Categoria: works, projects, publications

Stell Dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, works, projects, publications

Leider müssen wir das Thema Krieg immer mehr aufgreifen, die kriegstreiberischen Politiken angreifen ….

 

Wir über uns

Die Initiative „Antikriegskonferenz Berlin2014“

… ist ein freies Forum von Frauen und Männern aus Wissenschaft und Publizistik: interdisziplinär, kritisch, antimilitaristisch.

Was die AKK erreichen will

Die AKK Berlin2014 vom 3. bis 5. Oktober will der Bevölkerungsmehrheit Argumente an die Hand geben, ihr ein Gesicht und eine Stimme verleihen – jener Mehrheit, die jede Art von Krieg, Waffengewalt, Rüstung und Militäreinsätzen im In- und Ausland ablehnt und ihr ein „Nein“ entgegen setzt.

Die Meinung der am Frieden interessierten Großzahl der Menschen in der Bundesrepublik wird von den Medien übergangen, von der Wissenschaft ignoriert, von der Regierung nicht ernst genommen, von den Parteien klein geredet, vom Bundespräsidenten als „glückssüchtig“ bezeichnet. Das waffenstarrende Gerede von deutscher Verantwortung weltweit ist schick.Kriege werden wieder „normal“, zum Politik- und Diplomatie-Ersatz.

 

Mehr gibt es auf der speziell zur AKK eingerichteten website, von der dies kopiert ist …

… Stell Dir vor, es ist Antikriegskonferenz, und viele kommen …

Living on the Margins

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, social quality, works, projects, publications

Acknowledgements [1]

Kant is frequently coming to my mind these last day’s – one reason may be that Birgit mentioned him; to be honest she talked about her appreciation of the well-known categorical imperative, as he stated in the second half of the 18th century

act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation

But there had been another reason for thinking about him, namely changing the train: the change from going high speed, non-stop from Roma to Milano, and then going on with the regional train to Pavia.

After arriving there, I receive an SMS from Lorenzo:

Welcome in padania

And for a philosopher, trained in the spirit of Western (which means very much German) philosophy there is only a small step from Pandania to Kant. Isn’t the “umbrella story” nearly as famous as the categorical imperative? The story of a philosopher of whom Heinrich Heine wrote:

The history of Immanuel Kant’s life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanically ordered, almost abstract bachelor existence in a quiet, remote little street in Königsberg, an old town on the northeastern border of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral there performed more dispassionately and methodically its outward routine of the day than did its fellow countryman Immanuel Kant. Getting up in the morning, drinking coffee, writing, giving lectures, eating, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew for certain that it was half-past three when Immanuel Kant, in his gray frock-coat, his Spanish cane in his hand, stepped out of his house and strolled to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the “Philosopher’s Path.” Eight times he walked up and down it, in every season of the year, and when the sky was overcast, or gray clouds announced a rain coming, old Lampe, his servant, was seen walking anxiously behind him with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence.[2]

I suppose there is a very close link between Kant’s very specific modesty and his imperative.

****

And in one way or another this had been the topic of the workshop on the 15th and 16th of May in Pavia, organised by the Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Pavia, as part of the Laboratorio EXPO+EXPO Milano 2015 in collaboration with the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – I already mentioned it earlier.

One general theme had been the search for responsibility. And of course this means today – and in the context of discussing sustainability (which is one of the focus points of the 2015-EXPO in Milano).

I am not entirely sure, but at least it looks as if I am accommodated these days in an old monastery. Pavia, at least if one comes from Rome, has indeed something of a sleepy little town. We frequently take this as being something negative, but I mean it here very much in a positive sense: People seem to be “in place”. Sure, this is also something, I frequently experience at home, but there it is more something that is located outside of real life: outside of the hassle and bustle of hectic daily life that is concerned with securing …, well, what is it actually securing?

One point, I found especially important during these last days had been the following: Frequently and actually increasingly we speak of responsibility and agency in a seemingly neutral way. We may reach from Kant who has the rational individual in mind – still as if there would be one and only one “unbound” rationality – to Smith who established at least the foundation for thinking in a very restricted way of the homo oeconomicus, leaving the Moral Sentiments outside, a kind of adjunct feature of wishful thinking, characterised in Chapter I of Part IV of the book by the words:

The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

Sure, the chain of persons – philosophers, economists, lawyers and sociologists and others – could be continued. However, having said

leaving the moral sentiments outside, a kind of adjunct feature of wishful thinking

is not quite right and needs at least some qualification. “Wishfulness” in the given sense is about attempting to define appropriateness.

In this way, I am actually not too convinced if Heine had been right, speaking of Kant’s ideas as most revolutionary, radical, as he worded it: “world-crushing thoughts”. Actually, his thought had been very conservative, a matter of conserving the frontiers, encapsulating the world as it is. His categorical imperative had been finally depending on limited scope:

  • the accountable process – which then indeed had been translated into procedures
  • the elimination of content/substance
  • the limited, i.e. accountable space of action

Seen in this light we have to emphasise that the imperative is actually not an innate universal law as long as we cannot fill the formula substantially – broadly speaking it had been the expression of the appropriation of the now stabilised odern nation state by the citoyens. In other words: affirmation of power in space and time.

****

As valid as the point Niklas Luhmann made by pointing out the importance of Legimitation by Procedure is, he did not recognise the actually important difference between procedure and process. Sure, both have much in common at first sight; but finally processes are much more, are full of contradictions and connotations which cannot be overcome by simple reference to forms, be they understood as structure or as process.

Mauro van Aken stated in an article that had been also presented during the conference, dealing with Local Management of Common Resources:

Appropriating water, by means of various techniques and solidarity networks, is unavoidable for many farmers facing plant stress or patterns of distribution not adapted to local needs (on the contrary, they are often adapted according to water bureaucracy needs). Taking water out of turn constitutes in fact a ‘savoir-faire’, a set of incorporated practices that become more complex the greater technical complexity and lack of transparency of the distribution system. At the same time, it constitutes a way of making water a public sphere, more closely related to social relations and farming needs. The processes of local participation and institutional restyling according to the new developmental idiom are deeply linked to economic liberalization and neoliberal paradigms imported into the Middle East.[3]

With this we come easily to the in practice difficult to tackle point:

  • The point of reference for determining substance is people’s production and reproduction of everyday’s life. In this light we are dealing with ‘social production’ as production which is (i) a social process (acting together) but also (ii) a matter of producing relations (between people and between people and the natural environment)
  • Furthermore the point of reference is demarcation – as matter of appropriation; this is concerned with defining the means that are appropriate to the goal of production and the need and available means of production
  • Also of relevance is the determination of power structures – in the light of the before mentioned demarcation
  • Finally – but not least – we are confronted with the issue of resilience as matter of securing congruence.

We find this argument already outlined in the reflections on the Critique of Instrumental Reason, written by Max Horkheimer in 1947. He refers to a «new thinking» as subjectivist reason and writes:

In the subjectivist view, when «reason» is used to connote a thing or an idea rather than an act, it refers exclusively to the relation of such an object or concept itself. It means that the thing or the idea is good for something else. There is no reasonable aim as such, and to discuss the superiority of one aim over another in terms of reason becomes meaningless. From the subjective approach, such a discussion is possible only if both aims serve a third and higher one, that is, if they are means, not ends.

It is a multiple issue – requiring looking at economic issues, not least the question of inequality – be it in the commonly discussed understanding but also in terms of “environmental democracy”[4]; the mechanisms of “social support”, revisiting the typology provided by T.H. Marshall[5]; also the questions of rights and legality gain new momentum; and we may also look at mental health – latest since Durkheim’s work on Anomy, the other on Suicide we know that these are specifically relevant also in the context of causing mental illness as matter of power imbalances – sure, it comes not least to my mind as I wrote briefly about it, replying to a mail in which Joanne, a student from a couple of years back, asked for some general points on mental illness – so here the answer then:[6]

… if we look seriously at the “construction” of mental (ill-)health in daily life, we are actually dealing innately with soci(et)al power. And then you may of course come back to what we most likely (even for me teaching is somewhat repeating myself every year, though not literally) talked about: the twofold character of power (being able to, pouvoir, potere, machen) and control (as matter of violence, oppression etc.). On the other hand – and closely linked – the question of appropriation as matter of acquiring property and control over something (or somebody) and the appropriateness as matter of being appropriate, suitable for the subject, person, constellation in which we act.

If you put this into a matrix, you see where (abuse of) power is “causing” madness. Those points where you find massive fractures …. – of course, this is not least also a matter of degrees. Finally we are all somewhat mad: using power that we do not have, doing things we are not completely able to do etc.. I think there is nothing wrong with it – and we may even see here a germ of innovation etc. Though not being too agreeable on Bell in general, there is some validity in the point when he writes:

And even madness, in the writing of such social theorists as Michel Foucault and R.D. Laing, is now conceived to be a superior form of truth.[7]

And as much as I yalked here about mental (ill-)health, it is actually much more and more general: the issue of socio-environmental sustainability or as I wrote in the beginning: of “being in place”.

****

Pavia – Padania – it all comes back again to the point: Think Global, Act Local. Or the paradox may actually by that if we really think local, we may arrive at being able to act finally global.

Economically it is the simple thing that is so difficult to set into place: establishing the congruence of producing  use value and exchange value. At the end, at least demarcation should be mentioned again: competition, in particular competition in the global economy, but also more in general: as “competitive lifestyle” and “lifestyle of competitiveness” is actually one factor causing and expressing this shift from being guided by use-values to being guided by exchange values. The first is surely – as well – a matter of subsistence-sustainability based lifestyles where lifestyles are understood as matter of accumulation systems, entailing as such specific patterns of consumption.

______

 

[1]            My special thanks go to the team of IUSS, in particular to Enrica, Enrica and Nadia. I also want to thank the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli for making my participation in the workshop possible. I am especially grateful to Nadia for the interesting conversation the day after the workshop.

[2]            Copied from http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/921_footsteps_soc_plato.html

[3]            Participating in Agribusiness: Contested Meanings of Rurality and Water in Jordan; in: Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges, H. Ayeb, R. Saad eds, Cairo Papers, 2014 Vol. 32. No. 2, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo

[4]            see my presentation, to be delivered in June in Hangzhou, PRC.

[5]            see Marshall, Tom H., 1950: Citizenship and Social Class; in: Citizenship and Social Class; Marshall, Tom H./Tom Bottomore; London et altera: Pluto Press1992

[6]            She thought as editor of a relevant book I could give her some advise – I edited the book Mental Health and Risk (New York: Nova Science 2006) together with Lydia Sapouna.

[7]            Bell, Daniel, 1976: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism; New York: Basic : 34:

Reality – complex and contradictory

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes, social quality, works, projects, publications

Preparing mentally for the conference at the University of Pavia, where we will discuss tomorrow and Friday

Perspectives on Agency and Participation

Such topic surely has to acknowlegde the complexity of existence, and its contradiciton – something we as intellectuals easily forget. Seneca’s words may be taken as reminder:

Teniamo sempre questo verso sul cuore e sulle labbra: sono un uomo, e non guidico a me estraneo nulla di ciò che è umano.

Let this verse be in your heart and on your lips: I am a man; and nothing in man’s lot do I deem foreign to me.

Will then have the pleasure to work with Nadia on Saturday on a new publication on the topic. The challenge is to look for ways – gaps and bridges – between capability approach and social quality approach.

I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.

And knowing that they come from the beautiful book ‘Alice in Wonderland’ we may feel tempted to recommend Lewis Carroll’s book as reading for Joseph Stiglitz.

Sure, there is always some temptation to go to events like the one today at LUISS Università Guido Carli, listening to Joseph Stiglitz looking at the question

Can the Euro Be Saved? An Analysis of the Future of the Currency Union.

Part of the temptation may actually sometimes be simply seeing economics another time as questionable subject and as such not so much an academic discipline (sure, fouling the own nest – but there had been more outstanding economists that did so, thus I am only doing the usual thing: standing on the shoulders of giants, though I am not sure how much further I can see).

Be it as it is, my first irritation came right at the beginning of Joseph’s presentation, hearing about recession and subsequently recovery. The terms had been used in connection with the locating European economies in respect of their development.

It is an often-discussed point and an extremely tricky question – recession and depression had been mentioned in the presentation. And indeed it is somewhat funny then to hear that during the time Joseph Stiglitz worked for the World Bank the term depression had been admonished – it would sound so negative, and have such bad effects especially at times where people are already depressed. Still, the question remains if talking about a recession is not as misleading as the reference to depression. Isn’t it much more precise and honest to say what all this is about:

A crisis – and indeed a structural crisis.

And it is not a structural crisis just of the Euro. In fact we are confronted with a crisis of the fundamentals of the capitalist economy. Actually I talked with Marco today in the morning exactly about this question – and we should accept that it is a question and any claim to give an unequivocal answer is pretentious. Before shortly looking at this, there is at least the following that Joseph valuably emphasised: austerity policy is causing huge problems for a majority of the people, not contributing to solve economic problems but evoking a major social downgrading for many.

There are at least the following perspectives waiting for some thorough reflection. One can be seen as capitalism returning to its pure form. There is surely some truth saying that in one way or another, capitalism as it emerged and became known as Manchester Capitalism had been tamed: social and welfare state being one aspect, general working conditions and some forms of respect of workers (also political) rights have to be mentioned. So one way of looking at the current crisis and the harsh ‘restructuration’ may be interpreted in this way: we are returning to pure capitalism.

Another perspective, however, is to see the structural change in connection with some fundamental shifts caused by the development of the means of production. We may then suggest that we are witnessing the emergence of a new mode of production – it is not (necessarily) about capitalism or not-capitalism. It is just about recognising a more fundamental shift that is not directed towards establishing a status-quo-ante. Instead, it is about the emergence of a new system that goes ‘beyond’ the current system.

The social consequences then – not least visible in the development of precarity – would then be somewhat comparable with the development that went hand in hand with the emergence of capitalism. The machinery – i.e. progress – showed devastating consequences for example for the weavers who lost their work. At the same time, the new inventions allowed also progress by way of developing new ways of work and working conditions – objectively surely progressive at the time.

Coming back to the presentation then, there had been two striking points:

* Stiglitz did not engage in any of those questions that had been raised in the 2009-report ‘The Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’ (see my own comments specifically on this report from a Social Quality Perspective in the article Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality [International Journal of Social Quality 2(1), Summer 2012: 43–57 © Zhejiang University, European Foundation on Social Quality and Berghahn Journals 2012 doi:10.3167/IJSQ.2011.010204]).

* This means at the same time that he oriented very much on a traditional perspective: economic recovery, seen as matter of industrial policy.

Actually I would agree with the need of recovery, but only under strict observation of the following qualification:

  • It has to be a matter of ‘covery’, meaning a policy that is fundamentally oriented on covering the entirety of economic and social challenges in an integrated way and also covering on a global level the entirety of the population – surely something on which we can easily find agreement. – Actually one of Joseph’s remark pointed into this direction, saying that there cannot be a surplus in all countries – yes, and indeed something also Germany has to accept.
  • Talking about recovery means that we have to find an integrated approach in terms of bringing the issue of soci(et)al sustainability thoroughly on the agenda. This is not just about ‘balancing different policy areas’ as it had been issued in the Economic Performance and Social Progress-report. A much more fundamental consideration is required.
  • This means not least to revisit the hugely valuable work issued by Karl Polanyi in his opus magnum on ‘The Great Transformation’, talking about the political and economic origins of our time (if I am not mistaken there is a more or less new edition of the book available – with a foreword/introduction by Stiglitz). Polanyi looked extensively at processes of dis- embedding, i.e. the separation of ‘the economy’ from the soci(et)al context. If we talk about the lost connection between finance and real economy, we surely have to look at the underlying loss of the connection between ‘society’ and ‘economy’.
  • This brings me to the last qualification when looking at the need for recovery. In a contribution I wrote together with Marica Frangarkis, we spoke about The need for a radical ‘growth policy’ agenda for Europe at a time of crisis (in: Dymarski, Wlodzimierz/Marica Frangakis/Leaman, Jeremy, 2104: The Deepening Crisis of the European Union: The Case for Radical Change; Poznań: Poznań University of Economics Press, 2014). And the kind of recovery, and even the way of thinking of recovery has to start at this point: the quid pro quo. It can only make sense if we start by overcoming the dichotomisation between economic and social thinking, demanding for both a sustainable orientation.

Indeed, the cart in front of the horse is always in danger to be pulled back – and at least this is something where I would strongly agree with Stiglitz: Austerity policies never did any good. But for the rest, we should remind ourselves of the little discussion between Alice and the cat.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

“I don’t much care where –”

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

(from Alice in Wonderland)

Time – On Whose Side?

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

The problem surely is one of change, and thus of time – and this, metaphorically, may be seen in the change of art. There is the famous failure of Leonardo: the fresco, applying a wrong formula. The problem with the technique is that one is not allowed to make any mistake: the paint goes immediately into the ground and nothing can be changed. Leonardo (as far as I remember for reasons of time pressure), wanted to take a short-cut to a majestic goal – and a short time after he finished his most beautiful painting it “collapsed”. Compare Zivny with this: there is now majestic goal – a modest one of creating, or even only shaping ephemeral beauty:

“Sand is one of the few materials I work with, and I like that it is ephemeral and the sand sculpture disappears.”

The tension, it only comes right now to my mind, is one of fascinating depth: it is the tension between living for the majestic goal of humankind and the ephemeral vision of individuals.

Sure, both have their value, and beauty …. – or at least truth.

But the challenge an question is: (How) Can we bring this together? – The other day I read in an article by John L. Allen Jr.

Americans await things to happen immediately, and generally interpret delay in terms of denial, incompetence, of cover-up. Rome[1], to put the point charitably, is a culture that puts a high premium on patience, and often interprets ‘rapid response’ as immaturity, superficiality, or going off half-cocked.[2]

And just having read

Skidelski/Skidelski

on

How much is Enough? Money and the Good Life

recently, I am wondering if there is really not more to say than directing moral appeals? After economics – as matter of science and politics – obviously failed, the only way out seems to be in some kind of prayers and quest for morality?

The reality came (another time) to my mind when I went for my earlyish round – the 1st of May 2014, about sixish passing Termini, the central train station:

All fine, but … – Italy, the country of kisses and light heartedness – but at that time in the morning at the said place: facing the homeless; if one leaves the shops at day time – the shops for ordinary people or those where people buy who do not know what to do with the money – it means too often looking into the faces of beggars; if one then is getting aware of the country’s lack of a revolution, the nobility still having the remote places for their festive gatherings (which in fact are part of daily life), …

Well, May-Day then: a huge people’s gathering, in the park. At least something: free sunshine for all.

No, I do not blame anybody: at least not those who enjoy as long as they can enjoy.

And though I am seemingly talking about Italy and Rome, I actually do not really talk about this place. What makes it – perhaps – special is a higher degree of visibility of certain problems …, problems that are also visible in other places, “wiped away” by some kind of “silent militarism”: the war that is at the external borders arguing with noisy sabre-rattling, has many disciplinary forms when directed internally. Later this year I will address this during a conference against militarism. My part will be looking at

The inner mobilisation of Europe – youth unemployment, racism and modernised forced labour.

Enough is enough – indeed it is not such a difficult-to-answer question: enough of violent policies, of policies that are utilising human beings as a kind canon fodder for profit-first-economies.

A reminder, a famous passage in a footnote in Chapter 31 of the first volume of Capital

―Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated.‖ (T. J. Dunning, l. c., pp. 35, 36.)

 

[1]            meant to be the catholic church

[2]            John L. Allen Jr., 2013: The Church’s Message and The financial World: Lost in Translation; in: Institutions, Society and Markets: Towards a New International Balance?; A Cura di Alberto Quadrio Curzio/Giovanni Marseguerra; Vatican City: Libreria Editirice Vaticana: 141-155; here: 141 f.

Asia Global – A New Project

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in works, projects, publications

Being part of the Rozenberg Quarterly Advisory Board and, with Hong Fan and Daniele Massaccesi, the Asia Global Team, I guess that it is appropriate to announce this new section by reproducing here the “what it is about”.

This section is the result of a cooperation between the Confucius Institute at the University of Western Australia, Claremont; EHV Academicpress, Bremen, Germany, publisher of the Asia Studies – Within and Without series; and Rozenberg Quarterly.
The articles in this section aim to promote the knowledge gathered in Asia Studies, as well as the relations between Asia and other regions of the world, and give impulses in order to advance research in this field. This also means pushing boundaries forward and push them beyond the often prejudiced views from within and without.

per una società più sostenibile

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, social quality, works, projects, publications

That sustainability is not a question of concerns about the environment is shown in some brief reflections that had been made in preparation of the EXPO 2015, in Milano. the presentation highlights that we are talking about societal sustainability. And as such it is concerned with relations – relations of people that are characterising their productive and reproductive activities in every day’s life. Thinking along this line has to take account of the fact that the environment – “natural” and “man-made” – is not external but an entity of which human beings and their praxis are essential part. Re-emphasising praxis is essential as in this way we can go beyond isolated activities – as important as measures to protect nature, traffic control, calls for responsible consumption and the like are, they are conceptually not anything more than a drop in the bucket. Thanks go to the Department of Political and Social Sciences – University of Pavia. Human Development, Capability and Poverty International Research Centre, IUSS Pavia and the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

The Story of Europe Remembrance and the Circle of European Friends who resisted Hitler

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, projects, publications

Presentation in Haidari, January 2014

Being here is a matter with mixed feelings – for different reasons:

  • If it would be only about the commemoration of the values, not about the outrages, it would be simple to say: I am glad to be here, commemorating the cradle of democracy
  • If it would be only about being ‘somewhere’ in Europe to stand up as one of those who resisted, and not in Greece, a country that is currently under severe pressure by self-acclaimed savours, it would be easier to say: I am glad to be here, commemorating together freedom and rights as fundamental values
  • If it would be only about coming together, knowing about the uncontested fundamental acceptance of some basic rules, it would be obvious, that I could say without any hesitation: I am glad being here, standing on the firm foundation of rights –here in the place that is widely accepted as cradle of Western democracy

I had been asked to give a short presentation from an academic perspective. But how can I do that?

  • Originally from Germany – now probably cross-national
  • Academic but brought up, and actually brought into academia not least after having been socialised in the anti-fa and anti-war movement
  • Being confronted with results of academic/scientific analysis that are obviously politically contestations and finally
  • Seeing academic work as being obliged to be politically biased.

Be it as it is, the following questions will be guiding me through this short intervention:

  1. What are the values actually about – and in which way are they general and timeless (if they are so at all)?
  2. What happened – here in Haidari, there in Germany and around that time here on the planet? And had it been simply a matter of violation of those values and rights?
  3. Where are we standing now – limiting the question here to the institutionalised Europe we are living in and the position of Greece?
  4. Can we find a common and fundamentally shared way forward?

1.

Especially under today’s crisis-permeated conditions we can frequently hear the call for a kind of Renaissance: the good old values of past times – or should we say: the values of the good old times? – are called for and both, the values and the times are easily glorified. It is true that anything we may celebrate today politically and in terms of socio-economic progress – goes far back and finds its roots in particular here at the cradle of Europe: Greece and its capital Athens as source of freedom and democracy.

Nevertheless, Europe is more – or we also may say: it has also a less glorious root. And we have to take it as double-headed hydra. Claiming the glamorous charm, it had been also asking for a high price: the abduction of Europa by Zeus had been a story about violence and conquest, also standing at the cradle of Europe.

According to the Greek myth, Zeus, the Thunder-God residing on the Olympus, in the shape of a bull abducted Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and carried her over the sea to Crete. Agenor sent his sons out to search for their sister. One of them, Kadmos, landed in Greece and was told by the oracle of Delphi that he should wander around, armed with his spear till he reached the cowherd Pelagon in the land of Phokis. He should kill Pelagon – the man of earth, “born to die” – and choose the cow with the sign of the moon on both her flanks and follow her, till she would lie down, with her horns on the ground. On this hill he should kill and sacrifice her to the earth Goddess and then found a big city on this spot, Thebes.

Kadmos followed the oracle and became the founder of Thebes. He married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares, the War God, and Aphrodite (…). It is not clear from the myths whether he killed the moon-cow, obviously his sister Europa, or not. In any case, one does not hear of her again. She, the raped and abducted woman was only the means to lead the warrior and new culture hero into the foreign land and to his greatness.

(Maria Mies: Europe in the Global Economy or the Need to De-Colonize Europe; in: Peter Herrmann (Ed.): Challenges for a Global Welfare System: Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.; 1999: 153-171; here: 160 f.)

Both, sociology and historiography – and actually to a large extent also economics – had been nearly obsessed by the idea of the process of civilisation. In very broad terms it had been seen as process of increasing ‘inner control’ and ‘rationalisation’. But this had been a double-edged sword, asking on the one hand for an instrumental reason, and striving on the other hand for humanism, the freedom of the fully developed individual.

But why call it mere game, when we consider that in every condition of humanity it is precisely play, and play alone, that makes man complete and displays at once is twofold nature? What you call limitation, according to your conception of the matter, I call extension according to mine …

(Schiller, Friedrich, 1794: On the Aesthetic Education of Man In a Series of Letters. Translated and with an Introduction by Reinald Snell; New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1965: 79)

As much as European thinking is caught in the frame of trinities – from dialectics to the Christian thought of holiness – as much it is justified to see European history also as such trinity:

  • a – somewhat –integrated system, allowing integrity to develop
  • the emergence of expansionism
  • and an increasing individualism.

Taken together, this merges to a somewhat unstable system: unstable over time, unstable in regard of space and unstable with respect of social classes, contradictorily unstable in its values. And mind: all these different aspects go hand in hand with each other, are overlapping, complementing each other and in some ways allowing to establish some balance or equilibrium. And taken together also means we can in no way claim that we are dealing with a linear process of ‘civilisation’. It may even be that the perspective is harsher: instead of interrupting such process of civilising progress and partial regression , these ‘negativities’, these atrocities have to be interpreted as integral part of the very same process.

If we take – as commonly accepted – barbarisation as antonym of civilisation, we should reconsider it: it is inherent part of the Western way of civilisation so far. Finally, the meaning of barbarian is not much more as the outsider, the stranger the personification of the one who does not belong to “us”. And as such, the Western culture – with the one leg of conquest – always entailed this dimension: be with us or be condemned. But it also meant in the extreme: the barbarisation of self in the sense of positioning oneself outside of humane existence.

2.

Of course, there is some simplification in the following – but at the same time it may grasp the situation better than any political blame games:

On the one hand we find a major shift on the international agenda: Behind the political scene – which surely played a decisive role – there are the crucially relevant trends:

  • the first one is a power struggle between different fractions of capital – namely between heavy- and light industries (as they had been called at the time)
  • the second had been a struggle between the mode of production in the understanding of the forms and degrees of ‘socialisation’ – of course the utmost impression of this had been the confrontation between capitalism and socialism.

Together, they formed a major battlefield for re-establishing new hegemonies on the global arena. And this battlefield is the background for fascism – the extremist form being its German version, extremist in terms of the extent of violence and warmongering; and the less extreme form as found for instance in Italy; but also the forms of a ‘voluntary subordination’ under fascist invaders as seen in Austria.

We all know the history – and probably nobody of us can grasp the real story. I mentioned earlier that I had been brought up in the anti-fa movement. Actually I had been too young – fascism had been in some way history for my generation. And for many in Western Germany, where I had been brought up, it had been a hushed up history; for myself I experienced it in a mediated, but very close way:

  • as member of the VVN-BdA – the association of those who had been prosecuted by the NAZI-regime, union of antifascists;
  • having friends who ‘survived’ the holocaust, visibly marked by the vestiges of unimaginable violence, and further flouted when they claimed there rights
  • this had been much more important for founding consciousness and determination to study these issues in depth than what we learned at school about German fascism but also about fascism in other countries as amongst others Greece
  • and finally the general silence and repression in that part of Germany had been another moment asking for assertiveness: It had been about getting aware of what the great writer – novelist and poet Bert Brecht meant:

The womb he crawled from is still going strong.

(Brecht: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui)

And having said earlier that we know history, but at most very little of the story of the people concerned, means that we have to look carefully and in a somewhat ‘balanced’ way at what exactly happened. The two sides to it are as follows:

(a) bestial creatures, acting in a way that we cannot imagine – made even more difficult to understand by the fact that these people acted consciously, at least in that way that they had been well aware of what they actually had been doing, looking into the faces of people they tortured and killed, facing the immediate negative effects on others. And there had been the another side, difficult to understand and that we may call ‘supra-natural powers and energies’: comrades of the resistance, going through pain and into death – for something they knew as superior value.

Both cases have, we may say, something in common: these had been people acting against something we usually call instinct. But there is a fundamental difference: the one group – fascists and their followers – acting against other people; on the other side people acting against themselves: their instinctive interest to survive.

Can we understand this? I do not mean intellectually but emotionally, by way of empathy? And how can we deal with it today, by way of the conclusions to be drawn.

(b) The second layer of confrontation is of analytical kind, concerned with grasping the structural dimension of what actually happened. As relevant as individual actors had been in this respect, as crucial is the fact that they could only step on the stage because of the ‘historical constellation’ – this had been briefly outlined by pointing on the two fundamental dimensions of the international power relations and the structural shifts in the economy.

As true as it is that history does not repeat itself, as true is that we are repeatedly confronted with some fundamental questions that we may see as ‘secular’: fundamental in the sense of coming up again and again, asking to be solved in different contexts and against different backgrounds.

This means not least that we do not only have to fear the uprising of such brutal animalistic individuals who had been carrying the fascist regime. We have to look at the very same time at the scaffolding that provides the hold for the stages.

3.

Two dimensions – at the end questions of the fundamentally underlying economic relationship – have to be linked to the political dimensions. Leaving the more complex questions aside – the role played by values – there is in any case the important aspect that these power dimensions determine and require specific approaches to the values that we are commemorating: democracy, freedom and human rights. True, we tend to see them for good reasons as universal values – universal meaning eternally true and globally valid. But we should not overlook another aspect: the true meaning is depending on real places, real relations, real people and real political processes and structures.

The real place with which we are concerned is Europe, to be more precise: EUrope. It is a place that itself is torn between two extremes in history and today. On the one hand we find it being part of this one world, characterised by globalisation (the international arena of competition and power struggles) and mondialisation (the truly integrated and integral one-world-system); however, at the same time we find on the other hand the ‘demands’ of regional, national and sub-national entities. The one Europe is what appears to all non-Europeans: American, Japanese, African, Chinese people ‘go to Europe’ and feel that they are coming to this one, seemingly homogenous area. If we as Europeans ‘go to Europe’, we frequently mean going to Brussels, dealing with institutional EU-business. Besides this, the EU is for us full of heterogeneity, actually tensions and competitions. Indeed, the crisis – since 2007 – is not least just a culmination of the serious failure of establishing a sound and durable democracy: freedom cannot be reduced on the freedom of goods, capital, services and workers. And the same is true for the Human Rights: they have to go far and fundamentally beyond the civil, political and social rights of the members of the bourgeois society.

4.

And there, I think, we have to appreciate the EU as important force: claiming in the preamble of the original Treaty that the signatories are

RESOLVED to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe,

AFFIRMING as the essential objective of their efforts the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples,

…

ANXIOUS to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions,

…

RESOLVED by thus pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and calling upon the other peoples of Europe who share their ideal to join in their efforts

But at the same time we have to criticise openly – openly in substantial terms and in terms of the publicity of the statement – current policies. In a more fundamental way we have to criticise not only what happens in connection with austerity policies: these have to be condemned because of the threat on the lives of people but also because of the illegitimate denial of a people to decide on their own policies. What we see is, however, only a consequence of the strategic plan of prioritising the Europe of a Single Market. In particular in Lisbon in 2000 the priorities had been redefined in a decisive way. The Lisbon strategy shaped negatively the inner relationships and the role of the EU in the world – not withstanding the arguments frequently brought forward against the claim of making the EU the most competitive economy of the world:

The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.

This gathering here brings people from different ways of life together; people with different experiences and also different visions. Fascism has for all of us a different meaning: being a matter of personal experience, of aquired knowledge or of confrontation with neo-fascism. One ultimate thing should unite us: Openness. It is the readiness to be open in what we say, and it is the readiness to be open to what is said by others.

This can easily be seen as something that provides a different orientation for future development. Instead of aiming on being the most competitive region, Europe should claim to be the region with the highest social quality, allowing people to have control over how they produce and reproduce themselves in thorough togetherness with others, instead of competing as isolated individuals against each other.

We see that the tension I mentioned earlier as the root of today’s Europe: the tension between the Europe of the values of respect – founding democracy, freedom and rights – and the Europe of conquest, is also the tension that we have to face today and with which we have to deal

  • as individuals, accepting responsibility •
  • as groups and communities and states, living solidarity •
  • and as citizens, politicians, administrators and academics •

And in this way, coming back to the beginning, I am indeed glad being here as part of the commemoration and as one who can contribute to speaking out the reminder:

MAKING SURE THAT DASCISM DOESN’T HAPPEN AGAIN IS A MORAL OBLIGATION – ALSO ONE OF BEING TRUE TO OURSELF AND POLITICALLY CONCERNED WITH WHAT HAPPENS TODAY!

HOPE II – The Story of Remembrance

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The municipality of Haidari, near Athens, is implementing these days an interesting project – actually it is a follow up: HOPE II.

The discussion so far showed that learning from history is especially of importance when authoritarian statehood is gaining power and actually the EU is loosing direction. Starting from the idea of an Economic Community: surely driven by economic interests, but also acknowledging the importance of fundamental freedoms and rights of people, it drifted to a position that is fundamentally based in the idea of a neoliberal market strategy. We can see the current tendencies of separatist, regionalist and nationalist movements as part of the consequences of the social drawbacks of austerity policies and the orientation on competitiveness.
It is of remarkable importance that the municipality here engages in such a project on the

THE STORY OF EUROPEAN REMEMBRANCE AND THE CIRCLE OF EUROPEAN FRIENDS WHO RESISTED HITLER

To engage in an open dialogue and to engage young people in this important aspect of dealing with the dark side of history has to be seen as special meritL Remembering the past should be warning for today to make sure that there will be a humane tomorrow.

Tomorrow the speech will be available on this site.