Didier Rykner is a French journalist and art historian. Committed to the preservation of cultural heritage, he regularly publishes his investigations and analyses on The Art Tribune.

The statue of Victor Schoelcher, which could still be seen just a few days ago in front of the former Courthouse in Fort-de-France, was the work of Anatole Marquet de Vasselot. It was as much a work of art as it was a tribute to a great figure in our history. Admittedly, this artist does not enjoy the same reputation as some of his contemporaries, such as Auguste Rodin, but he was a highly respected sculptor whose works are housed, notably, in the Fine Arts Museums of Lyon and Angers, the Petit Palais in Paris, and the Maison de Balzac—the writer he often depicted.

This introduction seems necessary to explain that the destruction on May 22 of the two sculptures depicting Schoelcher (We do not know the creator of the second one—which is of significantly lower quality—that was located in the city named after the abolitionist), thrown to the ground and smashed into so many pieces that they cannot be restored, are in fact acts of vandalism hardly different from those we have seen even recently in Syria and Iraq, which have affected not only masterpieces but also more common and less significant objects. For the vandals, only the symbol matters. Works of art or historical heritage have no value whatsoever.

The new censors are convinced that they hold the truth and are the guardians of virtue.

In recent years, we have seen numerous attempts to destroy—or, at best, to remove from the public sphere—depictions of controversial figures. The new censors are convinced that they hold the truth and are the guardians of virtue. They cannot tolerate the complexity inherent in all human life and conceive of existence only as a constant struggle between absolute good (themselves) and absolute evil (everything that is not themselves). Even more seriously, they seek to judge history by today’s standards, refusing to understand that history cannot be altered and that the essential task is to understand it in order to prevent the return of the worst it has produced.

What happened in Fort-de-France and Schoelcher, however, goes even further. While some are outraged to see statues of Colbert on the grounds that he was responsible for legalizing slavery, others are now targeting the very person who, on the contrary, abolished it. Are these new vandals, then, racists with fascist tendencies? Not at all: they are, more or less, the same people. In a well-known phenomenon where extremes always end up converging, these are far-left activists who believe that Victor Schoelcher acted solely out of self-interest and was therefore not anti-racist enough. Celebrating him (as if sculptures over a century old still constituted a celebration) would therefore be intolerable, which would justify their destruction.

Even Aimé Césaire, who paid a stirring tribute to Victor Schoelcher, would no longer find favor in their eyes.

At this level of reflection (a term I admit is poorly chosen), it is clear that no work of art, no sculpture, and no painting depicting a historical figure can henceforth be tolerated. For what men or women have been virtuous their entire lives, in every single one of their actions? Especially if virtue consists solely of thinking the way our new censors would have us think. By that standard, then, not even Aimé Césaire would find favor in their eyes—he who paid a stirring tribute to Victor Schoelcher, declaring in particular: «There is an antidote to the tendency toward tyranny: the spirit of Victor Schoelcher. There is an antidote to prejudice and injustice: the spirit of Victor Schoelcher.».

It’s not hard to guess what comes next. If our predecessors are to be condemned because they lacked all the virtues demanded by our new Savonarolas, then we—who do not think like them—are even more so. Behind this vandalism lies, in reality, a totalitarian desire to control the thoughts and actions of anyone who dares to oppose their vision of life. These self-proclaimed anti-fascists and anti-racists are the worst fascists and racists we’ve seen in a long time. They must be fought tooth and nail.