Resistance Reading Room

The Resistance is now. Join us twice-monthly as we share and discuss relevant readings for our moment in US politics, and what we can do from Paris — with eyes on helping Democrats taking back House and Senate in 2026. Brought to you by the Veterans and Military Families Caucus, and the Diversity Caucus of DA France.

This is not homework, even if Resistance is work -- we will always feature a core text, an article, and a work of poetry or short fiction selected to guide our discussion but please read what you can, as you can. And if you can't get to it please join us anyway for a drink and good discussion. Hope to see you there!

This event is free and open to DA members. New members always welcome. To join Democrats Abroad go here: www.democratsabroad.org/join (Membership is free and open to US citizens 18 years of age or older and living abroad.)

Not based in Paris Centre, but interested in hosting a Reading Room near you? Please get in touch with Ada [email protected] for details. 

Pick a text you have time for. Readings are suggested, not required. A core text, an article, a piece of short fiction or poetry are selected for each time we meet, and we will meet at least twice per set of readings. Read what you can or just join us, whether you had time to read or not. This is NOT homework, even if Resistance is work — we look forward to seeing you there.

Our 90-minute format will always include discussion of the texts, we will always take a concrete action; and we will always have open discussion on what is happening and what we can do about it. See you there!

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Theme: Silence, Responsibility, and Resistance: The Cost of Doing Nothing
Note: The March 24, April 7 and April 28  meetings will have the same readings. (Exceptionally we will meet on the 1st and 4th Mondays of April, due to the school holidays.) 

📖 Core Text: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt, 1963. Available at Scribd. If purchasing the book, please check out local booksellers Red Wheelbarrow and Shakespeare & Company.

An excerpt: 

"What he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. He was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché. [...]

The longer I tried to understand him, the more I came to the conclusion that Eichmann’s evil consisted not in some demonic monstrosity but in a kind of obliviousness — a refusal or inability to engage in moral reflection. It was this thoughtlessness — something quite ordinary and human — that I came to see as more frightening than any calculated wickedness. This was the banality of evil."

🎙️ Podcast: "In Our Time: Hannah Arendt," Melvyn Bragg and guests, BBC Radio, 2017. Available here. This podcast episode discusses Eichmann In Jerusalem, and how Arendt developed many of her ideas in response to the rise of totalitarianism in the C20th, partly informed by her own experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany before her escape to France and then America. She wanted to understand how politics had taken such a disastrous turn and, drawing on ideas of Greek philosophers as well as her peers, what might be done to create a better political life. 

📄 Essay: "Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action," Audre Lorde, 1977. Available here. The essay is included in the compendium of her works, "Your Silence Will Not Protect You." If purchasing the book, please check out local booksellers Red Wheelbarrow and Shakespeare & Company.

📜 Poem: "First They Came," Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1946. Available at the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

WHEN

Monday, April 28, 2025 at 06:00 PM Paris Time

WHERE

Treize au Jardin
5 rue de Médicis
Paris 75006
France
Google map and directions

CONTACT

Ada
[email protected]

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