Seven years later, however, he was fully exonerated and returned to the French Army as a major. Dreyfus was again convicted and given a 10-year sentence this time. In the new trial, justice again was not done. Zola’s letter helped force another trial for Dreyfus, this time in 1899. In 1953, a roofer confessed on his deathbed that he had blocked up Zola’s fireplace in order to kill him.) (Four years later, he died mysteriously in his apartment of carbon monoxide poisoning. He returned the next year when the government changed. Zola was convicted of libel for this letter and fled to England to avoid going to jail. A coverupĮmile Zola (Musée de Bretagne, Collection Arts graphiques)Īt this point, Émile Zola, perhaps the most famous writer in France at the time, wrote an open letter to the French President titled J’Accuse…! Published on the front page of the newspaper L’Aurore, this massively important and courageous letter accused the French Army of framing an innocent man based on antisemitism, named the specific individuals responsible for the crime and coverup, and demanded that the Dreyfus case by reopened. In other words, political, cultural and institutional factors were now far more important than the facts related to who actually betrayed French military secrets to the Germans. Plus, in a time of surging antisemitism on the French Right, Dreyfus was a most convenient scapegoat. The French Army was now all in on the Big Lie of Dreyfus’ guilt, because the Army’s reputation was believed to be at stake. These supposed crimes were fabrications based on obviously forged documents. “The French Army was now all in on the Big Lie of Dreyfus’ guilt, because the Army’s reputation was believed to be at stake.” High officials in the French Army hid the evidence so that Esterhazy was acquitted indeed, the Army charged Dreyfus with more crimes. The real culprit was a non-Jewish major named Esterhazy. Two years later, a counter-espionage investigation revealed that Dreyfus had been framed. After his conviction and the public humiliation of being physically stripped of his military rank, he was sent to Devil’s Island. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and exile. The Dreyfus affair ( l’affaire Dreyfus) began in 1894 when a 35-year-old French Army captain named Alfred Dreyfus, an officer of Jewish descent, was wrongly convicted of treason for purportedly passing French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. Permit me to take you back to late 19th and early 20th century France. The single best historical comparison I currently can locate to the embrace of Trump’s Big Lie, all evidence to the contrary, is the Dreyfus Affair in France. It is almost comforting - almost, I say - to see that the forces distorting the politics of the good old USA in this period have been seen before in other lands. In working on that book, I am digging around in various countries and various eras, all of which had in common authoritarian, anti-democratic and reactionary movements that garnered strong Christian support. I am writing a book called Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies. “This means that while the nonexistent factual basis for the Big Lie shrinks even further, the movement embracing that lie grows.” Late 19-century France What kind of country - what kind of politics - what kind of person are we dealing with for this to be where we are? This very disturbing reality needs not just to be protested, but to be analyzed. This means that while the nonexistent factual basis for the Big Lie shrinks even further, the movement embracing that lie grows. In Washington, the January 6 Committee, primarily using testimony from Republicans and former Trump administration officials, is once again shredding Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, meanwhile revealing the extent and damage of Trump’s desperate, likely criminal attempt to hold onto power.Īt the same time, “election-denier” candidates are advancing in GOP primaries in many states, and the Republican Party of Texas just embraced election denial and called Joe Biden “acting president.” We are witnessing an extraordinarily disturbing juxtaposition in U.S.
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