Once a month, La Presse, inspired by the Socrates Questionnaire from Philosophy magazine, interviews a personality on the big questions of life. This Sunday, Dr. Joanne Liu, former international president of Médecins sans frontières and professor at McGill University, who is associated with two theater projects in the coming months, answers our questions.
A humanist doctor.
Yes, in theory, but we are prisoners of political, emotional, normative or economic costs that we are often not ready to assume in order to act in full freedom.
To disciplines.
Nelson Mandela for his strength in having adopted an unwavering posture of non-violence as a remedial element of apartheid. For me, he remains an extraordinary model of humanity.
Indifference towards human suffering.
Running… When I go jogging, it’s a time when I put my ideas in order, where I prepare certain interventions, where I think about certain situations.
Art for me represents the beauty of humans in its best light. It is essential to reconcile myself with human imperfections. Art allows me to still believe in our common humanity in the chaos of wars and the brutality of the human crises we face.
In certain moments, like in survival dynamics. Simone Veil, when she talks about her time in Auschwitz, speaks indirectly about this selfishness of survival.
Ambiguity.
Impatience. Around my mid-thirties, I decided that impatience was not a fault as such. I told myself that when I am fighting to get my patient to have their diagnostic test as quickly as possible in the emergency room, the manifestations of my impatience are understandable.
On my bike, going up a hill.
In action, real or figurative.
The lack of political courage of our leaders, here and elsewhere.
…he should communicate to the humans of this planet to stop fighting in his name or a possible doctrine linked to his name.
