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Anyway, chatting with Sylvain, I told him that although I was in favor of immigrants in France being allowed to vote, in all elections, obviously, I was against the French abroad being allowed to vote. I couldn’t see why, having consciously decided to live outside France, I should have any right to pronounce on the politics of the country. He replied, or rather he was thinking aloud: “Yes … reserve the right to vote for users.”

Thinking about it some months later, I realized that this ugly little word user (and I realize this is going to plunge Régis Debray* into despair) precisely describes my relationship with the government of my country, of any country. As regards France (or any other country where I might decide to live), I do not feel (deep down I never truly felt and would come less and less to feel) like a citizen, but, in banal terms, like a user. There, I’ve said it. It’s a little sad; it’s a sense of belonging that is failing, deteriorating. But we have reached the point where we can tell each other the truth more or less, haven’t we?

As we come to the dishonorable reasons for my lack of political commitment, you have the right to shudder. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. I completely understand that the trips to Darfur, the danger they entailed, may have speeded up the process of giving you a sense of yourself; but, sadly, no one or almost no one can go through life without encountering precise situations in which he can get a pretty clear idea of his moral worth. So don’t worry: I am not speaking on the strength of self-examination but from experiences that enabled me, concretely, to appreciate my own worth.

Almost incapable of physical violence, I have, in addition, never taken any pleasure in it, even in those—rare—cases where I had the advantage. In fact, giving up physical violence as the principal means of settling disputes seemed to me one of the only advantages of becoming an adult. I have never been fascinated by weapons, nor really by games of strategy.

I am, besides, organically, viscerally incapable of obeying. When I sense that I am being given an order, something inside me freezes, transforms itself into a sort of painful, impassable mental nodule. Since more often than not I am too much of a coward for confrontation, I am evasive; I give the impression that I will obey when the time comes. And then, at the last minute, without thinking ahead, in an impulse so irresistible it seems like a reflex, I disobey.

Incapable of taking orders, I take no pleasure in giving orders. It is something I do reluctantly, only for brief periods and only when it is absolutely necessary.

Given all of this, it is not difficult to imagine what kind of soldier I would make. I have no doubts, dear Bernard-Henri, that in the event of war (and I think this is what one must envisage as the last resort when discussing commitment), I would fight little and badly. I would throw a few punches or fire a few shots depending on the context (ideally, the whole thing would be played out on a computer screen); and pretty quickly I would start wondering what I was doing there; the vague thrill of combat (I am, I suppose, capable of secreting a little adrenaline) would wear off. And, at the first opportunity, I would quite simply do a runner. I would join the vast throng of those who fought little and badly; of those who waited, without quite daring to say as much, for everyone else to stop their fucking nonsense. Of those who do not care about the fate of democracy, of Free France, of Chechnya or the Basque country; about those who succumb, as de Gaulle rightly said, to the spell of the “terrifying emptiness of general renouncement.” I am one of those. Of those whom nothing general and universal (nor specific and domestic) can really move. Of the vast troop of people who endure history, interesting themselves only in that which directly concerns them and those close to them.

I find it extremely unpleasant that choosing to take the standpoint of