In a charged and timely conversation held at the European University Institute, acclaimed anthropologist Didier Fassin joined EUI scholars Revital Madar and Nicolas Guilhot for the second instalment of EUI Conversations, a series dedicated to exploring critical issues at the intersection of global politics, ethics, and society.
The event centred around Fassin’s latest work, Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza (originally published in French as Une étrange défaite). The book offers a searing indictment of the silence and complicity that followed the outbreak of violence in Gaza, capturing the moral void that Fassin argues has come to define global responses to injustice. Through careful documentation and reflection, he seeks to leave a trace of the early months of the crisis, before revisionist narratives fully took hold.
Fassin opened the discussion by explaining the impulse behind writing Moral Abdication. Observing how rapidly the tone of public discourse began to shift—from outrage to silence, from solidarity to equivocation—he felt compelled to act. "After a few months, it was already visible, as it is absolutely apparent today, in the media, in government attitudes, in intellectual discourse: the beginning of a revisionism. In that confusion, I felt compelled to write—to leave a trace, an archive of those first six months."
His remarks were met with analytical and historical depth by EUI scholars Revital Madar and Nicolas Guilhot, who each brought their disciplinary perspectives to bear on the themes of moral agency, complicity, and historical judgment.
Revital Madar, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre, focused on the ethical implications of willful inaction. She questioned the assumption that inaction stems from a lack of information. "If so much is already known—if the knowledge is there and publicly available—then what does that say about the role of silence?" Her comments challenged the audience to consider silence not as absence but as a deliberate political stance, one that perpetuates structures of inequality and enables continued violence.
Nicolas Guilhot, Professor of Intellectual History at the EUI History Department, situated Fassin’s work within a broader historical and philosophical context. He pressed Fassin on the implications of what he termed "moral consent," particularly that given—or withheld—by Western governments and societies. "You gesture toward a sort of judgment of history: past, present, and future. So how do you see that unfolding after this crisis, for those who had a hand in it, both in the European Union and in Western societies more broadly?"
In response, Fassin offered a nuanced view, noting that the structures of inequality and the patterns of complicity in global affairs are neither new nor easily dismantled. However, he stressed the importance of bearing witness, of preserving an account that resists the erasure of suffering and moral failure.
The conversation ultimately revolved around one of the most pressing questions in contemporary global politics and public discourse: What allows inequality and violence to persist—and worse, to be accepted? For Fassin, the answer lies not only in geopolitical interests or historical injustices but in a kind of "moral abdication" that cuts across media, policy, and intellectual life.
By documenting the complicity of silence, the event offered more than critique, it called on scholars, citizens, and institutions to reflect on their responsibilities in times of crisis.
Hosted as part of the EUI Conversations series, this session reaffirmed the EUI’s commitment to fostering dialogue on critical global challenges. By bringing together leading thinkers from across disciplines, the series aims to engage with the ethical, political, and historical dimensions of today's world.
The event recording is available on the EUI's YouTube channel.