La Gira

Und es herrscht Angst

Bereits vor meiner Abfahrt zur SOAK – der attac-Sommerakademie  und dann wieder nach der Rückkehr habe ich mich dadrüber unterhalten. Das Grundthema kann vielleicht zusammengefasst werden in dem Satz: Es herrscht Angst in Europa .., und in der Welt. Nicht weil ein Gespenst umgeht in Europa, sondern weil der eigene “Geist des Kapitalismus”, der so marvelos von Weber in seiner Protestantismus-Studie herausgearbeitet wurde, unter mehrfachem Druck steht. Und es herrscht Angst hier in China unter Freunden, die sich nicht mehr so recht in den Westen wagen. Freilich ist die Unsicherheit und die Bedrohung durch Terrorismus ein Problem und die Gefahr des Fundamentalismus darf nicht unterschätzt werden. Und die Ursachen sind vielfältig – soweit sie mit dem Thema Migration zusammenhängen, haben wir dies im wissenschaftlichen Beirat in einer kleinen Arbeitsgruppe des attac-Beirates in den letzten Monaten ausführlich bearbeitet und das Resultat wird bald auf der website irgendwo veröffentlicht (eine andere, kürzere Veröffentlichung ist für die Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik vorgesehen).

Angst aber ist ein schlechter Ratgeber angesichts der anstehenden Probleme – sie führt zur Abschottung und feuert an: führt zu mehr Angst: bei den sich selbst einsperrenden und bei den nun absolut ausgeschlossenen. Angst ist ein schlechter Ratgeber, denn Dialog ist angesagt, der Mut erfordert – und Stärke. Aber wie kann Stärke sich finden, wenn dieses Modell Freiheit – Freiheit ist die Freiheit, dass alle alles konsumieren können – nicht funktioniert?

Wie die Pressemeldung der Partei Die Linke (siehe auch unten) zeigt, findet nun in Kanada der “Ausschluss vom Markt” die politische Fortsetzung – den Ausschluss aus der politische Arena. Rosa Luxemburg  hätte wieder Grund zu fordern:

Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden. Nicht wegen des Fanatismus der »Gerechtigkeit«, sondern weil all das Belebende, Heilsame und Reinigende der politischen Freiheit an diesem Wesen hängt und seine Wirkung versagt, wenn die »Freiheit« zum Privilegium wird.”

Aber dieser Ausschluss ist ja nur Logisch, denn nur wo Freiheit auch Freiheit des Nicht-Konsumbügers ist, kann auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden gesichert sein. Und das bedeutet auch, den gemeinsamen Weg zu suchen – darüber zu sprechen, auch wenn es schwer fällt, und Empathy zu zeigen, auch wenn es nicht schwerer ist.

====

Hier eine Meldung der PDS. Die Linke – sie macht auf eben diesem Tatbestand aufmerksam:

11. August 2016 Judith Benda

Weltsozialforum ist wichtige Plattform für internationalen
Erfahrungsaustausch

Zum in dieser Woche stattfindenden Weltsozialforum im kanadischen
Montreal erklärt Judith Benda, Mitglied im Parteivorstand der LINKEN
und der Europäischen Linken (EL) und Teil der EL-Delegation beim
Weltsozialforum:

“Eine andere Welt ist notwendig: In der aktuellen politischen Lage ist
ein Treffen progressiver und sozialer Bewegungen mit Menschen aus allen
Regionen der Erde wichtiger denn je. Wir müssen linke Antworten finden
auf die vielfältigen Herausforderungen, wie den weltweiten Hunger, die
verschärfte soziale Ungleichheit, Kriege und die voranschreitende
Militarisierung sowie das Erstarken reaktionärer Kräfte in vielen
Ländern. Das Weltsozialforum ist eine wichtige Plattform für den
internationalen Erfahrungsaustausch und zur Entwicklung von Programmatik
und gemeinsamen Aktionen”.

Die Partei der Europäischen Linken (EL) kritisiert die
Einreiseverweigerung der kanadischen Regierung für viele AktivistInnen,
insbesondere aus Afrika und Asien. “Es ist inakzeptabel, dass
AktivistInnen die Teilnahme durch eine restriktive Einreisepolitik
unmöglich gemacht wird. Das Weltsozialforum braucht ganz besonders auch
die Stimme des globalen Südens”.

Die Partei der Europäischen Linken ist an fünf Workshops vor Ort
beteiligt, auf dem Programm stehen zudem Treffen mit der Partei Quebec
solidaire sowie Anti-TTIP und CETA Initiativen.

questions are a knife

In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it. In fact, that was exactly how Sabina had explained the meaning of her paintings to Tereza: on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth showing through.

But the people who struggle against what we call totalitarian regimes cannot function with queries and doubts. They, too, need certainties and simple truths to make the multitudes understand, to provoke collective tears.

….

Kitsch has its source in the categorical agreement with being.
But what is the basis of being? God? Mankind? Struggle? Love? Man? Woman?

Since opinions vary, there are various kitsches: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Communist, Fascist, democratic, feminist, European, American, national, international.

….

Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man’s crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the Creator of man.

From:

“The Unbearable Lightness Of Being” by Milan Kundera

The Limits to Cheating History – Changing the Reference for Accounting

I had been asked by the Academy of Social Sciences of Shanxi Province to write a contribution for their journal – some special challenge not because of the academy but as accounting is surely not my special working area. Still …, well …, challenges are there to be taken up, right?

The aim of the present article is to reflect on accounting in the light of the general developmental perspectives. From here, it will be concluded that accounting is requested to develop new perspectives, opening ways for socially responsible accounting.

The five developmental frictions are fundamentally defining factors in two respects:

(1) with their consideration we will be able to substantialise accounting, assessing it as means that is not neutral

(2) this way the consideration of these ruptures also allows us to see accounting as means that is systematically hiding – or disclosing – mechanisms behind the applied theory of value.

Such perspective highlights not least the need for questioning a fundamental presumption, namely the static perspective that is implicit in accounting. Though being employed with cash, finance, material flows and others, the fact that accounting deals with a given structure – the household – brings about a static perspective of self-referentiality.

I hope you find some inspirations in it.
The English draft document can be found here.
I do not know about possible requests for changes and the document will be translated (poor translator …).

stopover

Franz had consciously sought out death. In his last days, when he was dying and had no need to lie, she was the only person he asked for. He couldn’t talk, but how he’d thanked her with his eyes! He’d fixed his eyes on her and begged to be forgiven. And she forgave him.

What remains of the dying population of Cambodia?
One large photograph of an American actress holding an Asian child in her arms.

What remains of Tomas?
An inscription reading HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.

What remains of Beethoven?
A frown, an improbable mane, and a somber voice intoning Es muss sein!

What remains of Franz?
An inscription reading A RETURN AFTER LONG WANDERINGS.

Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.

(Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

Yes, there is also some academic dimension especially to the last lines, or a dimension to academic work and working in academia. In this perspective it can be seen as characterising academia’s current stage: characterised by self-referentiality and the apparent need to hand control over to administrations or suggested “paradigms excellence” that are caught in confirming what we know, notwithstanding that the reality that we are supposed to analyse is changing and needs changing approaches.

Father …

Received this recently from a friend – and translated it into English language …- it is in German also somewhere on the net…
St Peter is tired and asks Jesus to represent him at the Pearly Gates. Jesus is a bit annoyed and bored anyway – he ought to sit next to God the Father, but so far he has never seen him – well at this stage he knows from St Peter that this actually only happens on Doomsday.
– Jesus begins his work at the gate, somebody knocks. He opens – an old, bearded man stood in front of him. Jesus goes through the Checklist for people aspiring to get into paradise – so he asks, “What have been your achievements on the earth?” – “Well, yes, I am a simple carpenter in the countryside, I always lived modestly and feared God, I am not guilty of any bad deed”. – “That’s good, but really much … so anything else?” – The old man replies: “I have begotten a son, although I do not remember how I managed to do that. This son traveled through the country, he became famous … they published even a book about him, and millions of copies had been sold. … “. While the old man speaks, Jesus is getting increasingly excited, his Adam’s apple jumps up and down, when he looks again and against toehold man: a simple carpenter, a son, over which a book was written, of which millions of copies were sold … Jesus steps back, inspects the old guy : “FATHER?” – the old man raises his head in astonishment, looks at Jesus and scratches his beard: “PINOCCHIO?”

KCK – klatsch, cliché, kitsch

KLATSCH

Klatsch is a German term, though occasionally used in English. And when I first saw the headline
I admittedly clicked on it in a longing for some klatsch, gossip — distraction from the expected, though still worrying news, presenting Trump’s shocking speech of acceptance. Looking at all this development, there are three things that are specially worrying. Two are pointed out in an article in The Financial Times (17/7/2016):
This week, Republicans will endorse the first US presidential nominee since the second world war to reject America’s globalist consensus. It is hard to see beyond that stark fact. Yet it is only the second most troubling feature of Donald Trump’s rise. The bigger one is his impact on the health of American democracy. Even if Mr Trump is defeated in November, it will be hard to put the genie back into the bottle. Budding demagogues will have taken note. You can denigrate most of the people most of the time and still have a shot at the main prize.
The third point, of course not to be found even in the intelligent journals of the bourgeoisie, is that such extremes as Mr Trump make us easily forget the sound criticism of the past  the “health of American democracy”? — Sure, a very sick person appears to be nearly health, of we think about the decaying corpse. But …  I am not really in the American-style Moore films. Still, having recently watched the film
Capitalism, A Love Story
I really liked the beginning, forcing us to ask the question how people in 100, 1000 or more years will think about “our times”. The Trumps, Orbans and Erdogans being comparable with Nero, Cesar and hardly allowing to see the Cicero?

CLICHÉS

Glancing over the article

it showed the perfect match between reality and cliché – even in details:

While Trump family values may not be particularly honorable, they are perversely traditional. Melania Trump told the R.N.C. audience that “Donald is intensely loyal to family,” a claim belied by his own marital history — she is wife No. 3, and No. 2 was the woman with whom he cheated on No 1. Mr. Trump has children with three different women; he blames giving his wife too much responsibility in his business for his first divorce, and his wife’s wanting him to spend too much time at home with her and their daughter for his second.
Yes, hypocrites are not shrinking from slapping into their own face. I remember Milan Kundera about whom I chatted the other day with a friend:

Do you realize that people don’t know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories — and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

KITSCH

If there would not be so much bitterness coming up when thinking about recent events …, recent? Perhaps beginning in some strange way with the day when I left the French embassy in Rome: Charlie Hebdo …, a pilot crashing an aircraft with all passengers into a mountain, not being able to cope with his desperation, a “mysterious coup” in Ankara … – a friend wrote the other day that it is
not something a decent European academic can easily understand and digest
all this easily appears as kitsch – because
[i]n the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it.
It is
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
that comes to mind – in global politics of “the making history”, and also in the daily work of teaching, something I frequently mentioned on these pages.
And when speaking of bitterness it is also the inability of asking questions … – VERBOTEN, as a french friend would say.

REALITIES – THEATRALITIES

There seems to be a paradox when we are looking for answers – we can only find them with others, not searching alone, not moving alone, anti-totalitarian. And still
When I say totalitarian, what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously) ….
as we read also in Kundera’s book.
Doesn’t this mean that we need a radical rewriting of the scenario, instead of the US-lead and Hungarian-regionalist applauded tightening of the reactionary course? A socio-political course that is based on criminal offenses (watch here from the docu The Corporation.), executed by psychopaths (watch here from the docu The Corporation), the political “clowns” only their executors and implementers as we saw it earlier in history.

Attempts and Contributions

My modest contribution to a DIEM-meeting in Greece these days:
The Europe we know is dead – and it worked for a long time to forge the weapon that would work first to dig the grave and then to kill the ambitions. — The ambitions? We have to be careful: the ambitions, as ideas, had beens surely valuable and meant to establish a “good society”. But especially here in Greece, the home-country of Aristotle, we know what a good society really is: he Aristotle juxtaposes chrematistike and oikonomia, only the latter being concerned with a truly integrated system, and with this he refused moneymaking as end in itself.
Talking about oikonomia meant as well to accept the limits of growth.
Europe today – and it did not learn from Greece, not from BREXIT, Nice nor Ankara – is still based on the acceptance of what we may call Capitaloscene. And the following, written by Jason Moore, can capture it:

The decisive historical expression of Cheap Nature in the modern era is the Four Cheaps of labor- power, food, energy, and raw materials. These Four Cheaps are the major way that capital prevents the mass of capital from rising too fast in relation to the mass of appropriated cheap nature – when the delivery of such cheap natures approaches the average value composition of world commodity production, the world-ecological surplus falls and the pace of accumulation slackens. The centrality of cheap nature in the endless of capital can, then, be adequately interpreted only through a post- Cartesian frame that understands value as a way of organizing nature. In this, the law of value is co- produced through the web of life. We cannot make sense of value through a Cartesian sorting of “labor and nature” – commonplace in left green thought (e.g. Clark and York, 2005). Rather, be- cause value relations encompass a contradictory unity of exploitation and appropriation heedless of a Cartesian divide, only an analysis that proceeds from essential unity of humanity-in-nature can move us forward. The present argument, then, is a brief for such a post-Cartesian – I would call it world-ecological – reading of value. The goal is to focus our attention on the relations of the oikeios that form and re-form capitalism’s successive contradictory unities of the exploitation of labor- power (paid work) and the appropriation of a global zone of reproduction (unpaid work) from the family to the biosphere.

And furthermore this capitaloscene is about unpaid labour – only that made paid labour possible. …

Indeed, we need an antroponomic shift: a shift that is not a revival of the old idea. As said, this Europe is dead and we should be ready to burry it. There is a valuable heritage of ideas though and we have to select carefully And  we have to make use of the heritage of an enormous wealth that is available, though not used for the people and projects we need. We have too make “cheaps” a source for the future, valuable and to be paid for. And to accept the limits of growth means that the corpse of the most competitive Europe, celebrated 2000 in Lisbon, has to bear the child of a most cooperative partner in a world that serves the global citizen.

Europe is dead – long live Europe.

Congratulations

Congratulations Mr Trump …. , while living in interesting times, it is a good occasion to remember

“Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

These are the first words, at beginning of the synopsis of the film V for Vendetta:
The film opens with a recitation of these words as a flashback sequence brings us to early 1600’s England. Guy Fawkes is captured and executed for his attempt to blow up Parliament, a plan he hoped would restore Catholic rule to a Protestant throne. …

It is worthwhile to remember ad to watch, indeed even if Mr Trump is not in Britain …

“Interesting times” we may say …

“Interesting times” we may say …

… and we may say that “probably every generation, every era was in its own terms an interesting time” …

but in any case we, at least not all of us can dance it away:

“Frankly speaking I am a bit afraid”

“Ich weiss nicht, wie es weither geht”

“Ho paura!”

Yes, every generation …

****

It may appear to be about details – and these are forgotten, overlooked details – and they are details by way of being

the concrete … [being] concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse.

As such they are part of the long history of imperialism, colonialism ….

Today it is for instance visible in the fact that the 6 richest countries of the world host only 9 % of all refugees.

Old colonialism went fro a kind of crusades, violently occupying foreign territory; the new colonialism presenting itself as “humane” by closing borders; like the old fascism, gasifying people in concentration camps, compared with its modern form of gasifying populations as we learn from the FT-Brussels briefing, Duncan Robinson stating on the 20th of July:

A conspiracy that started in a “cosy hotel” in Brussels ended in the EU’s biggest cartel fine, after the European Commission handed five truck makers a €2.9bn bill. Senior managers from Iveco, DAF, Volvo/Renault, Daimler and MAN fixed prices and delayed the introduction of emissions-reducing technology. MAN’s decision to blow the whistle was the best financial decision the German group has made in years: it dodged a €1.2bn bill as a result.

Back to the obvious colonialisation in its new dress. Indeed, as the OXFAM-media briefing contends

This crisis is far too big for any one country to solve alone. To save and protect lives, governments worldwide must act together and responsibly. In a couple of months the United Nations and US President Obama are holding back-to-back summits in New York to address this unprecedented situation. These summits are opportunities for rich countries to commit to offering refuge to far more refugees than almost all have done to date, and for all countries to improve the way people forced to flee are treated, and provide them with a dignified future.

Thinking about this, we surely have to go beyond the sole “distribution of surplus”, moving as close as possible to production. And though Imagining a New Bretton Woods, is still not much more than a Modest Proposal, it may be one of the first steps towards radicalisaiton …

Furthermore, and importantly mind: … the concrete is part of the solidarity against this system of global exploitation – the weak showing their strength by “giving more than they have themselves”

Community Doctors: A look inside Cuba’s medical scholarship program

****

The idea of inner colonialisation is usually seen in close connection with Rosa Luxemburg – it is, in a nutshell, the idea of the permanent and ongoing “primitive” or “original accumulation” as we know it from instance from Smith and Marx.

And we may think about it by recalling the occupation of the Americas by the White Settlers – the harsh reality that stood behind the kitschy and euphemistic images of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, presented by Karl May – and looking today at their conservative successors – peacefully dumb (sorry for ads – the clip itself is German/English); and aggressively taking over power (sorry for ads – the clip itself is German/English)

****

“Frankly speaking I am a bit afraid”

“Ich weiss nicht, wie es weither geht”

“Ho paura!”

– And there are enough who have good reasons to be afraid – for instance Erdal. Or Thuli Madonsela

And there still is something we, in the jobs of teachers and researchers have to do, resisting the permanent and ongoing inner colonialisation: We cannot take the fear away, but we have to teach about the conditions under which fear develops, searching together for ways to change this reality …

… living trustfulness as matter of accepting the other and supporting confidence – as condition for being active, for resisting

… as matter of Dreaming of a Butterfly becoming possible and true, rising against eagles and vultures …

… this way we may be searching and finding together with others – colleagues and students valuable people, truly acknowledging the value of people.

Value of People

The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.

(Milan Kundera)

It is great meeting them at least occasionally …, and feeling to be allowed to be a human being in this sense …

It is like a good piece of music, coming together…., the experience of play in its truest sense, as we know it from Schiller’s letters –

For …man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays

 

.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Thanks Conny!!

SOLIDAR Weekly Round Up 15-07-2016

Editorial by Conny Reuter, SOLIDAR Secretary General

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

15 July 2016

Yesterday, 14th July, Bastille Day commemorates the French Revolution. Its three principles engraved on every town hall and every public school in France have again been under attack, this time in Nice. What more symbolic day! France is mourning yet again and we express again our solidarity reaffirming that the defense of democracy, of freedom, equality and solidarity, the call for social progress remains the core of our commitment, our compass!

After the Brexit vote, these principles should more than ever lead a value-based debate on European policy.

Liberté is not only a principle of rights, it also means being free from poverty and exclusion. The 125 million people in Europe who live in, or under the threat of, poverty do not have Liberté. How can we get them out of poverty? How can we get the less qualified back into the labour market and into decent work? The EU had – once upon a time – a social agenda, a Lisbon strategy and later it had a Europe2020 strategy. Unfortunately, instead of taking the lead and using the mid-term review of Europe2020 as a basis for action, the Juncker Commission is instead continuing the European semester process, while not working on improvement of the strategy to make it more effective. The news that the ECOFIN Council has decided to send a letter to Spain and Portugal illustrates the main reference to guideline Number 1 of Europe2020: “the vigorous application of the Stability and Growth Pact”. In the interpretation of Schäuble and others, vigorous means vigorous, without taking into account the damage it has on society or without even taking electoral results and referendum results into account. Did the message not get through? This European Union of austerity has been rejected as the majority of citizens do not have the feeling that the EU cares about them.

Egalité. In the last four years the Commission has reported on Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE). We are not all equal. We are still a long way from equal pay for equal work in the same workplace. The gender pay gap is still huge, not to mention the unfair tax system that allows tax evasion and tax havens for the rich. Since 2008 there have been some efforts to tame the financial markets, but these initiatives have been watered down under a Commission President who has now been recruited by the bank responsible for the implosion of the financial markets eight years ago. So much for the the credibility of leaders! Only a handful protested at the publication of this news; at the same time some people in the European Parliament were preparing a report on whether Civil Society Organisations and NGOs should continue to be financially supported by the EU when they are being ‘too critical’ of it.

Fraternité. Competitiveness is the new criterion under which everything is evaluated. The dangerous poison of nationalism is unleashed because there is now also competition between member states in the north and member states in the south. Pensioners in Greece and in Germany are in completely different situations, but both expect the EU to contribute to ensuring the stability and the availability of decent, ‘poverty-preventing’ pensions. And what about the arrival of migrants and refugees? After the wave of solidarity last year, the Balkan route is now closed and people are dying daily in the new ‘Dead Sea’ (i.e. the Mediterranean). There are indeed fewer images on the news but the human loss is immense and it cannot be excused by ignorance. How to strengthen a sense of solidarity (Fraternité) is indeed a challenge, but first the mutual benefits of sharing need to be proven before solidarity can mould our thinking.

This foreword is not a new “J’accuse” in the Emile Zola sense. These are just the thoughts that many of us have who want the EU to progress, but we want an EU with different assumptions. Sustainable economic, social and political development, social investment and social protection for all should be the basis of the EU. We Europeans have to take the lead in the post-Brexit debate. We have to challenge the political leaders and the policy makers in the Institutions to make sure they put people’s concerns first. They should use the momentum for political change that delivers a real safeguarding pillar of social rights, and that translates the Sustainable Development Goals agenda into an ambitious European agenda. They should trust the next generation and promote their skills and competences and deliver on integration and the inclusion of migrants and refugees. Ambitious? Maybe! But still feasible. It is a matter of will. Those who believe that this Europe should first be destroyed and then reconstructed are playing with fire and instead they should learn from history. Reform is not a term of abuse, it is a progressive challenge!

See also Immanuel Wallerstein’s

Commentary No. 429, July 15, 2016: “Bastille Day: France’s Ultra-Confused Present”