[UNE PROF EN France] Youth without memory, people without future

Half of the first year students in France work on Olympe de Gouges. This is perhaps linked to the over-representation of women among literature professors, who would be sensitive to the author's feminist struggles. This is more surely linked to the fact that the text is only 28 pages long and that the teachers must have thought that it would discourage the students less than Gargantua… It's a shame, because the first year is indeed the one during which we can still get the students to read… I am several first graders, and this text has been on the program for four years. I never cease to be astonished by the pusillanimity of my colleagues. With feminist struggles having hints of the 70s, we are making toast; It's easy, it's fashionable. However, most of Olympe de Gouges' demands were acquired in Europe by subsequent generations of women: the freedom to express political opinions, the right to vote, the right to file for divorce, to manage one's money or to run for office. It is thanks to this that Ms. Taubira or Ms. Pécresse were able to be elected: happy times!

On the other hand, I find them more than discreet compared to the modern international situation, and the echoes that we find in France: not one of them – or not one of them, because I come across few male colleagues, and even fewer male colleagues choosing Olympe de Gouges – speak about the situation of women in Muslim countries and the general relationship that Islam has with women. It would be interesting, however, to give students figures on the return of forced marriages in our beautiful country or on swimming pool courses prohibited for girls, or to remind them that in Saudi Arabia, women have not been authorized to lead only in 2018 and Afghanistan like Iran continues to reduce their rights. It's not the 18th^e century but the 21st^e century, and perhaps a certain future that is emerging.

What corrupts part of critical thinking is progressive doxa. It prevents us from remembering that History is made up of twists and turns, twists and turns, and changes, and that certain notions, such as that of “acquis,” actually have no meaning. “Nothing is permanent except change,” says a Buddhist precept. But for teachers and students alike to be able to exercise a little critical thinking and establish intellectual bridges between eras and between countries, everyone would have to put down their Franco-centric magnifying glasses, but also for memory to stop resembling an oilcloth on which everything slides without leaving a trace. None of the students I accompany have the slightest idea of ​​what the French Revolution was. I learn every day, but I must admit that this time, I am surprised. They are mostly serious students, even good students, from attentive families, and they have kept no memory of the courses taken in middle and high school: they are supposed to have worked on the Revolution in fourth, second and, at new, first. And they know nothing about it, neither the dates, nor the causes, nor the names of the protagonists, nor the issues… The sidereal void, something dizzying. How is this possible?

How can this generation go through everything without retaining anything, even though they have much more varied learning materials than those we used at their age? Let us remember Marshal Foch’s warning: “ Because a man without memory is a man without life, a people without memory is a people without future. »