Consecration and Silence

There is, in certain collective celebrations, an intensity that goes beyond the very object they celebrate. A square fills up, improvised processions form, messages come from institutions that, just the day before, hardly seemed concerned. Screens relay the moment, voices overlap, flags come out of drawers. For a few days, a figure concentrates a fervor that few public events manage to generate in this country. A statement from the supervising ministry, a second in the name of the Prime Minister, a reception at the chancery, sometimes an int