468 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
A few months before Specters of Marx, the imposing collective
work La Misère du Monde had been published, edited by Pierre
Bourdieu, who again became the focus of intense media interest.
This almost simultaneous reaffi rmation of strong left-wing values
helped to bring the two thinkers together again. Whatever critiques
Derrida had made of Sartre, commitment was still in his view ‘a fi ne
word, still fresh and new’. As he stated on the occasion of the fi ftieth
anniversary of Les Temps modernes, it was crucial to ‘keep or reac-
tivate the forms of this “commitment” by changing its content and
its strategies’.^18
The idea of a ‘Parliament of Culture’ had been launched by
Bourdieu in autumn 1991, at the Carrefour des Littératures
Européennes in Strasbourg. In July 1993, after the assassina-
tion of the Algerian writer Tahar Djaout, some sixty writers,
including Derrida and Bourdieu, called for the creation of an inter-
national structure to give concrete support to persecuted writers
and intellectuals throughout the world. The inaugural meeting
of the International Writers’ Parliament was held in Strasbourg,
from 4 to 8 November 1993. Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-
Labarthe involved themselves fully in the preparations, together
with a member of the city council, Christian Salmon. Those
invited included Susan Sontag and Édouard Glissant, as well as
Toni Morrison, the recent Nobel laureate. But, on the evening of
7 November, the ‘surprise’ arrival of a heavily protected Salman
Rushdie changed the whole tenor of the event: this was his third
public appearance in France ever since the fatwa pronounced
against him in February 1989. Derrida and Bourdieu joined him
in a debate that was broadcast direct on Arte: they emerged from
the experience feeling very ill at ease, as the chairperson had struck
them as so dismal. This did not stop them following the venture
of the International Writers’ Parliament for several years, before
preferring the creation of a series of ‘refuge cities’.
It was also in July 1993 that Derrida lent his support to the
‘Appeal for Vigilance’ published in Le Monde on the initiative of
Maurice Olender. In the view of the signatories, too many writers
and intellectuals had collaborated recently on publications with
links to the extreme right, such as Krisis, thereby helping to legiti-
mize them or make them seem innocuous.^19 They thought it was
essential to draw a line that could not be crossed. This appeal led
Maurice Blanchot, for example, to break off relations with Bruno
Roy and the Fata Morgana publishing house, after they had pub-
lished a work by Alain de Benoist, an author with links to the far
right.^20
Derrida was particularly touched by the tragic situation of the
Algerian people, caught between the attacks of the FIS – the Front
Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Front) – and the brutal