From one essay to another, it seems that current events, at their darkest, are catching up with Amin Maalouf. Like the war in Ukraine, which was involved in the writing of his new book. Today, suddenly but without surprises, it is the conflict between Israel and Hamas which bursts into reality. All this while a sort of global standoff pits the West against China and Russia.
This is proof, if necessary, that History is in the making. Although we can also think that she might be walking in circles.
“I would rather say that it is broken,” says Amin Maalouf on the line, from Paris. “I think that what is happening all over the world should not happen. Humanity, which has progressed in the scientific, technological and economic fields in a dizzying manner, still cannot adapt to this progress, he believes. Mentalities and governance are not keeping up. »
The labyrinth of the lost: the West and its adversaries, the new book by the Franco-Lebanese writer, eloquently demonstrates how important it is to know and understand History to begin to understand our present. And without claiming to be a soothsayer, Amin Maalouf believes that today we are sleepwalking towards a “planetary confrontation”.
We live today in a world which, instead of taking stock of all the challenges that we must face – climatic challenges, challenges linked to the slippage of new technologies, risks of all kinds which threaten all of humanity -, ‘bogged down in conflicts. An increasingly uniform world where, like a paradox, divisions multiply.
“Instead of facing all these challenges, instead of organizing the diversity of the world in a responsible way by creating harmonious relationships between the various components of humanity, instead we are living in a period where the law of the jungle prevails,” he thinks, referring to the wars and conflicts of all kinds that are developing.
Without being alarmist, Amin Maalouf says he is “deeply troubled and extremely worried” about our development. “History should go in another direction,” confides the man who became on September 28, 2023, after the death of Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, the new perpetual secretary of the French Academy.
How did we get there ?
This former journalist born in Beirut in 1949 (he was notably editor-in-chief of the monthly Young Africa), attentive observer of the world, has long been interested in History. Thanks to novels like Leo the African, Samarkand (Lattès, 1986 and 1988) or even The Rock of Tanios (Grasset, 1993, Prix Goncourt), but also essays like Murderous identities, The disruption of the world Or The sinking of civilizations (Grasset, 1998, 2009 and 2019).
How did we get there ? Amin Maalouf knows that History is the result – often volatile – of several versions which clash or coexist. The essayist traces, in The labyrinth of the lost, the journey of three great nations which each challenged in their own way Western hegemony and in particular that of the United States: Japan of the Meiji era, Soviet Russia, Mao’s China and that of today . “To understand what is happening to the world, we need to understand how it got here. »
But since the Cold War, the world has changed a lot. Different political realities, different fault lines. The world, believes Amin Maalouf, no longer opposes itself on ideological grounds. The real conflicts today are of an identity nature. A reality that is causing much greater fragmentation throughout the world, with types of conflicts very different from those we have known before.
“My approach in this book,” continues Amin Maalouf, “was to say: let’s take things back to basics. Let us try to understand how the conflict developed between the West and the powers that challenged its pre-eminence over the last two centuries. »
A way of taking a step aside, in short, to show us the other side of the story, to expose its mechanics. This is a bit like what he did with his very first book, The Crusades seen by the Arabs (1983).
“My concern is to look at an event from several points of view. If we are in a region of the world, we necessarily tend to look at History as it appears from where we are. We need to make the effort to place ourselves elsewhere to look at it. »
Forty years ago, he recalls, he did not say that the Crusades should be seen as the Arabs saw them, but that they should be seen “also” from the other point of view. Taking into account History as seen by a 19th century Japanesee century, by a Russian, by a Chinese or by Europeans, by putting all of these visions side by side, thinks Amin Maalouf, we have a better chance of understanding what is happening in today’s world.
Humanity is spinning its wheels
The march of History has taught him, he writes in The labyrinth of the lost,
“that those who base their behavior on a systematic detestation of the West generally drift towards barbarism, towards regression, and end up stunting and punishing themselves”.
A lesson that should shed light on the challenges we face today. “I do not think that ideologies based on ultranationalism or religion are capable of solving the problems of humanity today. All the nations of the world aspire to democracy, to progress, to knowledge,” he said, referring to certain countries which, like China or South Korea, with a little will and the wisdom that their leaders have demonstrated, managed to move forward — despite setbacks and humiliations.
“It gives me confidence. If one day we start to think on the right foundations, humanity can get out of the current rut and put behind it all the calamities it has suffered since the dawn of history. » He sees it as a question of survival for humanity.
Without being an incurable pessimist, Amin Maalouf, who alternates novels and essays while being motivated each time by the same ideals, describes himself as someone who is very worried. “I believe that humanity is doing poorly and I sometimes have the feeling that the world is a vehicle where the only braking system is to hit the wall. »
According to him, only disasters can shake us and say: “Wake up. Understand that the world must be governed differently. »
“Of course, we are far from it, the road is long, but it is not forbidden to look at the horizon while walking,” he writes.