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An article from L’Orient le Jour (translation by CPNN)
(Editor’s note: Edgar Morin passed away on May 29, 2026, at the age of 104 years.)
While Edgar Morin’s public appearances are rare, this one will undoubtedly remain one of his most striking. “I am both stunned and outraged by the fact that those who represent the descendants of a people who have been persecuted for centuries (…) can not only colonize an entire people (…) but, in addition, after the massacre of October 7, have committed a veritable, massive carnage against the people of Gaza.”
An extremely popular intellectual figure in France, Edgar Morin is the author of a transdisciplinary body of work translated into 27 languages and published in 42 countries. Photo AFP)
With shining eyes and a high-pitched voice, emphasizing each word, the 102-year-old French philosopher and sociologist delivered a short plea on Saturday, February 10 [ 2024], to a packed house at the Marrakech African Book Festival, where he was the guest of honor, deploring “a horrific tragedy.” The Israeli offensive has killed more than 28,000 people in Gaza since the start of the war more than four months ago, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
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How can we carry forward the work of the great peace and justice activists who went before us?
How can we best express solidarity with the people of Gaza?
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Jewish Resistance Fighter
The message is all the more powerful because it comes from the son of Jewish immigrants from Thessaloniki, born Edgar Nahoum, who joined the Resistance in 1943 as a lieutenant in the Free French Forces formed by General de Gaulle, later adopting his Resistance name, Morin. Influenced by Marx, this man, who studied philosophy, psychology, sociology, and the history of political science, has always aspired to become what he calls a “humanologist,” or to understand what it means to be human by combining different fields of knowledge.
The excerpt in question has been shared tens of thousands of times on X, where the intellectual’s humanity has been widely praised, including by some French political figures on the left. “Edgar Morin thinks and speaks truthfully on behalf of all those who still possess a human touch in the face of the genocide in Gaza,” lauded Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), on X. “A century and a perspective still capable of indignation, of condemning the silences,” tweeted Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party.
In a recent opinion piece in Le Monde, Edgar Morin had already addressed the tragedy in Gaza, while also expressing alarm at the proliferation of conflicts worldwide and climate change. “Crises feed off one another in a kind of multi-faceted ecological, economic, political, social, and civilizational crisis that is steadily intensifying,” he wrote, before calling for “fundamental resistance of the mind” against “hatred and contempt.”
In his final address, the sociologist denounced “the silence of the world, the silence of the United States, protectors of Israel, the silence of the Arab states, the silence of the European states that claim to be defenders of culture, humanity, and human rights.” He concluded: “The only thing left, if we cannot resist in a concrete way, is to bear witness.”
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