Etienne Balibar [le tout début de l'intervention est inaudible]

Transcription

1 Etienne Balibar [le tout début de l'intervention est inaudible] We are all conscious of the fact that any reflexion on current issues in Eastern Europe is depending of the others parts of Europe. So what kind of connections can I see between these different papers? I will start with Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro's presentation. The very basic question that lies in the heart of his reflexion, from many years now, I have ever had the opportunity to discuss it, is the fascinating and crucial issue which can be clearly adressed to the political level in some languages, not all. It can be adressed in french and in english, because we have two different words for power and violence. It could be easy adressed in german in which the concept of legitimate monopoly of XXX a friend, precisely because the Germans just have one word. So I think the key question adressed by Paulo Sérgio is one which is expressed or formulated to the bottom of page 2 " How to exercise control over the elite? ". I think the term elite can be taken as a good synonym for people in power. And immedialtely after that, because of the problem of " how to exercise the control over violence? ". And what he wants to say as I understand him is that in concrete situations like Brazil, but probably in many other countries, the two questions are not identical, but they can not be separated one from another. And this is leads me to suggest, first of all, in a very general manner, that the notions involved in democracy, citizenship and more generally politics have at least two complementary aspects which must to be taken into accont simoustanely. The re is a question of the control over power, democratization of institutions and citizenship in the sense of recognition of political rights and participation in the legal institutions. And there is the problem of civilization in the meaning taken by Elias. And I noticed that the term of civil society we saw broadly and confusely used in many debates in the last years, actually involves the two aspects. I think that the question of civilization which is most of the times to speak from the point of view of the elites precisely, whether the elites are more or less civilized, whether they are able to civilize. thet delight to see themselves as the agency in charge of civilizind other people. This is a problem that should be posed from the point of view of the mass and people who are not at the top but who are at the bottom. The story of revolts, revolutions, mass struggles against domination, etc., etc., this is crucial To say something a little bit more precise, because of the time, I would like to suggest the following argument to your reaction to Paulo Sérgio's paper. He explains firmly and claerly without making either a picture more beautiful that the

2 Brazilian political system and the society, which is in many aspects a uncivilized society, many people do not enjoy any aspects of democracy. He very clearly explains that both a theoretical point of view and from a pratical point of view, the conditions of impossibility for democracy as such given that theorically and pratically a democracy in which the majority, or even a small, of the people, of the demos is not part of the constituency, it is not a democracy. So there is a contradiction in terms which the brazilian situation and others. I want adress the question of whether democraty for minority or within the limits of ruling elite can exist or not? This in this sense is supposed to have been at the origin of democracy herselff, in the ancient city where the citizens only were a small part of the population. Of course the burning question will be whether it can exist in modern societies (...). And one could of course suggest examples : Israël will be one, the question has to be discussed over a certain period of time. Paulo Sérgio agreed which was he calls a minimate definition of democracy. I would suggest (...) If minimal criteria for democracy is the existence of institutions and pratices where even the most exploited people, the poorest people at least have or exercise some control over the power system. Now of course the question becomes burning when in the case of the brazilian society it seems to be the case that even this possibility, this minimum possibility of the poorest and the most exploited people to exercise some control is unacceptable for the system. For the system of course it is a too abstract question of whom we should ask the question. It seems to me that we should not in fact discuss the question in terms of democracy as a given or democracy as an established system, but we should discuss the system in terms of processes, in terms of democratization and therefore among the many possibilities of understanding the title of this conference on democratic transitions (...) to emphatize to what extent the social transition, the economic transition that we are facing is democratic itself or involves a growing importance of democratic practices. I will say that calling to that criteria that I express after Paulo Sérgio is the basic process is the process in which those who are initially are excluded. But of course in other historical periods and cases we could compare they of course also existed, the workers, the proletarianized workers were excluded in the nineteen century in Europe in the times of post-industrial revolution and so on. The basic process is the process by which the excluded impose thei issues and of course this process is a revolutionnary process in the great sense of the term. It is also, I am more convinced of that now, a process of civilization in many respect. I think it is the only process trough which certain phenomena [coupure due à la fin de la cassette]. And this is precisely where the political significance of violence 2

3 comes into play. This is the point where we can not ask ourselves to what extent the generalized use of violence, the acceptance of violence or even further development of violence by the ruling elite themselves - Paulo Sérgio explained that the poor are the preferential target. The question can be " To what extent violence in this sense is a direct or indirect means to prevent the mass, the exploited themselves to draw a line of demarcation between the necessary use of force to impose their own participation and recognition in the system and (...). I think that oligarchies prevent the possibility of a democratic transition and, therefore, they prevent the possibility of reaching any compromise, any balance of forces beteween antagonistic interest or antagonistic classes precisely by generalizing or allowing the generalization of the condition of violence. (...) Very briefly, I will ask the following question : is this what we call in french - I don't know if there is an english or a portuguese counter-part for that - la politique du pire. I am not sure, but I think the question could be to some extent clarify by taking also into accont the reciprocal point of view. What are the reasons which lead the oligarchy of western europe and North America of the nineteenth and twentiest century to be not better of the current oligarchies in Brazil to take a different part.(...) they keep their own violence under some control (...) There is a certain political culture, the political, as many people like to say today, was constructed over several centuries, the civil society in a cycle of revolutions, revolts, reforms, counter-revolutions and so on, the alternance politique at macrohistorical level. But this is only stating the obvious, I mean, giving the results. I think a more precise question is looking for in the two interconnected following connections. First, these oligarchies commited themselves from a number of reasons, because it was actually their interest in the world economy and the world politics of that time, to building state-nations which were also nation-stations, centers of economical, political and military powers which immediately and urgently needed the collaboration, the consensus of the masses. But we should never forget that its oligarchies at the same time were in course of civilizing the world, that is there were exercising the extremest form of barbary under the name of civilization in the rest of the world where they precisely allowed themselves both collectively and individually all the forms of unrestricted violence. And the two following questions I would like to ask. First, to what extent do oligarchies today have any clear interest in building nation-states and state-nations, and combining in these formes their economical, their political, their cultural interests, and so on? And, second, to what extent should not we consider that in situation like Brazil, but 3

4 in many others, the oligarchies tend to behave in their own territory as colonial elite in sense I have indicated. To take up the paper by José Casanova, I was very much impressed, and certainly not the only one, by his demonstration, because in fact it is truly impressive about the situation in the former Soviet Union (...) the differences between the political transition in Ucraina and the political transition in Russia. (...) Ucraina seems to be a paradise, may be many people will find Casanova'picture too optimistic, but after all and since now, since then, Mister Kratchouk and other leaders are not Eltsine. I unterstood, I'd like to stress the following combination of points. The basic question in comparison with Russia, Yugoslavia, is to what extent the alternative to barbary precisely in the form in this case of the actual construction of multicultural entities, multicultural states is not a desperate objective? What kind of elements do we have, can we draw from the concrete observation of today's situation that we'll convince us that this possibility really is. Now the surprising element in José Casanova'answer is precisely, lies in the distinction between state-nation and nation-state. They built first of all state-nation, and the problemen of the nation-state comes after that, possibly because nationalism in fact was rather weak, and this should'nt be seen, he says, as difficulty or an obstacle, or rather an advantage, a least for some time. (...) In Ucraina, it is not the emergence of a nation first of all. It was first of all the process through which a local political elite, a fraction of the former nomenklatura, took advantage of the imperaial structure of the Soviet Union and the existence of a traditionnal national problem, problem of identity, very strong problem of identity, to autonomize its power. And of course the question, if we want to understand why it is possible, the question is to what extent does the population, the local population, the majority of the population, see this autonomization of the power of the local part of the nomenklatura as something beneficial? What kind of advantages do they see in this process? I think that the obvious answer is it could give them greater possibilities of control, of pressure over precisely the sytem which, we'll never forget, is a social state system or wants to be a social state system. And of course Casanova is truly right to ask the question " What is likely to happen if the transition, the process of development of market relations, capitalist absolutely free not to say savage, is not in development in this framework as it started in other countries? " 4

5 Finally, I will say, this a personal opinion the following thing. I think this example should probably suggest us that to some extent multicultural political entities are posible in the current situation. (...) against the extreme forms identity politics, nationalist politics, the ethnicization of the whole state, namely to ccept the idea in the minds and in the practices that sovereignties in today's world are limited. This is to a large extent to accept the recognition of something which has long existed within the two camps, but which of course totally contradicts the miss of the nation and the ideologies in the name of which independent entities are claiming their independence. That is not go backwards to nineteen century allegient full sovereignty or self-determination of a nation-state, but a limited sovereignty. But in terms I will say also that to accept limited sovereignty which in this world is and will be a necessity for everyone, including the most powerful entities, including the United States of America doesn't amount to zero sovereignty in terms of security, military and so on and in terms of economy. So to finish, I'm very sorry, I must apologise, because I didn't have before Mister Greskovitz's paper. I would like to limit myself to a methodological remark. I fuly agree with the idea that economic determinism is not a key in these issues and that there is an autonomy or some autonomy of the political. But to a large extent I think that this is not a matter of principles, this is a matter of conjonctures and conditions the degree to which the political has the sufficient autonomy is not a question of concept, it is precisely a question of where and when you stay in history and geography. Now to what extent the two processes we are discussing, that is transitions from dictatorship in the western world and transitions from a dictatorial system in the ex-socialist or communist world, are really convergent or parallel in this respect. I will see at least one difference, one basic difference. In the western world, the extreme social polarization not only did already exist, but it was one of the main goals of (...) and this is one of the most basic element of continuity, precisely between before and after. This is because these places were to a large extent places of unrestricted or unlimited market or capitalist development. On the other hand, the socialist system with their poor societies wre also very unequal societies, none of us believe, or today believe, that these societies were equalitarian societies but, to some extent and this is the matter of discussion, there were societies in which something like middle range or medium social strenghen was perhaps (...) and built by the XXX. the existence of a big middle class is one of the basic conditions for the existence of some sort of democratic system. So the title of Mister Greskovitz Good-bye breakdown prophecies, Hello poor 5

6 democracies, I will say OK : poor is well provided, it is more true than even, it is a growing gap between those who are not so poor or no longer so poor even acording to the international standards and those who are under the famous threshold of poverty. And this will lead us back to the question of violence and crime that Paulo Sérgio said. 6