Democracy and the eurozone crisis: quotes #1

Reuters/Panayiotis Tzamaros  rtve.es

Only a politically united core Europe offers any hope of reversing the process – already far advanced – of transforming a citizens' democracy built on the idea of the social state into a sham democracy governed by market principles. 

[...]

For the first time in the history of capitalism a crisis triggered by the most advanced sector, the banks, could only be resolved by governments getting their citizens, in their capacity as taxpayers, to stump up for the losses incurred. At this point a barrier between systemic processes and real-life processes was broken down. The citizens are rightly outraged.

The widespread feeling of injustice derives from the fact that faceless market processes have assumed a directly political dimension in the popular perception. This feeling is combined with a sense of rage, suppressed or otherwise, at one's own impotence. To counteract this we need a new politics of self-empowerment.

[...]

 
The people of Europe must learn that they can only preserve their welfare-state model of society and the diversity of their nation-state cultures by joining forces and working together. They must pool their resources – if they want to exert any kind of influence on the international political agenda and the solution of global problems. To abandon European unification now would be to quit the world stage for good.

Only deeper European integration can save the eurozone

Jürgen Habermas, Peter Bofinger and Julian Nida-Rümelin

The Guardian, 09.08.2012

Einspruch gegen die Fassadendemokratie
Original publication in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 03.08.2012

A systemically dark and stormy night: The Crises of Capitalism, by David Harvey

Petros Giannakouris/AP  pixtale.net

David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, gave a talk on the crises of capitalism at the RSA on 26 April 2010; this talk stands out as a substantial contribution to an understanding of the current economic situation. David Harvey questions conventional genres of explanation, and provides a clear, insightful, and much needed, reading of the crisis as a systemic condition of contemporary capitalism. The first video includes his full speech, as well as his answers to questions, while the second one is an example of RSA's production of animated videos of excerpts from the talks it holds. 

The best James Bond film ever

blogs.coventrytelegraph.net

For someone with such a fondness for women, I wonder if you’ve ever considered what it might be like to be one

I don't know if Sam Mendes' Skyfall will be a thinking man's James Bond film; I do, however, know of another project which most certainly is a thinking man's, and woman's, James Bond film: a two minute short commissioned by EQUALS for International Women's Day in 2011. Daniel Craig and Judi Dench reprise their roles as 007 and M respectively; the latter's voice addresses the harsh realities of gender inequality, and most notably the issue of violence against women, while the former remains silent, as he goes through a transformation which speaks louder than words.

Judith Butler’s conceptualisation of gender as performative "establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated" (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, 1990/1999, p. 189). And in this sense, the discursive context combining Judi Dench's critique of inequality, and Daniel Craig's performative subversion of identity, underlines the political character of gender and its representation, including the stereotypes associated with the James Bond franchise.

The film was directed by Sam Taylor-Wood and written by Jane Goldman; the former reflected upon the work in SFGate's City Brights blog as follows:

Bond is challenged by M to think about gender inequality [...] and I hope that the film encourages viewers to do the same. Despite great advances in women’s rights, statistics show that when it comes to the balance of power between the sexes, equality is far from being a global reality. As M reminds Bond, facing up to gender issues and the sometimes covert nature of sexism in the 21st century is something that we all have to recognise, confront and challenge.

Back soon, #2

Hastings, 12.09.2012

Human Rights Watch: investigate allegations of torture in Greece

 Antony Gormley, Critical Mass, 1995  antonygormley.com

Following Maria Margaronis' article in The Guardian, publicising allegations of torture of anti-fascist protesters by the Greek police, Human Rights Watch stated that accountability for abuse by the police is urgently needed, and called on the public prosecutor to act swiftly in order to investigate the case. The organisation said that the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection should also conduct a prompt, thorough, and independent investigation. As Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, argued:

The scenes described by the victims to reporters are deeply shocking. [...] No one should be treated that way by the police. Greece needs to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of their allegations and bring anyone found responsible for mistreating the detainees to justice.

 See also:

Athens: Police 'Physically Abused Anti-Fascist Activists in Collusion with Golden Dawn'

International Business Times

Greek police 'torture' anti-fascist protesters

Avaaz

Demonstranten werfen Polizei Folter vor 

Spiegel
 

Greek police torture anti-fascist protesters

World Socialist Web Site

The Guardian: anti-fascist protesters 'tortured by police' in Greece

Antony Gormley, Blind Light, 2007  Memory

Anti-fascist protesters said that they were subjected to torture and degrading treatment while in custody at the police headquarters in Athens; it was "an Abu Graib-style humiliation," as one of their lawyers put it in Maria Margaronis' article in The Guardian. Her report was pivotal in terms of breaking the silence; although the ill-treatment of anti-fascist protesters was reported by alternative media outlets, and the left-wing party Syriza brought the issue to Parliament, the mainstream media system in the country turned a blind eye. As one of the protestors told The Guardian, "[n]o one will pay attention unless you report these things abroad." 

Furthermore, context matters; the torture and degrading treatment of anti-fascist protesters by the police is reported in an era where a neo-Nazi party has entered Parliament, racist and xenophobic violence by organised groups is on the rise (see Amnesty International's statement and the report by Human Rights Watch), and the Greek authorities round up and detain migrants through discriminatory police operations. In addition, human rights violations by law enforcement officials are systematic rather than isolated incidents, as Amnesty Intenational argued in its report on police violence in July. 

In other words, the country's plight is not simply that its economy is in crisis; democratic guarantees, due process, and human rights are first and foremost at stake. And this makes Maria Margaronis' article in The Guardian all the more important; the full text is as follows:
 

Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) – the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard – and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation.

Members of a second group of 25 who were arrested after demonstrating in support of their fellow anti-fascists the next day said they were beaten and made to strip naked and bend over in front of officers and other protesters inside the same police station.

 A protester shows his injuries

 Bruising on the protester's leg

Several of the protesters arrested after the first demonstration on Sunday 30 September told the Guardian they were slapped and hit by a police officer while five or six others watched, were spat on and "used as ashtrays" because they "stank", and were kept awake all night with torches and lasers being shone in their eyes.

Some said they were burned on the arms with a cigarette lighter, and they said police officers videoed them on their mobile phones and threatened to post the pictures on the internet and give their home addresses to Golden Dawn, which has a track record of political violence.

Golden Dawn's popularity has surged since the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament; it recently came third in several opinion polls, behind the conservative New Democracy and the leftwing party Syriza.

Last month the Guardian reported that victims of crime have been told by police officers to seek help from Golden Dawn, who then felt obliged to make donations to the group.

One of the two women among them said the officers used crude sexual insults and pulled her head back by the hair when she tried to avoid being filmed. The protesters said they were denied drinking water and access to lawyers for 19 hours. "We were so thirsty we drank water from the toilets," she said.

One man with a bleeding head wound and a broken arm that he said had been sustained during his arrest alleged the police continued to beat him in GADA and refused him medical treatment until the next morning. Another said the police forced his legs apart and kicked him in the testicles during the arrest.

"They spat on me and said we would die like our grandfathers in the civil war," he said.

A third said he was hit on the spine with a Taser as he tried to run away; the burn mark is still visible. "It's like an electric shock," he said. "My legs were paralysed for a few minutes and I fell. They handcuffed me behind my back and started hitting and kicking me in the ribs and the head. Then they told me to stand up, but I couldn't, so they pulled me up by the chain while standing on my shin. They kept kicking and punching me for five blocks to the patrol car."

The protesters asked that their names not be published, for fear of reprisals from the police or Golden Dawn.

A second group of protesters also said they were "tortured" at GADA. "We all had to go past an officer who made us strip naked in the corridor, bend over and open our back passage in front of everyone else who was there," one of them told the Guardian. "He did whatever he wanted with us – slapped us, hit us, told us not to look at him, not to sit cross-legged. Other officers who came by did nothing.

"All we could do was look at each other out of the corners of our eyes to give each other courage. He had us there for more than two hours. He would take phone calls on his mobile and say, 'I'm at work and I'm fucking them, I'm fucking them up well'. In the end only four of us were charged, with resisting arrest. It was a day out of the past, out of the colonels' junta."

In response to the allegations, Christos Manouras, press spokesman for the Hellenic police, said: "There was no use of force by police officers against anyone in GADA. The Greek police examine and investigate in depth every single report regarding the use of violence by police officers; if there are any responsibilities arising, the police take the imposed disciplinary action against the officers responsible. There is no doubt that the Greek police always respect human rights and don't use violence."

Sunday's protest was called after a Tanzanian community centre was vandalised by a group of 80-100 people in a central Athens neighbourhood near Aghios Panteleimon, a stronghold of Golden Dawn where there have been many violent attacks on immigrants.

According to protesters, about 150 people rode through the neighbourhood on motorcycles handing out leaflets. They said the front of the parade encountered two or three men in black Golden Dawn T-shirts, and a fight broke out. A large number of police immediately swooped on them from the surrounding streets.

According to Manouras: "During the motorcycle protest there were clashes between demonstrators and local residents. The police intervened to prevent the situation from deteriorating and restore public order. There might have been some minor injuries, during the clashes between residents, protesters and police."

Marina Daliani, a lawyer for one of the Athens 15, said they had been charged with "disturbing the peace with covered faces" (because they were wearing motorcycle helmets), and with grievous bodily harm against two people. But, she said, no evidence of such harm had so far been submitted. They have now been released on bail of €3,000 (£2,400) each.

According to Charis Ladis, a lawyer for another of the protesters, the sustained mistreatment of Greeks in police custody has been rare until this year: "This case shows that a page has been turned. Until now there was an assumption that someone who was arrested, even violently, would be safe in custody. But these young people have all said they lived through an interminable dark night.

Dimitris Katsaris, a lawyer for four of the protesters, said his clients had suffered Abu Ghraib-style humiliation, referring to the detention centre where Iraqi detainees were tortured by US soldiers during the Iraq war. "This is not just a case of police brutality of the kind you hear about now and then in every European country. This is happening daily. We have the pictures, we have the evidence of what happens to people getting arrested protesting against the rise of the neo-Nazi party in Greece. This is the new face of the police, with the collaboration of the justice system."

One of the arrested protesters, a quiet man in his 30s standing by himself, said: "Journalists here don't report these things. You have to tell them what's happening here, in this country that suffered so much from Nazism. No one will pay attention unless you report these things abroad."

Back soon, #1

Hastings, 12.09.2012

Coffee and cigarettes with Gustav Mahler

Photograph: Moritz Nähr, 1907   Wikipedia

Would you spend your coffee break at work listening to Mahler? Well, classical music can be full of surprises. The format of the song may be less common than that of the symphony or the concerto, but lieder, song cycles setting romantic poetry to music, have offered some of the finest moments in the history of the genre. If I was to choose just one example, that would inevitably be Gustav Mahler's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I have lost track of the world), an incredibly emotional piece from his Rückert-Lieder, a song cycle based on the poetry of Friedrich Rückert. The following version features the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, one of the best conductors of our time, and an outstanding Mahler interpreter.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, 

Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben, 

Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen, 

Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben! 

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen, 

Ob sie mich für gestorben hält, 

Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen, 

Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt. 

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel, 

Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet! 

Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel, 

In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied! 

English translation by Emily Ezust

I am lost to the world 

with which I used to waste so much time, 

It has heard nothing from me for so long 

that it may very well believe that I am dead! 

It is of no consequence to me 

Whether it thinks me dead; 

I cannot deny it, 

for I really am dead to the world. 

I am dead to the world's tumult, 

And I rest in a quiet realm! 

I live alone in my heaven, 

In my love and in my song!

glenngould.org

And there is actually a coffee break in which Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen plays a key role; Champagne, the final segment of Jim Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes, begins and ends with this very song, in its 1967 version by Janet Baker. Jarmusch here breaks the conventional barrier between classical music and everyday life, as well as blurs the line separating fantasy and reality, wealth and poverty, sleep and death; I always thought of this bittersweet tale of two aged janitors, played by Bill Rice and Taylor Mead, as the director's most important work.

 Wikipedia

Subway to heaven

 

Hastings, 12.09.2012