Theodore Monod - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Wire of Wilfried Monod, a long time Pasteur of the parish of the Oratorical of Louvre to Paris and founder of the Organization of the watchers.

Although he often fled the honors, Theodore Monod was director of the French Institut of Black Africa, professor with the national Muséum of natural history, member of the Academy of Science of overseas, in 1949, of the Académie of navy, in 1957, and member of the Academy of Science, in 1963.

He began his career with the study of the seals monks in the peninsula of the Cape Blanc in Mauritania and turned quickly to the observation of the Désert of the the Sahara, which he surveyed during more than sixty years, with back of camel or foot, in the search of a mythical meteorite. By doing this, he discovered many Neolithic sites and revealed many plant species of which some bear its name.

He carried out with Auguste Piccard, in 1948 with broad of Dakar the first diving in Bathyscaphe, FNRS II. This one, experimental, will reach the 25 meters depth. The following diving will be more convincing but will be done without Theodore Monod.

With Essouk with the Mali, he discovered the skeleton of the man of Asselar, estimated at - 6 000 years, whose cranium attests in an unquestionable way of the characters négroïdes.

The curiosity of the world and humanism

During its childhood, Monod is impassioned for all that nature offers, reading insatiably and feeding its dreams of discoveries. After studies of natural science and an oceanographical mission , it enters in 1922 to the Muséum of natural history. Working in Mauritania, it feels the call of the desert, which starts shortly after the coast of this country. Its life changes: it will become “insane” desert.

During the Years 1920, it works much in Africa. In 1927, it is selected to take part in an scientific exhibition through the the Sahara, of Algiers to Dakar via Tombouctou. During this first forwarding, it collects a crowd of samples of plants and minerals, which will occupy it during years with the Museum. In 1928 - 1929, it marries Olga Pickova, a Jewish young person of Czech origin , and has to make its Military service, which it fears a little, being already pacifist antimilitarist and . Affected in a Saharan unit, it benefits from it to continue its research.

In 1934, it leaves to Chinguetti to research mysterious a meteorite (which will be also one of the searches of the end of its life). It also leaves to explore the Tanezrouft, a still unknown zone of the the Sahara. In 1938, it settles with its family with Dakar, where it is mobilized in 1939 with the Chad. Of return to Dakar, it militates against the collaboration of Vichy and the Racisme Nazi through radiophonic chronicles, of October 1940 at October 1941. These chronicles with Radio-Dakar were gathered in 1942 in a collection entitled “ the Hippopotamus and the Philosopher ”. It defends there of the positions firmly antiracists, pacifist and ecologists, who will be censured by the Vichy government. It animates a group related to the free France and accommodates De Gaulle in 1944. But his/her father, remained in France, dies at the same time and all the family of his wife is déportée : there will be no survivor. Being satisfied with little to survive, equipped with an exceptional endurance, he traverses many times the desert in the years 1950 - 1960. Its characteristic is to not make many forwardings in Chameau, but with foot. In 1954, it traverses in Mauritania and with the Mali, 900 km without water point.

All this time is also marked by the friendship which binds it to Louis Massignon, large orientalist and humanistic, disciple of Gandhi for the Non-violence, which will tie a rich and profitable dialog with Monod. Another great friendship of Monod was that of the writer Malian Amadou Hampâté Bâ.

In the years 1960, always faithful to its engagements, it expresses against the Guerre of Algeria. Then, while always devoting itself to its work and its voyages, each year, in front of the military base of Taverny, between the 6 and on August 9th, it Fast, in protest against the nuclear weapon…

Worker of science and nature during more than 70 years, it reaches abrupt and late notoriety at the beginning of the Années 1990, following a television report which was devoted to him in 1993.

In 1995, it takes part in a forwarding with the Yemen, and sees for the last time, before losing completely the sight, the Sahara in 1996, at 94 years.

It devoted the end of its life to put in agreement its Christian faith and its humanistic combat for human dignity. Like Roger Cans writes it: One saw it walking to the first rank of the demonstrators who protested against the atomic bomb, apartheid, exclusion. It militated against all that, according to him, threat or degrades the man: the war, the bullfight, hunting, alcohol, tobacco, the violence made with the humble ones. Its creed: the respect of the life in all its forms.

The humanistic committed one

Naturalist of formation but also of conviction, it was a ecologist before the letter.

He did not dissociate therefore human his concerns and placed it even in the middle of its thoughts and its actions. In second half of the 20th century it took antinuclear share with the movements, non-violent antimilitarist, S, of defense of the Human rights, the animal (It was a Végétarien engaged against the Corrida, hunting, the Vivisection, etc) and of the life, by always expressing a requirement, forged by an extraordinary nobleness of heart.

Theodore Monod was Protestant liberal current, unitarian and parishioner with the Oratoire of Louvre.

Quotations

“To speak about the desert, wouldn't this be, initially, to keep silent itself, like him? ”
“nature is neither moral nor immoral, it is radieusement, glorieusement, amorale. ”
“the little which one can make, very little that one can make, it should be done, for the honor, but without illusion. ”

Family ties

Theodore Monod has family ties with Jacques Monod (1910-1976), Biologiste and Chimiste, Jerome Monod (born in 1930), Politician, and Jean-Luc Godard (born in 1930), Réalisateur of cinema, bonds which are clarified and schematized in the article Descendance of Jean Monod (1765-1836).

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