18 September will remain a special date for the Centre Jean Gol. While a demonstration was taking place in the streets of Liège just a few steps from our walls, we chose to go ahead with the tribute evening for Jean Gol and the 20th anniversary of our study centre.
This commemorative evening was an opportunity to bring together numerous friends, researchers, elected representatives and citizens attached to Jean Gol's intellectual and political legacy. Since its creation, our Centre has played an essential role: providing a space for reflection on the major challenges of our contemporary society, and being able to rethink our world.
Liberal democracy thrives on ideas, debate and constructive exchange.
Find here the speech by the President of the Centre Jean Gol, Georges-Louis Bouchez
It's a bit particular for me to speak about Jean Gol because, when he died, I was 9 years old. So I only know Jean Gol through history, through the work done within the Mouvement Réformateur to publish a book on our 175 years in 2021.
What I take from Jean Gol is that celebrating Jean Gol is actually celebrating politics with a capital P.
Because politics has two characteristics. Political men and women normally have two characteristics. And that's what makes the difference between a politician and a political man or woman.
These two differences are quite simple. The first is someone capable of marking their era. It's often the meeting between an individual and an era. Depending on the era in which you are born, you may not be the expected politician at that moment. I'm not sure General de Gaulle could win an election today. People would find it very strange to have someone on television with a kepi explaining how France should be run.
Jean Gol, on the other hand, was the man of his time, of the challenges of his time. He had to face issues such as the deindustrialisation of Belgium, particularly Wallonia, very complicated moments to economically rebuild our country, issues, as we mentioned earlier, of immigration, which was not controlled and which moreover generated a whole series of problems of living together that we know today.
Also a man of his time regarding the institutional construction of our country, in a context of division. And what marked his era, I think, if today, 30 years later, we're still talking about him, is the best proof of that.
The second element that characterises a political man or woman is the ability to imagine a world that doesn't exist. Most people think within the framework and think as the framework exists.
A political personality has the ability to think of a world that doesn't yet exist and that in their eyes would be desirable, or that at least responds to challenges. That was also Jean Gol's ability, and it was illustrated by Daniel Bacquelaine's remarks referencing the 1995 programme which, perhaps unfortunately, is still relevant in 2024.
The ability to think about what doesn't exist is what creates debate. And Jean Gol wasn't afraid of debate. Because his qualities of compromise, his ability to get along with others, have been praised. But Daniel also recalled that he was someone who moreover favoured the majority voting system, because he believed that individuals should make a clear choice on a political programme, and that elected political men and women should both own their policies without necessarily blaming the coalition partner.
In that sense, we consider today, and I think we can consider that the MR is part of this tradition, this desire for a clear discourse, an established project. That's why there was no better figure to give the name of our study centre, the Centre Jean Gol.
The purpose of this centre and all the work carried out in recent years has one objective: to set the themes of public debate. It's about having the ability to win what is called, coming moreover from Gramsci's left, the culture war.
When presented that way, the culture war may seem like something belligerent. It isn't. Politics, on the contrary, is a very peaceful means of settling disagreements and determining society's choices.
And to determine those choices, before winning the ballot box, you have to win minds, you have to win the intellectual debate.
That's why today the Centre Jean Gol is a cornerstone of the Mouvement Réformateur. It's where we study the ideas of the future, where we can compare, where we organise debates and speak to everyone, regardless of any ideological or partisan consideration.
That's exactly the opposite of what we experienced at the entrance. It's the ability to think of a better world through exchange, through dialogue, and through something that mattered deeply to Jean Gol: intelligence.
Because Jean Gol hated mediocrity, and building a political programme that isn't studied, isn't thought through, isn't tested, that's mediocrity.
Because you know what Jean Gol said about mediocrity, and I think that, like Jacques Brel, he believed mediocrity was laziness. Because wanting to surpass yourself, create new ideas, means working, sometimes confronting yourself, and sometimes being criticised. But that's the very essence of what makes politics.
Our centre is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. And it has great prospects ahead, since we have decided to expand it into Flanders too, because this debate of ideas doesn't stop at borders. Ideas are meant to transcend all divides and separations. This expansion into Flanders also aims to recruit researchers and scientists from the north of the country with other sensibilities, with another approach, to enrich our political reflection, to enrich the vision of society we defend.
The centre will also continue to multiply its activities and themes. In the coming weeks you'll have new debates.
For example, we recently put the question of reopening mines on the table. As I said earlier, you're capable of thinking about a world that doesn't exist. If the first time you put forward an idea, people look at you strangely, you must not stop defending that idea. You must keep going. I tell you that by the 4th or 5th time, they might start considering it. And by the 30th time, you will have won and will have the ability to change others. That's the mission assigned to the CJG, and we work every day to ensure the centre has a central place in public debate, because you cannot win an election without ideas.
And truly, I want to take this opportunity to thank all our collaborators, the collaborators of the reformist government, the collaborators of the Centre Jean Gol, because the 2024 victory was a victory of ideas. It wasn't a victory of communication. And the great mistake of the political world is always to believe it's a question of communication.
Of course, when you have a good idea, it's better to have the ability to spread it. But fundamentally, it's always the idea that makes the difference. It's always the intellectual work that shapes the political line that makes the difference.
That's why I invite you to take part in our upcoming events, to be able to collaborate on this work, because there's no limit, you don't have to be an elected representative, you don't have to be a collaborator to take part in the debate of ideas.
Every citizen, through their capacity to think, is a legitimate actor able to join and influence our study centre.
I'd like to take this opportunity once again to thank all the teams, and also all the witnesses. Because every day, I think that's the key. When you hold a position, you must always look at who your predecessors are. And on the first day, the day I took up this role, when you realise that you have predecessors like Jean Gol, like Louis Michel, others of course like Didier Reynders and many other figures who have succeeded one another at the head of the oldest party in continental Europe, you realise it's a great honour and, above all, a great responsibility.
I want to carry this responsibility thanks to all the people I've been able to mention, the collaborators, the elected representatives, but also the activists, because the political fight is a collective fight. And our mobilising strength, which was demonstrated again last Sunday, is also an important element of our commitment.
One last word to thank especially tonight the police forces, because I didn't have the chance to mention it at the start of my speech, but we have men and women of the police who took insults, blows, projectiles, all evening, solely so that we could carry out this democratic work: to be able to exchange, to be able to study, to be able to reflect on the challenges of our time. I really ask you, if you have the chance, to thank them on the way out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ylgI0CMKg
