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나중에 읽어봐야겠네요. 일단 펌... Wednesday 23rd February 2005 (20h04) : 6th CONGRESS OF THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST REFOUNDATION PARTY : The Alternative of Society (Firs signatory: Fausto Bertinotti) A new political and social cycle The sixth national Conference of our party is taking place in really "extraordinary" times: today in front of us is laid the full challenge of opening up a new political and social cycle, both in Italy and in the rest of Europe. Which means defeating not only the Right, but also the right-wing policies; and coming out, from the Left, from both the crisis of neo-liberal policies and the strategic impotence of left-wing reformism. We fully invest in this opportunity: this is not because we overestimate our capabilities, or those of the movements and of the alternative Left, but because we believe that real processes are increasingly radicalising the alternatives within politics and conflict. If we acknowledge that, in the Right as much as in the Left political landscape, "moderate" spaces are empting up (the objective spaces, not the recurring and permanent subjective tendencies) and that nowadays there’s no space for compromise and "solutions" and not even for mediations of a truly moderate nature, we also have to acknowledge that the radical political subject can play a decisive role, not a minority one, in the realization of this new phase. It is for these reasons that Communist Refoundation’s political and strategic identity is going to be the driving theme of this Conference. In one way, it is a matter of putting on a sound basis all the reflections we have piled up in recent years, by bringing them up to date, as part of a new and collective theoretical awareness. In this sense, the strategic choice is that of basing our political action around the social sphere, around the class conflict and around the movements instead of basing it around the institutions and the relationship with the various political forces; this choice has taken a particular strength because of the strategic decisions we made in the last Conference, decisions we are going to confirm in the next, especially in the light of our experiences within the movements in recent years. In another way, it is essential we create a better connection between our project and our political practice, between our general role and our work within the various struggles, between a growth in accountability and the organised force of the Party, being the latter a structure that is more than ever necessary and irreplaceable. It is for these reasons that, because of their structured and concise nature, we take the contribution of our secretary - the 15 Theses for the Conference - as our most suitable base for a rich, engaging and democratic confrontation resulting in political clarity and transparency. It is a document that, both before and during the Conference, will have to be amended, deepened, enriched, analytically developed and further defined, in the direction of the creation of a final political platform that will be constructed by militants and Party members themselves. Bush and the war The most significant political event in 2004 - George Bush’s victory at the American presidential elections - stands as a confirmation of the state of crisis in which both the neoliberal ideology and its moderate versions (represented in the Usa by a moderate democratic party with a dim appeal) are. In the US, the Right has won not by hiding but by enhancing its warmongering patriotism, which with absolute arrogance claims back America’s imperial mission and pushes through its entire dominant value and social system. Capitalism is now separated from liberal values and adopts instead the pre-modern values of God, Country and Family. This is a reactionary choice that is by all means coherent with the concept of war between civilizations and the new western fundamentalism that comes with it. From this ideology stems the obsession with security, the writing-off or the drastic limitation of all those freedoms, rights and progressive cultures that marked the 20th century. At the same time we are witnessing an attempt to liberalize and privatise common resources - such as public services, health and culture - an attempt that has been met with strong and effective opposition, in Cancun and in the case of the Mercosur treaty, by the antiglobalisation movement. Communist Refoundation has to carry on supporting such opposition. A new, bigger danger for the future of the planet and its people is therefore taking shape, especially in the South of the globe, where however we can also recognise the existence of opposite processes (for example in Latin America). Now more than ever, the struggle for peace must be the utmost priority, in Iraq, in the Middle East, in Palestine, in Africa. The invasion, two years of military occupation, a puppet-government and promises of a farcical election are destroying Iraq and deeply worsening the crisis in the area. It is for this reason that the withdrawal of all foreign troops, starting from the Italian ones - a request always supported by the alternative Left and the pacifist movement - is an absolutely necessary condition for building peace and starting a process of democratic transition. In this context, the summoning of a global conference for peace, with the participation of all the key players in the conflict, including the representatives of the internal resistance, could represent an important step forward. Europe Also in Europe we are witnessing the progressive deterioration of the "Third Way" routes, both from the political and the socio-economical point of view: in this sense Europe is really at a crossroad. We can either ‘Americanise’, or, on the contrary, we can enhance the achievements determined by the struggles and the movements in our civilization, turning such achievements into the basis of the European framework and therefore determining our autonomy and political identity. The ruling class today - in France, Germany and Spain in particular - is clearly trying to avoid making this kind of decision, by choosing international policies of strong independence from the US, but also by pursuing the goal of an Atlantic partnership and that of a European military force. This is a substantially deceptive project: a real European political autonomy cannot be realized without Europe distancing itself from the North-American social model. The governments that deservingly managed to oppose the war, in their own national contexts are demolishing their Welfare system and its historical framework of rights and guarantees. It is not a chance that we are presented with proposals like the "Bolkenstein directive" and that the governments have unanimously passed a proposal for an European Constitution which legitimises the supremacy of the market and drives out of the European identity values such as peace and rights. In this way the European Union will never be able to positively overcome the uncertainties regarding its identity and role. We therefore propose a mass campaign against the Treaty, which will be carried out in all the platforms and establishments, starting obviously from the parliamentary ones. It is a political and cultural struggle, which will have to be articulated through a vast array of people with the most effective means. The only alternative is that of the ‘other’ Europe that gives space to the initiatives of the movements, to the growth of the social and collective struggle and to the mobilization of non-homologated intellectuality. The creation of the Party of the European Left, in these respects, is the new subject, in the European political framework, in which Communist Refoundation has and will increasingly invest an essential part of its work and identity: the unification of the different subjects and alternative instances that operate in Europe is essential for defeating the ‘Americanisation’ and for the creation of institutions which can engage in dialogue with the entire anti-globalisation movement. A EU of peace, inclusion, social solidarity, universal citizenship and secular democracy: without a strong Left, it will not be possible to create such a EU. On the basis of this belief we propose to adopt as a symbol for our party the one employed for the European elections, in order to fully endorse the strategic choices of the European Left. The Party During the last three years, Communist Refoundation has gained a central role in politics, in the movements and in the Italian society, broadly winning the challenge of its political survival and strategic ‘necessity’. From this acknowledgement - which comes from a broad area of the Left and often even from our opponents - we must start a serious and deep reflection on the Party. There is a growing difficulty to be really a Party, to satisfy the rich array of requests posed on us, to create and nurture a collective subject which appreciates women’s practices and gender difference, to create a ‘We’ in which different genres, generations, political cultures and experiences can recognise themselves. Such difficulties rise not only from our subjective limitations, which exist and can be of a serious nature: they are rooted in the more general climate of difficulty in which all the structured political entities - from the most ancient, the parties, to the most recent, the movements and associations - are living in at the moment. Voluntaristic appeals and calls to the traditions of the workers movement are not enough. The proposals of innovation and of organizational sperimentation are not enough either, as they have trouble in translating themselves in systematic practices. Much more is needed to relaunch the Party from its Circles to its Federations, a systematic research and discussion about what we are and what we want to become is needed and has to be analysed thoroughly. For this urgent objective we propose to hold, within the end of 2005, a national Organizational Conference. 15 Theses for the Conference 1 The real novelty at the beginning of the present century is the rise of new movements and their capability to connect to each other in a collective trajectory. This novelty addressed the whole world to a new possibility of transformation. The PRC capability lies in understanding the nature of such movements and in preparing itself to collect the resources they have put into motion in order to contribute, also by changing its own politics, to the construction of a general idea of reforming politics and the relationship between social actors and politics. At the same time the failure of capitalist globalisation has emerged more and more disruptingly, and not only in a temporal dimension. Both elements objectively highlight the transformation of capitalist society as an urgent issue. This issue is also subjectively highlighted by the growth in movements’ consciousness, which can be so formulated as the social forums have done: "another world is possible". So the problem is posed, but it still needs to get solved. Also another scenario has been opened: the exacerbation of the economic and social crisis and the precipitation of war into a clash of civilisations. Uncertainty dominates our age. The option "socialism or barbarism" is not out of our age. 2 In Italy the PRC obtained important results at the European and local elections. Its overall political project has been appreciated: that is the strategic choice of being a part of the movement, its policy of opening to both political and social oppositions in general, and the construction of an alternative left, innovation of politics and subjects of politics, innovation of culture and practical theory of the workers’ movement. This accumulation, which has to be considered a heritage acquired by the whole party, is now the basis for a further development of refoundation. This success has been achieved in a situation where the attempt to give a steady answer from the right to the instability of the Italian political system has burst into a crisis. This attempt focussed on the complex neo-conservative phenomenon which has been called "Berlusconism". For this crisis there are both objective reasons - major international tendencies due to the failure of capitalist globalisation and the impulse given by the growth of movements. For these reasons the Berlusconi project failed. In Italy, too, a completely new social and political phase has started and removing Berlusconi would not be enough to cope with it. We need, instead, to tackle the causes which led him to his success. The problem is building an alternative society. We have to rewrite the material constitution of the country after the neoliberal devastation. 3 In the meanwhile the ideological basis and overall model of neoliberal economic and social politics have fallen into a crisis, while neoliberalism tries new ways to break through and to impede the development of a new politics. The fresh version of neoliberalism lies behind the survival of the corporation, as a "realistic" solution. That is, after dismissing great promises, the state of necessity is proposed. According to this, crises should be considered objective facts and needs - as imposed by international competition - which are out of question. The aim is to lower standards of rights, working and bargaining conditions under the blackmail of competitiveness. This is an insidious attack because it hides itself behind a real as well as palpable reality in which the blackmail on workers aims at destabilizing politics and at reversing the unions’ role in negotiating worse conditions for working people and employment. In this way, starting from the corporation up to the whole system of social relationships, labour and welfare laws, the principal goal is to abolish collective bargaining. This offensive is the material basis on which the neo-centrist political project lies, that is a soft way out of the crisis of the right wing and Berlusconism without even questioning the fundamental inspiration of neoliberal policies. 4 This new neoliberal offensive claims to be an overall proposal ready to involve a wide range of moderate forces - both parties and unions, and an effective action against it cannot be based on defensive terms or organised individually and separately. In order to defeat this project political and social opposition needs a quality leap. Main actors with this task have to be the several articulations of the lefts committed to the project for an alternative, unions which have planned and practised a new autonomy from government and Confindustria (the Italian employers’ confederation), movements and social struggles activists at workplace and elsewhere. These subjects, together, have to bring about a joint action able to make the process of movements’ unification alive and visible. They need to work on an overall movement project to reform Italian society. To do this, we have to work on gathering critical experiences, labour struggles, local and municipal struggles. Only through a connection to the movement of the movements, to the anti-war movement, to social and labour struggles can an effective opposition rise, and together with it an alternative to the new challenge of neoliberalism, and moreover can a rebirth of politics - now and here - take place. 5 A phase of total instability has started. Politics is crisscrossed by two opposite tendencies: the one towards a possible rebirth and the other towards eclipse. Democracy is in a profound crisis, which is so serious that even the notion of people’s sovereignty may be invalidated. We may face a future without democracy. In the world, in Europe, in Italy the political phase keeps being marked by this crisis and both outlets are possible. The European elections, too, demonstrated a deep malaise and mistrust of political systems, beside a growing opposition to governments. This crisis does not only affect institutions but also masses, who are moved by both a desire to reclaim politics and a drive towards a way out of politics, the second option being a sort of exodus from politics which had separated itself from everyday life. 6 During the great and terrible twentieth century masses went into politics through class struggle and great emancipation experiences, the greatest ever occurred so far, were produced. But, at the same time, during the twentieth century hideous tragedies took place - World Wars, fascisms and nazism up to the Auschwitz horror). The workers’ movement has been the great main actor of the 20th century, but it was defeated mainly because of the failure of those post-revolutionary societies in which the aspirations for liberation that determined its rise turned into forms of dramatic oppression. Therefore, criticism towards Stalinism is not simply criticism towards a degeneration of those systems but towards a hard nucleus leading to that outcome and this is the reason why this criticism is the requisite element for the construction of a new idea of communism and the way to build it. Now recent movements experiences, new social practices and the reflection developed through them, allow the construction of a criticism towards power, which - also through a non violence option as a guideline for collective action here and now - contributes to the search of a new idea and practice of politics as a current process of transformation and liberation. So the political agenda now includes the possibility of a leftist way out of the twentieth century defeat and the workers’ movement crisis. Then, we can work on building a new workers’ movement. A communist refoundation, horizon of our research and experimentation, finds a founding ground in this challenge. 7 The contest has become dramatic. The state of permanent war is nurtured by the very nature of capitalist globalisation. Unlike what they had promised - that is dissolution of conflicts - it produces instability through the aggravation of inequality in the world, the concentration of riches and the exacerbation of conflicts. Instead of the promised growth, it produces a crisis. Even competition becomes destructive. The pre-emptive war is a system by which an imperial solution to this instability is sought for. But the result is fresh and deeper instability which is met by further exacerbation of war according to the permanent war doctrine. War nourishes terrorism which is war’s child and brother. This terrorism manifests itself as a project elaborated in autonomy from politics and it is - in the same way as war is - our irreducible and repulsive adversary for the means it uses and the ends it propagandizes. The Bush administration imperial war is an indefinite and infinite war and Iraq is an acid test for it. Its further development would be a war of civilisations. 8 Peace is the terrain for a rebirth of politics because it expresses the primary need of the present age. Peace has to be pursued not as a mere absence of war, but so as to build a new world by breaking the imperial domination and by defining, instead, new international scenarios based upon autonomy, dialogue, different social and cultural relationships. Not only is it wrong, but also illusory to think of building a new order, as it occurred in the past, through the creation of a balance based on military power. The fundamental lever for this challenge is the new peace movement as a disarmed and disarmament force, as another world power which moved into politics to protest against war and its logic, to build - instead - an alternative civilisation. This great novelty points out the need for building a new organised political subject capable to meet these new demands and let them influence economic, social and state relationships. This is the founding ground for another Europe in which the discovery of this mission could take Europe back to its roots to implement an economic, social and cultural model alternative to neoliberalism and war. Europe’s autonomy and independence from the US could lie on this. The European Left Party, of which we are both co-promoters and co-founders, wants to be a tool to pursue this aim. 9 The building of the new political subject for transformation is the crucial issue for a leftist way out of the crisis of politics and the workers’ movement crisis. To accomplish this task we need to shift the political focus from institutions and parties to society and movements, that is from representation to direct organisation of life and social relationships. The fundamental element of the nature of capitalist globalisation is precarity and casualisation. Precarity is becoming a general condition deciding on working time and leisure, production and social relationships, deeply penetrating in society in the attempt to even modify living organisms. The imposed changes - the restoring of new capitalism on labour on the one hand, and the nature of the new movements on the other - suggest a fresh alliance between experiences demanding a liberation of waged labour - labour conflict - and experiences demanding a liberation from waged labour - reclaiming of collective goods free from commodification, reclaiming and establishing of market-free relationships and activities, appreciation of the environment and connection to local areas). This new alliance would allow the participation of critical experiences and cultures as decisive elements to build an alternative. Ecologism expresses a criticism towards "pro-development" models even in their moderate version referring to "sustainable development". Feminism is a fundamental contribution to an idea of society and social relationships based on the appreciation of difference and the individual, and on opposition to sexism and scientist domination on bodies and living organisms. Pacifism and the several non-violent practices build a network of relationships opposing the domination of profit and power. This theoretical research and this extensive political work in society producing original experiences are the fundamental basis for building an alternative left in which all the forces interested in that research - no matter where they are located - might engage themselves. Time has come for the alternative left to play a new major role in Italy and in Europe. 10 Building democracy of participation and conflict is the framework for this research. And, actually, the very progressive nature of the Italian constitution is under attack. This attack is occurring in several forms: article 11 - according to which Italy rejects war as a resolution for international conflicts - has been removed in practice; the issue of migrants, decisive for future society, has been reduced to an issue of public security; the anti-fascist nature of the Italian constitution also risks being removed; the fundamental universalist nature of social security services and recognition of rights at a national level are undermined; the parliament is voided. So an idea of halved democracy is being imposed, a democracy functional to the neoliberal model, subject to the domination of the market, therefore inert and ultimately useless. Building participatory democracy where the movements’ critical demands are to be turned into a political and programmatic left alternative, is the fundamental challenge we are facing. Democracy - as a propulsive force of participation and peace, as the building of new social and state relationships, plays a major role in the rebirth - here and now - of a process to transform capitalist society. 11 The problem of participation in government for an alternative force in a European country has to be considered within this framework. The criticism towards the taking of power and power itself, too, does have consequences in the way of conceiving government and government participation. In our strategy government is not a value in itself, instead, it is a variable depending on the phase. That is, government is not the goal or the outlet for alternative politics, but it can be a necessary step. In Italy this necessity rises from a precise political phase: the urgent need to defeat Berlusconi’s government and to build an alternative to it. For this reason we today take on the goal of a coalition of forces to give rise to a programmatic government alternative in which the PRC and the left alternative forces as a whole play a major role. We call this ‘democratic coalition’ so as to define its primary goal: to build democracy and participation. Building participatory democracy is not only a question of method. It is also a first basis for a reforming programme. The autonomy of critical or socially active subjects is no longer a movements’ and social organisations’ prerogative of protection from their alienation; instead, it has now become a possible engine of the whole reforming process and for this reason it has to become a fundamental issue in the government’s alternative programme. This is the first necessary reform: reform of politics and of the very idea of government. An important part of this reform is also the achievement of a strategic autonomy of the alternative left and, with it, of the PRC from the government, in which the PRC may possibly be a part according to the level of agreement on programmes reached by all forces opposing the Berlusconi government. To do this the PRC and the alternative left also have to be capable of going through a government experience to meet the movements’ qualitative growth and the possibility of unfolding a wider, complex and long-lasting political action in society in order to implement the most ambitious programme at this stage. Our goal is the denial of a sort of a ‘pendulum law’, according to which when the lefts are in the opposition, they raise hopes and expectations, which are disappointed when they form a government. In this way they spread mistrust of politics in large masses and create conditions for a comeback of the conservative forces. 12 At this stage the fundamental features of a government programme has to be: breaking with the Berlusconi government policies, building a real alternative and opening a way through which movements’ autonomy and class conflict can achieve new spaces for society transformation. Right from the beginning an alternative programme has to convey the country an unambiguous message and urge all reforming energies to mobilisation. It has to focus on three guidelines. First, to engage Italy at an international level for peace against war and terror, starting from withdrawing the Italian troops from Iraq to stop the Iraq war and to build a peaceful Europe in the world, favourable to co-operation between north and south and dialogue between religions and civilisations. In Italy the Berlusconi government policies and the crisis in the social cohesion they have produced, are a hurdle impeding change and the start of a new course. Therefore, a reclaiming action in the civil, economic and social terrain is an indispensable pledge. The need for the abrogation of laws such as the one on labour market flexibility (Law 30), on immigration (Bossi-Fini Law), the one restructuring the education system (Moratti Law) and on artificial fertilisation, demonstrates the necessity and the strength of this political operation. But a programme aiming at meeting society expectations of change has to qualify from the point of view of the new order to establish in Italy to make it able to plan its future. The reforms opening the way to an innovation of the overall model of society organisation, are reforms breaking with the neoliberal cycle. These can be focused on four major axes: appreciation of labour and redistribution of income in favour of wages, salaries and pensions, introduction of a social wage and policies attacking revenues; achievement, qualification and extension of individual and collective rights so as to define a new universal social citizenship, respect for the individual and systems of guarantees and protection for all people; creation of collective goods to reclaim from the market logic through a public appreciation of the environment, local areas and culture; new public intervention in the economy from programming to organisation of factors innovating the economic and social model. 13 The programme for an alternative society cannot be reduced to a government programme, not even the most advanced. It has to be thought as a programmefor a phase projected in a future perspective and lying on a discourse on Italian capitalism within a European framework: that is, the discourse on the decline of a ruling class who gave up planning the future, and who turns to the variety of neo-liberal lessons so as to be able to float in crises and adapt to them strictly. Such a phase programme focuses on the visions of another Europe, and of another Italy, that is, how we see it in ten-fifteen years within the other possible world pursued by the movement of change. In this overall sense of building an alternative society, the programme does not only lie - and yet we know how even this can be difficult - in fixing programmatic options for a government alternative to the right wings. It also requires the elaboration of a political project and the construction of a process for transformation in which the relationship with the movements’ development is the main lever, even though not enough, yet. This is the research we have begun. What we propose, from now, is the horizon of this path. Its starting point can be the horizon of a phase programme for those forces of change all over Europe and in any European country, which has to include - at this stage of capitalist development - the high ambition of equality. This has to be fulfilled by immediately breaking and reversing a tendency to increase inequalities - which is the feature of the new capitalist cycle - in order to define binding steps towards equality between individuals and a radical change in class relationships. Two strategic goals have to fulfil this perspective: the achievement of full employment and universal citizenship for men and women, both natives and migrants. The latter has to lie on the implementation of a framework of social, civil and cultural rights and guaranteed access to collective goods which anyone is entitled to. In short, a new supranational welfare state. Waged labour - in any existing form, both traditional and new - should be able to achieve a new statute of democracy, power and freedom through the supranational welfare state and within a tendency towards a globalisation of class conflicts. Working people should be able to gain - against the tendency in the past two decades - a new stage in the process of liberation through an appreciation of cognitive and creative elements, both direct and indirect, now contained in labour, and a generalisation - even if in different degrees - of the direct ones. We need to pursue the achievement of some self-government in working performance and in the relationship between working time and leisure. We have to gain some ‘rigidity’ through which new forms of social control and direct, participatory democracy could be established in order to satisfy individual and collective needs. This research on the struggles’ field and as well as the research on the subject of change, i.e. the new workers’ movement, can serve as midwives of the alternative left in Italy and in Europe. 14 The alternative left has to be built by doing and on doing, out of any temptation of finding a solution in some sort of an assemblage of political party classes on the left of the listone* (Electoral alliance between Democrats of the Left, the Daisy grouping (Margherita) and SDI, Democratic Socialists). We have to refer to a different subjects’ framework as well as to a different political ambition. We propose the establishment of places where common experiences of political work can develop on a regular basis: committees, clubs, associations, self-governed organisations at any level throughout Italy, and in places of conflict and social experimentation. We propose to self-call a national assembly to let those experiences exchange their views. This assembly should gather those who feel such a need and have experience in movements, which has become a common experience: parties, components of parties, trade unions, movements, representatives of participatory local governments, associations, committees, single individuals who should connect to each other in a mutual and equal recognition in order to define a shared trajectory for a unitary action and a common political project. We propose an open and shared call of a constituent assembly of the alternative left. Time is ripe but not endless. We have to organise availability, commit our will to that choice and address anyone interested in it. We are ready to accomplish this. 15 Communist Refoundation is a fundamental partner in this project and is among its main actors. This can be possible not only because of its militant and electoral strength and its articulated, widespread presence in society. First of all, this is possible because we play an active role in conflicts, are capable of grasping the great novelty within the movements of the present century, and have developed a close relationship with them - by knowing how to innovate our own culture and political proposal. In difficult years, during which any idea of transformation seemed to have vanished from the spectrum of possibilities, Communist Refoundation has left research, political and cultural action open. Building an alternative left enables us to go beyond and reopen politics to an overall process of social transformation, in which it can play a major role again. What is at stake is not Communist Refoundation’s life and its political and cultural autonomy, which is out of question. It is, instead, the possibility to make a real qualitative leap, as we have begun doing in Europe with the foundation of the European Left Party. For this reason a real and deep party reform in the sense of opening and experimenting new forms of aggregation and relationship, is a fundamental issue in the way towards a refoundation. Many of us can share this challenge. Translation by Carolina Stupino, Circolo "Karl Marx" London (Prc U.K. branch) by : Fausto Bertinotti Wednesday 23rd February 2005

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영국 SWP 기관지 '사회주의 노동자'(2005년 3월 26일 판)에서 퍼 옵니다. Guatemalan protesters take to streets over Cafta trade deal 과테말라 시위대들이 중미자유무역협정에 반대해 거리시위를 하다. Police in Guatemala have shot dead two protesters and wounded others during a demonstration against a new trade agreement. The men were killed on Tuesday of last week, following six days of mass protest. 새 무역협정에 반대한 시위 도중 과테말라 경찰이 시위대 두 사람을 총으로 싸 죽이고 다른 몇사람들은 총상을 입혔다. 그 사람들은 6일간의 대중 시위 뒤인 지난 주 화요일에 살해되었다. The police, backed by the army, used live ammunition as well as water cannons and tear gas to drive protesters off a road in Huehuetenango, a highland region 180 miles north of the capital, Guatemala City. 군대가 뒷받침하고 있는 경찰은 수도인 과테말라시에서 북쪽으로 180마일 떨어진 고지대인 우에우에테낭꼬에서 시위대들을 도로에서 쫒아내려고 물대포 및 최루탄뿐만 아니라 실탄까지도 사용하였다. Thousands of indigenous farmers, students and trade unionists have protested against the planned trade deal, known as Cafta, which will draw several Central American states into a free trade area with the US. 수천명의 원주민 농민들, 학생들, 노조원들은 정부가 계획하고 있는 카프타(중미 자유무역협정)으로 알려진 무역협정에 대해 반대해 시위를 벌였는데, 이 협정은 중미 국가들을 미국과 자유무역협정으로 묶을 예정이다. Small farmers in the country fear that their markets will be swamped with cheap US agricultural products. Many people will be denied access to life-saving drugs as new patent laws, designed to protect powerful drugs multinationals, come into effect. 시골의 소농들은 값싼 미국 농산물로 자신들의 시장이 넘쳐날 것을 두려워한다. 많은 사람들은 힘센 다국적 제약회사들을 보호하게 될 새 특허법이 발효가 되면 생명을 살리는 [전통] 약품들을 이용하지 못하게 될 것이다. Protesters are demanding a referendum on the Cafta deal and also calling for the resignation of the interior minister and the chief of police. Following the killings they vowed to carry on protesting against the trade deal. 시위대들은 카프타 체결에 대해 국민투표를 요구하고 있고 또한 내무부장과과 경찰청장의 사임을 요구하고 있다. [경찰에 의한 시위대] 살해가 있고 나서 그들은 계속해서 무역협정에 반대해서 투쟁을 할 것이라고 공언하였다. Similar protests took place in neighbouring Honduras when the government signed up to the Cafta deal a month ahead of schedule. 유사한 시위가, 계획보다 한 달 먼저 정부가 카프타협정에 사인하면서, 인접 국가인 온두라스에서도 벌어졌다. Trinidad Sanchez, director of an organisation connected to Christian Aid, said, “We have raised our voice to denounce the danger that comes with this free trade agreement. '크리스챤 에이드'와 연관된 조직의 책임자인 크리니닫 산체스는 "우리는 이 자유무역협정으로 초래될 위험을 비판하는 데 우리의 목소리를 높였다"고 말했다. “This is going to increase unemployment. It is going to increase the crisis of food security in the country. It is going to make health and education less accessible for the people in Honduras. And this is not only for Honduras, but for the whole of Central America.” "이 협정은 실업을 증대시킬 것이다. 그것은 이 나라의 식량 주권의 위험을 증대시킬 것이다. 그것은 온두라스 민중들에게 의료와 교육에 대한 기회를 감소시킬 것이다. 그리고 이런 현상은 온두라스뿐만 아니라 중미 전체에게도 마찬가지일 것이다" Guatemala was the third country to sign up to the agreement, following Honduras and El Salvador. Protests are likely to spread to other countries in the region as Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua discuss signing up. 과테말라는 온두라스와 엘살바도르에 이어 이 협정을 조인할 세 번째 나라였다. 파나마, 코스타 리카, 니카라과가 협정체결을 논의하고 있어서 시위는 이 지역 다른 나라로 확산될 것으로 보인다.

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최근 미 연준 의장 그린스펀이 의원들에게 미 재정적자가 지속불가능하다고 경고하고 이를 해결하기 위해 사회보장을 삭감하라는 조언을 한 적이 있습니다. 부시가 단행하고 그린스펀도 동의한, 부자들에게 그 혜택이 주로 돌아간 막대한 세금삭감을 다시 환원하는 방법은 경제에 안좋다고 하면서...

그런데 크루그먼은 재정적자가 이렇게 커진 것을 공화당과 부시가 원했다고 하네요. 이를 빌미로 사회보장과 의료보장을 축소하려 하고 있지요. 이게 '맹수 굶기기'론이라 하네요. 어떻든 정부싸이즈를 줄이고 이를 민간에게 이전하겠다(부시정부는 사회보장의 일부를 개인들이 투자할 수 있도록 하겠다고 했지요! 부시가 이를 오너 소사이어티, 즉 소유자 사회라 했던가요?)는 부시정부의 신념은 확고한 데가 있는 것 같기도 하네요. 문제는 이 과정에서 사회보장 혜택이 대폭 줄어든다는 것이 폭로되었고, 그래서 미국민들 다수가 이에 반대하고 있나 봅니다. 그래서 결국 세금 삭감 등으로 재정적자를 일부러 늘리고 이를 빌미로 사회보장을 축소하려는 '맹수 굶기기' 시나리오는 관철되기 어려울 것으로 크루그먼은 예측하네요. 결국 그린스펀이 예상하는 재정위기 가능성이 있는 것이고 이런 사태는 불편부당한 이미지와는 반대로 공화당과 부시를 줄곧 편들어온 그린스펀의 사기때문에 초래되었다고 맹공을 퍼붇고 있네요. 그리고 이 위기의 현실화는 이제껏 적자를 메꿔주던 외국자본이 재정적자 감축 프로젝트가 실패로 돌아갈 것을 알아채고 철수를 할 때이겠지요.

 

March 4, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Deficits and Deceit

By PAUL KRUGMAN

our years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.

On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?

When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.

To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."

Until the 1970's conservatives tended to be open about their disdain for Social Security and Medicare. But honesty was bad politics, because voters value those programs.

So conservative intellectuals proposed a bait-and-switch strategy: First, advocate tax cuts, using whatever tactics you think may work - supply-side economics, inflated budget projections, whatever. Then use the resulting deficits to argue for slashing government spending.

And that's the story of the last four years. In 2001, President Bush and Mr. Greenspan justified tax cuts with sunny predictions that the budget would remain comfortably in surplus. But Mr. Bush's advisers knew that the tax cuts would probably cause budget problems, and welcomed the prospect.

In fact, Mr. Bush celebrated the budget's initial slide into deficit. In the summer of 2001 he called plunging federal revenue "incredibly positive news" because it would "put a straitjacket" on federal spending.

To keep that straitjacket on, however, those who sold tax cuts with the assurance that they were easily affordable must convince the public that the cuts can't be reversed now that those assurances have proved false. And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth."

Really? America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?

O.K., enough about Mr. Greenspan. The real news is the growing evidence that the political theory behind the Bush tax cuts was as wrong as the economic theory.

According to starve-the-beast doctrine, right-wing politicians can use the big deficits generated by tax cuts as an excuse to slash social insurance programs. Mr. Bush's advisers thought that it would prove especially easy to sell benefit cuts in the context of Social Security privatization because the president could pretend that a plan that sharply cut benefits would actually be good for workers.

But the theory isn't working. As soon as voters heard that privatization would involve benefit cuts, support for Social Security "reform" plunged. Another sign of the theory's falsity: across the nation, Republican governors, finding that voters really want adequate public services, are talking about tax increases.

The best bet now is that Mr. Bush will manage to make the poor suffer, but fail to make a dent in the great middle-class entitlement programs.

And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

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부시의 외교정책이 후퇴를 할 것이고, 군부-니오콘은 약화될 것이고, 이라크에서 선거로 새정부(알 하킴이 수상이 될 것?)가 세워진다고 해도 민족주의적 성향을 보일 것이고, 부시는 북한 이란 등에 대해서도 암묵적으로 무능을 인정했고, 쿠바 러시아 중국 등과 대립각을 세울 수도 없을 것이고, 이런 상황에서 영리하고 원칙에 충실하지 않는 부시는 불리한 게임을 하려 하지 않을 것이다, 그래서 미국헤게모니의 약화의 공백을 여러 준비되지 않은 세력들의 불안정한 경쟁이 채울 것이다, 부시가 2001년 집권했을 때 미국은 이미 헤게모니가 약화하고 있었고 부시정부는 이를 더욱 악화시켰는데 부시 2기는 이 어리석은 정책의 부정적인 결과를 감수해야 할 것이라는 취지의 글이네요.

미국과 부시의 후퇴를 너무 쉽게 예측하고 있는 것은 아닌가 하는 생각이 드네요. 헤게모니 후퇴를 막기 위한 미국이나 부시정부의 강공과 온갖 무리수가 동원될 수도 있지 않을까요?  힘센놈들은 무리수인줄 알면서도 무리수를 쓰기도 하잖아요. 거함은 쉽게 가라않지 않을 거란 이야기죠. 암튼 참고하십시요.

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Comment No. 152, January 1, 2005

"Bush and the World: The Second Term"

George W. Bush has been reelected for a second term of four years. It is rather certain what policy he will pursue on the U.S. domestic scene, since he has announced it clearly. He will push for further tax cuts. He will seek to privatize as much of the social security system as he can. He will appoint only judges who will reflect his conservative values, both on economic and social matters. He will seek to dismantle as much environmental legislation as possible. He will seek to strengthen the authority of the government in all police investigations and prosecutions. In short, he will pursue a classic rightwing agenda.

What remains much more obscure is what he intends to do in foreign policy, and this for one very simple reason. On the one hand, during his first term his administration committed itself strongly to a particular foreign policy - that of unilateral pre-emptive action whenever and wherever it felt like. On the other hand, this foreign policy has not been very successful, not only in the eyes of its critics at home and elsewhere in the world, but even in the eyes of many of its faithful supporters. There is turmoil in the ranks of the Bush partisans, which can be observed in the recent flurry of demands by certain major conservative figures for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld combined with the immediate support Rumsfeld received from others, including the president himself. Rumsfeld simply exemplifies these policies.

What can we expect now? There are actually two questions here. Will the second Bush administration pursue the identical foreign policy as the first? And, to the extent that it changes, how will the rest of the world react?

The most immediate question is Iraq. The number one political priority of the U.S., as we enter 2005, is holding Iraqi elections in the end of January. But why is this so important? In the first place, it is important to the U.S. in order to show that these elections can be held at all, despite the attacks of the insurgents. Secondly, it is important because the U.S. fears that, if they weren't held, they would be blamed by the Ayatollah al-Sistani, who might then shift his position from one of prudent distance from the U.S. to one of active hostility. Thirdly, it is important because the U.S. hopes to be able to shift the political/military battle in Iraq from one in which it is Iraqi insurgents versus the U.S. to one in which it is Iraqi insurgents versus a legitimate elected Iraqi government. But fourthly, it is important because it is seen as the essential prerequisite to a reduction of the number of the U.S. troops in Iraq. Of course, there are others who also anxiously want these elections - the interim Iraqi government and the mainstream Shia parties in particular.

So, elections will almost certainly be held - amidst continuing and probably escalating violence and amidst a high rate of abstentionism, especially in Sunni areas. But what will happen then? We shall probably see a new government with Ayatollah Sayed al-Hakim, the leader of the main Shia party (SCIRI), as Prime Minister. Depending on how the elections actually go and the behavior of al-Hakim, this government may or may not start with some minimal acceptance as a national government. The insurgency will almost surely continue, however, charging that the new government is a U.S. puppet. And the new Iraqi government will sooner or later have to choose between continuing to pursue the overtly pro-American policy of Iyad Allawi and adopting a nationalist line more consonant with the demands of the Iraqi people. One does not have to be a Middle East expert to suspect that sooner or later the new Iraqi government will opt to be more nationalist, in order first of all to be more legitimate.

The pressure on the U.S. to withdraw its troops will then be coming from three sides: from the insurgents, from the new Iraqi government, and from public opinion at home. Within the U.S., all the polls indicate that more and more people feel that the price the U.S. is paying in soldiers killed and wounded and in the costs of war are simply too high. The U.S. is at the beginning of an isolationalist reaction. And since isolationism has always had a strong hold within the Republican party, we shall begin to see the president's own supporters pushing for troop withdrawal.

There is no doubt that there are others within the Bush administration such as the militarists and the neo-cons - the two are not identical, by any means - who will fight this tendency bitterly. But this camp is much weaker than it was in 2003. So we may get a big swing in U.S. foreign policy. What we will not get is the modulated middle position of "multilateralism" dear to the heart of Colin Powell and to the first President Bush's advisors like Brent Scowcroft, and dear as well to the leaders of the more conservative wing of the Democratic Party (such as Senators Biden and Lieberman).

What happens vis-a-vis Iraq will presage all the rest of the Bush foreign policy. It is already the case that Bush has pulled back on North Korea and Iran to a position of tacit recognition of impotence. The Bush team is huffing and puffing, but they know there is very little they can do. They would be happy to see renewed negotiations between Israel and Palestine, which Blair is trying his best to push, but the U.S. will merely go along with such developments rather than be their prime promoter. These renewed negotiations are in any case not likely to go very far. And, in that case, the laid-back position of the Bush administration will protect it from too much internal U.S. damage.

Looking around the world, where can Bush act now? In Cuba? He'd like to, no doubt. But today we have state officials in Alabama (the heart of Bush country) saying that if they don't sell chickens to Cuba, Brazil will, and adding that the government's restrictions on trade with Cuba are an unjustified sop to the Cuban exiles in Florida. There is no sign of any serious support within the U.S. for a Cuban adventure. In Russia? We have just seen how, even though the Ukrainian elections have caused a very bad press for Putin in the United States, nonetheless Bush went out of his way to indicate that the U.S. will continue to work with Putin. In China? The economic interests of the United States preclude anything hostile, despite the uneasiness the Bush administration has with China's increased political role in Asia. In Europe? Even Rumsfeld's "new Europe" is beginning slowly to desert the U.S. In short, Bush does not have many options available to him. And since Bush is a canny and very unprincipled politician, he will not want to play in a game in which the odds are so heavily against him.

And how will the world react to a de facto pulling inward -both militarily and economically - of the U.S.? One can expect that, after an initial period of caution, everyone will try to take advantage of this new display of U.S. geopolitical weakness. The problem is that, once the U.S. presence in the world is reduced, it is like removing an elephant from the living room. No one is quite sure how to fill the space. And it is probably the case that no one has a fully prepared set of policies for such a situation. So there will be much unsure jostling among all the other geopolitical players. The U.S. was already a declining hegemonic power when Bush came to power in 2001. In seeking to restore the U.S. world position in his first four years of power, Bush actually made the situation much worse for the U.S. The U.S. (and Bush) will reap the harvest of his folly in the second term.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

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수주안에 있을 예정이라네요. 그리고 시리아와의 국경도 봉쇄한다네요. 종전(?) 이후 최대규모의 가장 위험한(많은 사상자를 낼) 공격이랍니다. 공격은 3-4일에서 2주정도까지 걸릴거라 합니다.
팔루자 진압은 내년으로 예정된 선거를 순조롭게 치르기 위한 조치랍니다.

시기 결정은 꼭둑각시 알라위가 할 거라고 뻔한 거짓말을 하고 있구요,
미 대선과는 아무 관련이 없는 작전이라는 말도 빼놓지 않고 하네요.
최근 엄청난 양의 폭발물이 분실되었다는 것이 대선 쟁점이 되고 있기도 한데, 부시 진영이 이를 모면하기 위한 술책의 측면도 있을지 모르겠네요.

그리고 최근 사마라의 500 저항세력에 미군 약 5,000이 동원되었는데 팔루자는 약 3-4배의 저항세력이 있다고 판단하니(이것도 다 거짓이고 전 민중이 저항하고 있다는 이동화씨의 강연이 있었지요) 이를 진압하기 위한 미군도 그만큼 더 큰 규모가 필요하답니다.

그런데 팔루자를 탈환하면 다른 수니파 도시나 시아파 빈민거주지인 사드르 지역에서 봉기가 있을 수도 있는데 이에 대한 신경도 쓰고 있답니다.

그리고 바스라 지역 영국군이 미군이 작전하러 간 빈자리를 메꾸러 재배치 되고 있답니다. 아르빌에 있는 한국군도 이래저래 연루가 될 가능성도 있지 않을까요?

미군의 팔루자 탈환작전 반대 그리고 반전 및 철군투쟁이 시급히 조직이 되어야하지 않을까요? 물론 세계적으로! 다른나라에서 제기하지 않으면 한국에서라도 제기를 해야할 듯 하네요.
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뉴욕타임즈

October 27, 2004
INSURGENTS
Military Assault in Falluja Is Likely, U.S. Officers Say
By ERIC SCHMITT

AMP FALLUJA, Iraq, Oct. 22 - A military offensive by American and Iraqi forces to reclaim rebel-held Falluja is probably inevitable and would be the largest and potentially the riskiest since the end of major combat in May 2003, senior American officers say.

It would also involve major operations to seize control of Ramadi, another contested Sunni Muslim city 30 miles away, and to shut Syrian border crossings to prevent foreign fighters from streaming into Iraq, Marine commanders here say.

This expanded set of combat operations reflects a growing consensus among American military commanders and Iraqi government officials that the insurgencies in the two nearby cities are linked and must be quelled at the same time.

The timing and decision to carry out any attacks or close any border crossings is up to the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, senior Marine officers say. But as peace negotiations with representatives of Falluja have broken down, senior officers say it could be just weeks before air and ground attacks begin, in a battle that officers estimate could last from several days to two weeks.

"If we're told to go, it'll be decisive," Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the commander of nearly 40,000 marines and soldiers in western and south-central Iraq, said in an interview. "The goal will be to limit the damage, limit the casualties and do it as rapidly and decisively as possible. We're not here to destroy the town. We're here to give it back."

The issue extends far beyond Falluja and Ramadi. Military officials said smashing the resistance there would deal a blow to the insurgency nationally, because Falluja in particular has been a haven and staging ground for attacks. Defeating insurgents there could help to calm the nation and set the conditions for elections, commanders say.

Senior officers say they are mindful that an attack on Falluja and Ramadi could set off uprisings in other Sunni towns and possibly in Sadr City, an impoverished Shiite area of Baghdad that exploded in violence during the revolts in April. But military officers say they are planning for such contingencies.

Several important military and political decisions remain to be made before any attack, officers said. Britain is redeploying about 850 troops from Basra to an area south of Baghdad to free up American forces to swing into position near Falluja. Iraqi security forces have not yet moved into position, though General Sattler said that would happen quickly once the order is given. A last-minute settlement also is possible, as has happened before at Falluja.

Commanders here insist that the planning and timing for any possible offensive has not been influenced by the American elections on Nov. 2 and that political issues have not come up in discussions with their military and civilian superiors in Baghdad or at the Pentagon.

In interviews at this dusty desert headquarters three miles east of Falluja and at other military headquarters in Iraq, commanders sketched out a broad outline for how the offensive would probably unfold. They declined to discuss specific troop numbers, tactics and important political and military decision points to protect operational security. But thousands of marines and soldiers, joined by thousands of newly trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers and commandos, would attack Falluja from multiple directions, unleashing direct tank, artillery and mortar fire against insurgent positions that had been weakened by allied airstrikes and internecine fighting in recent weeks.

A great number of residents have fled the city in recent weeks, but thousands of insurgents remain, along with vestiges of the population. While keeping the city out of government control, the insurgents have also orchestrated attacks across much of Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who is believed to have organized attacks that have killed hundreds in Iraq from his base in Falluja, is of primary interest to the Americans.

In the battle of Samarra last month, 3,000 American troops and 2,000 Iraqis fought roughly 500 insurgents. Officers estimated that perhaps three to four times that number of hard-core insurgents are in Falluja, meaning that an American-Iraqi force much larger than 5,000 troops is likely to be massed.

As in allied operations in Najaf and Samarra, Iraqi forces would be relied on to clear and secure mosques and other culturally sensitive targets, with marines and soldiers providing backup.

"We'll match capabilities with the mission to have an appropriate blend" of Iraqi and American forces, said Col. John Coleman, the First Marine Expeditionary Force chief of staff.

Allied warplanes including Navy FA-18's and Air Force F-16's and F-15E's would conduct air strikes against insurgent safe houses, weapons caches and other leadership targets that have been carefully analyzed for possible damage to civilian infrastructure.

The bombing would be an intensified version of the nearly nightly strikes the Americans have conducted in Falluja for the past two months but would not be a huge barrage, the commanders say.

The weapons of choice have been laser-guided and satellite-guided 500-pound bombs, which are considered better able to limit the risk of civilian casualties than 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs.

Commanders say the offensive would get off to a fast start, but the insurgents are likely to respond with roadside bombs and car bombs to slow it, and could try to initiate popular outbursts in nearby Sunni towns.

Commanders also say the air campaign in Falluja has been largely directed against the network of Mr. Zarqawi, who is considered so dangerous that the Americans have put a $25 million bounty on him.

Using information from informants, spy satellites, communications intercepts and other intelligence sources, commanders have assembled a target list that will change as sites are hit, checked and hit again during battle, or added based on fresh intelligence.

Military engineers and civil affairs specialists would follow quickly behind the main combat force, with the job of assessing how to restore services like water, sanitation and electricity, and of assigning contractors or military experts to the task.

General Sattler said he and his commanders were not in a rush to storm the city, contending that recent airstrikes have killed many of Mr. Zarqawi's top lieutenants and have seriously disrupted the operations of another Sunni militant leader, Omar Hadid.

The insurgent leaders are wary of meeting in groups and have been forced to use couriers and trusted aides to pass messages, fearing that their telephone conversations would be monitored, General Sattler said. Indeed, American forces believe that they have come very close to killing or capturing Mr. Hadid at least twice, the general said.

Mr. Zarqawi has been able to keep his leadership ranks filled but is no longer able to plot with his most trusted aides, officers said. "They are replaced by the second string and sometimes the third string," said General Sattler, who commands the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "It's a downward spiral for his organization."

Checkpoints on the main roads leading in and out of Falluja have also disrupted the insurgents' operations, commanders said. Nearly 100 people have been detained in a recent seven-day period at temporary barriers, which typically are created for an hour or two. Many of the detainees are still in American custody. In one car that was searched, American troops found rocket-propelled grenades in the trunk; in another, they found $80,000 in crisp $100 and $50 bills.

But the insurgents are not giving up easily, commanders acknowledge. Car bombings and suicide attacks have increased here and in Baghdad. Mortar and artillery attacks against American troops and bases have increased, especially since the start of Ramadan in mid-October.

An offensive on Falluja would be conducted nearly at the same time as parallel military operations, or possibly political negotiations, in Ramadi, the restive capital of Al Anbar Province, just 30 miles west of Falluja, General Sattler said. Insurgents, including leaders like Muhammad Daham, have seized control of most of the city from the local Iraqi police and municipal officials using a campaign of intimidation, officers said. Although marines are present in Ramadi, the city has become increasingly violent.

To keep foreign fighters from joining the battles, General Sattler said, he is considering having military-aged men prevented from crossing into Iraq from Syria at the main border crossings unless they can show they have official business in Iraq. Dr. Allawi would decide that. Senior marines said Syria's recent agreement with Iraq to police its borders had yielded results.

"Cooperation has actually risen," said Col. Ron Makuta, the chief intelligence officer for the Marines in Iraq.

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'해체주의' 철학자 데리다가 모종의 암으로 세상을 떠났다는군요.
이름은 많이 들어봤지만 데리다 관련 글은 거의 읽은 게 없습니다. 알튀세와 관련한 조사('맑스주의 역사'), 다 읽었나 싶을 정도로 기억이 없는 어떤 인터뷰(이론지)가 고작이군요. 그리고 그 뒤엔 그의 글이 매우 어렵다는 얘기를 듣고 읽을 엄두조차 내지 않았지만 최근 한겨레신문 기사에선가 인터뷰에선가 결혼제도와 관련해서 그가 얘기했다는 '시민결합'이 무척 신선했습니다. 그리고 신자유주의가 기승을 부리던 90년대 중후반이던가요? 맑스를 이야기하면서 모종의 '인터내셔널'을 주장한 것으로도 알려졌지요.
아래 '자크 데리다, 난해한 이론가(이는 진태원씨에 의하면 특별한 분야의 철학을 하는 사람들이라는 의미를 갖는다고 들었습니다)'라는 뉴욕타임즈 기사는 좀 선정적이고 비우호적으로 쓰여진 것 같습니다. 폴 드만, 하이데거 등 데리다와 이론적으로 관련된 인사들의 과거 나치 전력들, 두둑한 강연료를 받으며 많은 청중을 몰고 다니기, '해체주의'의 불가해성, 결혼 등등.
그 중 하나. 데리다는 아들이 셋인데 그 중 하나가 나중에 죠스팽과 결혼한 실비안 아가신스키(?)와의 사이에서 낳은 아들이라네요.
데리다 특집이 봇물을 이룰 것 같은데 쉽게 씌여진 글이라면 한 번 읽어봐야겠네요.
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Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74
By JONATHAN KANDELL

Published: October 10, 2004

Jacques Derrida, the Algerian-born, French intellectual who became one of the most celebrated and notoriously difficult philosophers of the late 20th century, died Friday at a Paris hospital, the French president's office announced. He was 74.

The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, according to French television, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Derrida was known as the father of deconstruction, the method of inquiry that asserted that all writing was full of confusion and contradiction, and that the author's intent could not overcome the inherent contradictions of language itself, robbing texts - whether literature, history or philosophy - of truthfulness, absolute meaning and permanence. The concept was eventually applied to the whole gamut of arts and social sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, political science, even architecture.

While he had a huge following - larger in the United States than in Europe - he was the target of as much anger as admiration. For many Americans, in particular, he was the personification of a French school of thinking they felt was undermining many of the traditional standards of classical education, and one they often associated with divisive political causes.

Literary critics broke texts into isolated passages and phrases to find hidden meanings. Advocates of feminism, gay rights, and third-world causes embraced the method as an instrument to reveal the prejudices and inconsistencies of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Freud and other "dead white male" icons of Western culture. Architects and designers could claim to take a "deconstructionist" approach to buildings by abandoning traditional symmetry and creating zigzaggy, sometimes disquieting spaces. The filmmaker Woody Allen titled one of his movies "Deconstructing Harry," to suggest that his protagonist could best be understood by breaking down and analyzing his neurotic contradictions.

A Code Word for Discourse

Toward the end of the 20th century, deconstruction became a code word of intellectual discourse, much as existentialism and structuralism - two other fashionable, slippery philosophies that also emerged from France after World War II - had been before it. Mr. Derrida and his followers were unwilling - some say unable - to define deconstruction with any precision, so it has remained misunderstood, or interpreted in endlessly contradictory ways.

Typical of Mr. Derrida's murky explanations of his philosophy was a 1993 paper he presented at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, in New York, which began: "Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible."

Mr. Derrida was a prolific writer, but his 40-plus books on various aspects of deconstruction were no more easily accessible. Even some of their titles - "Of Grammatology," "The Postcard: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond," and "Ulysses Gramophone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce" - could be off-putting to the uninitiated.

"Many otherwise unmalicious people have in fact been guilty of wishing for deconstruction's demise - if only to relieve themselves of the burden of trying to understand it," Mitchell Stephens, a journalism professor at New York University, wrote in a 1994 article in The New York Times Magazine.

Mr. Derrida's credibility was also damaged by a 1987 scandal involving Paul de Man, a Yale University professor who was the most acclaimed exponent of deconstruction in the United States. Four years after Mr. de Man's death, it was revealed that he had contributed numerous pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic articles to a newspaper in Belgium, where he was born, while it was under German occupation during World War II. In defending his dead colleague, Mr. Derrida, a Jew, was understood by some people to be condoning Mr. de Man's anti-Semitism.

A Devoted Following

Nonetheless, during the 1970's and 1980's, Mr. Derrida's writings and lectures gained him a huge following in major American universities - in the end, he proved far more influential in the United States than in France. For young, ambitious professors, his teachings became a springboard to tenure in faculties dominated by senior colleagues and older, shopworn philosophies. For many students, deconstruction was a right of passage into the world of rebellious intellect.

Jacques Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in El-Biar, Algeria. His father was a salesman. At age 12, he was expelled from his French school when the rector, adhering to the Vichy government's racial laws, ordered a drastic cut in Jewish enrollment. Even as a teenager, Mr. Derrida (the name is pronounced day-ree-DAH) was a voracious reader whose eclectic interests embraced the philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and the poet Paul Valéry.

But he could be an indifferent student. He failed his baccalaureate in his first attempt. He twice failed his entrance exam to the École Normal Supérieure, the traditional cradle of French intellectuals, where he was finally admitted in 1952. There he failed the oral portion of his final exams on his first attempt. After graduation in 1956, he studied briefly at Harvard University. For most of the next 30 years, he taught philosophy and logic at both the University of Paris and the École Normal Supérieure. Yet he did not defend his doctoral dissertation until 1980, when he was 50 years old.

By the early 1960's, Mr. Derrida had made a name for himself as a rising young intellectual in Paris by publishing articles on language and philosophy in leading academic journals. He was especially influenced by the German philosophers, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Both were strong critics of traditional metaphysics, a branch of philosophy which explored the basis and perception of reality.

As a lecturer, Mr. Derrida cultivated charisma and mystery. For many years, he declined to be photographed for publication. He cut a dashing, handsome figure at the lectern, with his thick thatch of prematurely white hair, tanned complexion, and well-tailored suits. He peppered his lectures with puns, rhymes and enigmatic pronouncements, like, "Thinking is what we already know that we have not yet begun," or, "Oh my friends, there is no friend..."

Many readers found his prose turgid and baffling, even as aficionados found it illuminating. A single sentence could run for three pages, and a footnote even longer. Sometimes his books were written in "deconstructed" style. For example, "Glas" (1974) offers commentaries on the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the French novelist Jean Genet in parallel columns of the book's pages; in between, there is an occasional third column of commentary about the two men's ideas.

"The trouble with reading Mr. Derrida is that there is too much perspiration for too little inspiration," editorialized The Economist in 1992, when Cambridge University awarded the philosopher an honorary degree after a bruising argument among his supporters and critics on the faculty. Elsewhere in Europe, Mr. Derrida's deconstruction philosophy gained earlier and easier acceptance.

Shaking Up a Discipline

Mr. Derrida appeared on the American intellectual landscape at a 1966 conference on the French intellectual movement known as structuralism at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. Its high priest was French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who studied societies through their linguistic structure.

Mr. Derrida shocked his American audience by announcing that structuralism was already passé in France, and that Mr. Lévi-Strauss's ideas were too rigid. Instead, Mr. Derrida offered deconstruction as the new, triumphant philosophy.

His presentation fired up young professors who were in search of a new intellectual movement to call their own. In a Los Angeles Times Magazine article in 1991, Mr. Stephens, the journalism professor, wrote: "He gave literature professors a special gift: a chance to confront - not as mere second-rate philosophers, not as mere interpreters of novelists, but as full-fledged explorers in their own right - the most profound paradoxes of Western thought."

"If they really read, if they stared intently enough at the metaphors," he went on, "literature professors, from the comfort of their own easy chairs, could reveal the hollowness of the basic assumptions that lie behind all our writings."

Other critics found it disturbing that obscure academics could presume to denigrate a Sophocles, Voltaire or Tolstoy by seeking out cultural biases and inexact language in their masterpieces. "Literature, the deconstructionists frequently proved, had been written by entirely the wrong people for entirely the wrong reasons," wrote Malcolm Bradbury, a British novelist and professor, in a 1991 article for The New York Times Book Review.

Mr. Derrida's influence was especially strong in the Yale University literature department, where one of his close friends, a Belgian-born professor, Paul de Man, emerged as a leading champion of deconstruction in literary analysis. Mr. de Man had claimed to be a refugee from war-torn Europe, and even left the impression among colleagues that he had joined the Belgian resistance.

But in 1987, four years after Mr. de Man's death, research revealed that he had written over 170 articles in the early 1940's for Le Soir, a Nazi newspaper in Belgium. Some of these articles were openly anti-Semitic, including one that echoed Nazi calls for "a final solution" and seemed to defend the notion of concentration camps.

"A solution to the Jewish problem that aimed at the creation of a Jewish colony isolated from Europe would entail no deplorable consequences for the literary life of the West," wrote Mr. de Man.

The revelations became a major scandal at Yale and other campuses where the late Mr. de Man had been lionized as an intellectual hero. Some former colleagues asserted that the scandal was being used to discredit deconstruction by people who were always hostile to the movement. But Mr. Derrida gave fodder to critics by defending Mr. de Man, and even using literary deconstruction techniques in an attempt to demonstrate that the Belgian scholar's newspaper articles were not really anti-Semitic.

"Borrowing Derrida's logic one could deconstruct Mein Kampf to reveal that [Adolf Hitler] was in conflict with anti-Semitism," scoffed Peter Lennon, in a 1992 article for The Guardian. According to another critic, Mark Lilla, in a 1998 article in The New York Review of Books, Mr. Derrida's contortionist defense of his old friend left "the impression that deconstruction means you never have to say you're sorry."

Almost as devastating for deconstruction and Mr. Derrida was the revelation, also in 1987, that Heidegger, one of his intellectual muses, was a dues-paying member of the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945. Once again, Mr. Derrida was accused by critics of being irresolute, this time for failing to condemn Heidegger's fascist ideas.

By the late 1980's, Mr. Derrida's intellectual star was on the wane on both sides of the Atlantic. But he continued to commute between France and the United States, where he was paid hefty fees to lecture a few weeks every year at several East Coast universities and the University of California at Irvine.

Lifting a Mysterious Aura

In his early years of intellectual fame, Mr. Derrida was criticized by European leftists for a lack of political commitment - indeed, for espousing a philosophy that attacked the very concept of absolute political certainties. But in the 1980's, he became active in a number of political causes, opposing apartheid, defending Czech dissidents and supporting the rights of North African immigrants in France.

Mr. Derrida also became far more accessible to the media. He sat still for photos and gave interviews that stripped away his formerly mysterious aura to reveal the mundane details of his personal life.

A former Yale student, Amy Ziering Kofman, focused on him in a 2002 documentary, "Derrida," that some reviewers found charming. "With his unruly white hair and hawklike face, Derrida is a compelling presence even when he is merely pondering a question," wrote Kenneth Turan in The Los Angeles Times. "Even his off-the-cuff comments are intriguing, because everything gets serious consideration. And when he is wary, he's never difficult for its own sake but because his philosophical positions make him that way."

Rather than hang around the Left Bank cafés traditionally inhabited by French intellectuals, Mr. Derrida preferred the quiet of Ris-Orangis, a suburb south of Paris, where he lived in a small house with his wife, Marguerite Aucouturier, a psychoanalyst. The couple had two sons, Pierre and Jean. He also had a son, Daniel, with Sylviane Agacinski, a philosophy teacher who later married the French political leader Lionel Jospin.

As a young man, Mr. Derrida confessed, he hoped to become a professional soccer player. And he admitted to being an inveterate viewer of television, watching everything from news to soap operas. "I am critical of what I'm watching," said Mr. Derrida with mock pride. "I deconstruct all the time."

Late in his career, Mr. Derrida was asked, as he had been so often, what deconstruction was. "Why don't you ask a physicist or a mathematician about difficulty?" he replied, frostily, to Dinitia Smith, a Times reporter, in a 1998. "Deconstruction requires work. If deconstruction is so obscure, why are the audiences in my lectures in the thousands? They feel they understand enough to understand more."

Asked later in the same interview to at least define deconstruction, Mr. Derrida said: "It is impossible to respond. I can only do something which will leave me unsatisfied."

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사회진보연대를 방문한 바 있는 Food First의 크리스틴 안이 Znet에 올렸네요. 내용은 미국이 최근 통과시킨 '북한자유법'에 대한 비판과 경제제재 해제의 필요성에 대한 것이네요. 글에서 보면 최근 북한도 방문했나 봅니다. 참고로 이 분은 가수 조용필 처제랍니다. 조용필씨 부인은 저번에 돌아가셨지요. Food First라는 단체는 브라질의 MST('땅없는 농업노동자들') 등 소농운동단체와 연대를 많이 하는 단체로 알고 있고, 아룬다티 미탈과 피터 로셋(?)이라는 주요 신자유주의 세계화 반대 활동가가 있습니다. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Food The Root of North Korea's Human Rights Crisis ......... by Christine Ahn August 04, 2004 "It was worse than war," described a North Korean documentary filmmaker who traveled up and down the country documenting the 1990s famine in North Korea that displaced over 5 million people and ravaged 5 percent of the population. To the relief of the North Koreans, the famine appears to have finally passed. Even the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that last year was the best harvest North Korea had in nine years. Despite the positive signs, North Korea still needs 944,000 tons of food to help feed the 6.5 million North Koreans who will go hungry this year. After imposing over 50 years of sanctions and threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation, Washington has a new idea for what they believe North Koreans need. The House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA) on July 22, 2004 to "improve" the human rights conditions of North Koreans. The bill, introduced by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and backed by a coalition of right-wing evangelical Christian groups and pro-war thinktanks, believes the collapse of the regime will usher in freedom for North Koreans. The Senate version, the North Korea Freedom Act (NKFA), has been said to read like a manual to topple the North Korean regime. This bill earmarks $24 million dollars in taxpayer funds to U.S. based NGOs working on human rights issues in North Korea, to strengthen monitoring of humanitarian aid, to permit North Korean defectors to apply for asylum in the U.S., and to broadcast Radio Free Asia and Voice of America to North Korea. The NKFA wants "to establish a program for the distribution of radios" in coordination with NGOs based in North Korea. Even the intelligence industry's Jane's Intelligence Review (Feb 2004) says that the idea of planting radios in North Korea "demonstrates a lack of awareness of the situation on the ground," as any individual caught with a radio would be "directly suspected of illegal economic activities…[and] subject to penalties." These bills symbolize the complete ignorance of American policymakers in understanding North Korea, the famine, and ways to improve human rights there. The assumption of these bills is that the famine in North Korea was due to Kim Jong Il's policies when in fact most experts agree that a series of catastrophic events beyond North Korea's control were the main causes of famine. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which cut the shipment of oil to run tractors and their agricultural machinery. The second were historic droughts and floods that destroyed 300,000 hectares of agricultural land and wiped out 1.9 million tons of grain. Ironically, the most vocal opposition to the NKHRA has come from a wide spectrum of South Koreans, including lawmakers and human rights groups. "Our concern is that [the NKHRA] could have a negative effect on the six-way talks and on inter-Korean relations," said Yu Seon Ho of the Uri Party, which is considering an official South Korean government position to the U.S. House of Representatives. South Korean human rights groups have also forcefully come out against these bills. In a letter signed by over 100 human rights NGOs, they state that the bill would not improve human rights but stands to further aggravate international humanitarian aid and negotiations towards peace on the Korean peninsula. According to Good Friends, a widely respected humanitarian organization who has worked most with North Korean refugees, "We cannot separate the problem of human rights with the food shortage. The human rights improvement that North Korean residents want most is large-scale humanitarian food aid before anything else." Since 1995, the United States has provided about 1.9 million tons of food aid to North Korea. In 2000, the U.S. sent 500,000 tons of food to North Korea, but ever since the Bush Administration came into office, that amount has dropped to about 100,000 tons. Clearly, the Bush administration's political agenda has driven the amount of food aid to North Korea. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, when asked about the administration's policy, has said its aim is "the end of North Korea." The monitoring of humanitarian aid, however, is of less concern to the relief agencies providing the aid. In 2003, James Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Program testified to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that "It would be wrong for me to depict the regime in Pyongyang as totally uncooperative," noting that the WFP staff have access to 85 percent of the population and that they "believe that most food is getting through to the women and children who need it." A recent study by UNICEF also confirms that food aid is reaching the most vulnerable North Koreans. From 1998 to 2002, the number of underweight children dropped by two-thirds, acute malnutrition was almost cut in half, and chronic malnutrition dropped by one-third. Caritas International, the largest private humanitarian network in North Korea, is confident that food aid is reaching the most needy. On my recent visit to North Korea, I expected to see a depressed and closed off society, but I witnessed quite the contrary. North Korea seemed to be a very normal place with people walking on the streets, children playing in schools, and families singing and enjoying picnics at the Morangbang park in Pyongyang on a Sunday afternoon. I also met many conservation agriculturalists from all over the world that were working with the government to move their food production to a more sustainable, less energy intensive model. Theodor Friedrich, a senior agriculturalist with the UN FAO who has visited North Korea five times, said, "I always compare DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) with countries in Africa and Latin America where malnourishment is much more visible and omni- present than in DPRK." Friedrich also believes that "food security for an isolated DPRK would always be a very difficult challenge" since 80 percent of its land is mountainous and South Korea has historically been the country's breadbasket. Reunification may not be as far as it seemed just a few years ago, but in the meantime, if Americans truly cared about the human rights of North Koreans, they should first understand that food is the cause of the crisis and then demand our government sign a permanent peace treaty and end 50 years of economic sanctions.