. He evolves in a reductive universe deprived of diversity He inhabits it alone with himself,; he becomes the object of his own passion. For the fanatic is a zealot, a madman of faith. It is he whole Nietzsche was talking about when he said it was not doubt but certainty that leads to madness. Blinded by passion, he turns divine beauty into human ugliness. For him and because of him, the nostalgia for God degenerates into an irresistible desire to hate. He usurps God's place in Creation. He takes himself for God. Like God he strives to make every man in his own images, but smaller. He wants everyone to resemble him yet remain smaller, humble and humiliated, bowed before his throne. Convinced that he is the sole possessor of the meaning of life, he gags or kills the other in order not to be challenged in his quest. And finally, the religious fanatic sees God not as his judge and king, but as his prisoner. Let us not deceive ourselves--fanaticism is not exclusively religious in essence. Secular fanaticism is no less vile. The secular fanatic is sometimes more eloquent but no less evil. Both tend to see in the Other not a subject of pride, but an object of contempt. Fanaticism is a pernicious cancer that undermines the promise of man and crushes him with the weight of evil. The fanatic is tireless because he is never satisfied. He constantly tries to acquire more power, devoting all his energy to that end--one does not hate in the abstract. A fanatic can feed his hate theoretically, but he will soon put it into practice--sometimes he will not relent until he has turned his country into a jail. Since other people's freedom frightens him, the fanatic does not feel free and alive except when others are not. The more crowded the prisons, the more his own liberty flourishes. Thus the fanatic will do the impossible to prevent others from dreaming, loving, thinking in pursuit of their own quest for identity. His goal? To imprison the ideas of others, to paralyze their imagination. For the fanatic, the Other should remain locked in the present, without memory and without hope. The aim of our conferences? to combat fanaticism, which is the major component of hate, and vice versa. More precisely, not all fanatics are filled with hate, but all those who are filled with hate are fanatics. Their conduct leads inexorably to the destruction of the Being in being. By the time this becomes evident, it is already too late. I used to say over and over that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. There is no reciprocity. Hate is always gratuitous, sterile. It is a powerful, insurmountable barrier that permits no intrusion. In other words, nothing good, nothing great, nothing that is alive, can be born of hate. It denies all possibility of metamorphosis or transcendence. Hate begets only hate. It is urgent and imperative to defeat it before it overwhelms us. How can we achieve this? By attacking its visible form--fanaticism. Combating fanaticism means denouncing the humiliation of the Other. It means celebrating the freedom of the Other, the freedom of all Others. Ultimately it means freeing man from the humiliating chins the fanatic forces upon him. It means opening the prisons and giving back to men, women, and God Himself the freedom the fanatic has stolen."
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