Roger Garaudy

Roger Garaudy or Ragaa Garaudy ( Marseille , 17 of July of 1913 - Chennevières-sur-Marne , Ile de France , 13 of June of 2012 ) ¹ was a philosopher and politicianFrench , author of fifty books dealing particularly history Of the great figures of communism and religion. He was a prominent Marxist intellectual who left the French Communist Party after condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks in 1968. Shortly thereafter he converted to Catholicism and in 1982 to Islam , and thereafter became one of the strongest advocates of the cause Palestine . In 1995 he published The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics , where he defended the denialist theses of the Holocaust , which earned him a sentence by French justice to six months imprisonment , which he failed to meet. ²

Early biography

Father atheistic and maternal grandmother fervent Catholic Garaudy converted to Protestantism , he attended college in Marseille and Aix-en-Provence , a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne.

In 1933, the same year he joined the French Communist Party , he moved to Strasbourg, studying theology in the chair of Pastor Karl Barth. In 1937 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Lyceum in Albi.

During World War II , he was imprisoned between 1940 and 1942 in Djelfa , Algeria , as a prisoner of war of Vichy France .

Communist Party

In 1933 he began his membership in the French Communist Party (PCF), from which he became one of its most important ideologues. As a philosopher he was considered an authority in Hegel , as well as author of dozens of works, whose views had a wide influence outside the limits of the PCF. ^{[ Citation needed ]}

In 1945 he became part of the Central Committee of the Party, member of the National Assembly (1945-1951, 1956-1958) and of the Senate (1959-1962). Member of the PCF Politburo since 1956, Garaudy founded and directed the prestigious Center d’Etudes et de Recherches Marxistes (Center for Studies and Marxist Research).

During his time in the Assembly he became friends with the popular Abate Pierre , with whom he coincided as a deputy.

He holds a doctorate in philosophy with the Théorie matérialiste de la conscience (Sorbonne, 1953), teaches at the University of Clermont-Ferrand where he will attract the enmity of Michel Foucault , who will push him to be apart As explained in the biography of this Didier Eribon. ³

Distancing with PCF

Despite being an unconditional Stalinist during the 1940s and 1950s, in the 1960s his disenchantment with Soviet communism grew, supporting the student uprisings of May 1968 in France and his strong condemnation of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact into Czechoslovakia in Same year to crush the Prague Spring that would lead him to the confrontation with the direction of the PCF would end up leading to the expulsion of the PCF in 1970, when it converted to Catholicism.

The expulsion was formally given on 6 February 1970 for “betraying Marxism” with its heterodox positions. R. Garaudy said: “It is not possible to be silent …” “… To speak for the last time to this rostrum, I mean, sadly but without bitterness, that if the methods of the past weighed heavily for a real debate, nothing can Start from my confidence that I have in the future of our party. Our cause is just, our objective will be met. ⁴

After breaking with the PCF, he continued to teach philosophy at the university and never stopped proclaiming himself anti-racist, internationalist and socialist.

In 1981 he presented himself as independent to the presidential elections of France.

Last step

Finally, from his marriage to the Palestinian Salma Farouqui, he converted to Islam in 1982, taking the new name of Ragaa.

In 1987 he moved to Córdoba (Spain) , where he created the Garaudy Foundation of the Three Cultures. In 2002, he received the Libyan International Human Rights Award from Libya .

Negacionista controversy

In December 1995 the publisher of the book La Vieille Taupe (“The Old Mole”), by the writer Pierre Guillaume , published his book The Mythes Foundations of the State of Israel ( Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israelienne ), for which he was tried And sentenced by a Paris court to a fine of FF 240 000 (approximately € 37 000) and six months ‘imprisonment (suspended), pursuant to the Fabius-Gayssot Act of 13 July 1990 on the’ Crimes against humanity “and” racist defamation “. His defense was led by controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès and Pierre Guillaume by Eric Delcroix.

The decision was appealed to the European Court of Human Rights , but the appeal was rejected as inadmissible. ⁵

Political mandates

Deputy

• 21/10/1945 - 10/06/1946: Communist deputy of Tarn ;
• 02/06/1946 - 27/11/1946: communist deputy of Tarn ;
• 10/11/1946 - 17/04/1951: Communist deputy of Tarn ;
• 02/01/1956 - 08/12/1958: communist deputy of Sena .

Senator

• 26/04/1959 - 31/10/1962 (resignation): senator for the department of Sena (Communist-Senate Group).

Works

He has written some fifty works, including:

• Le Communisme et la renaissance de la culture française (1945)
• Les Sources françaises du socialisme scientifique (1948)
• Le Manifest du parti communiste: révolution dans l’histoire de la pensée socialiste (1952)
• Théorie matérialiste de la connaissance (1953)
• Mesaventures de l’anti-Marxism. Les malheurs by M. Ponty (1956)
• Humanisme marxiste (1957)
• Questions to Jean-Paul Sartre, précédées d’une lettre ouverte (1960)
• Dieu est mort , PUF , Paris (1962)
• Qu’est-ce that the moral marxiste? (1963)
• Karl Marx , Seghers, Paris (1965)
• Marxisme du XX ^e siècle , La Palatine, Paris-Geneva (1966)
• Le Problème chinois (1967)
• Lénine , PUF, Paris (1968)
• Pour un réalisme du xx ^and siècle. Etude sur Fernand Léger (1968)
• Pour un modèle Français du Socialisme (1968)
• Le Grand tournant du socialisme , Gallimard, Paris (1969)
• Marxistes et chrétiens face to face , in collaboration avec Q. Lauer, Arthaud, Paris (1969)
• Toute la vérité (1970)
• Reconquête de l’espoir , Grasset , Paris (1971) - Full cast and crew
• L’Alternative , Robert Laffont, Paris (1972)
• Parole d’homme (1975)
• Le Projet espérance , Robert Laffont, Paris (1976)
• Pour un dialogue des civilisations , Denoël (1977)
• Appel aux vivants , Éditions du Seuil, Paris (1979)
• L’Affaire Israël (1980 environ)
• Appel aux vivants (1980)
• Promesse d’Islam (1981)
• Pour l’avènement de la femme , Albin Michel, Paris (1981)
• Biographie du xx ^e , Tougui, Paris (1985)
• Les Fossoyeurs. A nouvel appel aux vivants , L’Archipel, Paris (1992)
• Mon tour du siècle in solitaire, mémoires , Robert Laffont, Paris (1989)
• Intégrismes (1990)
• Les Orateurs de la Révolution française (1991)
• To Contre-nuit (1992)
• Avons-nous besoin de Dieu? , Introduction de l ‘ abbé Pierre , Desclée de Brouwer, Paris (1993)
• Souviens-toi: brève histoire de l’Union soviétique , Le temps des cerises, Pantin (1994)
• Vers a guerre de religion? Débat du siècle , Desclée de Brouwer, Paris (1995)
• L’Islam et l’intégrisme , Le temps des cerises, Pantin (1996)
• Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israélienne , Librairie du savoir, Paris (1996)
• Grandeur et décadences de l’Islam , Alphabeta & chama, Paris (1996)
• Mes témoins , Éditions À Contre-Nuit, Paris (1997)
• Les Etats-Unis avant-garde de la décadence , Editions Vent du Large, Paris (1997)
• Le Procès de la liberté , in collaboration avec J. Vergès, Vent du large, Paris (1998)
• L’Avenir, mode d’emploi , Vent du large, Paris (1998)
• L’Islam in Occident, Cordoue capitale de l’esprit , L’Harmattan, Paris (2000)
• Le Terrorisme occidental , Al-Qalam, Luxembourg (2004)
• Qu’est-ce that l’anti-américanisme? (2009).

References