Pierre Vidal-Naquet - Activism

Activism

Pierre Vidal-Naquet defined himself as an “activist historian”, and while pursuing his studies never ceased engaging in political struggles and taking part in political committees, etc. A member of the Comité Audin, along with Jérôme Lindon (editor of the Minuit publishing house), he was one of the best known opponents of the use of torture by the French Army during the Algerian War (1954–62). Along with Jean-Paul Sartre and 119 others, he signed the Manifesto of the 121, a call for civil disobedience against the Algerian war. As an anti-colonialist, Vidal-Naquet was opposed to Guy Mollet’s French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) reformist party because of Mollet’s support of the First Indochina War and Algerian War.

He was also opposed to the Regime of the Colonels (1967–74) in Greece. He supported peace efforts in the Middle East as well as the Europalestine group. He thus declared: “I consider Sharon a criminal.”

With Michel Foucault and Jean-Marie Domenach, on 8 February 1971 he signed the manifesto of the Groupe d’informations sur les prisons, which, rather than speaking in the name of prisoners, aimed to give back to them the chance of speaking in their own voice.

Vidal-Naquet was also active in condemning denial of the Armenian Genocide. Vidal-Naquet, who had answered or criticized Holocaust negationist Robert Faurisson in several of his works, once employed Faurisson as an example to illustrate "what the Armenian minorities might feel":

Let us imagine a negationist Robert Faurisson as a governmental minister, a Faurisson president of the Republic, a Faurisson general, a Faurisson ambassador, a Faurisson president of the Turkish Historical Commission and a member of the senate of the University of Istanbul, a Faurisson member of the United Nations, a Faurisson responding in the press each time the question of the Jews is raised. In brief, a state-sponsored Faurisson paired with an international Faurisson and, along with all that, a Talaat-Himmler blessed, since 1943, with an official mausoleum in the country's capital.

Vidal-Naquet was one of the first scholars to deconstruct historical revisionism, notably in The Assassins of Memory and Reflexions on Genocide. He was also opposed to the 23 February 2005 French law on colonialism passed by the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), but which was finally repealed by president Jacques Chirac in the beginning of 2006. Vidal-Naquet also criticized the 1990 Gayssot Act which prohibits revisionist discourse, claiming that the law shouldn’t interfere in historical matters. Vidal-Naquet’s arguments against legislation relating to historical studies is not, however, a door opened to revisionist speech. He once declared that he would rather name revisionists “negationists”, and that he wouldn’t engage with them for “simple and scientific reasons. An astronomer doesn’t debate with an astrologer. I wouldn’t discuss with someone who supports the idea that the moon is made of Roquefort ... it is impossible.”