09 February
2007
The Role of the Writer
re: Thomas Ponniah's Essay "The Role of the Writer at the WSF"
Dear Thomas (and all), below pls find some reflections, caused by your writing:
1. "To reformulate Gramsci in terms of the dynamics at the World Social Forum (WSF) one could say that all political activists have the impulse to write but for some of us writing is our primary contribution", you write. But has it come to your mind that this would hardly apply to Gramsci himself? He was undoubtedly an intellectual, but was he "a writer"? Before answering this question one has to consider the fact that G. did not publish a single book of his own writing. He wrote, of course, a lot of articles and reviews for the newspapers. Furthermore, he was not considered an especially good orator. So in that sense, at least, he was "a writer". However, would it make sense to say that writing was his "main contribution"? In my view it would not, just like it would not be fair to appreciate a Gandhi, or still less, a Socrates on the basis of their writings (Socrates, by the way, seems to have left no writings at all).
One may ask, of course, if not the famous Prison Notebooks of G. plus his beautiful letters to his loved ones and friends, - did not those enormously influential essays and notes , and letters, in the end become his "main contribution"?
G. somewhere speaks of his own contribution as "fertilizer" - "Nessuno voleva essere «concio» della storia. Ma può ararsi senza prima ingrassare la terra?" (By the way: it takes some extra courage to look at oneself in the mirror of the history, speaking about one's own contribution as "shit" which fertilizes the history.)
For whom did G. scribble all his fascinating (as it turned out after the war and the end of the Fascist state, when G. was already dead since a decade) notes in his notebooks? I would suggest that he wrote them, first and foremostly, for himself.
Of course G. had in view the possibility that others would read his notes, and most probably he hoped that others, too, would enjoy them. But he could by no means be sure about that. We know, indeed, of cases where the writings of the political prisoners just disappeared. This happened, for instance, to Altiero Spinelli, one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
A revealing text, in this sense, is the beginning of G:s introduction to philosopy. Or, should we rather call it his essay on how to write an introduction to philosophy. Here we have G. making notes, not for an audience of students of philosophy, but in order to set some guidelines for himself (the presumtive writer!) :
"It is essential to destroy the widespread prejudice that philosophy is a strange and difficult thing just because it is the specific intellectual activity of a particular category of specialists or of professional and systematic philosophers."
2. "The writer" is very often understood to be a poet or a novelist, and thus somebody who is inventing a whole world of his/her own, cementing, if necessary, the whole with more or less elaborate lies. The philosopher also strives to understand, explain etc. the whole world - or at least a small part of the world; but how can one understand or explain the part if one does not try to understand the whole? - and is therefore also, in a certain sense, a Writer. And, following Gramsci and yourself, one may constate that all have the impulse to write. Especially so today, when 2.5 billion mobile phones have already been sold, and are being used for the text messaging, in other words, for writing.
But let's forget about these considerations for the moment, and consider instead our favourite Authors, who manage to spellbind us, their Readers, with their astounding books and writings! Did you see them at the World Social Forum?
I once suggested to one of my favourite authors that she would go to the WSF herself to participate. "Does somebody arrange an Asocial Forum ", she responded, "because in that case, I would rather go there". The sheer thought of going to meet 50.000 unknown persons from all corners of the world makes some Writers feel Angst, if not pure horror.
Yet, think of it: there are not too many Writers at the WSF. Why? Perhaps our writings are not yet good enough?
3. When you speak about the role of the writer at the WSF, I cannot avoid thinking of the Hoperaisers, a band of young men from Korogocho (they still go to school, if they can afford the fees and the schoolbooks), who are obviously writers, because they write their own music and their own songs, like Voices from the South, G8, and Another World Is Possible. Before and during the WSF, the Hoperaisers played the role of the Gramscian intellectuals, that is, the role of the political activist, the writer, the organizer, etc., who helped to make hundreds, if not thousands of young people from the shanty-towns aware of the existence of the WSF, in the first place. A week before the Nairobi WSF, I wondered whether the young slum-dwellers from Korogocho would ever find the researchers and more or less educated and well-organized activists from near and afar, who had registered so many activities for the WSF. As it turned out, one could see some positive efforts in that direction on the side of the inhabitants of Korogocho and Kibera. They came to the WSF, and some of them protested against the food prices there, for instance. Fine! Others, like the Hoperaisers, sang political songs...
- - -
Who can "evaluate" what 50.000 or so people have being doing during a whole week, including all the conferences and meetings that were not necessarily registered as WSF-activities, although they took place in Nairobi just before, during or just after the WSF?
16 February
2007
2007
Vad vet jag?
Efter mitt föredrag på TEP-klubben i går kväll pratade jag en stund med en ung man, som berättade att han samlar på dokument om 9/11, för den händelse att internet körs ned. Sådana farhågor har vi lite till mans. Tidigare har jag refererat till vad Al Gore sade i oktober 2005:
"We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen".Ta kontakt med rättslärda, fråga dem på vilken laglig grund internet vilar. Har vi en internetlag, som stipulerar att internet ska finnas och vara tillgängligt för allmänheten? Enligt Finlands bibliotekslag [1998] bör
Det här låter ju som internet. Men det är inte nödvändigtvis internet som avses. "Virtuell" är ett av samtidens luddigaste begrepp. "Interaktiva nättjänster" kan också betyda mobila telefontjänster. Varför nämns internet inte uttryckligen?Biblioteksväsendet [...] också arbeta för att virtuella och interaktiva nättjänster samt deras kulturrelaterade innehåll utvecklas.
Internet är inte vilken som helst interaktiv virtuell nättjänst! Jag skulle vilja kalla våra lagstiftare och tjänstemän fega och stupida. Jag hatar dem med Multatulis hat!
Men att jaga upp sig vid morgonkaffet hjälper inte. Dessutom är och förblir många av mina mina vänner lika oförstående, lika stockdumma inför internet, som statsråden. Jag måste förlåta dem.
Den gröna riksdagsmannen Jyrki Kasvi vill säkert driva frågan, medverka aktivt till att samhället besluter sig för att göra internet bestående. Kasvi hör till det fåtal riksdagsmän och -kvinnor som visar intresse för saken.
911-diskussionen med medlemmarna av TEP (Teknikka Elämää Palvelemaan - Tekniken i livets tjänst), som ställde upp på gårdagens klubbafton, var inte speciellt givande, vilket säkert också (eller främst?) berodde på mig, inledaren. Efter senaste sommar och tidiga höst (5-årsminnet!) har jag inte aktivt följt med den sk. sanningsrörelsens utveckling. Följaktligen har mitt eget tänkande om 911 stagnerat. Det var i alla fall uppfriskande att få disputera med Mikko Lampi och de andra om Steven E. Jones' sprängningshypotes. Lampi sade sig vara (och är säkerligen) expert på byggnadstekniska säkerhetsfrågor, och är dessutom intresserad av krigshistoria. Han tillbakavisade alla Jones' 13 argument - och mera därtill.
Med tiden börjar diskussionerna om 911 i allt högre grad påminna om en ritual. Höjdpunkten utgörs av videoklippet, som visar hur WTC 7 på några sekunder sjunker i sitt eget fotspår.
Das Prinzip Hoffnung. The Dreams of a Better Life.
17 February
2007
2007
Napolitano and Spinelli's Project
In his speech before the European Parliament, 14 February, the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, warned against renegotiations of the constitutional treaty of the EU. It would be like opening a Pandora's Box, he said, thus lining up with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent "reaffirmation" of the proposal from 2004.
Those who invoke the Box of Pandora tend to forget that this mysterious box, which contains the evils of mankind, including the causes of war, has never been closed.
The task of closing Pandora's Box still lies before us, and has to be carried out properly. Therefore, let's take our time, if there is still something about the EU's Constitution that needs to be renegotiated.
And there certainly is. I am in disagreement with Giorgio Napolitano who calls the proposed EU constitutional treaty of 2004 "un felice punto d'incontro" and "un buon compromesso".
The proposed constitutional treaty from 2004 is biased. It was permeated with blind faith in the free movement of Capital. And it is morally unacceptable, because it would tie the EU to a military alliance with a USA which, since the invasion of Iraq four years ago, is led by war criminals.
In comparison, the Treaty of Spinelli, which was voted by a majority of the European Parliament 23 years ago, and which Napolitano also mentioned in his speech, is a wonder of intellectual and moral sanity. It is a short description of the political institutions of a united Europe; nothing more, and nothing less. It does not prescribe a single model for the economy of the union, which means that it gives politics and democracy a chance. And it does not force the EU into a compromising military alliance with the USA, or any military alliance whatsoever.
Giorgio Napolitano comes from where Altiero Spinelli came, that is, from the long tradition of independent and innovative thinking on the Italian Left. But I cannot trace Spinelli's vision in Napolitano' s speech.
The situation in the world of today differs, of course, from that of 1984. Yet the Spinelli treaty can still serve as the model of the kind of constitution that the EU needs.
***
If the leaders of the old European left lack the visionary Federalism of Spinelli, the same must, unfortunately be said about their young critics. Read more!
24 February
2007
2007
Altiero Spinelli - From Ventotene to the European Constitution
RECON, a research project on European democracy, has just published an anthology of Spinelli's writings in English. You can download the text at
www.reconproject.eu/projectweb/portalproject/Report1_Spinelli.html
Kudos to the RECON researchers for having opened their publication series with an e-book about and by the unorthodox "founding father" of the European Union.
The RECON project is funded by the 6th research framework program of the EU Commission.
Blurb:
Agustín José Menéndez (ed.)
RECON Report No 1
ARENA Report 1/07, Oslo, January 2007
The life and political actions of Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986) reflect the
eventful transformations that Europe underwent in the last century. A
political opponent of Fascism since his early youth, Spinelli spent more
than a decade in prison and confinement. During those difficult years, hesynthesised classical federalist thinking into a theory and a blueprint
for a federation of Europe. Spinelli was a close advisor to Alcide de
Gasperi in the 1950s, a part-time scholar in the 1960s, a Commissioner in
the early 1970s, a paramount figure of the European Parliament from 1976
to 1986, and an unrelenting critic of all orthodoxies.