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self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self before God—however self-seeking they are otherwise. (Ibid p.74.) Kierkegaard is right, though it makes a difference how others write their names into the history books and what is written after they are gone. If they leave a mark, it is mostly by revolting, the revolution of the failures. They consider this a great, world-changing act, to be celebrated year after year. They even make it a public holiday. And on that day also they hate, because that is what they celebrate with. 2. And in addition to all of this is the internal hate, which is to say the hate we direct towards ourselves. What is it Launcelot says? “This making Christians will raise the price of hogs...” In other words, accommodation is a sign of weakness. If that accommodation is surrender, it is because I have recognized through it the strength of that which opposes my strength. One expected accommodation is assimilation, and even then it is expected that anyone who satisfies it be looked down on precisely because they are weak (as was done in great numbers in Germany in the 1930s, for example). Tertium non datur. Let us turn back to Prosper Merimée. What is it he wrote?” The majority of the nation took part in it, either actively or by saying nothing. They armed themselves to attacking the Huguenots, whom they considered alien and hostile.” The Catholics saw the Huguenots as alien. They lived in France, they spoke the same language, and we can know from different sources that even a day before the massacre they were each other’s loving neighbors. They did business with each other, all to everyone’s great satisfaction. A day passed, and that night (the time of day is significant) the Catholics brutally and happily cut their favorite neighbors’ throats, raped them—for the greater glory of God—and dragged them along the wharf, so that, after they had hanged and burned them, they could dump their corpses in the Seine. It was just one night.
