To wit, that, since the Ganges armada had first set sail, the West had assumed the precarious posture of a house of cards, in the midst of a great Third World upheaval, and that, if the card marked “France,” at the base of the uneasy structure, should suddenly give, all the rest would go toppling, one after the other.
At half-past eleven, on the night of that same Easter Sunday, the President of the French Republic received three pitiful wires, one from each of the capitals in question, imploring him to take a firm stand, even if it meant the spilling of innocent blood. (For the record, we should note that, today, all three of those wires form the central exhibit at the Antiracism Museum in the UN’s new Hanoi headquarters, as the dying examples of a racial hatred that wouldn’t go unpunished. Schoolchildren the world over know the texts by heart, and have to be able to recite and discuss them on demand, whatever their age or class, for fear that we may let down our guard, and allow a rebirth of those loathsome sentiments so much at odds with man’s true nature …)
