The pain of an eternal spectator
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While the marchers are preoccupied with the "other" it feels I am the only one present who holds the complete picture of the street's recent history. Amidst the shifting tides of flags and chants, the only constant is this sovereign observer—the one who stays still while the world tries to find its way by walking in circles.
By Rupak Bardhan Roy in Nice, France
To my final question in that interview at the 75th Canes Film Festival (2022), Ukranian director Maksym Nakonechnyi said: "... Ukraine is a very good showcase of demonstrating that the old lines of segregation are starting to be irrelevant. Especially at war, such principles start to merge. For instance, right now the Right and the Left wing are fighting a common enemy together. On the other hand, the presence of fundamentally feminist women along with moderates in such a patriarchal system as the military is giving rise to some sort of third social construct and paradigm…
…We might talk about this more someday, but for now all I can say is that in the current political scenario we are the showcase of a global post-truth discourse of death ... of all prevalent ideologies …"
Was Maksym right?
Probably yes; at least in the then Ukranian context. Maksym's words had grave impact on me, and I have been trying to find evidence contrasting his view since then. And, finally, after almost four years, I think I might have found one today.
We will come to it through these questions:
Does an ideology change in essence when viewed from an exactly opposite scenario?
Does the meaning of "human dignity and life" change at the crossroad of ideological battles? I am standing on Avenue Jean Médecin, Nice, France -- my city. This, in general, is my weekend hangout space, but this specific coordinate today, the 7th of March, 2026, is revealing itself not as a mere pedestrian strait, but more a neutral stage of the clashing theater of human conviction.
By witnessing two diametrically opposed groups—the pro-Shah, pro-Israel Iranian diaspora on February 8th, just a month ago; and the cosmopolitan, pro-Palestine internationalists today, March 7th, interestingly, marching in opposite directions—I find the "truth" of this stationary public space, this bustling avenue, the center of contemporary French Riviera to be surprisingly time dependent.
The opposing directions of the marches serve well as the physical manifestation of a moral tug-of-war. Human dignity and death both here are bitten apart into two by some mere ideological beliefs (the ideas of the State, and religious identities).
The February marchers, carrying the weight of a lost homeland and the "Lion and Sun" flags, moved towards the Mediterranean seeking a return to an bygone Aryan order, while today’s crowd, fueled by a reaction to the recent military escalations and the joint strikes on Palestine and Iran, strides toward the Main Station.
Through my position as the fixed witness by the entrance of Nice Etoile shopping mall, having seen the street filled with one set of flags, and then replaced by their exact opposites thirty days later, I am reminded that collective energy is often a transient, swappable force.
My individualist skepticism is reinforced: I see the human need for belonging, but I also see how easily a universal value of "right to life and dignity" can be used to justify two completely different geopolitical ends, especially as the world grapples with the fallout of the strikes on February 28th. Isn't this a humanist tragedy?
The fact that the same innate desire for dignity and justice can lead "homo sapiens" to walk in opposite directions on the same line of mortal doom?
While the marchers are preoccupied with the "other" it feels I am the only one present who holds the complete picture of the street's recent history. Amidst the shifting tides of flags and chants, the only constant is this sovereign observer—the one who stays still while the world tries to find its way by walking in circles.
No Maksym, ideology is not dead; one still lives, and it's the oldest independent stance of individual humanism; the one of an eternal spectator, the archivist... the one that all collectives are most afraid of.
"We are this world's memory... Without us, men would be little better than dogs. Can't remember any meal but the last, can't see forward to any but the next. And every time you leave the house and shut the door, they howl like you're gone forever. ...Every battle, every war, every bloody bit of it. And yet, here we are — still standing…" - Archmaester Ebrose -
Rupak Bardhan Roy is a R&D Program Manager by profession with a Ph.D., and close to a decade of experience in micro-manufacturing research and development. For the past seven years, he has been based in GE HealthCare, France. In parallel to his scientific career, he is an independent author and columnist within the Bengali literary industry, with four published titles and over thirty opinion pieces and feature articles in four out of five major Bengali print dailies. In 2022, he was the first to represent Bengali web media at the Cannes Film Festival as an accredited editorial journalist, resulting in his first book Cannes 75, the first Indian title on the subject. He defines his creative calling as “bridging the “two cultures” of science and the humanities”, as famously articulated by Professor C.P. Snow. All his published work can be found in the archive https://www.montage.pub/
Photos: Rupak Bardhan Roy