Lévy’s Vision
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See: Dispatches from a World of Misery and Hope, Yale University Press (2023)
Reviewed by Michael Jimenez
The Will to See serves as a literary exercise for the tireless public French intellectual and documentarian Bernard-Henri Lévy (a documentary with the same name was released in 2021). The premise of the book can be seen in his declaration: “Internationalism is getting bad press today” (25). Lévy is concerned with what he perceives as the “fierce indifference” of the West toward the many violent crises across the world and has personally taken it upon himself to illuminate a few of these locations (8). Some might view him as an opportunist, never shying away from a camera, but, in his defense, he has been concretely involved in some of the areas he visits for decades, particularly in Bangladesh (145). It is impressive how many so-called hot spots Lévy has visited.
In the first part of the book (Chapters 1-5), Lévy provides his creed on why he mixes philosophy with global, war journalism (3). He tends to name drop people like Orwell, Nietzsche, Rilke, Derrida, Malraux and many French literary voices from the past to make his case for his writing style. As much as Lévy enjoys the world of literature, to some extent he wants to distance himself from the unaffected intellectual in the comfort of their study and instead openly advocate for those he believes do not get enough media and political attention (191). He declares: “I see disdain for modest little lives, too small to have a history, an archive, a face on our smartphone screens” (89). In some ways, his duty is to point out that there are many places for global righteous indignation, challenging the selective outrage of the flux of the present.
The second part of the book (Chapters 6-13) highlights different areas of the world he has recently visited: Nigeria, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Somalia, Bangladesh, Lesbos, Libya, and Afghanistan. He is on familiar terms with his hosts as an honored guest, talking to both political leaders and the people from the villages. One of the first lines to open this section sets the tone of these geographical studies: “It’s a massacre of Christians on a scale that appears to exceed even what the Christians of the Middle East have undergone. And the world pays no attention” (93). If the world has deserted Christian Nigerians, then they are left vulnerable to merciless attacks by Islamic terrorists since the state does not intervene―a point that Lévy memorializes. This stark reality is personalized in the story of one pregnant woman who survived an attack, but lost her family and arm―only to be murdered at a later date. It is the very images of human carnage that bring him to Nigeria. Overall, in each section he weaves the narrative of the recent conflicts with intimate stories of the people involved. He goes into great detail exposing the gravity of each situation, especially for the most vulnerable people, like the many refugees on Lesbos (150). Scores of volunteers and rescue workers do what they can to ameliorate the situation, but Lévy does not mince words: “There is no way to repair hell” (155).
The recent spot that Lévy seems most sensitive to is Libya (168). The fact that the fall of Qaddafi has not turned Libya into a Western styled liberal democracy is a point that his critics have levelled at him. Are things worse now? Too many declarations of internationalism, or, in other words, cries for military intervention from the comforts of France? These allegations against Lévy from all sides are not entirely fair. Since most of the groups he visits are freedom fighters, defending their people from oppressive forces, Lévy articulates a belief in just war theory (81-90). His response to being a so-called Western provocateur is that the Western allies only support places like Afghanistan and especially Kurdistan for a moment, ultimately leaving others abandoned to fend for themselves―this is partly why normalcy has not returned to these places. These areas are all touched by the horrors of war, so appeals to our better nature―to just give peace a chance―seem out of touch, reflecting the very indifference that Lévy exposes since appeals for any form of Western military intervention and assistance seem off the table to many people. Of course, peace, but how to achieve it against a belligerent military power? Since Lévy has been an advocate of intervention, he must deal with the pushback when things do not go as planned. Undeterred by critics, Lévy records his “Appeal to People of Good Will,” but acknowledges that his words have likely fallen on deaf ears (162-4). Meanwhile Lévy puts himself on the ground and talks to flesh and blood people to see how they are pragmatically dealing with hostile states instead of theorizing from afar.
As a public intellectual, Lévy does not just cover places like Afghanistan in a detached way― we learn about him through his autobiographical style and the historical conflicts he attempts to illuminate. For example, he points out that while much of the world locked down because of the coronavirus, some areas of the world did not have that luxury. COVID-19 looms in the background to some of the historical conflicts in this book (63, 152). In this book Lévy also records moments when he and his crew are exposed to physical attack (133-4; 157-9). Is this a sign of bravado or a real sense of his willingness to put all out on the line to tell the real story?
At the moment, Lévy very publicly champions Israel’s military response to the October 7th assault by Hamas, presumably verifying his concerns about growing antisemitism across the world, but especially in Europe (his book Israel Alone will be released later this year). French, Jewish, liberal,defender of human rights―are labels that best describe him, championing the greatest resources of western liberal democracy and somewhat positioning himself in a place to criticize but also to be challenged by those on the far Right and far Left political spectrum (21, 89-90). One might wonder how this particular stand will help his reputation both inside and outside France. This is how he arrived on the scene of the French public intellectual world―one of the new philosophers who dared to break rank with the French far Left over their silence about the violence committed by communist regimes while maintaining open criticism of right-wing dictatorships. Lévy today remains committed to global human rights and stands against all forms of totalitarianism. It seems his biggest concern at present is the amnesia of Western media and performative activism.
France has a long history of the public intellectual from Voltaire and Zola to Sartre and Foucault reflecting on current social-political events. In some ways, this trend is slowly vanishing. Levy sees himself as part of this legacy, but he does not have the same literary and philosophical credentials as his predecessors. He is still invited to speak across the world, mostly on news programs and at universities, but his work is so temporal that it remains to be seen what future readers he may have. Again, his very public defense of Israel may not help his reputation among many progressives in France and even the U.S., yet the fact remains he is still frequently asked to write and comment about human rights.
Perhaps Lévy’s legacy boils down to being a sort of a modern throwback champion of universal human rights at a time when our present postmodern paradigm discourages such beliefs as naïve and idealistic. Where he lacks for original philosophical theory, he makes up for it trying to preserve the best of the Western tradition in a cynical and intolerant world. His record illustrates this commitment for the underdogs. For instance, the Western media seems fixated on Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and the leadership of President Zelensky, but if history teaches anything it reveals the short memory of the world (124). It is not hard to imagine that Lévy will not let us ever forget Ukraine. If the Ukrainians continue to fight, he is optimistic they can win. To Lévy’s credit, The Will to See does indeed highlight parts of the world where the U.S. media (in particular) has removed their cameras. This is why he travels to speak to the actors in a continuing drama that unfortunately many have abandoned. If one wanted to take up Lévy’s call, there are enough details in The Will to See about each place, and its people, to serve as a helpful starting point to keep up on affairs, and perhaps get involved in some way.
Michael Jimenez is an Associate Professor of history at Vanguard University. He is the author of Remembering Lived Lives: A Historiography from the Underside of Modernity and Karl Barth and the Study of the Religious Enlightenment: Encountering the Task of History.
