Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Frédéric Pajak

the official version of History. Only these recovered voices will offer reality to the present. They are its invisible and mute guarantee. The voices of the masters and victors expire in the silence of the vanquished. The official History that is theirs, that History of “the whore called ‘Once upon a time’”—as Benjamin says—is a History without inhabitants, a History of the absent. It is missing body, flesh, substance. This official History is satisfied with books of exploits that are more or less true, of conflicts from which the vanquished have been carefully expunged. An entire voiceless world howls between the lines of these anecdotes, all too well-learned. Past ideologies also know how to perfect doubtful legends to farcical and the most improbable degrees. But in terms of caricature, modern ideology is not to be outdone. Its historic heroes, its heroic warriors overact in order to be sure they are noticed, if only for a few seconds in the media. They steal the spotlight from all the unknown soldiers. On the fronts, the conquering armies groan and drag the forgotten behind them. There is no self-sacrifice in the rest homes of history: there are no soldiers, there are only men. It is because we have doubts about the legend of the past that the real past can open up again. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche observed: History must be put in

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