Jean Bricmont: Vive La France?

/ non / non / non /
This is a piece by physicist Jean Bricmont (who some of my readers will recognize as one half of the Sokal / Bricmont team that fought the good battle against relativist absolutist blathering, picking up the good fight where Lenin left it - I suppose - through their book Fashionable Nonsense), on the importance of the "Non" vote for the left, for Europe and for the world, in the upcoming French referendum. (In passing may I add that the Greek electorate was denied the democratic luxury of voting directly on the referendum, despite good evidence that the Yes vote would have won anyway - they don't like it when some questions are raised).

I find it hard to select excerpts from this piece with which I'm in total agreement. I must note however the near hysteria among France's and Europe's ruling elites, facing the spectre of dissent. It's almost embarassing to watch.

Anyway *extended* excerpts from Jean Bricmont:

...Europe came around to imitating the United States, even if, at the same time, the United States was getting worse. This at least maintained the gap between the two, obscured the extent of the upheavals underway, and allowed the European elites to complain ceaselessly that "Europe was falling behind". One of the preferred methods of catching up is called "European construction", whose latest manifestation is the treaty for establishing a European Constitution.

The method is simplicity itself. It consists in isolating political processes from the influence of the citizenry, by entrusting a maximum of decisions to a non-elected bureaucracy which is not answerable to any parliament, but which is open to the influence of every possible private pressure group (including certain NGOs). European construction boils down to transferring State power to a super-privileged bureaucracy which preaches to others the purest economic liberalism. Elections can go on being held, but they are of no importance, because no serious political alternative can be proposed, no "New Deal", no "structural reform", no "common programme of the left", no "Italian way to socialism". Competition and the free market are the only prospects on the horizon now and forever. And, as in the United States, people vote more and more with their feet by avoiding the ballot box, or else vote for whoever seems to be most hated by those in power (Le Pen for instance)...

...In the discussions on the constitution, at least on the left, there are in general two types of argument: those who refer to the texts, who are for voting "no", and those who refer to Auschwitz and Le Pen, who are for voting "yes". To hear the latter, one would think that rejection of the constitution would lead us into war, if not genocide. This argument, which considers that peace depends on eliminating sovereignty, fails to note that there is more than one kind of sovereignty. Europe is seeking to create its own sovereignty, imitating that of the United States which has strong borders and troops deployed to the four corners of the earth. This creates the danger of endless war, as sooner or later people do not welcome armed missionaries. On the other hand, Switzerland is without doubt the most sovereign country in Europe, but it has never sent its troops abroad, never committed genocide nor started a war...

There is at least one argument used by the "yes' camp that is partly correct: the debate goes beyond the narrow bounds of the treaty's text to become largely symbolic. It fundamentally pits against each other partisans and adversaries of the neo-liberal order, those who want to pursue the policy begun in the 1980s and those who want to change it. A victory of the "no" would provoke a political shock wave, principally by awakening, throughout Europe, the social and popular aspirations which have for so long been repressed and defeated. With Bush in Washington, Sharon in Tel Aviv, Wolfowitz at the World Bank and Ratzinger in the Vatican, one might conclude that reactionary forces have got their way worldwide. But with Chavez in Caracas, the "no" which is growing in Paris and the U.S. army bogged down in Iraq, hope may be changing sides and this is what gives a profound meaning to this campaign. Even if the "yes" wins (and in light of the disproportion of the means at the disposal of the two sides, it would be a miracle if if didn't), the mobilization for the "no" shows that the times are changing and that the days of TINA (There Is No Alternative to unbridled capitalism) are no doubt counted. After all, the grassroots movement for "no" was launched primarily (on the left) by ATTAC and by the CGT base, which in themselves are far from representing a majority of French people. The echo of that movement throughout French society is an immense sign of encouragement and shows that if the genuine left is at once bold and intelligent, it can rally practically a majority of French people around specific objectives...

...The left-wing elites have for a long time shamed France by reducing her past to Vichy and (for the far left) to the Algerian war. But France is also the first democratic revolution on the European continent (and the most radical of all), the Paris Commune, the denunciation of anti-semitism at the time of the Dreyfus case, the Popular Front, the biggest of all general strikes (in May-June 1968) and the model for secularism throughout the world. With the campaign for "no" to the European constitution, after the official "no" in 2003 to American imperial policy, France once again arouses surprise and admiration in much of the world and gives a fresh impetus to a movement, stalled for decades but more necessary than ever, in favor of peace and social progress...