They (Heart) Death the Way You (Heart) Life

Youssouf Fofana, tries to bluster though his case, or attending to his “pride”, even though the case is not public. His gang burned alive, tortured, maimed, and left a man for dead for their entertainment because he’s a Jew.

“Élan” about being proud of what he did will not get him off a murder charge, but it’s a process of striving to a heroic image, of personal mythmaking, of somehow making himself into a sort of martyr, as it has now been revised to mean. Basically, he isn’t saying what influential people in the rest of the culture are saying: “may a thousand Fofanas bloom.” Fussing as it normally does, the rest of the culture is happy to either analyze ad nauseum, or dream up new sectarian crimes to legitimize.