Shine a Light: Bernard-Henri Lévy on the reporter-as-activist

"It’s too easy to turn a blind eye to the most horrible sufferings of our time, and doing so leads to indifference and cynicism. It is sometimes hard to see, but it is necessary."

IDEAS

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Fifty years ago, Bernard-Henri Lévy left the promise of a comfortable life in French academia to volunteer in Bangladesh, then fighting a brutal civil war to break free from Pakistan. In the decades since, the French philosopher, writer, film-maker, and magazine publisher has continued to travel the globe, relentlessly documenting atrocities that most of us would rather ignore. In a pair of new works—a film and a book, both called The Will to See—he details his five-decade career and takes the audience on a grim trip to some of the planets most miserable places. Late Sunday night, I spoke to BHL (as he’s known) from his home in Paris about why, at 73, he still does what he does and whether the act of bearing witness really makes a difference.

Photo by Marc Roussel

Octavian Report: Since we’re speaking on the day of the French election, let’s start with that. As in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen both won in the first round, and just like in 2017, Macron has won the second round as well. So how was this election different from the last one?

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Le Pen was stronger. The extreme right did better. The danger, therefore, was more serious, but Macron prevailed because he ran a brave campaign. And thank God, at the last minute the French people woke up and did not fall into the trap of extremism.

OR: It seems like Le Pen does a little bit better in every election. Why is that happening?

Lévy: It is true that for the last 20 years, a Le Pen—either Marine Le Pen or, before her, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen—has done better than the previous time. Why? Because, alas, France is a fatherland of the darkest ideas. And for the last century, every time the country faces an economic, political, and identity crisis, this wave comes back. It is always the same sad story. The extreme right and the extreme left are deeply rooted in my country.

OR: What are the most important things Macron can do now to ensure that Le Pen doesn’t do even better next time?

Lévy: He must assert and affirm his own case, hammer the nail of democratic values, and not compromise with extreme-right ideas. For example, he must not compromise with Vladimir Putin, the dictator of whom Le Pen is a puppet. The biggest mistake would be to think that, because Le Pen did so well in this election, he needs to make a compromise.

OR: Let’s talk about your documentary, The Will to See, which is being released in North America this week. The film takes the viewer on a tour of some of the saddest and most dangerous places in the world. How did you decide which to include and which to leave out?

Lévy: It was a mix of opportunities and decisions. The film was made in 2020, the time of the coronavirus crisis. So there were places that I decided to go to whatever the costs and whatever the difficulty. But there were also places that I went to because, during the lockdown, they were the only ones that could be reached. So it was a mix. This film is my diary of 2020, the diary of one of perhaps the oldest reporters in France. A diary includes things that you decide to do and things that just come as they come. So, for example, there was my decision to go to Kurdistan and to go to Ukraine. I would have gone there whatever the moral cost, the political cost, and the financial cost; I had to go. But in the case of Somalia, for example, I went because it was one of the rare hotspots where it still possible to go when Europe was completely closed to the rest of the world.

OR: The film includes some graphic images of mutilated and dead bodies, which can be hard to watch at times. Why did you include such explicit images?

Lévy: Because they have to be shown, to be seen. I called my film The Will to See. I have this will, and I think it has to be shared as much as possible. It’s too easy to turn a blind eye to the most horrible suffering of our time, and doing so leads to indifference and cynicism. It is sometimes hard to see, but it is necessary.

In 1945, when American forces liberated the extermination camp of Auschwitz, what did they do? They invited, they compelled, the inhabitants of the nearby villages to come to see. Now of course, things are not comparable. There is nothing like Auschwitz today, and I hope there will never be anything like Auschwitz, but the pattern is there. When big crimes are committed, they have to be seen. And it is the responsibility of a documentary film-maker to show that—not just show peace, and not to put a haze on things. Crimes have to be shown as they are. That is my doctrine, always.

OR: You say in the film that you’ve been flooded by requests for help your whole career. You start this film by jumping into a story that, as you admit, you don’t know very much about, which is the plight of Nigeria’s Christians. When you do this sort of thing, how do you ensure that you know what you’re talking about and that you’re not manipulated?

Lévy: I am always aware of the risk, and I take all the precautions I can. In the case of Nigeria, I witnessed but I also investigated. Before writing anything, I got in touch with all sorts of NGOs that had gathered a lot of information on the crisis. I do what I can to double check, double check again, and to be cautious. And when I reach the conclusion that there is a risk, I think that it is my responsibility to say that the risk exists.

I must add that I also try to be as subjective as possible, and therefore as honest as possible. I don’t say that I’m a scientist. I don’t say that I have the full knowledge. I see what I see. I describe the conditions of my reportage. I show how I proceeded, who I was with, in what village, and so on. I put all my cards on the table. So my method is, number one, double check; number two, be subjective and therefore honest. I think that that that combination provides the maximum guarantee to my readers and to myself that what I say is very close to reality.

OR: On this theme of subjectivity, is that why you make a point of telling people that you are a writer, not a reporter?

Lévy: Yes. When I say that I’m a writer, it means that I am a reporter who takes sides. Again, I put my cards on the table. I don’t hide my personal engagement, my personal choices. I openly say what I see, what I think, and what I think should be done. I revere reporters; for me, their work is among the most noble intellectual activities possible. But I’m not exactly one of them. I am someone who interferes with the reality I observe. I don’t have believe that the observer should not interfere. I feel that, so long as I make everything clear, I have the duty to interfere.

OR: The film includes scenes from Nigeria, Kurdistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Greek island of Lesbos. Is there a theme that links all of these individual places and stories together?

Lévy: Yes. The common characteristic of all the situations is the relative indifference of the Western world. Western democracies think that it is not necessary to care. They think that life will go on and the Earth will continue to turn if these places are ignored, forgotten, or disappear. I live in a country, and I think you also live in a country, where the underlying sentiment is that the island of Lesbos could disappear. Bangladesh could disappear. But for me, if Bangladesh were submerged by the flooding of the Ganges River Delta, it would change a lot in the world. Therefore it matters a lot.

OR: It strikes me that another theme of the film is the battle between moderates and extremists. And there seem to be two villains lurking in the shadows throughout the documentary: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Why those two?

Lévy: Because they are two members of the gang of five revisionist powers that are challenging the Western world and Western values. China, Iran, ISIS, Putin’s Russia, and neo-Ottoman Turkey; they are five regimes that share the common ambition to revive a dead empire, and to put it into rivalry with the authority and values of the West. And I take the side of the values of the West against the values praised by the five kings, as I called them in one of my previous books, who are the anti-heroes of my movie.

By the way, the film has a sequence that was shot in the Donbas, to which I went in 2020 so I could drive all 450 kilometers of the front line. For me, it was completely clear at the time that this war at the border of Europe was being ignored, and that we were very wrong to ignore it because the war was about to ignite and threaten the rest of Europe. When I shot these scenes, it was crystal clear to me that Putin was going to escalate and that we in the West would not be prepared for this escalation. So the movie was made in order to ring the bell, to blow the whistle about that. And to my regret, I did not succeed in doing more than just whistle-blowing.

OR: You’re both a writer and a filmmaker; in fact, this film has a companion book, also called The Will to See. Which of the two media do you think has the greatest impact?

Lévy: It’s hard to say. For me, strangely, they’re not so different. I write as I film and I film as I write. Formally, my films are built like books, and my books are sometimes nearly as visual as my films. And at the end of the day, film and books are just different inks for telling the same story. Sometimes, I feel that a book will be more efficient, and sometimes, a film. And sometimes I use both.

OR: You make a powerful case in both the book and the movie for the necessity of bearing witness, and you show your commitment to that necessity by going to some very dangerous places. Do you ever wonder if your work is actually making a difference?

Lévy: Of course, I constantly ask myself that question. Is it worth taking such risks? Is it worth putting my team at risk? Is it worth devoting so much time if there are no results? Sometimes, it has not been worth it. For example, I went to Mogadishu, Somalia, 20 years after the departure of American forces. My report was published in America, in France, in Europe, and probably for nothing, for no result. I failed to make a difference.

In other cases, like when I went to Syrian Kurdistan, I know that there was a concrete result, I know it affected the relationship between my country and the region. As for the Donbas, it was half and half. I was not heard as much as I would have hoped, but I think that I raised the case in my country. And in any case, it is always worth trying. Even if you save just one child, help one refugee on Lesbos get the papers to enter a European country, it is worth it.

OR: You’ve been covering atrocities for five decades now. Do you think the world is any better off today than it was when you started? Are we making progress? And when you think about the future, are you optimistic or pessimistic?

Lévy: We are making progress. We care more. Even dictators and the worst criminals feel themselves being watched by the international community and international law. They are now aware that when they commit crimes on a large scale, they run the risk of finishing their days in front of an international court. Public opinion is more and more aware. International law has changed to include the Responsibility to Protect, for example. So there is progress. Tiny progress, not enough, but not nothing,

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.