Once a month, The Pressinspired by the magazine’s Socrates Questionnaire Philosophy, questions a personality on the big questions of life. This Sunday, the DD Joanne Liu, former international president of Médecins sans frontières and professor at McGill University, who is associated with two theater projects in the coming months, answers our questions.
Who am I ?
A humanist doctor.
Are we free?
Yes, in theory, but we are prisoners of political, emotional, normative or economic costs that we are often not ready to assume in order to act in full freedom.
What do you remember from your education?
Discipline.
A thinker/philosopher/author who has been with you for a long time?
Nelson Mandela for his strength in adopting an unwavering posture of non-violence as a remedial element of apartheid. For me, he remains an extraordinary model of humanity.
What torments your conscience?
Indifference towards human suffering.
The perfect place or state of mind?
Running… When I jog, it’s a time when I put my ideas in order, where I prepare certain interventions, where I think about certain situations.
What does art mean to you?
Art for me represents the beauty of humans in its best light. It is essential to reconcile myself with human imperfections. Art allows me to still believe in our common humanity in the chaos of wars and the brutality of the human crises we face.
An advantage of being selfish?
In certain moments, like in survival dynamics. Simone Veil, when she talks about her time at Auschwitz, speaks indirectly about this selfishness of survival.
A quality you will never have?
Ambiguity.
Your demon?
Impatience. Around my mid-thirties, I decided that impatience was not a fault as such. I told myself that when I am fighting to get my patient to have their diagnostic test as quickly as possible in the emergency room, the manifestations of my impatience are understandable.
A perfect place to dream and create?
On my bike, going up a hill.
A beautiful death, in your opinion?
In action, real or figurative.
What annoys you in life?
The lack of political courage of our leaders, here and elsewhere.
Complete the sentence: If God exists…
…he should communicate to the humans of this planet to stop fighting in his name or a possible doctrine linked to his name.
The room Our Cassandra, inspired by interviews with Joanne Liu, is presented from January 16 to February 3 at Espace libre.
The Scriptarium 2024, of which Joanne Liu is the curator, is presented from April 18 to May 3 in the Fred-Barry room of the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier.