Grégoire Canlorbe

A conversation with Sean David Lowe, for BulletProof Action

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Oct 4, 2025

Active as a music producer and songwriter in the 2000s, Sean David Lowe performed with Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, and Rihanna during his musical career. In 2023, Lowe produced The Last Kumite with Wayne Graves, an old school martial arts movie that features eminent names in the genre — Mohammed “Michel” Qissi, Abdelkrim Qissi, Matthias Hues, Cynthia Rothrock, Kurt McKinney, and Billy Blanks. In 2025, he produced a documentary on No Retreat, No Surrender; he is currently pre-producing Lion Fist.

Grégoire Canlorbe: As a former music producer who switched to movie production, do you believe the art of visualizing, producing action sequences stands as a logical continuation to the art of imagining, setting up videoclips?

Sean David Lowe: I think it helps if you are a creative person, but not every music producer can make the transition to film and vice versa. It was a big step for me, and even though I have a couple of films under my belt, I am sure I will retire soon from feature films.

Grégoire Canlorbe: While the world of independent movie is full of projects that, sooner or later, end up collapsing, The Last Kumite is a rarity: an independent movie that actually managed to be funded, completed, and distributed. To what do you attribute that success?

Sean David Lowe: It was a lot of hard work. But I honestly have to say that me and my co-producer Wayne Graves didn’t listen to our health at that time. It was a hard lesson. On the one side we wanted to make the fans happy, and create something special for them, but we also have families that need healthy parents. However, without the fans who had supported the film we never would have been able to finish this project.

Grégoire Canlorbe: No valuable achievement, it seems, comes without occasioning some enmity or jealousy. Did you experience it yourself?

Sean David Lowe: Yes, unfortunately the movie industry is a very selfish industry. Jealousy, egos, lies etc. However, I am grateful that I have also met good people that I now consider friends. But it’s a tough world in this game…

Grégoire Canlorbe: The iconic, hipped fight between Matthias Hues & Billy Blanks is, certainly, a climactic moment in The Last Kumite. What can you let us know about the wings of that scene?

Sean David Lowe: It was such a pleasure an honor to see both going at it. It was so hot outside, and we did not have a lot of time to shoot it. But both guys gave their all. It was just awesome to know that they would have the end fight. I can only say good things about both of them.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You had the Qissi brothers act as opposite characters—a detective versus an associate to the rogue fight promoter. How did it feel to collaborate with those two legends?

Sean David Lowe: Again, this was a true pleasure. Both of them are so kind hearted. I still talk to them to this day, and even see them every once in a while. They are a good family. I loved Abdel’s performance. He really impressed me.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You’ve been having a fruitful, regular collaboration with Kurt McKinney, whom, after The Last Kumite, you’re collaborating with again on The Untold Story of No Retreat, No Surrender, as well as on Lion Fist. Can one speak of it as an authentic professional bromance?

Sean David Lowe: Kurt and I became close friends over the years, and I truly enjoy working with him. He is a great actor and because he had disappeared out of the public eye I felt that there are more stories to be told. The documentary The Untold story of No retreat No surrender will be out 2026. It turned out beautiful.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Would you like to add a few words?

Sean Davis Lowe: Thanks for having me.

That conversation was originally published on BulletProof Action, in September 2025

A conversation with Jose Luis Torres II, for BulletProof Action

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Juil 11, 2025

Jose Luis Torres II is an American martial artist, actor, producer, and entrepreneur, holder of the 9th Dan in World Tang Soo Do and founder of NAFMA, promoting martial arts worldwide. Since 1982, he has taught Tang Soo Do at his karate school in New Jersey, which he has led for over twenty-five years. As an actor-producer, he is best known for his roles in the martial-arts thriller Killer Ex (2024), as well as in City of Honor and the upcoming Rise of the Dragon (2026).

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you move from kinesiology to martial arts—and, in turn, from martial arts to action movie?

Jose Luis Torres II: I’ve practiced martial arts since I was five, competing and training throughout my childhood. Over the past forty years, martial arts have been my lifelong passion. When I went to Penn State University, I majored in kinesiology—the study of human movement—with the intention of becoming a chiropractor or physical therapist.

Despite my dedication to martial arts and kinesiology, I’d always harbored a dream of acting. In grade school and high school I performed in theater productions, and in college I even took two drama classes. Friends encouraged me to move to Los Angeles, but at the time I was focused on finishing my degree. Then life intervened: I married my college sweetheart, became a father, and built a career to support my family.

Over the next twenty-five years I stayed connected to the martial-arts world—making friends with its celebrities at seminars and expos. When the pandemic hit, I launched the Martial Arts Xperience podcast. With everyone stuck at home, I was able to book top martial artists for video interviews and quickly grew an audience of over 10,000 followers. Through the podcast I met my good friend William Christopher Ford (who played Dennis in The Karate Kid and reprised the role in Cobra Kai Season 6). He invited me onto his show 52 Masters and encouraged me to explore on-camera work. I submitted audition tapes and, though most went nowhere, one led to a role in Willie Johnson’s independent film 1 Out of 100. Filming in Maryland, I discovered how much I loved being on set.

Director Robert Parham saw potential in me and suggested we collaborate again. Later, at a fundraiser for the Martial Arts History Museum in Los Angeles, I pitched myself to indie filmmaker Jim Towns. I explained that modern action heroes don’t have to be bodybuilder–types but should feel real—like a “Puerto Rican Liam Neeson.” He agreed, sent me the script for Killer Ex, and cast me as a retired assassin drawn back into the field. The grassroots premiere in nearby Burlington, New Jersey, sold 514 tickets on opening night.

Now I’m developing my second project, City of Honor—a TV series whose pilot has been picked up by six streaming platforms. We’re currently finalizing investment to produce the entire first season. Martial arts taught me discipline; podcasting taught me persistence; and now, acting is teaching me that it’s never too late to chase a lifelong dream.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How does your training in kinesiology shape your eye as a martial artist?

Jose Luis Torres II: I’ve found that my background in kinesiology—understanding muscles, tendons, ranges of motion, and the fluid mechanics of movement—gives me, indeed, a sharper eye when performing. Some actors step in front of the camera and effortlessly look the part; I’m the kind who has to work for it. Knowing exactly how to execute a kick, open the hips, or coordinate a punch lets me elevate my martial-arts routines from mere imitation to authentic, camera-ready action.

By combining childhood passion with scientific insight, I’m not just an actor “trying” to fight—I’m a martial artist who knows instinctively how the body moves. That authenticity shows on screen: it doesn’t look like staged choreography, but real, dynamic combat. And while I’m still on my journey toward star-level roles, I’ve already seen audiences respond positively to that genuine fluidity and precision in my first projects—and it’s only the beginning.

Grégoire Canlorbe: When it comes to the way bodies are being hurt and shaken, how do you assess the fight scene in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises?

Jose Luis Torres II: I haven’t watched Eastern Promises in years, but its premise still grips me: a desperate race to rescue an infant from London’s Russian mafia underworld. You’re asking my take on the sauna fight scene featuring a naked Viggo Mortensen, right? I love how they shot it—raw, brutal, and unflinching. I don’t recall who was the stunt or fight coordinator, but the realism of that sequence is astounding. There are no 360° hook kicks or flashy flying sidekicks—instead you see instinctive, animalistic reactions, driven purely by emotion. Mortensen’s character fights with desperation and fury, using every instinct to save that girl.

Contrast that with Bloodsport’s highly choreographed displays of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s incredible kicking ability. In Bloodsport, the spectacle and precision of each move serve the tournament’s honor-bound stakes. In Eastern Promises, however, the violence feels organic: every punch and grapple reveals Mortensen’s character’s fear and determination. It’s a perfect example of how a fighter’s motivation—honor versus survival—shapes the way they move on screen.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Your character in Killer Ex is a retired professional killer who built a family. How did you get in his shoes so convincingly?

Jose Luis Torres II: It was actually my first time leading a film, so I didn’t shape the character as much as Jim Towns, our writer–director, did. Still, I found a lot to connect with. As a father of three boys myself, I understood the stakes of a dad doing whatever it takes to protect his family. And at nearly fifty, I knew what it felt like to move like I did in my twenties—stiffer, heavier, a little slower. Rather than hiding that, I leaned into it: my character in Killer Ex is past his prime, worn down by retirement and regret.

That weariness brought authenticity to the fight scenes. Early on, you’ll see him take worse hits—he’s rusty, out of shape, fighting on instinct rather than precision. But as the story unfolds and his mission sharpens (his son’s life is on the line), he locks in. By the final battles, his technique and focus have returned, driven by pure determination. In Killer Ex, the fights aren’t just choreography; they’re emotional milestones charting his journey from reluctant retiree to fierce protector.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The movie’s conclusion, which sees a dialog between Gerald Okamura and you precede a voiceover, is full of tension.

Jose Luis Torres II: It was funny, because in the original edit—and the February screening—we didn’t have Victor’s voiceover at either the beginning or the end of the film. As a producer, I talked to Jim and said, “I really think we need to open and close the movie with Victor reflecting in voiceover.” I felt it was important—like putting a cover on the book, then the back of the book. Jim loved the idea, so we added it in post-production.

We’ll be doing the same thing for Killer Ex 2, which we start filming later this summer. Although we’ve already shot the restaurant scene where the family celebrates and comes together, the voiceover dialogue will be recorded afterward and woven in—way, way after the fact.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Killer Ex is built upon the duo that the male protagonist—your character—is forming with a femme fatale—Elena Churinova’s character. How did you get your complicity as co-actors?

Jose Luis Torres II: So, Elena was cast—as I said, I didn’t have full control over Killer Ex’s casting. That was handled by our writer–director, Jim Towns. Jim had worked with Elena Churinova on another project and thought she’d be a great fit for this film, so he tapped her for the role.

How was acting with her? It was really good. You know, I’ve heard horror stories and I’ve heard great stories—Elena is the latter. She’s a consummate professional and a genuinely wonderful person. To be honest, this was the first time I’d ever acted on screen opposite a leading lady. Elena had already done twenty or thirty films and loads of stunts, so she was completely at ease.

We did Zoom reads and table reads together to build rapport. I was nervous—very insecure about how I’d look and sound on camera—but Elena’s warmth and encouragement put me right at ease. She’s a phenomenal actress and an even more phenomenal human being.

Grégoire Canlorbe: One of the best fights in Killer Ex opposes Elena Churinova to Lawrence Walther. Please tell us about the filming and choreographing of this great confrontation, which violently ends in the toilet.

Jose Luis Torres II: We shot that fight scene in a single day at a rented roadside motel, which presented tight walls, narrow corridors, and awkwardly placed dressers. Lawrence Walther handled his assassin role; he’s a stunt performer with whom I’ve since formed such a strong bond that I cast him as the police chief in my series City of Honor. Although I served as fight coordinator, we brought in Manny Ayala—who’s worked on blockbusters like The Amazing Spider-Man 2—to consult and fine-tune the choreography.

A couple of days before shooting, Manny, Elena, and Lawrence rehearsed in my karate school using mats and mock-up dressers to nail the spacing and timing. Once we moved into the actual motel room, Manny’s expertise guided every punch, wall-bounce, and camera angle—Jim Towns shot it all handheld on a Blackmagic to capture that claustrophobic intensity. Manny also designed the dramatic glass break and the final, tongue-in-cheek moment when the toilet seat clocks the assassin, giving the scene a bit of comic relief at the end.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Just as epic, the fight opposing you to Mohammed “Michel” Qissi ends with you diving a knife into him. Please tell us about the backstage of this scene.

Jose Luis Torres II: I was such a fanboy to work with Mohammed Qissi. I’d met him on social media, and we started forming a friendship—he even appeared on my podcast, where I shared my dreams and aspirations. Later, he flew in as a special guest at my tournament, and that’s when our bond really grew. When I told him about my movie, he didn’t hesitate to help. I was truly honored—everyone knows Qissi’s story with Jean-Claude Van Damme, so working alongside someone of his experience and talent was incredibly humbling.

Despite my admiration, I refused to embarrass myself. With Elena I was nervous, but with Qissi I went all in: I tapped into my martial-arts confidence, discipline, and focus so I’d look good for both of us. And he matched that energy—he’s the ultimate professional.

Originally, we planned to shoot his fight scene that summer, but a scheduling conflict meant he couldn’t fly in from Germany until months later from Morocco. When he finally arrived, we had to choreograph everything on the spot. He wanted a heavier boxing element; I wanted to showcase a spinning hook kick—his height made that move especially striking—and we had a blast building it together.

During the stabbing scene, someone forgot to swap the metal blade for a rubber prop. Mohammed never broke character; he delivered full-force swings until the director finally called “cut.” When they realized the real weapon was still on set, I glanced at him, half panicked—but he just smiled and said, “When the director says action, it’s action. When he says cut, it’s cut.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

That knife-dive effect was shot tight on a corner, cutting between a rubber knife thrust and a close-up of a machete prop with practical blood drips. For a small-budget film, the result drew great praise, and I’m proud of what we achieved with limited resources.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You really had a blast working with Mohammed.

Jose Luis Torres II: Working with Mohammed was a dream come true—and I can’t wait to collaborate with him again on future projects.

Mohammed really opened doors for me—he introduced me to his contacts, including his cousin, Said Hamdaoui, who did an excellent job in his short scene in the club in The Last Kumite. Since then, I’ve been building those relationships and expanding my network.

I think The Last Kumite had some of its own difficulties, but it was a great film that truly paid homage to that ’80s-style flick. Obviously we would have loved to see more fighting—a bigger throwback to the original Bloodsport—but they did a very, very good job. It’s so difficult to make movies with tight budgets, time pressures, and all the constraints involved, so I commend everyone who managed to pull it together. I’m really happy for them.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The platonic, respectful relationship between Victor and Ayana is somewhat reminiscent of that between Ethan Hunt and Ilsa Faust in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

Jose Luis Torres II: Mission Impossible taking inspiration from Killer Ex’s ideas? Ha, I wish!

Seriously, though, what really drives the film is the history between Elena’s character and Victor. They were once inseparable—a team on secret missions, jetting around the globe, and very much in love. But Victor longed for a home and a family, while Elena couldn’t imagine giving up the thrill of the field. That difference pulled them apart, yet their bond never truly broke.

In the story, you see Victor risk everything—even his own family’s safety—to rescue her. And critically, we never crossed the cliché of him betraying his wife. We wanted to walk that fine line: showing Elena and Victor’s deep, lingering affection without slipping into adultery. It was essential to keep their connection honorable, honoring both their past passion and Victor’s commitment to his family.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Speaking of Mission Impossible, did you get to watch the just released, eighth installment?

Jose Luis Torres II: I haven’t had a chance to see it yet—I’ve been completely tied up with filming, production, and marketing my current project, so it’s on my to-do list. I did, however, catch Michael B. Jordan’s film Sinners (the vampire movie), and I thought he did a fantastic job. It’s incredible what you can achieve with that kind of backing—and that’s exactly the level I’m working toward, so I can bring even more ambitious, magical moments to the screen.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Would you like to add a few words?

Jose Luis Torres II: I’m juggling three major projects right now. We’ve just finished filming City of Honor, a six-episode crime drama in which I play Detective Sergeant Dante Perez of the West End Task Force. The pilot lands June 27 on Prime, Tubi, Uplift TV, Filmzie, Fawesome TV, and TVEI, with additional platforms still signing on. Financiers and production companies are already lining up to continue the series—seasons 2 and 3 synopses are complete, and all of season 1’s scripts are locked. It’s an emotional ensemble piece about a single dad battling grief, alcoholism, and rising city crime, and I believe its layered storytelling will resonate both here and abroad.

This summer—August into September—I’ll be back in front of the camera for Killer Ex 2 with writer–director Jim Towns. We’re bringing back familiar faces and introducing two new villains: Silvio Simac (of Transporter and Unleashed) as Nikolai, and martial-arts legend Casanova Wong as a powerful Triad boss. Expect bigger characters, sharper choreography, and higher stakes as our hero faces a fresh wave of adversaries. Looking further ahead, I’m developing Rise of the Dragon, a feature film set to begin shooting in late 2025/early 2026. It’s a passion project—a love letter to classic martial-arts cinema that will deliver authentic fight sequences, gritty atmosphere, and the spirit of ’70s and ’80s kung-fu epics. It’s been an amazing year of building new worlds and characters, and I can’t wait to share these stories with audiences everywhere.

That conversation was originally published on BulletProof Action, in July 2025

A conversation with Bat Ye’or, for Gatestone Institute

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Juil 10, 2025

Bat Ye’or is an Egyptian-born British author and historian, who has focused on the history of religious minorities in the Muslim world and on the geopolitics of the European Union. She is known for introducing the West to the concept of dhimmitude, and forging the concept of Eurabia.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Could you start by reminding us of the motivations of the networks that orchestrate the EU’s migration policy and its anti-Israeli stance?

Bat Ye’or: The motivations of the networks in these two areas—the EU’s migration policy and anti-Zionism—are different but converge in their cumulative harmful effectiveness. This cumulative effect results from the deliberate policy of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to link their relations with EU countries at every level to a European anti-Israeli policy.

The surrender of the European Community to these demands in November 1973, was obtained through the intolerable pressures of jihadist terrorism, particularly aircraft hijacking by the PLO in Europe, and the economic strangulation of Europe at the time through a severe Arab oil boycott. This linkage, however, is also part of the historical Christian tide that obstructed by all possible means—even through the genocide of Jews throughout Europe (1941-45)—the restoration of a Jewish state in its homeland. This current—allied with jihadism from the very beginning of Zionism[i] and in collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in the 1930s-40s and up to the present—can be seen by Europe’s support for the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all anti-Israeli forces.

The networks organizing the EU’s migration policy wrap themselves in a humanitarian ambiguity that conceals their financial sources. During the 1970-80 period of developing the EU’s Mediterranean policy, these motivations encompassed the entire range of Euro-Arab relations, as was officially stated later in the Barcelona Declaration (1994). Other declarations and dialogues among peoples, cultures, civilizations, and demographic hybridization—along with an important Muslim-Christian theological dialogue—aimed to create a homogeneous Euro-Arab strategic framework around the Mediterranean. This area—without Israel, if possible, and free from American influence—would supposedly gain from a strong Muslim immigration to Europe, and provide a civilizational and, above all, ethical source for the West, according to a globalist perspective of a Euro-Muslim hybridization, which would be created by a massive presence of Muslims in the West.

This perspective was, for example, articulated by Javier Solana, High Representative for the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (1999-2009). In his presentation at Helsinki (Feb. 25, 2004) Solana declared, “Closer engagement with the Arab world must also be a priority for us. Without resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there will be little chance of dealing with other problems in a region beset by economic stagnation and social unrest.” He then explained that future security would depend on a more effective multilateral system.[ii] Europe would become stronger in building a stronger United Nations, and in being firmly committed to effective multilateralism.

All these motivations were integrated into the soft jihad strategy in the West, and sponsored by the OCI.

Canlorbe: How does the Eurabia plan influence the EU’s foreign policy toward China and Russia?

Bat Ye’or: I cannot answer for China, but regarding Russia, it is clear that a fractured and weak Christianity has always been an easy prey to jihadist invasions. It must be noted that the collapse of those empires was due more to internal enemies connected to those outside the empire than to military battles. This was particularly the case with the Islamization of the Byzantine Empire, especially after the schism in 1054, which divided Christianity into two hostile entities, Western and Eastern.

In the Eurabian context, the hatred and delegitimization of Israel provide a spiritual and theological weapon for the European trends of Islamophilia and anti-Semitism to abandon Judeo-Christianity and rally to Islam. The current war aims to replace Israel with Palestine, an entity that has never had historical existence and a creature forged by Christian anti-Semitism from the 1970s[iii]. Palestine had a special connotation in early Christianity regarding Jews. The destruction of the ancient kingdom of Judea by the Roman army in 135 CE and its renaming as Palestine, was interpreted by Church theologians as a divine punishment against a supposedly deicidal people. The Christian prohibition to Jews to return or live in their homeland is rooted in this belief, as well as the traditional Christian anti-Jewish antagonism. As for the Muslims, the word and notion of Palestine is absent from the Quran; their war against Israel is based on the jihadi ideology which requires that Islamic law rule the planet. Islamic belief, however, destroys the historical foundations of Judaism and Christianity to replace them with the Islamic vision of biblical history, in which Islam preceded the other two religions. Palestinianism, the common Muslim-Christian fight against the Hebrew state, can only hasten the de-Christianization of the West. The case of Lebanese Christianity, destroyed by the PLO—an organization supported by Europe to eradicate Israel—is an illustration.

Canlorbe: Will the new Trump administration have a positive impact on issues such as the situation in Gaza and in Ukraine, in your opinion?

Bat Ye’or: I had high hopes that this administration would succeed in bringing peace to Europe, but too many forces and interests wish to weaken the European continent through the deterioration of the war in Ukraine, and I fear that we are heading in that direction.

As for Gaza, as long as Europe continues to collaborate with all the military-terrorist organizations that clearly display their extermination policy against the Jewish people, we will see no improvement. The first condition for a positive issue is to free the pseudo-Palestinian people from their eternal refugee status, imposed and instrumentalized against Israel by the EU as a weapon of destruction to replace the Jewish State. After all, the so-called Palestinians—mainly Arab and Muslims immigrants from the 19^th century who had fled from Israel during the Arab 1948 war which they provoked hoping to exterminate the Jews—proclaim that they belong to the Arab Ummah [Muslim community]. Until the 1970s, they had campaigned under the banner of Arab nationalism with their leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, Hitler’s admirer, ally and collaborator. Many could return to their homelands: to Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. None of the sacred Arab and Muslim texts mentions a geographical location in the biblical Hebrew territories, nor any historical episode that would justify a connection with land in today’s Israel.

Europe could let them go to the 56 Muslim states or the 22 Arab countries, all of which were formed through the expulsion of millions of non-Muslim natives who, for their part, never benefited from any universal and providential aid like that provided by UNRWA. As a former refugee from Egypt striped of all possessions, I can attest to this, as do millions of Jewish and Christian refugees from Arab countries over the centuries, particularly after the failed 1948 Arab war of invasion against Israel. Europe never condemned the military invasions by five Arab States that seized and colonized Jewish lands according to both the Balfour and San Remo Declarations. There, their millenary old Jewish population were killed or expelled, their houses pillaged, their synagogues burned. Europe felt no need to provide help. It is true that just three years before, it was busy to deport Jews to the extermination camps spread over its territory. It was not prepared to help them against its former ally.

Canlorbe: In the Middle Ages, Rabbi Maimonides (who was appointed the head of the Jewish community in Egypt) saw Islam as rooted, albeit imperfectly, in Biblical teachings; and as intended—within the divine plan—to civilize the pagan Arabs and prepare them for the universal reign of the Torah in future messianic times.

Bat Ye’or: I share Maimonides’ opinion. One must understand the primitive and cruel living conditions of the inhabitants of Arabia before Muhammad to appreciate the value of the elements of humanity and spirituality brought by the Quran. The Arabs themselves, witnessing the example of the Jews and Christians in Arabia, hoped to obtain from Muhammad a similar religion. Muhammad responds to their request and tells them that he has brought them a religion in Arabic for Arabs. It is up to Muslims to undergo bringing their religion up to date, as other religions around the globe have done, to uphold values free from the prejudices of the past. As for messianic times, I would not even dare to imagine them.

Canlorbe: May the harmonious relationship between Israel and Sunni states raise hopes for the fulfillment of Maimonides’ hope?

Bat Ye’or: Perhaps… on the condition that they accept the people of Israel, their redemptive mission within humanity, their liberation from the ignominy into which the Christian accusation of deicide has confined them—a charge abrogated by Vatican II but still factually present in the Western refusal to recognize Jewish sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. A second condition needs to be the abolition of the inhumane status of dhimmitude[iv], enshrined in the jihad ideology that aims at destroying all non-Muslim faith in order to impose the shariah laws over the planet. We are still far from this move … However, the definitive abrogation of dhimmitude, which would occur through the recognition of the legitimacy of the State of Israel in its historical homeland, is a principle that would benefit all of humanity and promote peace among everyone.

The tsunami wave of hatred against Israel and Jews that submerged the West since the 7/10/2023 embodies precisely this nazi-jihadism exuded by Christian-Muslim alliance against Zionism, so pregnant since the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. This Treaty legitimized a sovereign State for the Jewish people in their historic homeland with secure borders from Gaza to the Jordan River. Simultaneously, the same Treaty created on 70% of a Palestinian territory delineated for the first time since the Roman conquest (135 CE), the establishment of an Arab state for Muslims and Christians. Those decisions ratified by the League of Nations are endorsed by its successor, the UN and cannot be nullified. This modern anti-Israeli exterminatory wave is the prolongation of the Euro-Arab anti-Zionist Nazi alliance that produced from the 1920s the anti-Jewish hatred that generated the Shoah. It continues today, carried over by the Eurabian ideology. However as the European states support for murderous anti-Israeli jihadist ideology grows stronger, the more these states are destroyed by it. In Islam, Jews and Christians are cut from the same cloth. What is done to Jews is done to Christians as well and vice-versa as they have exactly the same legal statute. This is the great lesson given to us by the knowledge of dhimmitude and for this reason, forbidden. Yet we can see by our own eyes Europe collapsing under a self-injected poisonous Jewish-hating Eurabian venom.

[i] See Bat Ye’or, Le Dhimmi documents avec une étude de Rémi Brague, Les Provinciales, 2025, p.42.

[ii] Speech of Javier Solana at Helsinki, 2/25/2004, “The European Security Strategy—The Next Step?” in Cahier de Chaillot, Vol. V, n° 75, Sécurité et Défense de l’UE, Textes fondamentaux, 2004. Institut d’Etudes de Sécurité, Union européenne, February 2005, Paris.

[iii] In January 2004 in the course of an European investigation on EU misdirected funds by the Palestinian Authority, Javier Solana, the EU commissar for foreign policy and security, declared that Europe’s duty was to help the Palestinian Authority, adding, “If it didn’t exist we would have to invent it!”, in Le Temps, Geneva, February 4, 2004. See Bat Ye’or, Eurabia, The Euro-Arab Axis, 2005.

See also: “After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution. It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims. If the parties are not able to stick to [the timetable], then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table.” – EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, during a lecture in London, asserting that if Israel cannot arrive at a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, the UN should enforce its own. (Jerusalem Post, July 12, 2009)

[iv] Dhimmitude is the name given to the comprehensive political, social, juridical, religious Islamic system governing the non-Muslim populations that were defeated by the Jihad war. It has, therefore, its roots in the jihad ideology and military legal rules. From the 8th to the 12th century, as the Muslim jurisdiction developed, it integrated in the shariah jurisdiction built on Muslim sacred Scriptures the system of dhimmitude. A great number of Christian anti-Jewish laws from the fifth and six centuries were absorbed into dhimmitude. This common anti-Jewish ground led sometimes to a Christian-Muslim alliance for persecuting Jews in Muslim countries. In the 20th century, this trend achieved its peak in the Shoah and is now renascent after fifty years on anti-Israeli indoctrination.

That conversation was originally published on Gatestone Institute, in June 2025

A conversation with Claude Desama, for The Postil Magazine

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Juin 1, 2025

Born to a father who was a railway official and to a mother who was a textile worker, Claude Desama spent his youth in Ensival, a municipality that would merge with Verviers. His long career is both academic and political: a professor at the University of Liège, he has also served as the burgomaster of Verviers and a member of the European Parliament, as well as the president of the Commission on Energy, Research, and Technology. He is an Officer of the Legion of Honor.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you transition from university teaching to European politics?

Claude Desama: Well, in reality, my trajectory began at the university, where I became involved in scientific research in economic history. I followed the classic academic path: first assistant, then head of studies, then lecturer, and finally full professor.
But in parallel, I have always been active in politics. From my entry into university in 1961, I enrolled in the Socialist Party, in which I immediately became involved.
In the early 1970s, I became president of the Verviers Federation of the Socialist Party. I was then not yet 30 years old—I was born in 1942. In 1979, the first elections for the European Parliament took place. At that time, the president of the Socialist Party, André Cools, with whom I was in regular contact—I was part of the party’s think tanks—offered me the chance to be a substitute candidate. He said to me: “You are known in academic circles, it’s an interesting electorate for the left.” I accepted, and I became the second substitute. So I did not sit in 1979.
In the following elections, in 1984, I became the first substitute. The party president then was Guy Spitaels, with whom I had a very friendly and close relationship. I was one of his close advisors. That said, I had no intention of holding a political mandate at all. I wanted above all to dedicate myself to my academic career. For me, politics was a passion, almost a hobby.
But in 1988, shortly before the end of the European legislature, a socialist MP, Anne-Marie Lizin, was appointed minister in the Belgian government. As the first substitute, I was then called to replace her in the European Parliament to complete the legislature.
Then, in the 1989 elections, the party president asked me to be the socialist candidate. I was ranked fourth on the list, so I didn’t have much hope. But the Socialist Party achieved great success, and I got a good personal score. I therefore found myself again in the European Parliament.
At that time, I had just been appointed full professor. I had to adjust my academic career to be able to take on this European mandate. It was certainly the one that attracted me the most, both intellectually and politically. I could have entered Belgian politics earlier, become an MP, senator, or others, but it was really Europe that fascinated me. I have always been deeply pro-European.
That’s how I chose to combine these two vocations—university and European politics—which has not always been simple or easy. But that’s how I took my first steps in the European Parliament.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Today [April 17, 2025], Mr. Trump meets with Mrs. Meloni to discuss, among other topics, the trade relations between America and the EU. Do you think Mrs. Meloni is the most qualified to speak on behalf of the EU?

Claude Desama: Oh! It is surely not Mrs. Meloni. She is the head of government of one of the 27 countries of the European Union, indeed, but her political party is not part of the majority in the European Parliament. This majority is composed of the European People’s Party, the socialists, and the liberals. Mrs. Meloni, on the other hand, is positioned more on the far right.
The most legitimate person—not the only one, but the best placed—to speak on behalf of Europe is obviously the president of the European Commission: Ursula von der Leyen. This is certainly one of the problems of the European Union: it is not always clear who actually represents Europe. There has been a certain rivalry in the past between Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the president of the European Council. But according to the treaties, it is indeed the president of the Commission who is the most authorized figure to speak on behalf of Europe. And today, that is Ursula von der Leyen.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What do you think of the speech given by Mr. Vance, the American vice president, on the occasion of the Munich Security Conference? The main threat to the EU, he stated, is neither China nor Russia, but within the EU itself, the decline of certain freedoms—including free speech.

Claude Desama: Well, I think Mr. Vance’s speech is typically populist and clearly leans toward the far right. Unlike, perhaps, Donald Trump, who seems more like a performer on the political stage—a showman, without very deep ideological convictions—the people who currently surround him, like Mr. Vance, belong to a much more pronounced populist movement.
They are figures marked by strong nationalism, and that’s what I mean when I talk about populism: a clear orientation toward the far right. Vance’s speech was entirely in that direction.
It is also evident that he feels more sympathy for authoritarian regimes like Russia or even China – despite the trade war that opposes them to the United States – than for democratic regimes. This affinity speaks volumes about his worldview.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you approve of the Green Deal? Or do you see it as a factor in the decline of European economies?

Claude Desama: The Green Deal represents, in my view, an important moment in European policy. The direction is good, without a doubt. But in my opinion, it has erred on the side of radicalism – and especially haste. The European economy, like most global economies, was not ready to endure an ecological transition conducted at breakneck speed.
What was lacking was simply giving time to time. This transition should have been framed in a long-term perspective, planning efforts realistically, instead of setting rigid time-bound objectives—such as, for example, “a 50% reduction by 2030.” This is too technocratic an approach, a theoretical vision that does not sufficiently take into account economic and social realities.
We must not forget that the European economy has already been deeply shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic. It could not, in addition, abruptly absorb such a profound change in the economic paradigm.
As an economic historian, I have worked a lot on the industrial revolution. It took nearly a century for it to truly take root and become the dominant model in Europe. Indeed, there were early hotspots, like the Verviers region, but the entire process took time. I am not saying it will take a century to achieve the ecological transition, but it is certain that technological progress cannot be decreed with a mere wave of a magic wand.
Therefore, we must accept that this transformation will take time, while preparing for the inevitable consequences of climate disruption. In short, the Green Deal is a beautiful intellectual exercise, a necessary initiative, but it lacks pragmatism. We have underestimated the time an economy needs to evolve deeply.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Are you in favor of simultaneous denuclearization alongside abandoning fossil fuels?

Claude Desama: I have always been in favor of nuclear energy. I think that, on this subject, we have been victims—at least in part—of a certain ideological harassment from environmentalists. Since the 1980s, they have made the fight against nuclear power the core, even the founding pillar, of their political commitment. To be honest, that was what united the different environmental sensitivities.
I can understand that, in the context of the time, their position had some rationale. Nuclear energy is indeed a so-called “dual” technology: it can be used to produce energy peacefully, but it is also related to nuclear weapons. Pacifism, which is very strong among environmentalists, naturally extended to a global opposition to any form of nuclear power. But I think that was a mistake.
Nuclear energy offers a form of energy autonomy, or at least greater independence. The fact that we renounced it, under the ideological pressure from environmentalists—and with the complacency of many media outlets that widely relayed their discourse—has been, in my opinion, a strategic error.
Europe, for its part, has also retreated on this issue, largely under the influence of Germany. After the disasters at Chernobyl and, especially, Fukushima, the Germans decided to abandon nuclear energy. They exerted significant pressure for the European Union to follow them in this direction.
Today, I believe that almost everyone recognizes that this orientation was a dead end. We lost precious years.

Grégoire Canlorbe: If we reason in Marxist terms, what “class interest” would the petite bourgeoisie have in promoting environmentalism?

Claude Desama: I’m not sure that it is truly in their interest to promote certain affinities observed in bourgeois or “bobo” circles—a form of adherence to power, a rigid environmentalism, or the dismantling of nuclear energy.
Since the 1980s, with the rise of neoliberal thought, we have seen a more pronounced individualism emerge, particularly within the petite bourgeoisie. Collective reflections have gradually lost their appeal, in favor of a quest for personal happiness. This social class has slowly integrated into an intellectual elite that viewed major social and industrial debates as issues of the past.
This milieu has been sensitive to questions of nature, biodiversity, and the “little birds,” as they say—a discourse that is still very frequently found in the media. Moreover, the media have amplified this trend. Who reads in-depth articles in newspapers today? It is no longer predominantly the working class or the lower classes, but rather this educated petite bourgeoisie, which has largely benefited from the democratization of higher education.
Many have been intellectually seduced by the environmentalist message. Not necessarily out of economic interest, but rather because it was fashionable – almost a form of intellectual snobbery. At the university, I saw this up close: most of my young colleagues were environmentalists. It was in the air of the time, as it was fashionable, right after the war, to be a little left-wing, even Marxist. These are effects of intellectual trends, and I believe that environmentalism is one of them too.
That said, the environmental message contains important elements, of course. The excessive exploitation of natural resources is an undeniable fact. But today, many realize that the environmentalist ideology—its militant and dogmatic side—is sometimes disconnected from realities. It can even, in some cases, contribute to Europe’s economic stagnation.
Take China, for example: it is one of the countries investing the most in renewable energies. But it does not stop there. It continues to develop nuclear energy; it continues to produce on a large scale. It does not let itself be guided by a utopian or overly idealized vision. And perhaps that is where the difference lies.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you untangle the processes that led to Verviers becoming a flagship of the industrial revolution?

Claude Desama: Ah, you know, it is actually a conjunction of factors—a bit of chance, but also very specific contexts—that enabled Verviers to play a key role at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
As early as the 17th and 18th centuries, well before mechanization, Verviers already had a tradition in the wool industry. There were workshops of weavers, wool washers, carders… At that time, the city was an important center for the production of woven cloth.
The Verviers manufacturers sold their products throughout Europe, and some, such as the Simonis, Peltzer, or de Biolley families, amassed significant fortunes. Thanks to their international contacts, notably in England, they discovered the first technological advances related to spinning and mechanical carding. They quickly realized that their own system, still artisanal and fragmented, had become archaic.
At the time, the model was as follows: wool was bought, often in England, washed in Verviers, then sent to the surrounding countryside where it was spun on a wheel in the farms. Then, the manufacturers would retrieve it, have it woven in small workshops, and resell the cloth. At each stage, they captured the added value, but the process remained slow, unproductive, and dependent on many uncertainties.
The discovery of spinning and carding machines opened up a new perspective for them: by installing these machines in their own workshops, they could do without rural labor, produce in much greater quantities, and industrialize the entire chain. This is how figures like Simonis and de Biolley decided to invest. They even went so far as to bring the English engineer William Cockerill to Verviers, whom they lured at great expense to set up the first modern machines. As soon as he arrived, competition followed, and a real ‘industrial market’ was established.
Very quickly, Verviers thus became a major industrial hub, supported by cutting-edge technology and the presence of significant private capital, ready to invest in innovation. This allowed the city to stay at the forefront throughout the 19th century.
Another essential factor, to which I dedicated my doctoral thesis, is the contribution of the rural population. With mechanization, the surrounding countryside lost a source of income: spinners were no longer needed. So, many young people left the land of Franchimont, the land of Herve, etc., to seek work in Verviers. This is how, from 1800-1825 onwards, large factories capable of absorbing this abundant and cheap labor were built. Young, unskilled, these workers were “available for work at all times,” as they used to say. And since Verviers had the technology, the capital, and a low-cost workforce, it became very competitive in the international market.
For a long time, Verviers’s specialization in cloth was explained by the exceptional quality of the water of the Vesdre, especially for washing wool. In reality, it was not so much the quality of the water that made the difference, but its abundance. The center of Verviers, now urbanized, was once crossed by several branches of the Vesdre. Some are still present, underground. The industrialists even built a “factory canal” that ran through the Place des Martyrs, the Rue du Collège, etc., to join the Vesdre at Hodimont. It was around this canal that the main laundries and workshops were established.
Aware of the strategic importance of water, the Verviers industrialists even pressured for the construction of the Gileppe dam at the end of the 19th century. They feared both a lack of water and increasing pollution from washing wool. This dam, which they actively supported, guaranteed them quality water, directly supplied through a piping system—a visionary project for the time.

Grégoire Canlorbe: A writer and politician, Victor Arnould recommended that the struggle between Capital and Labor take a negotiated and harmonized form, which propels capitalism instead of leading to its overthrow. Thus, this companion of the Verviers unions wrote in 1892, in La Nation: “Yes, there is a necessity for the struggle of these two classes; but while the struggle is inevitably imposed, it must be regulated, so as not to be harmful and destructive to one of those two classes or the other. And it is for this reason that, through the representation of interests, we ask, instead of pushing for the fusion and confusion of classes, interests, and trends, that they be legally and regularly constituted facing each other, to ensure that their competition serves the common good.” Is this, in your opinion, a viable conception?

Claude Desama: This image certainly deserves to be nuanced. It is true that, compared to other industrial regions of Belgium—such as Hainaut, coal mining, or the Liège steel industry—Verviers experienced less violent social conflicts. This is largely due to the particular nature of Verviers’ trade unionism.
This unionism was first and foremost extremely powerful: it was estimated that nearly 90% of textile workers were affiliated with the union, which at the time was a single union. This near-unanimous representation gave the labor movement considerable strength—and the employers were perfectly aware of it.
But this strength was framed by union figures like Jean Roggeman, who favored dialogue and negotiation rather than direct confrontation. This does not mean that there were no conflicts. There were, sometimes severe. But the approach was different, more focused on seeking compromise.
This culture of negotiation led to a historic moment: in 1906, Verviers saw the birth of what is probably the first collective labor agreement in the world. We searched for equivalents elsewhere, notably in Europe, and there were none at that time.
This agreement was a major social advancement. It drastically limited child and women’s labor, established a weekly day off—which was not the norm—and reduced the working day to eight hours. A remarkable success for that era.
This agreement remained in effect until 1934, at which time, in the context of the great global economic crisis triggered by the 1929 depression, employers somewhat regained control and questioned several of these gains.
In summary, one cannot speak of perfect understanding between unions and employers, but there has always been, in Verviers, a common will from both sides to favor the path of negotiation. This is what profoundly distinguishes the social history of Verviers from that of other industrial centers in the country.

Grégoire Canlorbe: After its industrial and cultural golden age, which included prominent figures such as the poet Albert Bonjean and the painter Maurice Pirenne, what processes led to the decline of dynamism in Verviers?

Claude Desama: The decline of Verviers began after World War II. In the immediate post-war period, there was a resurgence of activity in the textile sector, partly due to the Korean War. However, by the mid-1950s—around 1955-1960—signs of a clear economic decline had begun to appear. This decline intensified during the 1970s, which marked a true debacle for the Verviers industry: between 1970 and 1980, over 15,000 jobs were lost.
But the causes of this decline actually date back much further, to the end of the 19th century—paradoxically, a time when Verviers was still experiencing great prosperity. It was at that point that some Verviers industrialists began to prioritize the sale of yarns instead of finished cloth, believing that yarn was more profitable. They progressively shifted their production towards semi-finished products.
This strategy continued during the interwar period and then after 1945. However, by that time, the context had radically changed. Verviers producers found themselves confronted with competition that they had not previously known, particularly from synthetic fibers, often produced in Italy, which were cheaper, more varied, and better suited to modern textile uses.
This progressive loss of competitiveness can largely be explained by two major strategic errors.
The first: they failed to adapt. They remained focused on yarn production without redirecting their model towards higher value-added products or textile innovation.
The second: they ceased to invest. This relates to an idea developed by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, with his theory of three generations: the first is that of pioneers, the second of developers, and the third—those who cause companies to fail—is that of heirs who spend without reinvesting. In Verviers, this third generation seems to have dominated: from the interwar period, and even more so after World War II, investments dried up. The equipment remained outdated and technologically obsolete.
Verviers industrialists continued to spend—in other areas sometimes—but without renewing their production tools. And since the majority were family businesses, often limited financially, they failed to make the leap or respond to international competition. As a result: they disappeared one after the other.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Émile Verhaeren did not lack sharp words regarding the Belgian elites, he who wrote in 1891 in La Nation that “the brains are narrowing,” “expedients replace ideas,” “skills are taken for strength,” “petty and minuscule means are touted as the only ones capable,” while “one smooths and insinuates, and arranges and mixes and everything is done halfway, three-quarters, fearfully, parsimoniously, with advances followed by retreats, with energies only in words.” Was this deleterious state of mind indeed characteristic of a certain capitalism?

Claude Desama: Verhaeren pointed out an essential issue: the predominance of family capitalism at the end of the 19th century. In his critiques, he primarily targeted the masters of forges and the industrialists in the coal sector, who relied on a model of small family businesses often inward-looking.
The situation in Verviers was somewhat different. The manufacturers from Verviers developed a specific strategy: social endogamy. In other words, they married within families of the same industrial background to consolidate and increase family capital. These marriage alliances reinforced industrial dynasties, giving rise to powerful clans—such as the Simonis, the Peltzers, or the Biolleys—with greater financial resources than coal entrepreneurs.
This may explain why Verviers, in the long term, withstood better than other basins like the coal one. A comparable dynamic is also found in the Liège steel industry, where William Cockerill’s son was able, thanks to the capital accumulated by his family, to invest in metallurgical production.
However, by the end of the 19th century, this model of family capitalism was clearly beginning to fade. This is undoubtedly what Verhaeren sensed. At that time, a new type of capitalism was emerging, driven by banks. The creation of the Société Générale de Belgique marked a turning point: it gradually took control of the coal sector, the most fragile, and invested massively in the steel industry.
Yet, notably, this banking capitalism barely penetrated the textile sector. Why? Because the large textile industrialists—referred to as textile owners—were fiercely opposed to opening their capital. It was a distinct social class, both in Verviers and Ghent, in fact. Their refusal to associate banks with their activities isolated them and progressively weakened them. By retreating into themselves, they lost the ability to invest massively at a time when modernization became indispensable.
Therefore, one could think that if these industrialists had accepted the entry of banking capital into their sector earlier, the history of Belgian textiles would likely have been different.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Earlier we mentioned an Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter. What do you think of the theory of economic cycles developed by one of his compatriots, Ludwig von Mises, a theory that locates the source of economic instability in the artificial increase of credit made possible for commercial banks by the right to lend a fraction of their deposits?

Claude Desama: I am not sure that this is a fully developed analysis, but there is undeniably some truth in this economic reasoning. What is at stake here is the gradual financialization of capitalism. In other words, power has slowly shifted from the hands of business leaders to those of financiers, shareholders, and investors.
Today, business leaders are often themselves employees, subject to strict profitability targets. Their main mission is to generate economic performances sufficiently high to satisfy the demands of shareholders – who expect returns of 10, 12, or even 13% on their initial investment.
It is this logic of financialization that underlies the globalization of exchanges. Not to improve the remuneration of labor, but to guarantee a better remuneration of capital. The constant pursuit of lower production costs has been to the benefit of capital, not labor.
Is this financialization the source of economic crises? It is difficult to assert this categorically. We naturally think of the 1929 crisis, which was primarily a financial crisis, but it was not the first: stock market crashes had already occurred before. In reality, these financial crises are often the consequences of overproduction crises. And it is precisely this observation that gave rise to Keynesian thought, with its theory of investment regulation to prevent structural imbalances—particularly production excesses—that could lead to financial collapses.
Since then, the world has changed. And as the need for capital has increased, another logic has prevailed: a logic of financial profitability, increasingly disconnected from traditional productive economic logic.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What should be done in Verviers to achieve what Donald Trump is undertaking in America: make Verviers great again?

Claude Desama: This is a question I asked myself throughout my twelve years as mayor of Verviers: can we really revitalize this city? And I believe the answer is complex. We cannot rewrite history. Verviers certainly has some assets, but it also suffers from a major handicap: its proximity to several large metropolises.
It is too close to Liège, too close to Maastricht, too close to Aachen – all cities that are more important, which have rebuilt themselves around a modern urban fabric, essentially focused on the tertiary sector. Verviers, on the other hand, has never truly mourned its industrial past. For years, people continued to hope for a return of the textile industry. It was an illusion.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the city failed in its transition to a service economy. Many remained trapped in a paralyzing sense of nostalgia, preventing them from considering a different future. When I became mayor in 2000, I realized how much this industrial past still weighed on mindsets and hindered initiatives for tertiary development.
Another major obstacle is precisely this proximity to Liège. The relationships between Liège and Verviers have always been tinged with rivalry, sometimes implicit, sometimes open. And since Liège had a much greater political weight, it attracted the majority of public investments and major projects. A tram was built in Liège, not in Verviers. The Calatrava train station was installed in Liège. It is symbolic but revealing.
In twenty to thirty minutes, residents of the Verviers district can reach Liège, which offers a denser, more attractive commercial infrastructure. This makes it even more difficult for an autonomous economic hub to emerge in Verviers.
Yet, I believe there is potential in Verviers. But it is also necessary for the people of Verviers themselves to realize this and to show a bit more local pride, a certain Verviers patriotism.
I launched a major project for a shopping center in the city center, which ultimately did not materialize. I faced virulent opposition, albeit minor but very active. Part of the population still clung to the idea of a city of small shops, without realizing that these shops once thrived thanks to the textile industry. Since its disappearance, the shopping streets—Spintay, Crapaurue, and others—have gradually emptied. The workers who frequented them, their families, have vanished with the industrial economy. That world no longer exists.
And today, the difficulty is twofold: not only do mindsets struggle to evolve, but there is also no longer a class of Verviers investors willing to bet on the city. Those who still have the means invest elsewhere—in Liège, in Brussels, sometimes even abroad. The local economic fabric has become devitalized, and we now depend on investors from other regions, even other countries.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What do you reply to this criticism sometimes directed at social democracy, which argues that it has the unintended effect of suspending social mobility? In other words, it would prevent the renewal of financial and business elites and close off all possibilities for today’s proletarians to become tomorrow’s powerful. Among other examples, corporate tax, above a certain threshold, would work against entrepreneurs who are starting out, who cannot afford such a tax threshold if they intend to develop, or even simply maintain, their company; conversely, established businesses would generate revenue sufficient to continue to grow (and avoid bankruptcy) despite the threshold in question.

Claude Desama: I think this phenomenon is somewhat exaggerated. The idea that the renewal of elites would be blocked by a certain socialism – which, paradoxically, would serve the interests of an already established dominant economic class to prevent its replacement by a new one—seems questionable to me.
This refers to the so-called theory of “creative destruction,” according to which one must destroy an existing industrial fabric to rebuild a new one. But for my part, I do not really subscribe to this view. I do not see how social democracy would be responsible for any blockage.
On the contrary, social democracy has been, in my eyes, an extremely effective model. Between 1945 and 1980, Europe—and other regions of the world—experienced exceptional economic growth, based precisely on this model. There was a balanced articulation between private capital, investors, and a strategic state, according to a logic inspired by Keynesian thought.
It was within this framework that the foundations of what we call the welfare state were laid: social security, public services, redistribution, protection of workers. And this period was also marked by a significant reduction in social inequalities.
This model was undermined starting in the 1970s, with the two oil shocks, the breakdown of the international monetary system, but also – and above all – the ideological emergence of neoliberalism, championed by thinkers like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. This turning point was politically embodied by Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in the United Kingdom, whose aim was clearly to dismantle the welfare state to give total freedom back to capital, hoping thus to revive the economy.
It is this shift that profoundly transformed the economic and social balances. But I do not see how social democracy, in this context, could bear any responsibility for the disappearance or stagnation of elites. On the contrary, it allowed for the rise of new social layers and an economic mobility that we struggle to find today.

Grégoire Canlorbe: How do you explain that a Belgian-style Fascism or Nazism failed to rise to power, and that Léon Degrelle did not become the homolog of Mussolini or Hitler?

Claude Desama: In Belgium, there indeed existed a significant fascist threat. Fascism was firmly established in Flanders, particularly through the VNV (Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond), a very influential far-right movement. In Wallonia too, the danger manifested itself, notably with the rise of the Rexist movement in certain elections.
That said, Belgium has, it seems to me, better resisted Fascism than other European countries. This resilience can be largely explained by a peculiarity of Belgian society at the time: pillarization. This was a structuring of social life around major ideological and institutional “pillars.”
First, there was the socialist pillar, organized around the Belgian Workers’ Party, with its network of trade unions, mutual insurance societies, insurance companies, provident funds, etc. Next, the Christian (Catholic) pillar had a similar system: political parties, trade unions, youth organizations, mutual societies, schools… Finally, the Liberal Party, although somewhat more isolated, played a balancing role, sometimes allied with socialists, sometimes with Christians.
This pillar structure—although sometimes criticized—had the effect of strengthening social cohesion and providing the population with solid frameworks of support, both socially and economically or culturally. It is this dense organizational fabric that, in my opinion, allowed Belgium to better resist the seductions of fascism, as it has also been able to contain the influence of communism.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The N-VA claims to be the solution to what it describes as a Belgium caught between Wokism and Islamism. What do you respond to this political argument?

Claude Desama: Listen, there are, in my opinion, two myths that need to be deconstructed. The first concerns this vague and overused notion of “Wokism.” Honestly, I’m not quite sure what that means. I know the theories of deconstruction, postmodern thought, the work surrounding the promotion of the subject and the critique of the limits of modernity—particularly with regard to considering the rights and realities of minorities.
In my view, we need to distinguish this intellectual effort, which can be profound and necessary, from certain forms of excessive, even pathological activism that give a distorted image of this movement. I think, for example, of some excesses of movements like MeToo, where we slip into a form of media hysteria that ultimately undermines the cause. But reducing all of this to a singular “woke ideology” is an abusive simplification. There is not, strictly speaking, a coherent or structured woke ideology. There is a plurality of critical currents and a variety of activist struggles in favor of minorities.
The second myth concerns Islamist terrorism. We should not exaggerate. It is true that Verviers was the scene of a police operation in 2015 in a building on Rue de la Colline, where individuals linked to a terrorist cell had taken position. But there has never been a structured Islamist network in Verviers. This event was isolated and does not reflect the local reality.
What we do observe, and this is true in many European countries—in the Netherlands, Germany, France—is a growing presence of Muslim communities in the population. This is the result of immigration, but also of a more significant demographic dynamism within these communities. Some trends may lean towards a more traditional Islam, sometimes a bit rigid or closed, that is true. But to speak of an Islamist threat or a generalized risk is going much too far.
In Belgium, the vast majority of Muslims are perfectly integrated. During the twelve years I was mayor of Verviers, I had the opportunity to regularly meet with representatives of the various mosques. The exchanges were always respectful, open, and constructive. There is no structural problem in Belgium with citizens of the Muslim faith.

Grégoire Canlorbe: During the Belgian federal elections on June 9, 2024, Mr. Godefridi represented the N-VA as the head of the list in Walloon Brabant. Do you think the N-VA has any chance of breaking through in Wallonia?

Claude Desama: The N-VA embodies a well-known Flemish nationalism. Nationalism, it must be said, has always been present in Flanders, and the N-VA has positioned itself as its main standard-bearer. However, it is in competition with Vlaams Belang, which adopts a much more radical, even openly extremist line.
That said, the N-VA does not represent a model in any way. It is a right-wing, conservative, and strongly nationalist party. Certainly, it does not go as far as Vlaams Belang, whose tones can be described as fascist, but the N-VA remains an ideologically tough formation. However, it is representative of a significant portion of Flemish public opinion. In Wallonia, on the other hand, it has absolutely no impact, and this is for a simple reason: political traditions there are radically different.
From a cultural point of view, Wallonia and Flanders are not comparable. In Wallonia, there is no significant nationalist movement. The Walloons do not really cultivate a strong Walloon identity. In a way, this is one of their weaknesses: this lack of a strong attachment to their own collective identity. The Flemish, on the contrary, have a very developed identity consciousness.
I remember meetings with Flemish colleagues at a time when everyone was still perfectly bilingual. Some categorically refused to hold discussions in French, even at the highest academic level. They accepted English but rejected French—which, for us, was quite surprising. This is a concrete illustration of this Flemish nationalism, which sometimes has a rigid or even domineering quality.
But it must be acknowledged that this nationalism has also had a mobilizing effect. It is partly this identity affirmation that has carried the economic conversion of Flanders after World War II. A political energy and will to succeed that the Walloons have not always been able to match, or that they did not perceive with sufficient lucidity at the time.
That said, the N-VA has no chance of establishing itself in Wallonia. Belgium, in reality, is two worlds, two political cultures, two parallel democracies. Flemish socialists are not the same as Walloon socialists; Flemish Christian democrats are different from their Francophone counterparts. It is just as unlikely to see a party like the Walloon PS succeed in Flanders as to see the N-VA establish itself sustainably in Wallonia.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Would you say that the people of Verviers have shown resilience in the face of the bad weather they have had to endure?

Claude Desama: If you are referring to the floods of 2021, then yes, I can say that the people of Verviers reacted with remarkable dignity and solidarity. They showed extraordinary courage in the face of such a brutal ordeal.
What particularly struck me was the calm and resilience they demonstrated. Several people, remembering me as a former mayor, contacted me for advice or help. And each time, I was touched by their attitude: they understood what had happened, they were not looking for a scapegoat, they did not let themselves fall into anger against the political leaders—who, in this particular case, were obviously not responsible for the disaster.
They could have been bitter or overwhelmed, but instead, they were incredibly patient and engaged in the reconstruction efforts. Their reaction inspired a lot of admiration in me.
This shows, in my view, a true strength of character that belongs to the people of Verviers. A capacity to withstand hard knocks without losing their cool, to stick together, to keep moving forward.
Today, the city is gradually beginning to emerge from this difficult period. Even if many problems remain to be solved, one can feel that things are moving. But what I particularly remember is this collective reaction, dignified and supportive, in the face of a dramatic situation. And for that, I remain admiring.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Would you like to add a word or two for the younger generation among politicians?

Claude Desama: I must say that I am deeply concerned about the crisis that the European left is currently experiencing, a crisis that also affects Belgium and, more specifically, Wallonia.
It is imperative that the left finds a true “software,” a coherent thought, and a voice that can speak not only to the small intellectual bourgeoisie—its usual audience—but also, and especially, to the working classes. We must restore this essential link with those whom the socialist movement has historically defended.
This requires a genuine intellectual effort. The socialist movement must regain a doctrinal breath, a renewed vision, and a way to make a progressive project come alive today that resonates with contemporary realities. Too often in recent years, socialist parties have seemed short of reflection. I am struck by how, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, socialists—the Vandervelde, and many others—constantly nourished the doctrine, engaged in debates, and developed ideas. They thought about the world.
As for me, I have known a generation of socialists more concerned with the conquest and management of power. But the left is not just a method of management. It is above all a project for society. Once you abandon this project to settle for governing “like the right, but differently,” the left loses its soul, its identity—and its electorate.
Another problem is the growing focus on the concerns of the urban petit bourgeoisie, to the detriment of the link with the working classes. This sociological shift, combined with the loss of ideological benchmarks, largely contributes to the weakening of the left.
What I say today to socialist leaders—and I say this even more because I am still active in certain instances—is that the world has profoundly changed. The responses of the 1950s or 1960s are no longer suited to today’s challenges. We need to think of concrete solutions, propose clear alternatives, consistent with the fundamental values of socialism. And then, there is another essential requirement: that of exemplarity. Politicians must be beyond reproach. The Romans already said: “Caesar’s wife must not be suspected.” This remains true. Exemplarity is a condition for credibility. And we must admit that in Wallonia, especially within the Socialist Party, this requirement has not always been respected. It is regrettable. And it has a real political cost.

That conversation was originally published in The Postil Magazine, in June 2025

A short conversation with Stephen Graziano, for BulletProof Action

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Mai 13, 2025

Stephen Graziano’s career as a composer features credits that span an eclectic cross section of TV series and movies as well as commercials, trailers, and promos.

His composing credits for film and television series notably include Highlander Endgame (Miramax), on which the tracks were shared between he and others like Nick Glennie-Smith. His work also includes: The Outer Limits (Fox), Party of Five (Fox), Dawson’s Creek (Fox), Sliders (Fox), Ed (NBC), The Client (CBS), and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (Fox).

In addition to a long list of film and TV credits, he has scored over a hundred film trailers including such blockbusters as: Dances With Wolves, Silence of the Lambs, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, A River Runs Through It, and A League of Their Own.

For commercials and promos, his music has been heard on national spots for Heineken, General Mills, Toyota, Verizon, U.S. Air Force, Florida Orange Juice, Starz and HBO.

Mr Graziano splits his time between L.A. and New York City.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You arranged two Scottish traditional songs for Highlander: Endgame’s soundtrack—namely The Song of the Pooka & Bonny Portmore. The latter song was already reprised in Highlander: The Sorcerer. How did you make your own arrangements so unique?

Stephen Graziano: Making them unique was not my intention, I just tried to arrange them in a way they would fit the picture best. The fact that there are Scottish overtones throughout the film, I decided to ring up Eric Rigler who plays the Uilleann pipes. He’s the go-to guy in Hollywood for all things Scottish. You can hear him all over Titanic score.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Both in the theatrical cut and producers’ cut, Highlander: Endgame’s last third successively features the supper during which Jacob Kell seemingly kills all his recruits, Connor MacLeod’s sacrifice, and the fight between Duncan MacLeod and Jacob Kell. Your tracks on the supper scene, and on the final standoff, are remarkably consistent, answering each other and reinforcing each other’s climactic intensity. How did you deliver those pieces?

Stephen Graziano: I tried to match the energy of those scenes. To be honest, I don’t remember the second scene as well and would have to go back and look at it. But, my general rule is to, at the very least, match the energy of the scene or sometimes even enhance the energy of a scene whenever possible. For the Last Supper scene, it was the end of the centuries old lives of these recruits so the music needed to be very significant and powerful. I hope I accomplished that. That’s actually my favorite cue in the movie!

Grégoire Canlorbe: If given the opportunity, would you have considered integrating in your work on Highlander: Endgame some elements of Queen’s tracks on the original Highlander?

Stephen Graziano: I’m actually not familiar with the original Highlander film so don’t know how Queen’s tracks work in that movie.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You were a composer on two documentaries in the field of military history—namely Kaigun: The Imperial Japanese Navy & An Unknown Country: The Jewish Exiles of Ecuador. Please tell us about that experience.

Stephen Graziano: Both were great experiences. Kaigun: The Imperial Japanese Navy showed the progress the Japanese navy made over the past 300 years, and how that progress accelerated once they were exposed to the West in the 1850s. I was given the opportunity to compose using traditional Japanese instruments as well as (midi) orchestral music.

Regarding An Unknown Country, I don’t believe I actually did any composing to picture. The filmmakers, who were on a very tight budget, sent me the movie and asked if I could supply them with some pre-existing music that I thought might work in their film. I sent them a few dozen pieces from my own library, which they placed into their movie. So, my interaction was pretty minimal. But, I was very happy with their usage of my music and the end result. I doubt I could’ve done a better job had I composed original music.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. One of your projects in development is Battle Mountain, which you wrote. Would you like to tell us a few words about it?

Stephen Graziano: Battle Mountain is a screenplay I wrote during my down time from composing. Although my day job is scoring movies & TV, I enjoy writing, and had a real-life experience when I was young that sparked that story idea. Through time and many different drafts, I’ve made so many changes to it, no aspects of the actual events survived so aren’t in the screenplay. So, though it started out somewhat autobiographical, at this point, it’s purely fiction. From what I’ve heard, that’s not uncommon. Writing screenplays is 20% writing and 80% re-writing. A producer has expressed an interest in it and, from what I’ve heard, he’s ’shopping it around’ trying to raise money to make it. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for taking an interest in my work!

That conversation was originally published on BulletProof Action, in May 2025.

A conversation with Igal Hecht, for Gatestone Institute

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Mai 5, 2025

In 1999, Igal Hecht created Chutzpa Productions Inc. His award winning films have been described as controversial and thought provoking. His films have dealt with human rights issues to pop culture. Throughout his twenty-year career, Igal Hecht has been involved in the production of over fifty documentary films and over twenty television series. Igal’s films and television series have been screened nationally and internationally on Netflix, Prime, BBC, Documentary Channel, CBC, YES-TV (Canada), HBO Europe and many others.

Grégoire Canlorbe: The Killing Roads investigate the pogrom perpetrated across the Gaza envelope on October 7, 2023, with special attention paid to the attacks launched on the roads in southern Israel. How did you proceed with gathering, and crafting, the introduced testimonies and audiovisual material?

Igal Hecht: When October 7th unfolded, I began collecting and archiving every piece of footage that emerged—raw, unfiltered, and often horrifying. As the days passed and the scale of the atrocities became undeniable, I knew I had to make a film. But with so much devastation, I needed to focus on a specific, often overlooked aspect of the attack.

In November, Haaretz and The New York Times published articles about the massacres on the roads. That became my focal point. I began researching, speaking to survivors, and quickly realized that aside from Israeli TV, no one was truly exposing what happened, particularly on Route 232 and Route 34. On those roads alone, Palestinian terrorists, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and civilians from Gaza (as if there’s any real distinction between them) murdered around 250 innocent people.

A few months in, I started reaching out to survivors, and with my trusted collaborator, Lior Cohen, who I’ve made over 25 films with, we set off to Israel. In early 2024, I spent a month filming in and around Route 232, Route 34, Sderot, the Nova festival grounds, kibbutzim, and cities like Sderot and Ofakim. We conducted over 20 interviews and shot nearly 40 hours of footage. Ultimately, we focused on seven stories. They were each distinct, each offering a different angle of the carnage that unfolded on those roads.

The visual evidence was crucial. We incorporated footage from survivors, Hamas propaganda videos, security footage, and, thanks to Hatzalah, we obtained 50 hours of raw material from ambulance teams. These first responders documented everything. Every horror, every burned-out car, every bullet-ridden body, from the moment the attack began.

This wasn’t just a massacre; it was a Nazi-style atrocity committed by Palestinian terrorists. The Killing Roads doesn’t rely on rhetoric, rather, it presents the truth, unfiltered and undeniable. The horror is laid bare, and it must be seen to ensure that no one can ever deny or rewrite what happened.

On October 7th, Palestinian terrorists and civilians from Gaza committed a mini-Shoah against Jews in Israel. They didn’t just murder—they raped, burned, and mutilated women, children, and men because they were Jewish. And if that wasn’t enough, their woke progressive and Islamist sympathizers in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia celebrated the bloodshed. That is the grotesque reality Jews around the world are facing today.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Genocide is a reality you had already covered—through documentaries on the Holocaust, as well as on Rwandan, Bangladeshi, Cambodian, and Yezidi genocides. How did it feel, this time?

Igal Hecht: This time, it was personal. My family lives in that region. I had family members in Sderot fighting off terrorists. I lost brave colleagues. The victims weren’t nameless figures from history books; they were my people.

And what made it worse was the reaction in Canada. People I thought were friends, colleagues I had worked with, openly supported or excused the butchery. October 7th stripped away the masks. It revealed a deep-seated antisemitism that had always been there, lurking just beneath the surface.

For me, making this film wasn’t just about documenting history, rather it was a mission. It was my way of saying fuck you to every person who tried to justify, minimize, or celebrate this slaughter. That’s why I made The Killing Roads freely available online. Unlike many filmmakers who compromise to appease broadcasters—who bend to absurd rules like not calling Hamas “terrorists”—I refused to sanitize the truth.

This film doesn’t offer excuses or euphemisms. It shows, in brutal clarity, what Israelis endured that day. And it does so without concern for political correctness or the fragile sensibilities of those who sympathize with murderers.

Grégoire Canlorbe: In Canada, what is the average perception of Israel, the Hamas (and similar organizations like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), and Donald Trump’s Middle-East policy?

Igal Hecht: Under Justin Trudeau, Canada has become the leading hub for Islamist terrorism support in North America. That’s not hyperbole. This is a fact.

The very day of the October 7th massacre, Muslim activists and their woke, antisemitic allies flooded the streets of Toronto and Montreal, chanting in Arabic for the extermination of Jews. I filmed it. I published it. Nothing happened. Apparently, Canadian police can’t find a single Arabic translator.

From the start, the Trudeau government’s priority wasn’t justice—it was appeasement. Canada, like the UK and much of Europe, has chosen to bend the knee to Islamic fundamentalism.

The average Canadian gets their information from a publicly funded broadcaster that pumps out anti-Israel propaganda daily, much like the BBC. These journalists take Hamas press releases as gospel and only issue weak retractions after the damage is done. We’ve seen it repeatedly, from The New York Times parroting Hamas casualty figures to the BBC recently producing outright propaganda films.

And the result? A 630% rise in antisemitic attacks in Canada. Synagogues vandalized. Jews beaten in the streets. Jewish students in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver physically blocked from attending school—just like in Nazi Germany. Yet, the media downplays it, and politicians look the other way.

If this unchecked immigration and tolerance for Islamist extremism continue, Canada will follow the path of the UK, France, and the Netherlands. In 10 to 15 years, we’ll see the same no-go zones, the same normalization of antisemitism, and the same erosion of Western values. That’s the trajectory unless people wake up.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you see some impact of the Abraham Accords with respect to the partnership between Israeli filmmaking and the movie industry in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and other Sunni states?

Igal Hecht: To be honest, I don’t know. It’s not my world.

What I do know is that the Abraham Accords were a game-changer, and President Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for them. Of course, he won’t get one—Obama got his for good intentions, while Trump actually delivered peace. That tells you everything.

The Sunni states are waking up to a simple truth: the main obstacle to peace isn’t Israel. Rather, it’s the so-called Palestinians and their genocidal fantasies. Remove that factor from the equation, and Israel and the Arab world can thrive together.

The Palestinian issue has been the Middle East’s perpetual cancer. More Arab leaders are starting to see that. Hopefully, the rest of the world will, too.

Grégoire Canlorbe: You wrote, produced, and shot Streets of Jerusalem and several other documentaries set in the holy town. How do you sum up the sort of cinematographic aesthetics the light and architecture in Jerusalem allow for?

Igal Hecht: Jerusalem is visually unparalleled. It’s not just a setting, it’s a character. I’ve filmed there for 25 years, and there isn’t a corner of the city my team and I haven’t explored. The aesthetic contrast is breathtaking. The ancient architecture interwoven with the modern, the energy of the people, the ever-present layers of history. You can set up a camera in the Old City or Mahane Yehuda market and capture something cinematic without even trying. Every frame tells a story. It’s why I keep going back and hopefully will again for my next project with Lior Cohen.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about Easter in the Holy Land, which covers Christian pilgrimages in the Land of Israel in the Easter season. When it comes to conveying mystical experience, is movie as eloquent a medium as are literature and painting?

Igal Hecht: Easter in the Holy Land is a feature-length documentary (or a three-part series) that I’m incredibly proud of. I had the privilege of working alongside cinematographers Lior Cohen and Gabriel Volcovich, as well as filming myself. Every frame is meticulously crafted—each shot looks like a painting.

We filmed across some of the most sacred Christian sites, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and, of course, Jerusalem, particularly the Old City. The film is a visual and spiritual celebration of Easter, offering audiences an intimate view of the deep significance of this holy season in the very land where it all began. More than that, it highlights a truth that is often ignored or distorted: Christian pilgrims in Israel experience absolute religious freedom.

Despite the lies spread by far-right Christian antisemites and Arab nationalist propagandists, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians can freely and safely celebrate their faith. In contrast, throughout the surrounding region, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, Christians face persecution, intimidation, and even violence. Yes, there have been isolated incidents in Israel, and they are regrettable. But unlike in many other places, here, those who commit crimes against Christians are arrested and held accountable.

Ultimately, Easter and Christmas in Israel serve as testaments to the reality that Christian minorities here can observe their holiest days without fear. This is something that is virtually impossible anywhere else in the Middle East.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Do you plan to direct an equivalent documentary on Jewish and Muslim pilgrimages in the Holy Land?

Igal Hecht: I haven’t given that much thought, but it would be fascinating to create a trilogy covering all three Abrahamic faiths. The challenge, as always, is funding and securing a broadcaster willing to take it on. People don’t realize how difficult it is to produce content that explores faith and religion, especially for mainstream television. It’s not impossible, but there’s a definite bias against it. I’ve been fortunate to work with broadcasters who see the value in faith-based programming, but they are few and far between. The reality is that many networks shy away from religious content unless it fits a specific agenda.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What is your view about the filmic treatment of Jerusalem in the time of the crusades? How do you assess, in particular, Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven?

Igal Hecht: Aesthetically, Kingdom of Heaven is a stunning film. This is exactly what you’d expect from a director like Ridley Scott, with his massive budget and extraordinary craftsmanship. Beyond that? It’s all subjective. The film, like most historical dramas, takes artistic liberties. But that’s the nature of cinema… especially when dealing with a time period as complex and politically charged as the Crusades.

Grégoire Canlorbe: In another recent documentary, The Jewish Shadow, you address the condition of Ukrainian Jews in the 1970s, under soviet rule. What did you choose to highlight about their condition—and how it has been evolving after the Soviet Union’s fall?

Igal Hecht: The Jewish Shadow is an incredibly personal film. It was shot long before the war in Ukraine, and it focuses on the life my parents lived under Soviet rule. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about it. This is not because it isn’t a good film, but because of how I approached it. I told my parents we were making a family roots documentary, but in reality, I pushed them to confront the antisemitism they endured. In the end, I apologized to them for putting them through that.

Ukraine has a dark and undeniable history of antisemitism. One that still lingers in certain parts of the country today. But when the war broke out, it complicated everything. I had to grapple with the realization that my view of Ukraine is shaped by generations of Jewish persecution, whereas my parents, despite everything they went through, still have a deep attachment to the place. They lived there. They had friends, careers, and a sense of home… even if antisemitism was a constant shadow over their existence.

That, in many ways, encapsulates Jewish life in the Diaspora. We integrate, contribute, and flourish; until history repeats itself. Until the inevitable moment when we are reminded that, no matter how much we belong, we will always be seen as different. And because of that so-called difference in the minds of antisemites, the hatred against us is justified. Or, as we are seeing now in places like Canada and many parts of Europe even celebrated and encouraged.

Grégoire Canlorbe: Thank you for your time. Is there anything you would add?

Igal Hecht: You can watch The Killing Roads at www.thekillingroads.com or catch it on the Documentary Channel at www.documentarychannel.com. For additional information about Igal Hecht and his films, visit www.chutzpaproductions.com

That conversation was originally published on Gatestone Institute, in March 2025

The Light of God in a New Light — Reflections on the Divinity of Jesus, Formless Matter, and Conceptualization in the Human

by Grégoire Canlorbe · Mai 20, 2024

By Grégoire Canlorbe

Here, I will endeavor to try to grasp the way in which the symbol of light is deployed on several levels of meaning, which are themselves linked to correspondent levels in the architecture of reality. Namely: those levels of meaning that are God considered in His ideality, God considered in His relationship to contra-material nothingness, God considered in His incarnation into the universe, and the consciousness of God considered in its incarnation into the consciousness of Jesus. On that basis, I will endeavor to overcome those three philosophical cleavages that are the opposition between radical Arians and the Trinitarians on the issue of whether Jesus is divine; the opposition between Gersonides and saint Thomas Aquinas on the issue of whether there was formless matter instead of a temporal beginning of matter; and the opposition between Averroes and saint Thomas Aquinas on the issue of whether the mind of God (rather than the human mind) is what conceptualizes in the human mind.

I understand God, let us recall, as follows: an infinite, eternal, substantial, volitional, and conscious field of singular ideational models which is completely incarnated into the universe while remaining completely external to the universe, completely ideational, and completely subject to a vertical (rather than horizontal) time; and which is not only completely sheltered from any forced effect (whether ideational or material) with one or more efficient causes in its willingness, but which, besides, is traversed, animated, efficiently-caused, and unified by a sorting, actualizing pulse which stands both as the active part of God’s will and as the apparatus, the Logos, through which God incarnates Himself while remaining distinct from His incarnation.

Considering some entity from the angle of one of its (present at some point) properties consists of considering how the property in question is inscribed within the whole of the entity’s (present at that point) properties. Considering some entity independently of one of its (present at some point) properties consists of considering what are the other (present at that point) properties in the entity when the property in question is ignored. In the majority of ideational entities and of material ones, the fact of ignoring some property lets all the other properties apply. In the case of that material entity that is the universe, some of its properties present at some point apply depending on whether the universe is considered from the angle (or instead independently) of that substantial relational property that is the incarnation relationship of the universe with respect to God.

Neantial, ideational, and material conceptual objects

A concept is a unit of meaning: it signifies a certain object taken from the angle of its constitutive properties (rather than from the angle of all of its properties). The properties (including constitutive) of a conceptual object coincide with the properties (including constitutive) that are imputed to the concerned conceptual object depending on whether material or ideational reality validates the imputation of the imputed properties. In a material or ideational conceptual object, its existential properties of (i.e., those of its properties that are relating to whether the object exists, and to how it exists or inexists) rank among the constitutive properties of the conceptual object in question. A neantial conceptual object is a conceptual object that contains no existential properties; just as every neantial conceptual object is contra-material or contra-ideational, no neantial conceptual object is material nor is it ideational.

Just as every conceptual object is material or ideational or neantial, every conceptual object is fictitious (in a weak or strong mode) or matching (in a weak or strong mode). Just as a fictitious material conceptual object and a matching material conceptual object are respectively a material conceptual object which happens to not exist (in the material field) and a material conceptual object which happens to exist (in the material field), a fictitious ideational conceptual object and a matching ideational conceptual object are respectively an ideational conceptual object which happens to not exist (in the ideational field) and an ideational conceptual object which happens to exist (in the ideational field). Just as a fictitious neantial conceptual object and a matching neantial conceptual object are respectively a neantial conceptual object which is a type of nothingness having not actually preceded the universe and a neantial conceptual object which is a type of nothingness having actually preceded the universe, a contra-ideational neantial conceptual object and a neantial contra-material conceptual object are respectively a type of nothingness substituted for the field of the Idea and a type of nothingness substituted for the field of matter.

A concept and its linguistically accepted definition (i.e., its definition accepted in a certain language) are considered synonymous in the considered language; that synonymy, instead of being true or false independently of reality (whether ideational or material), is nevertheless true or false according to ideational reality (in the case of the ideational objects and of the contra-ideational neantial object), or according to material reality (in the case of the material objects and of the contra-material neantial object). Just as the ideational reality validates or invalidates the synonymy between an ideational object (for example, God) and its accepted definition depending on whether the ideational reality validates whether the constitutive properties (including existential) of the concerned ideational object are those alleged by the accepted definition, material reality validates or invalidates the synonymy between a material object (for example, Chi) and its accepted definition depending on whether material reality validates whether the constitutive properties (including existential) of the concerned material object are those alleged by the accepted definition. As for the neantial objects, material reality validates or invalidates the synonymy between a contra-material neantial object and its accepted definition depending on whether material reality validates whether the constitutive properties of the concerned conceptual object are those contained in the accepted definition; just as the ideational reality validates or invalidates the synonymy between a contra-ideational neantial object and its accepted definition depending on whether the ideational reality validates whether the constitutive properties of the concerned conceptual object are those contained in the accepted definition.

The object of the concept of light is a matching material conceptual object, i.e., a material conceptual object that happens to exist in the material field. The concept of light means light taken from the angle of its constitutive properties; the linguistically accepted definition of light, which evolves as language evolves, must be judged true or false in the light of material reality. The currently accepted definition of light is as follows: “electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength, between 400 and 780 nm, corresponds to the sensitivity zone of the human eye, between ultraviolet and infrared.” Our knowledge of reality remaining irremediably perfectible, that definition is subject to a hypothetical revision one day or another (under the hypothetical progress of physics on that level); we will start from that definition, which we know is “true” until further notice.

Light, symbol of the ideality of God

Every light has: its source (i.e., what it emanates from), and its object (i.e., what it illuminates). We cannot correctly grasp what the symbol of light refers to without focusing on that conceptual trio—luminaire (i.e., source of light), illuminated object, and light. The light of a candle manifests itself via the flame which envelops the wick, and via the wax which the light of the candle illuminates; however the light of the candle is not visible itself. More generally, light manifests itself without making itself visible: in other words, it manifests itself in a mode other than that which would consist for it of making itself visible. In order for light to manifest itself via its source, a necessary, sufficient condition is that light manifests itself via the illuminated object; it is by illuminating its object that light manifests itself via what it illuminates, but it is, besides, by manifesting itself via the illuminated object that light manifests that it emanates from a certain luminary (and manifests which is its luminary). In other words, just as it is by illuminating that object it illuminates that light manifests itself through the illuminated object, it is by illuminating that object that light manifests itself through the luminaire.

A symbol is a concept that allows one or more other concepts to be glimpsed while leaving them in obscurity; it is both an incomplete path towards those other concepts, and a completely hermetic enigma about them. Let us endeavor to see what the concept of light opens up to: to begin with, the ideality of God. Just as matter is that which exists in a consistent, firm mode, the Idea is that which exists in a mode devoid of the slightest consistency and firmness. Just as materiality is what a material entity is composed of, ideality is what an ideational entity is composed of. Reality is subdivided into a material field and an ideational field; the universe occupies (and summarizes) the material field, but God occupies (without summarizing) the ideational field. The supramundane field is to be not confused with the ideational field: the supramundane field, in that it encompasses everything that is beyond the world, encompasses the ideational field as well as the neantial field (i.e., the field of the nothingness prior to the temporal beginning of the material field).

Interstellar vacuum, energy, or thought are modes of matter: they are as consistent as is wood or fire, but consistent in a different way. Light is a certain mode of matter; but it is a mode of matter which is so “fine” in its consistency that it evokes the ideality of which God is made. Let us specify that the Idea (which Plato and Pythagoras deal with) must be distinguished from the idea: the Idea is that which exists in a mode devoid of the slightest consistency and firmness, but the idea is a material entity (in the case of an idea lodged in the mind of a material entity) or an ideational entity (in the case of an idea lodged in the mind of an ideational entity). God is an Idea; but the concept of God in the mind of a certain human is an idea lodged in the mind of said human. Let us also clarify that physics only deals with a certain mode of matter: namely that mode of matter which has mass and extent. Thought (which has neither mass nor extension), as well as the void (which has extension but is devoid of mass), are both excluded from the field of physics; they nonetheless remain modes of matter. Light, although it falls within that mode of matter which occupies physics, evokes a mode of being which is beyond physics; although light is material, it evokes a mode of being that is truly immaterial.

Light, symbol of God considered in His relationship to contra-material nothingness

The light which crosses the void where the celestial bodies “float” barely manifests itself because it barely illuminates the celestial bodies; in other words, the void is black because the light emanating from the stars barely illuminates the celestial bodies. In that regard, light is a symbol of God considered in His relationship to contra-material nothingness. Namely that God—just as starlight barely illuminates the black of the interstellar void that it travels through—does not dissipate at all the contra-material nothingness that it overhangs.

Every conceptual object is either supramundane or intramundane. Just as every supramundane object is ideational or neantial, every intramundane object is material. Just as every conceptual object is intra-mundane or supramundane, every intra-mundane conceptual object is: either fictitious in a weak mode, or fictitious in a strong mode, or matching in a weak mode, or matching in a strong mode; the same is true of every supramundane conceptual object. A fictitious object in a weak mode is a fictitious object which could have been a matching object had this world been different or had another world existed; a fictitious object in a strong mode is a fictitious object which would have been fictitious even if this world had been different or if another world had existed. A matching object in a weak mode is a matching object which could have been a fictitious object had this world been different or had another world existed; a matching object in a strong mode is a matching object which would have been matching even if this world had been different or if another world had existed.

Every intra-mundane object matching in a strong mode is a material object; but a supramundane object matching in a strong mode is either ideational or neantial. Every matching intra-mundane object is a material object matching in a weak or strong mode; but a matching supramundane object is either an ideational object matching in a strong mode, or a neantial object matching in a strong mode. Every fictitious intramundane object is a fictitious material object in a weak or strong mode; but a fictitious supramundane object is either an ideational object fictitious in a strong mode, or a neantial object fictitious in a strong mode. A supramundane object of an ideational type is either matching in a strong mode, or fictitious in a strong mode; the same applies to every supramundane object of the neantial type. Every intramundane object (and, thus, every material object) is either matching in a strong mode, or matching in a weak mode, or fictitious in a strong mode, or fictitious in a weak mode.

Two modalities of the concept of nothingness are valid: a matching modality (in a strong mode) that is contra-material nothingness, i.e., that sort of nothingness that is substituted for the existence of matter; a fictitious modality (in a strong mode) that is contra-ideational nothingness, i.e., that sort of nothingness that is substituted for the existence of the Idea. Of those two modalities of the concept of nothingness, the former has as its object the contra-material nothingness (i.e., the absence of matter) which effectively preceded (chronologically) matter: at least, matter considered independently of the incarnation relationship of matter with regard to God. The latter modality has as its object contra-ideational nothingness (i.e., the absence of any ideational entity), which is fictitious. That the absence of matter was chronologically prior to matter (at least, matter considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God) is a fact which would have occurred even if our world had been different or if another world had existed; thus, contra-material nothingness is a modality of the concept of nothingness whose object is matching in a strong mode. God exists from all eternity (whether matter is considered from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God), and His existence would be eternal even if our world were different or if another world had existed; contra-ideational nothingness is thus a modality of the concept of nothingness whose object is fictitious in a strong mode.

Matter, in that it had a temporal beginning (if we consider it independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God), was preceded by contra-material nothingness. By Himself, however, God cannot dissipate contra-material nothingness; no more than starlight can dissipate the black of the interstellar void. Precisely, the black of the interstellar void symbolizes contra-material nothingness. By itself, the ideality of which God is made cannot dispel that darkness; what is ideational cannot get substituted for the absence of what is material, no more than it can generate ideational effects substituted for the absence of what is material. The only way God can dispel that darkness, and introduce matter in place of darkness, is for Him to change Himself into what He is not: matter.

Light, symbol of the incarnation of God into the universe

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the Gospel of John tells us. The sorting, actualizing pulse which unifies, animates, and traverses the field of ideational essences present within God, and which operates the incarnation of God into the world (while allowing Him to remain external to the world which is His incarnation), is that “Word” whose mystery occupied the apostle John (or the Johannine community). It is inaccurate to say of God that He is His Word; the Word of God is nevertheless the active part of His will, as well as the apparatus of His incarnation. The Word, although it unfolds in a time that is eternal (i.e., which has neither beginning nor end) and vertical (i.e., where past, present, and future are simultaneous rather than successive), does unfold; in other words, the Word operating in the ideational field is gradual as is every speech formulated in the material field. Just as God creates (by incarnating Himself) in a gradual mode, the universe exists in a gradual mode; like a discourse that is being held, the universe is unfolding. That joint gradualness in the creation on the part of God, and in the existence of the universe, lets itself be glimpsed in these terms in the Koran: “And, with Our powers, We have built the sky, and assuredly, We continue to extend it.” For its part, the fact that God creates through His Word lets itself be glimpsed here as follows: “When He decides a thing, He simply says: “Be”, and it is immediately!”

What light is a symbol of is not only God considered from the angle of His ideality or of His relationship to contra-material nothingness; it is also God considered from the angle of His incarnation into the universe. Light, let us recall, does not manifest itself in the way that would consist for it of making itself visible. Instead of making itself visible, it manifests itself through its source (what illuminates), and its object (what is illuminated); and it is by illuminating its object that it manifests itself both through its object and its source. Let us see how the symbol of light illuminates the creation by God through incarnation. God is (symbolically) a light that stands out in three ways from the light of this world. In the first place, that light is its own source; it is both the lighting and the light that illuminates, the luminaire and what emanates from it. In the second place, that light that is God does not manifest itself by what it illuminates; God certainly enlightens the universe, but the universe does not manifest the presence of God who enlightens it. In the third place, the light that is God engenders what it illuminates; the light of God brings the world into being by illuminating it. To those three properties of light taken as a symbol of God incarnated into the universe correspond three properties of the incarnation of God into the universe. In the first place, God is substance, i.e., exists from all eternity and without having any efficient cause. In the second place, God remains external to the universe; that exteriority of God with respect to His own incarnation, that independence of God with respect to His own creation by incarnation, it follows from it that the universe does not manifest the presence of God. In the third place, God remains that which created (and is incarnated into) the universe; God is certainly external to His creation, the universe nonetheless remains what God created by means of His incarnation.

Light, symbol of the incarnation of the consciousness of God into the consciousness of the Son of God

It is useful to remember that the light of God is ideational, whereas the light of our world is a modality of matter. God, who hardly manifests Himself through His creation by incarnation that is the universe, nevertheless inspired the words of the prophets; that inspiration, although it did not manifest God through the speech of the prophets, allowed the prophets to express themselves about God. God inspired what was said about Him; His inspiration, however, was not His manifestation. The Gospel according to John, however, says of God that while “no one has ever seen God [until then],” “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, is the one who has made him known.” That inspired symbolic language can be deciphered in these terms: God, who until then had no more manifested Himself (were it partly) in His creation than His consciousness had been incarnated within the world, saw His consciousness become a human consciousness (i.e., the consciousness of the earthly soul of a certain human), but neither His consciousness nor anything of God manifested itself on that occasion.

Just as, in any novel, the plot can be considered from the angle of the creation relationship of the novel with regard to the novel’s author, or considered independently of said relationship of creation, a same statement with respect to a novel’s plot can be true or false depending on whether the novel is considered from the angle of the creation relationship of the novel with regard to the novel’s author, or considered independently of said relationship of creation. Let’s take a novel whose plot ends on a cliffhanger: in the novel considered from the angle of its relationship of creation with regard to its author, the plot ends on the cliffhanger in question; but, in the novel considered independently of its relationship of creation with regard to its author, the plot continues after the cliffhanger (instead of stopping at the end of the novel). The universe is a novel whose author is God, which He writes by means of his Word; but it is a novel whose words are incarnated into what they say (while remaining external to that material incarnation). Just as God’s words are those ideational essences that He selects and actualizes, the respective incarnation of God’s words is the respective incarnation of those ideational essences that He selects and actualizes. Jesus, in that he is the incarnation of the ideational essence of Jesus, is the incarnation of a certain part of God; but, in his consciousness, Jesus is also the incarnation of a certain (other) part of God in that the consciousness of God is incarnated into the consciousness of Jesus.

The consciousness of Jesus is symbolically a light, but it is a light that stands out in three ways from the non-symbolic light. In the first place, that light is its own object; it is both what illuminates and what is illuminated, the light and what the light illuminates. In the second place, the light that is the consciousness of Jesus illuminates its object while nevertheless leaving it in the shadows; that light illuminates itself without making itself visible. In the third place, the light that is the consciousness of Jesus does not manifest the source from which it emanates, no more than it manifests that it is an emanation. To those three properties of light taken as a symbol of the consciousness of Jesus correspond three properties of the consciousness of Jesus. In the first place, the consciousness of Jesus is at the same time the incarnated consciousness of God (regarding his consciousness in the universe considered from the angle of the relationship of incarnation of the universe with regard to God) and the consciousness of the soul nestled in the human Jesus; thus the consciousness of Jesus is both a property present in God (regarding the consciousness of Jesus in the universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God) and a property present in that non-divine entity that is the soul of the human Jesus. In the second place, the consciousness of Jesus, although it existed in the world, was no more manifested in the world than the consciousness present in some conscious material entity is in a position to manifest itself in the world; what is ideational and nevertheless in the world cannot manifest itself alongside any material entity. In the third place, the consciousness of God taken in its exteriority with regard to its own incarnation into the consciousness of the earthly soul of the human Jesus was not manifested in its incarnation; it was incarnated without that incarnation being manifestation.

Grasping what, of Jesus, is of God requires that we go beyond what John (or the Johannine community) seemed to understand from his own symbolic language when he expressed himself in these terms in his Gospel: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” What, of God, became flesh is not His word, but it is the respective ideational essence of those entities endowed with flesh (including the entity Jesus); what makes Jesus a Son of God is that are respectively incarnated a certain ideational essence into Jesus, and the consciousness of God into the consciousness of Jesus. The word of God is what operates the selection and actualization of some ideational essences; the ideational essence of Jesus, in witnessing its selection and actualization get carried out, witnesses Jesus come into the world with a substantial essence that includes the property (that is itself inscribed in the ideational essence of Jesus) of the incarnated consciousness of God. The universe is indistinct from God (although distinct from God who remains external to His own incarnation that the universe is); for his part, Jesus is indistinct from the ideational essence of Jesus and, thus, from a part of God (although distinct from his ideational essence which, while incarnated into Jesus, remains external to Jesus), but the consciousness of Jesus is indistinct from the (totality of the) consciousness of God (although distinct from the consciousness of God which, while incarnated into the consciousness of Jesus, remains external to the consciousness of Jesus).

Overcoming the cleavage between radical Arianism and the Trinitarian doctrine

The entire universe, not just Jesus, is the incarnation of God; but, although God is entirely incarnated into the entire universe, the consciousness of God is only incarnated into the consciousness of one or more human individuals precisely elected so that their respective consciousnesses be the incarnated consciousness of God. The consciousness of God, while incarnating itself into one or more human consciousnesses, does not see the object of the consciousness of God incarnate itself into the object of those human consciousnesses in which the consciousness of God gets incarnated. The object of God’s consciousness is (at every point) one’s existence and the entire field of the ideational essences and the (simultaneous) past, present, and future of the operation of the sorting, actualizing pulse, as well as the entirety of the (successive) past, present, and future of the universe; but the object of the consciousness of the one or those in whom the consciousness of God is incarnated is (at every point) one’s existence and a certain part of the universe, and hypothetically (and in a mode which is, at best, approximative) a certain part of the field of the ideational essences. Only a handful of humans (rather than all or the majority of humans) or a single human (rather than several humans) sees the consciousness of God incarnate itself into theirs; Jesus was either the only human whose consciousness was the incarnated consciousness of God, or one of those few humans (through the ages) whose respective consciousness is the incarnated consciousness of God.

In the universe considered from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, the consciousness of Jesus is both the incarnated consciousness of God and the consciousness of the soul of Jesus; but, in the universe considered independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, the consciousness of Jesus is only the consciousness of the soul of Jesus. Likewise, in the universe considered from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, Jesus is at the same time a human endowed with a consciousness indistinct from the consciousness of God (in that his consciousness is the incarnated consciousness of God) and a human who in his consciousness has nothing divine nor anything of God; but, in the universe considered independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, Jesus is in his consciousness only human (instead of being endowed with a consciousness indistinct from the consciousness of God). In that the consciousness of God is co-eternal with God, the consciousness of Jesus is co-eternal with God in the universe taken from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God; but, just as much in the universe taken from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God as in the universe taken independently of said relationship of incarnation, Jesus (instead of being co-eternal with God) has a temporal beginning and end.

The soul, as I expressed myself on that subject in a previous writing, is an Idea which, like the ideational essence, is eternal although endowed with an efficient cause (through God); but which, unlike the ideational essence (which remains within God, and which sees God communicate to it His consciousness and will), is endowed with a consciousness distinct from the consciousness of God, and with an existence external to God. The soul retains its consciousness both when the soul is supramundane (i.e., located in the ideational field) and when it is earthly (i.e., located in a living entity within the material field); but, whereas the earthly soul is without any willingness and without any mind (although every terrestrial soul is nested in an entity that is, if not endowed with a mind, at least endowed with a willingness), the supramundane soul has a willingness and a mind respectively distinct from the willingness of God and from the mind of God. The (supramundane) soul rises to the rank of a god in the ideational field by having experienced, during its stay or stays (as an earthly soul) in the material field, a heroism that is sufficient in order for God to grant it a divine rank. Every divine soul is supramundane; but no earthly soul is divine, just as not every supramundane soul is divine. Although the soul of Jesus became divine at the end of the earthly stay it effectuated in the biological entity that Jesus is, the soul of Jesus had nothing divine during the stay in question.

Heroism and exploit, as I expressed myself on that subject in the same previous writing, must be taken respectively in the sense of the accomplishment (as a conscious material entity) of one or more exploits; and in the sense of an act that is jointly exceptionally creative (i.e., characterized by the mental creation of one or more exceptionally creative ideas), exceptionally successful (i.e., characterized by the complete achievement of an exceptionally difficult goal), and exceptionally endangering for one’s material subsistence. The (earthly) soul of Jesus rendered itself divine (on its return to the ideational field) by experiencing an earthly stay (as Jesus) which saw Jesus accomplish an exploit great enough for that stay to be sufficient to render divine the (supramundane) soul of Jesus. That exploit is that of having created a new, semi-worldly, and multi-millennial religion by dying on the cross. Each supramundane soul knows perfectly the content of each ideational essence; thus each supramundane soul pre-knows perfectly what its earthly stay will be when it opts for a certain earthly stay. God, although each supramundane soul makes use of a self-determined willingness in its decision to opt for some particular earthly stay rather than for another one, perfectly pre-knows the decision of each supramundane soul on that level. God, although He elected the (supramundane) soul of Jesus so that his (earthly) soul be the earthly soul (or one of the earthly souls) whose consciousness is the incarnated consciousness of God, saw the (supramundane) soul of Jesus make use of a self-determined willingness in its choice of an earthly stay characterized by the incarnation of the consciousness of God into the consciousness of the (earthly) soul.

God, while incarnating Himself in the world, remains external to the world which is His incarnation; but the world, for its part, remains indistinct (rather than distinct) from God whose incarnation it is. A same statement can nevertheless be true or false depending on whether we consider it in the world taken from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, or in the world considered independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God. In the world taken from the angle of the incarnation relationship of the world with regard to God, Jesus is endowed with a consciousness that is both indistinct from the consciousness of God and distinct from the consciousness of God; but, in the world taken independently of the incarnation relationship of the world with regard to God, Jesus is endowed with a consciousness distinct from the consciousness of God (rather than indistinct from all or part of the consciousness of God). Accordingly, the overcoming of the cleavage between radical Arianism and the Trinitarian doctrine is constitutive of a correct answer to the question of the divinity of Jesus (i.e., the question of knowing whether Jesus is divine). Moderate Arianism considers Jesus as a human who, in that he is the incarnated Father, was both created by the Father and created as indistinct (though distinct) from the Father; and who, in that he has a temporal beginning and end, is not co-eternal with the Father whose incarnation he is. For its part, radical Arianism envisages Jesus as a human who has nothing divine and who, in that he was created by the Father in a mode other than a creation by incarnation, is human (rather than God) and distinct from the Father (rather than indistinct from the latter); and as a human who, in that he has a temporal beginning and end, is not co-eternal with the Father. Whereas, according to moderate Arianism, Jesus is (incarnated) God without being co-eternal with the Father, Jesus, according to radical Arianism, is neither God nor endowed with anything divine nor is he co-eternal with the Father (although he is created by the Father).

Intermediate positions are found between radical and moderate Arianisms; but all modalities of Arianism have in common that they are opposed to the Trinitarian doctrine, for which Jesus is both the incarnation of God (instead of being a creature without anything divine nor anything of God) and an entity co-eternal with God. Knowing which modality of Arianism was the one that Arius actually defended is a problem on which I will not take position here. The cleavage between radical Arianism and the Trinitarian doctrine sees my position on the question of the divinity of Jesus operate an overcoming in these terms. The entire universe (and not only Jesus within the universe) sees God incarnate Himself into it, what is beyond the understanding of the Trinitarian doctrine and of radical Arianism (as well as of all modalities of Arianism). The assertion (in the Trinitarian doctrine) that Jesus is both human and indistinct from God (rather than a part of God) is partially true in that, in the case of the world taken from the angle of its incarnation of God (rather than in the case of the world taken independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God), Jesus is his incarnated ideational essence (and thus an incarnated part of God), and a human endowed, besides, with a consciousness which is both the consciousness of the (earthly) soul of Jesus and the incarnated consciousness of God. For its part, the assertion (in radical Arianism) that Jesus has nothing divine is partially true in that, in the case of the world taken independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, Jesus is a human who is no more an incarnated ideational essence than he is a human endowed with a consciousness indistinct from the consciousness of God.

In the case of the world taken from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, the consciousness of Jesus is co-eternal with the consciousness of God; but (whether the world is taken independently of its incarnation relationship with regard to God) Jesus himself does have a beginning and an end in (horizontal) time. As such, the assertion (in radical Arianism) that Jesus is not co-eternal with God is true; but the affirmation (in the Trinitarian doctrine) that Jesus is co-eternal with God retains a part of truth in that the consciousness of Jesus in the world taken from the angle of the incarnation relationship of the world with regard to God is indeed co-eternal with the consciousness of God.

Overcoming the cleavage between Gersonides and saint Thomas Aquinas

The question of formless matter (i.e., the question of whether the universe, instead of having known a temporal beginning from contra-material nothingness, experienced a formless matter that was without any temporal beginning) is another question which demands the overcoming of a certain philosophical cleavage: here, the cleavage between Gersonides and saint Thomas Aquinas. Whereas formless matter is matter that exists without entering into the composition of any material entity, arranged matter is matter that enters into the composition of a certain material entity (within which it coexists with formal properties). The Gersonidean position on the question of formless matter is that the universe, instead of having experienced a temporal beginning (from contra-material nothingness), experienced a formless matter (which had always been) from which God operated to create a universe which be endowed with form and not only matter; for its part, the Thomist position on the question of formless matter is that the universe, instead of having experienced a formless matter (without any temporal beginning), had a temporal beginning which saw the universe begin with an already arranged matter.

Each of those two positions has a part of truth (depending on whether the universe is considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God, or from the angle of said relationship), and a part of falsehood (depending on whether the universe is considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God, or from the angle of said relationship). The relationship of incarnation of the universe with regard to God is co-eternal with God; but the relation of incarnation of a given entity within the universe with regard to its own ideational essence is no more co-eternal with the ideational essence in question than a given entity within the universe (whether the latter is considered independently of the relationship of incarnation of the universe with regard to God or from the angle of said relationship of incarnation) is co-eternal with its own ideational essence. The universe is nevertheless co-eternal with God when it comes to the universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God; regarding the universe considered independently of said relationship of incarnation, the universe, instead of being co-eternal with God, is endowed with a temporal beginning. The universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God certainly saw arranged matter begin temporally; but, whereas the universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God sees the temporal beginning of arranged matter follow a phase (without any temporal beginning) of the universe that was characterized by formless matter, the universe considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God saw the universe begin temporally (from contra-material nothingness) and begin with an already arranged matter.

What renders partially true the Thomist affirmation of the temporal beginning of the universe (from contra-material nothingness) is that the universe considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God is (unlike the universe considered from the angle of said relationship of incarnation) effectively endowed with a temporal beginning. Likewise, what renders partly true the Gersonidean assertion that the universe, instead of having experienced a temporal beginning (from contra-material nothingness), experienced a formless matter is that the universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God has (unlike the universe considered independently of said relationship of incarnation) actually passed through the phase (without any temporal beginning) of a formless matter rather than through the phase of an arising from contra-material nothingness. Every entity (whether ideational or material) is a compound of form and composition: the universe considered from the angle of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God was therefore a semi-entity so long as the matter which composed it was a formless matter. For its part, the universe considered independently of its relationship of incarnation with regard to God was an entity as soon as its existence began temporally.

Overcoming the cleavage between Averroes and saint Thomas Aquinas

Conceptualization consists of producing a concept or a definition of said concept or a description of all or part of the object of said concept; conceiving a concept consists of conceptualizing, or judging that a concept or a certain definition of said concept or a certain description of all or part of the object of said concept are valid. The question of conceptualization in the mind of God (i.e., the question of whether it is the mind of God, not the human mind itself, which conceptualizes in the human mind) has been the subject of a cleavage between Averroes and saint Thomas Aquinas. Whereas the former conceives of the human mind as incapable of conceptualizing, and the mind of God as that mind which conceptualizes in the human mind, the latter conceives of the human mind as capable of conceptualizing (just like the mind of God), and the conceptualization in the human mind as the work of the human mind itself.

Every concept (i.e., every unit of meaning) is an idea; but every idea is either a concept or an association of concepts. Every definition is an association of concepts; but not every association of concepts is a definition. The willingness (i.e., the pursuit of one or more ends) is either acting (i.e., employing one or more means for the purpose of an end), or non-acting (i.e., pursuing an end without employing any means for the purpose of that end); in God, the sorting, actualizing pulse, the Word, is the acting willingness. An object of willingness (i.e., an end that a willingness pursues, or the means or the various means that it employs for the purpose of an end) is never an idea; in every conscious volitional entity, willingness (whether it is acting or non-acting) is nevertheless accompanied by the idea of the object of willingness. Just as a volitional idea is an idea that accompanies an object of willingness (without causing the object in question), an actional volitional idea and a non-actional volitional idea are respectively a volitional idea that accompanies an end or means present in an acting willingness; and a volitional idea which accompanies an end in a non-acting willingness. In God, the sorting, actualizing pulse, in that it merges with acting willingness, is distinct from volitional ideas; each operation of said pulse is nevertheless accompanied by a correspondent idea in the mind of God. Just as an actional volitional idea in God is a volitional idea which corresponds to a certain operation of the sorting, actualizing pulse, an actional volitional idea which, in God, corresponds to a means in acting willingness and a non-actional volitional idea which, in God, corresponds to an end in acting willingness are respectively a volitional idea which corresponds to a selection and actualization; and a volitional idea which corresponds to an incarnated ideational essence. From an ideational entity present in the material field, nothing can be the object of an experience by a material entity; but it is possible for a human material entity to have an experience (which nevertheless is, at best, approximative) of all or part of an ideational essence, as well as of the consciousness of God or of a supramundane soul, as well as of all or part of (what are at the moment of that experience) the non-actional volitional ideas in the mind of God, as well as of all or part of (what are at the moment of that experience) the ideas in the mind of a certain supramundane soul.

A non-actional volitional idea in God is an idea corresponding to an end which is certainly in the will of God, but which does not relate to the operations of the sorting, actualizing pulse. Just as an ideational essence present in God must be distinguished from that essence’s concept present in the mind of God, the direct grasping of an ideational essence in God must be distinguished from the direct grasping of an idea in the mind of God. In the mind of God, ideas that are other than non-actional volitional ideas are also those ideas that God does not allow humans to grasp; in the mind of God, non-actional volitional ideas are those ideas that God allows humans to grasp, but a grasp that is, at best, approximative and whose effectiveness varies from one individual to another. The mind of God, although capable of conceptualization, is no more the mind that conceptualizes in the human mind than humans are incapable of conceptualizing; the Thomist position that the human mind, like the mind of God, is itself a conceptualizing mind (instead of the mind of God being that mind which conceptualizes in the human mind) is true. The Averroist position that the human mind, although incapable of conceptualization, sees the mind of God conceptualize in it remains partially true: on the one hand, in that the human mind is capable of conceptualizing from a direct grasping of all or part of the non-actional volitional ideas in the mind of God, a grasp whose effectiveness is, at best, approximative and varies from one individual to another. On the other hand, in that the human mind is capable of conceptualizing from a direct grasp of all or part of the ideational essences contained in God, a grasp whose effectiveness is, at best, approximative and varies from one individual to another.

Conclusion

Genesis distinguishes between primordial light and the light of the sun and the moon; the primordial light was created before the first day, with “the heavens and the earth,” but the sun and the moon were created only on the fourth day. Genesis tells us of God that He creates by “speaking,” and that the primordial light is His creation. As God invites humans to complete His creation that is the universe, the word that He inspires invites humans to deepen the symbolism it contains. The primordial light, we think, is a symbol of God envisaged in that ideality that is evoked by the finesse of the mode of matter that is light; a symbol of God envisaged in His inability to replace contra-material nothingness so long as He is only a light in the darkness; a symbol of God envisaged in the fact that He incarnates Himself into the world as a light which would create, by illuminating it, the illuminated object itself; and a symbol of God envisaged in the fact that His consciousness, while seeing itself incarnated in the consciousness of Jesus, remained hidden in that incarnation like a luminaire that its light would not manifest.

The “beginning” with which Genesis and the Gospel according to saint John open is no chronological beginning, but a pre-chronological one. In other words, the time of origins, instead of being the beginning of the time of this world, is that time without beginning and without succession from which the beginning of the succession of time in this world stems. Saint John, who symbolically identifies “the Word” to “the true light, which, when coming into the world, enlightens every man,” adds that this light “was in the world, and the world was made by it, and the world did not know it.” The deciphering of those inspired symbolic words involves the overcoming of these three ancient philosophical cleavages: the cleavage between radical Arians (for whom Jesus is a creature with a temporal beginning and end, and a creature who is God-created without being incarnated God) and Trinitarians (for whom Jesus is a creature co-eternal with God, and a creature who is incarnated God) on the question of the divinity of Jesus; the cleavage between Gersonides (for whom a formless matter without temporal beginning, not contra-material nothingness, was prior to the compound of form and matter in the universe) and saint Thomas Aquinas (for whom the universe had a beginning in time and began as a composite of form and matter) on the question of formless matter; and the cleavage between Averroes (for whom it is the mind of God which conceptualizes in the human mind) and saint Thomas Aquinas (for whom it is the human mind which conceptualizes in the human mind) on the question of conceptualization in the mind of God.

It is false that God is entirely incarnated into Jesus; it is no less false that there is nothing of God that is incarnated into Jesus. Jesus sees a part of God incarnate itself into Jesus, and an (other) part of God incarnate itself into a part of Jesus. What, of God, is incarnated into Jesus is a certain ideational essence; but what, of God, is incarnated into that part of Jesus that is the consciousness of Jesus is the consciousness of God. Jesus (whether the world is taken from the angle of its incarnation relationship with regard to God, or independently of said incarnation relationship) has a beginning and an end in time; but the consciousness of Jesus in the world considered from the angle of the incarnation relationship of the world with regard to God is indeed co-eternal with the consciousness of God.

The universe considered from the angle of the incarnation relationship of the universe with regard to God has experienced—instead of a temporal beginning which would have seen it begin with an already arranged matter—a formless matter which never began temporally, but from which God operated to create a universe which be veritably a composite of form and matter. Concerning the universe considered independently of the incarnation relationship of the universe with regard to God, the latter—instead of having passed through a formless matter whose phase would never have begun in time, but would have temporally preceded the phase of a universe composed of arranged matter—has effectively begun in time with an already arranged matter which temporally began from contra-material nothingness.

The human mind (rather than the mind of God) is what conceptualizes in the human mind; the human mind, with an efficiency which varies from one individual to another, and which is, at best, approximative, is nevertheless in a position to conceptualize from a direct experience of all or part of the ideational essences contained in God. Besides, the human mind, with an efficiency which varies from one individual to another, and which is, at best, approximative, is in a position to conceptualize from a direct experience of the consciousness of God and of all or part of the non-actional volitional ideas contained in the mind of God. Precisely, the mystical experience is the suprasensible experience a conscious material entity makes of the consciousness of an entity that is ideational (and present in the ideational field), or of one or more ideas contained in the mind of an entity that is ideational (and present in the ideational field). To humans, God allows the grasp (in a mode that is, at best, approximate) of all or part of His non-actional volitional ideas; of His mind, it prevents him from grasping (even in an approximate mode) the slightest idea other than a non-actional volitional idea.

The Word, which incarnated the consciousness of the ideational entity that is God into the consciousness of the soul of the human entity that is Jesus, made himself the object of the symbolic discourse inspired to Jesus; thus it can be said symbolically of the Word that he is “the true light, which, when coming into the world, enlightens every man.” Jesus saw his consciousness incarnate the consciousness of God in the world, and the (global) incarnation of God into the universe, while having formless matter precede the universe considered as incarnation, caused the beginning in horizontal time of the universe considered independently of that incarnation, and the consciousness of God, although it manifests itself in the mystical experience of the consciousness of God, was not manifested in its incarnation; thus it can be said symbolically of God that He is a light which “was in the world, and the world was made by it, and the world did not know it.” God, who no more manifests Himself in His incarnation into the world than He manifests Himself in the incarnation of His consciousness into the consciousness of (the earthly soul of) the human Jesus, manifests in suprasensible experience (which is carried out in a mode which is, at best, approximative) all or part of the ideational essences contained within Him, as well as all or part of the non-actional volitional ideas contained in His mind. Suprasensible experience—when it has as its object all or part of the field of the ideational essences in God, or all or part of the non-actional volitional ideas contained in His mind—is that through which God illuminates us; the grasp of what are (at a given moment) all or part of those non-actional volitional ideas present in the mind of God (at the concerned moment) is that by which God reveals to us the content (at the concerned moment) of that which is sometimes considered His heart.

The fact that a certain human entity, at a given moment, is grasping in an approximative mode all or part of what the non-actional volitional ideas are at the moment in the mind of God is inscribed in the ideational essence of the human entity in question, just as is inscribed in the ideational essence in question what are those non-actional volitional ideas present in the mind of God at the moment of the grasping. The same applies to a grasping whose effectiveness is less than approximative. God is not constrained by any actualized ideational essence to have some non-actional volitional ideas in mind at a given time; He nevertheless ensures in the operation of His Word that, when a certain actualized ideational essence states what all or part of His non-actional volitional ideas are at a given moment, what His non-actional volitional ideas are effectively at the moment in question validates what the ideational essence states about all or part of those ideas. Likewise, no supramundane soul is constrained by any actualized ideational essence to have some ideas in mind at any given moment; but God, in the operation of His Word, ensures that, when a certain actualized ideational essence declares what all or part of the ideas are at a given moment in a given supramundane soul, what the ideas are effectively in the soul in question at the moment in question validates what the ideational essence states about all or part of those ideas. If the parallel between what a certain actualized ideational essence states about a certain idea present in the mind of God at a given moment and the content of the mind of God at the moment in question were to fail, then the universe would not fail to implode and to experience a reset; the same is true of the parallel between what a certain actualized ideational essence states about a certain idea present in the mind of a certain supramundane soul at a given moment and the content of the concerned supramundane soul at the concerned moment. Although God makes Himself capable of errors in His quest to make the universe evolve towards ever-increasing order and complexity, He is (and forever remains) incapable of errors in His approach to ensuring that never any of those parallels fails.

That article was initially published in The Postil Magazine’s March 2024 issue.

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