We must abandon our dreams and say farewell to our
beliefs and former friendships. Let us not lose time in useless
laments or sickening mimicry. Let us leave this Europe which
never stops talking of man yet massacres him at everyone of its
street corners, at every corner of the world.
For centuries Europe has brought the progress of other men
to a halt and enslaved them for its own purposes and glory; for
centuries it has stifled virtually the whole of humanity in the
name of a so-called "spiritual adventure." Look at it now teetering
between atomic destruction and spiritual disintegration.
And yet nobody can deny its achievements at home have not
been crowned with success.
Europe has taken over leadership of the world with fervor,
cynicism, and violence. And look how the shadow of its monuments
spreads and multiplies. Every movement Europe makes
bursts the boundaries of space and thought.
Europe has denied
itself not only humility and modesty but also solicitude and
tenderness.
Its only show of miserliness has been toward man, only toward
man has it shown itself to be niggardly and murderously
carnivorous.
So, my brothers, how could we fail to understand that we have
better things to do than follow in that Europe's footsteps?
This Europe, which never stopped talking of man, which never
stopped proclaiming its sole concern was man, we now know the
price of suffering humanity has paid for everyone of its spiritual
victories.
Come, comrades, the European game is finally over, we must
look for something else. We can do anything today provided we
do not ape Europe, provided we are not obsessed with catching
up with Europe.
Europe has gained such a mad and reckless momentum that
it has lost control and reason and is heading at dizzying speed
towards the brink from which we would be advised to remove
ourselves as quickly as possible.
It is all too true, however, that we need a model, schemas and
examples. For many of us the European model is the most elating.
But we have seen in the preceding pages how misleading
such an imitation can be. European achievements, European
technology and European lifestyles must stop tempting us and
leading us astray.
When I look for man in European lifestyles and technology I
see a constant denial of man, an avalanche of murders.
Man's condition, his projects and collaboration with others on
tasks that strengthen man's totality, are new issues which require
genuine inspiration.
Let us decide not to imitate Europe and let us tense our
muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us endeavor to
invent a man in full, something which Europe has been incapable
of achieving.
Two centuries ago, a former European colony took it into its
head to catch up with Europe. It has been so successful that the
United States ofAmerica has become a monster where the flaws, sickness, and inhumanity of Europe have reached frightening
proportions.
Comrades, have we nothing else to do but create a third Europe?
The West saw itself on a spiritual adventure. It is in the
name of the Spirit, meaning the spirit of Europe, that Europe
justified its crimes and legitimized the slavery in which it held
four fifths of humanity.
...
Today we are witnessing a stasis of Europe. Comrades, let us
flee this stagnation where dialectics has gradually turned into a
logic of the status quo. Let us reexamine the question of man.
Let us reexamine the question of cerebral reality, the brain mass of humanity in its entirety whose affinities must be increased, whose connections must be diversified and whose communications
must be humanized again.
Come brothers, we have far too much work on our hands to
revel in outmoded games. Europe has done what it had to do
all things considered, it has done a good job; let us stop accusing
it, but let us say to it firmly it must stop putting on such a
show. We no longer have reason to fear it, let us stop then envying
it.
The Third World is today facing Europe as one colossal mass
whose project must be to try and solve the problems this Europe
was incapable of finding the answers to.
But what matters now is not a question of profitability, not a
question of increased productivity, not a question of production
rates. No, it is not a question of back to nature. It is the very basic question of not dragging man in directions which mutilate him, of not imposing on his brain tempos that rapidly obliterate and
it. The notion of catching up must not be as a
pretext to brutalize man, to tear him from himself and his inner
consciousness, to break him, to kill him.
No, we do not want to catch up with anyone. But what we want
is to walk in the company of man, every man, night and day, for
all times.
The Third World must start over a new history of man which takes account of not only the occasional prodigious theses maintained
by Europe but also its crimes, the most heinous of which
have been committed at the very heart of man, the pathological
dismembering of his functions and the erosion of his unity, and in the context of the community, the fracture, the stratification and the bloody tensions fed by class, and finally, on the immense
scale of humanity, the racial hatred, slavery, exploitation and,
above all, the bloodless genocide whereby one and a half billion
men have been written off.
So comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states,
institutions, and societies that draw their inspiration from it.
Humanity expects other things from us than this grotesque and
generally obscene emulation.
If we want to transform Africa into a new Europe, America into
a new Europe, then let us entrust the destinies of our countries
to the Europeans. They will do a better job than the best of us.
But if we want humanity to take one step forward, if we want
to take it to another level than the one where Europe has placed
it, then we must innovate, we must be pioneers.
If we want to respond to the expectations of our peoples, we
must look elsewhere besides Europe.
Moreover, if we want to respond to the expectations of the
Europeans we must not send them back a reflection, however
ideal, of their society and their thought that periodically sickens
even them.
For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we
must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor
to create a new man.
