Hello, you're very welcome to Longreads, a Jacobin podcast where we look in depth at political

topics and thinkers. My name's Daniel Finn. And the features editor here at Jacobin,

and I'll be presenting the show. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most

influential thinkers of the last century. His death in 1980 led many people feeling bereft of

political guidance. A BBC documentary about Sartre, the road to freedom gave a sense of that in

the following clip. When Sartre was buried on the 19th of April 1980, over 50,000 people

followed the coffin and millions watched on television. No philosopher had ever had a bigger following.

When he died, somebody said, no, that he died, we've lost a compass because we will not be able

to say to ourselves when something important happens. What death does Sartre think about it?

You know, an ethical compass. One of the main political and ethical questions that he addressed in

his work was the colonial relationship between western countries and the global south. From his

own country's brutal war in Algeria to the US invasion of Vietnam, the renowned philosopher

spoke it fiercely against the crimes of empire. Our guest today for a conversation about Sartre

is Oliver Glowak, Oliver teaches French and francophone studies at the University of North Carolina,

and he's the author of Albert Camus, a very short introduction.

When did Sartre first begin to take an interest in the question of the French colonies in particular,

what were his first public interventions on that subject?

Well, it's complicated because the first public reaction to France's colonial war in

Indochina, it took place in December 1946, basically after it began in November 46,

and it took place in Litton without Sartre's publication, in an editorial. And remember,

Sartre was the director of this publication, and the editorial was unsigned. And in this editorial,

a comparison was made between the French army and its role in Indochina and the German army

...