Anne Morelli

Career

She directed in 1995 a book about The Great myths of the history of Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia ("Les grands mythes de l'histoire de Belgique, de Flandre et de Wallonie"), a global attempt by new historians of Belgium to deconstruct nationalist myths e.g. created by the official historiography for nation-building purpose.

Philosophy

Morelli claims she is atheist and considers herself as belonging to the far left.

Anne Morelli is particularly known for her opinions on cults or new religious movements. Like other sociologists and historians, she believes that churches are different from cults only through their relationship to power, and that they are "totalitarian institutions" as well as prisons, hospitals, barracks, boarding houses and some companies.

In 2005, during the 36th annual conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions in Ghent, she said at the international conference of anti-globalism that no movement has ever achieved a change without using violence. Morelli was part of a group which welcomed Pierre Carette, the main leader of a terrorist group active in 1984-1985, Communist Combatant Cells, when he was released from prison after 17 years, an unusual long imprisonment in Belgium.

Anne Morelli has summarized and systematized the contents of Arthur Ponsonby's classic in "ten commandments of propaganda":

1. We do not want war.
2. The opposite party alone is guilty of war.
3. The enemy is the face of the devil.
4. We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.
5. The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary.
6. The enemy uses forbidden weapons.
7. We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
8. Artists and intellectuals back our cause.
9. Our cause is sacred. "The ages-old 'God Bless America' is playing once more."
10. All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors.

Publications