Vilma Fuentes: Sebbag: Return to cannibalism?

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true alchemist, Georges Sebbag transforms the reading of a topic as dry as global overpopulation into an entertaining and pleasurable experience. One of the last figures of surrealism, Sebbag establishes a connecting link between overwhelming statistics and the evocation of inspiring and inspired texts from the surrealist movement.

The staggering, ever-increasing numbers become inconceivable. Indeed, the human mind can conceive and visualize 10, 20, 100, thousand people, but what mind can imagine 5 or 6 billion human beings on the planet? The enigmatic question, of course, arises, invoked by T.S. Eliot's verse in The Waste Land: "I never thought so many were to cross the Thames / So many that death would take." A question that questions the number of the living and the dead, seeking to determine which is greater.

“Around 1980,” writes Georges Sebbag in his book “Humans, Trouble with Humans? Notices about Overpopulation?” , “I became aware that the planet was overpopulated and that this tremendous factor was going to upset mentalities and the order of society. Forty years later, humanity has not ceased to grow and multiply. It went from 4.6 billion to 8 billion individuals. Two concomitant phenomena marked this period: on the one hand, the globalization of the economy and the rise of consumer products; on the other hand, the devastation of a multitude of living species, the increase in air, land, and water pollution, and, as a bonus, a dose of anthropogenic global warming.”

Throughout this clear-sighted essay on the population explosion, Sebbag avoids the alarmist exclamations of one of those prophets of doom. Sebbag limits himself to describing the current state of the planet and sharing his thoughts, always inspired by his passion for literature and surrealism. From Petrarch, "life is short, time is erased in plush steps," to the surrealists, to Malthus, Sebbag observes the transformations in human behavior caused by overpopulation. But knowing that we are 8 billion inhabitants doesn't mean we understand it. His use of humor, supported by Swift, allows the author of "Humains, trop d'humains? " to approach figures that are difficult to conceive.

“André Breton accorded Jonathan Swift (1167-1745), “a surrealist for his wickedness,” the honor of opening his Anthology of Black Humor, where he does not forget to reproduce the Modest Proposal for preventing the children of the poor of Ireland from being in the care of their parents and their country, and for making them of public utility… Swift observes that the streets of Dublin, like the country roads, are overloaded with “beggars followed by three, four, or six children in rags, who pester the passersby asking for alms.” In order to prevent poor children from begging, becoming thieves, or going into exile due to lack of work, Swift engages in wise calculations. Out of an Irish population of one and a half million souls, he estimates that 120,000 children are born each year to poor parents. The humorist concludes with a proposition that should raise no objection…” A one-year-old infant, well nourished, constitutes a delicious and healthy food, whether boiled, roasted, steamed, or baked, it will make The delights of the rich. About 100,000 children could be allocated to their tables, while 20,000 could be reserved for the reproduction of these delicacies.

Perhaps our destiny, once human saturation on the planet has been reached, is cannibalism. With the flora and fauna depleted, what can we eat but one of our fellow creatures?

Engulfed in a phantasmatic universe, unable to conceive of shadows and numbers, Georges Sebbag insists on the vital need to understand ourselves as individuals among the great number in order to access a time that is once again our own.

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