Sue Lani Madsen: France has centuries of experience defending its ideals
As a young architect, I attended several conferences of the Paris-based L’Union Internationale des Femmes Architectes (UIFA). They were fabulous gatherings, opportunities to meet women in the profession from all over the world. It was a UIFA conference that provided my first opportunity to travel outside of North America, and it permanently changed my sense of history.
Paris was a magical destination in spring 1983. Most of my exploration of the city was by Metro. I vaguely recalled the storming of the Bastille as a turning point in the French Revolution, and was excited to find its namesake Metro stop on the map. A colleague I met at the conference, filed away in my memory only as Diana from Indiana, joined me for a trip to see the old prison.
I didn’t read the rest of the guidebook entry on Bastille Day until we were standing in the middle of the Place de la Bastille. The open, traffic-filled Place de la Bastille with two American architects laughing at ourselves for thinking we would find a building. We did find the pavement markers for the site of the former prison, stormed by angry citizens on July 14, 1789.
The Bastille castle was 400 years old and an outdated facility many years before the French Revolution, housing only seven prisoners when it was overrun. Although there were some who would have made the old castle into a memorial, demolishing it had more impact as a symbol of throwing off government oppression than it ever would have had as a crumbling monument.
After Paris, I headed south to the Cote d’Azur, the stretch of the Mediterranean coast roughly between Nice and Marseille. I wandered the seafront in Marseille and watched small fishing boats bring in their catch to sell fresh off the boat on old stone wharfs. A few well-preserved monuments didn’t speak as strongly of the age of the place as did ordinary sections of Roman stonework still holding up walls.
Our time horizon in the United States, particularly in the West, leaves us with a foreshortened sense of history. It’s only been 127 years since the establishment of the state of Washington, 240 years after the Declaration of Independence, 524 years after Columbus mistakenly thought he’d reached India when he set anchor in the Caribbean. Europe has a different time standard.
France has been on the front lines of invasions from Islam’s base in Medina since Charles Martel and his army repulsed the Muslim cavalry in the Battle of Tours in 732. He strategically placed his army of 1,500 and prevented a force estimated at 40,000 to 60,000 Muslims from moving any farther north into Europe. Seven years later in 739, his brother Childebrand recaptured Marseille.
For over 1,300 years, there have been repeated attempts to spread Islam into Europe and the West by the sword. History matters. Not knowing history leaves us vulnerable. The French know this in a visceral way that we don’t.
The crowds along the waterfront in Nice were celebrating Bastille Day, an event that energized the French Revolution in the same way the Declaration of Independence galvanized the American Revolution. It is a time when the French remind themselves of their revolutionary ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality and fraternity). It is often compared to our Independence Day celebrations reminding us of the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We know both revolutions haven’t always lived up to those ideals. After the deaths of young black men in confrontation with police, after the ambush of police officers in Dallas and after the attacks in Paris and Nice, we need to remember those ideals. Not just remember, but preserve, put into practice and be prepared to defend our ideals against those who would overthrow them, regardless of their ideology or motive.
Columnist Sue Lani Madsen can be reached atrulingpen@gmail.com or on Twitter: @SueLaniMadsen.