Time for Outrage!

by Stephane Hessel p. 41

This book is by Hessel, a 93 year-old former French Resistance fighter. Being a French naturalized citizen born in Berlin, Germany he has a particular insight into living through the Nazi occupation of France in WWII and fighting the Nazis as a French Resistance fighter fighting under Charles de Gaulle. He also lived through a concentration camp. Though his life story is fascinating we don't hear much of it except a short biography in the back. He also worked in the UN and was involved in the Declaration of Human Rights being written. This is a very short call to action. Now he doesn't really specify what action. He says if you look around you will find it. While most would say peace of mind is essential to find he thinks that outrage that fuels one to action is essential to a life. One possible outrage he states a few times of his own opinion is the disparity of poor to wealthy. Some have suggested this book that has been out in other places for a year may have helped inspire the Arab Spring and maybe I could see where the Occupy people would grab on to it. When I first heard of it I didn't see why it was controversial with some groups, but having read the very short essay there are some thoughts about violence vs. non violence and the Israeli and Palestinian peace issues that would cause disagreement. I can't imagine it inspiring or causing much motivation because it is so short there is hardly anything to it. It mentioned he has a memoir which I think would be more interesting. His part is actually only about 29 pages long and that is a very small book. Really small. I mean it's only like 5 inches tall. I was just a bit disappointed, because the news story I read about it made it sound very interesting and there was very little actually to it.