Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Ο θείος Τάσος και η Χρυσή Αυγή

του Γεώργιος Στείρη

Parapolitika.gr

31 Ιουλίου 2013

Η αισθητή παρουσία της Χρυσής Αυγής στα ελληνικά πολιτικά πράγματα έχει απασχολήσει τους τελευταίους μήνες την κοινή γνώμη τόσο στην Ελλάδα όσο και στο εξωτερικό, με ανάμεικτα αισθήματα. Η πλειοψηφία ανησυχεί, αλλά αρκετοί είναι εκείνοι που επιχαίρουν. Ο χαρακτηρισμός «χρυσαυγίτης» ακούγεται όλο και περισσότερο στην καθημερινότητά μας. Το ερώτημα είναι εάν αποδίδεται σωστά στα πρόσωπα που αποδίδεται. Η Χρυσή Αυγή δεν αποτελεί κόμμα αστικού τύπου, ώστε να αποτελεί ευρύ χώρο υποδοχής ετερόκλητων ανθρώπων, αλλά μια παραστρατιωτικής υφής οργάνωση, με ό,τι αυτό θα έπρεπε λογικά να συνεπάγεται. Εντούτοις, στην ελληνική εκδοχή του πράγματος, βλέπουμε να στεγάζονται υπό τη σκέπη της μια πλειάδα Ελλήνων, οι οποίοι προέρχονται από διαφορετικές αφετηρίες. Μια εύκολη εξήγηση, συχνά γραφόμενη και υποστηριζόμενη, είναι πως αποτελεί έκφραση διαμαρτυρίας των πολιτών προς το αστικό πολιτικό σύστημα και την πιεστική, έως τραγική, καθημερινότητα. Επειδή όλοι μας, εάν το θέλουμε, μπορούμε να έχουμε μνήμη, ας ανατρέξουμε στην εμπειρία των τελευταίων δεκαετιών, ώστε να δούμε ότι αυτοί που στεγάζονται στη Χρυσή Αυγή δεν είναι κατ’ ανάγκη χρυσαυγίτες, αλλά άνθρωποι που ιδεολογικά ήταν ακροδεξιοί, χωρίς να το έχουν συνειδητοποιήσει ή να τολμούν, τότε, να το παραδεχθούν ανοικτά και χωρίς αστερίσκους.

Οι υπάρχοντες ακροδεξιοί μετακόμισαν προς την Χρυσή Αυγή, δεν δημιουργήθηκαν στην πλειοψηφία τους σήμερα. Ο θείος Τάσος, ο μπάρμπα Γιώργης στη γειτονιά, ο Γιάννης ο φούρναρης και ο συμφοιτητής Μάνος αποτελούν κοινές, σε πολλούς μας, ιστορίες.
Ο θείος Τάσος ήταν ανδρεϊκός και ψήφιζε φανατικά το ΠΑΣΟΚ. Έδινε και χρήματα για το κόμμα όποτε παρίστατο ανάγκη. Με όρους του σήμερα, ανήκε στο πατριωτικό ΠΑΣΟΚ. Διέπετο από αντιαμερικανισμό και είχε πάθος με την υπεράσπιση των συνόρων από τους Τούρκους. Εκείνο όμως που τον απασχολούσε περισσότερο ήταν οι συνομωσίες των σιωνιστών που επιβουλεύονταν τον ελληνισμό. Διάβαζε φανατικά βιβλιογραφία σχετική με το θέμα και δεν δίσταζε να διατρανώνει την πεποίθησή του ότι «όλα τα κανονίζουν οι Εβραίοι». Συνεπώς, για τον θείο, δεν ήταν στραβά όλα όσα έκανε ο Χίτλερ. Παρεμπιπτόντως, και η ήττα του Χίτλερ στους Εβραίους αποδιδόταν. Πολλά χρόνια αργότερα ο θείος Τάσος είχε την ίδια ερμηνεία για τη διαμάχη Σημίτη – Χριστόδουλου σχετικά με την αναγραφή του θρησκεύματος στις ταυτότητες. Θα χαιρόταν, φαντάζομαι, που προσφάτως τον δικαίωσαν οι αποκαλύψεις της Δήμητρας Λιάνη και του Τράγκα...

Ο μπάρμπα Γιώργης ήταν γείτονας, ο οποίος ψήφιζε τη Νέα Δημοκρατία. Ένιωθε όμως ασφυκτικά μέσα στο κοστούμι της μεταπολίτευσης. Με παράπονο συνήθιζε να λέγει ότι στην πραγματικότητα ήταν βασιλικός και χουντικός, αλλά δεν είχε κομματικό φορέα να τον εκφράσει. Αφήστε που δεν έπρεπε να βγει ο Αντρέας. Θεωρούσε ότι κάθε ίχνος αλλαγής στην ελληνική κοινωνία αποτελεί σημάδι παρακμής. Μόνο η εμμονή στην ελληνική παράδοση θα μας σώσει. Όσο για την Κατοχή, δεν έπαυε να υποστηρίζει την προσφορά των ταγμάτων ασφαλείας στη σωτηρία του έθνους από τους «συμμορίτες και τον εβραιομασόνο Στάλιν».

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Monday, July 29, 2013

China: Citizens united

Financial Times
July 29, 2013

When the Chinese police arrested rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong on July 16, they charged him with “gathering a crowd to disturb order in a public place”.

As Mr Xu had been under house arrest since April, the charge triggered an outcry. But in the eyes of China’s ruling Communist party, the softly spoken but stubborn lawyer is still a threat, even while confined to his Beijing home. Over the past year, Mr Xu has worked to link activists who were each running individual campaigns, marshalling them into a broader movement called “citizenry” to foster a sense of rights and responsibilities across a range of public issues. It is the virtual equivalent of a crowd in the street.

This has touched a raw nerve with the new leaders in Beijing because Mr Xu is not alone. Despite the Communist party’s claim that China must take its own path of development and that concepts of western democracy do not apply, the middle class has begun following the lead of its counterparts in South Korea and Taiwan. After achieving a degree of economic affluence, people are starting to demand a greater voice in determining how society is run.

“Civil society has already become very firm and deep-rooted in China,” says Gao Bingzhong, director of the Centre for Civil Society Studies at Peking University. He adds that delegates at the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature, who traditionally did little more than rubber stamp government plans, are now consulting civil society groups on policy proposals and legislation. “The transformation of civil society into political demands is a general phenomenon. China is no exception,” he says.

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Saturday, July 6, 2013

Force-feeding — Guantanamo's shame

by Alka Pradhan, Kent Eiler and Katherine Hawkins

Washington Post

July 6, 2013

At least 106 of the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention center are reported to be on hunger strike, with 45 currently being force-fed.

A recently published report by the Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment, to which we contributed, found that the practice of forced feeding at Guantanamo was "a form of abuse and must end." A member of the task force, Dr. Gerald Thomson, described the process: "You are forced physically to eat, by being strapped into a specially made chair and having restraints put on your arms, your legs, your body and your head so that you cannot move. [You have] a tube inserted into your throat that extends into your stomach, and you're trying to resist that with the only muscles that are free — in your throat." Detainees have said that it is intensely painful.

When the restraint chairs were first introduced to Guantanamo in December 2005, the force-feeding process was reportedly especially punitive. Several detainees said that guards kept them in a restraint chair for hours after the tube feeding ended — sometimes for as long as six hours. The military says that the restraint chairs prevent assaults on U.S. personnel, but a detainee whose condition has deteriorated such that force-feeding is medically necessary to sustain life is unlikely to have the physical ability to commit assault.

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Thursday, July 4, 2013

It is capitalism, not democracy, that the Arab world needs most

by Fraser Nelson

Daily Telegraph

July 4, 2013

To watch events in Egypt is like seeing a videotape of the Arab Spring being played backwards. The ballot box has been kicked away, the constitution torn up, the military has announced the name of a puppet president – and crowds assemble in Tahrir Square to go wild with joy. The Saudi Arabian monarchy, which was so nervous two years ago, has telegrammed its congratulations to Cairo’s generals. To the delight of autocrats everywhere, Egypt’s brief experiment with democracy seems to have ended in embarrassing failure.

Normally, Western leaders would be lining up to deplore a coup d’etat, but yesterday even William Hague seemed lost for words. As a rule of thumb, he says, Britain prefers civilian rule. But when asked to condemn the Cairo coup, he declined. The Arab world’s Twitter accounts, once full of revolutionary optimism, have turned into a depository of despair. “Egypt has taught me that democracy is a lie and an elected president is a myth,” wrote Ahmed al-Husseini, a Sunni preacher from Bahrain. “No parliament, no elections, no ballot boxes. All lies.”

He has a point. Egypt’s election turned out to be like an Irish EU referendum: voters could give any answer they liked, as long as it was the right one. The army didn’t like how things were going, so it has asked voters to choose again. While the West was celebrating Egypt joining the comity of democratic nations, Egyptians themselves were sliding into an economic abyss, with terrifying shortages of fuel, food and security. Sectarian violence has been thrown into the mix, with persecution of the Coptic Christians followed by Sunni v Shia strife. The murder rate trebled. Things were falling apart, which is why the generals were welcomed back.

But the Arab Spring was a demand for freedom, not necessarily democracy – and the distinction between the two is crucial. Take, for example, the case of Mohammed Bouazizi, who started this chain of events by burning himself alive on a Tunisian street market two years ago. As his family attest, he had no interest in politics. The freedom he wanted was the right to buy and sell, and to build his business without having to pay bribes to the police or fear having his goods confiscated at random. If he was a martyr to anything, it was to capitalism.

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Democracy Loses in Egypt and Beyond

by Noah Feldman

Bloomberg

July 4, 2013

The framers of the U.S. Constitution feared that democracy could devolve into rule of the mob. Events in Egypt are a reminder of why that concern was justified. Essentially the same pro-democracy activists who enabled Hosni Mubarak to be removed from power in February 2011 have now done the same to his democratically elected successor, Mohamed Mursi. In both cases it was the protesters who made the government vulnerable. And in both cases it was the army that delivered the coup de grace in the form of a coup d’etat.

Even acknowledging that Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood-backed party did a poor job over their year in power, failing to win over opponents or broaden their base of support, the latest coup is a tragic setback for democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law. The first protests of the Arab Spring were calls to replace a dictator who had no democratic right to govern. The protests were inspiring not just because they said “enough” to a bad system, but also because the protesters aspired to replace that bad system with democracy. Many of the original protesters were themselves secular or wanted a secular government. But by calling for free elections, they opened themselves to the possibility that the majority of Egyptians wouldn’t agree with them. That, in essence, is democracy: The majority gets to choose the government it wishes, subject to the guarantee of minority rights.

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