SLEEPING BEAUTIES WAITING FOR THE TRAIN

My country, France, is a beautiful country, just like every country in the world. The French people are generous, welcoming, and intelligent, just like people everywhere. Voltaire, Emile Zola, and Albert Camus have illuminated human thought, just as authors from around the world have done. But today, France is a sleeping beauty waiting for the train. We are like everyone else, carving out our paths in life, participating in the world and its daily routines, and dealing with our mental burdens, which lulls us to sleep. There will be no charming prince to wake us when we enter the nightmare.

During the time of this exhibition, my country will be holding a legislative election. According to persistent polls, for the first time since the devastation of World War II, a party with fascist origins is poised to take power. This party, which regained representation among the French population in the 1980s through the tactical maneuvers of the then-socialist president, has two defining characteristics.

The first is that its nationalist ideology is based on the rejection of the other. It is not a racist party; it is worse: it is an ostracist party that attributes collective blame to a scapegoat, regardless of who it might be: Arabs, Jews, migrants, the bourgeoisie, the lazy, the rich, the poor, the young, the old, homosexuals—whoever fits the opinion of the moment.

The second, more recent characteristic, is that it is driven solely by a cynical quest for power, with no respect for reflection, truth or sense of dialogue. It is often said in France that this party rides on the wave of anger, but that's not true. It rides on human stupidity, on opinion, which is what one thinks when one does not think.

You who are sleeping on the bench at the train station, wake up. The train is not far, be vigilant: who is driving this train? What is the destination?

With love, from real life _Milena Carbone