Jacques Derrida, 15.07.1930 (El Biar, Algeria) – 8.07.2004 (Paris, France)
Photo: Ben Oswest
“Apprendre à vivre, cela devrait signifier apprendre à mourir, à prendre en compte, pour l’accepter, la mortalité absolue, sans salut, ni résurrection ni rédemption. Depuis Platon, c’est la vieille injonction philosophique : philosopher, c’est apprendre à mourir.”
-Jacques Derrida, interviewed in Le Monde August 2004
You could never say that in English and make it sound serious.
Photo: Aram Sinnriech
Oh Joy. A panel of experts has provided the statistical rule for predicting the law of “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” – or ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)).
After tests of the experiences of 1000 people, they have discovered “things don’t just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moment”.
A momentous weekend of political movement in the South Pacific, perhaps the least momentous of which was the election of Auckland’s first centre-left city council since Colin Meads was in short pants. New mayor Dick Hubbard’s surname, and his profile as a local breakfast cereal mogul will no doubt lead to some painful punning headlines over the next four years. It also remains to be seen whether City Vision-Hubbard can do any better than the Citizens & Ratepayers who have pretty much dominated Auckland politics since the Second World War.
Across the Tasman, Australia swings convincingly to the right, and George W. Bush rests easy knowing that his diminutive sidekick will still loyally guard the kennel in his part of the world. Speak softly and carry a big heap of stealth cruise missiles. Way to build trust across Southeast Asia, John!
And in contrast to the the mild mannered Anglo-Saxon power plays of this week, French Senator Gaston Flosse has successfully inveigled a toppling of the pro-independence government of Oscar Temaru in Tahiti after only 15 weeks. As Le Monde points out, Temaru and his fragile coalition were probably not properly prepared to take charge of the territory, (and would have trouble fulfilling an election platform that included the introduction of a 6 hour working day and a 50% increase in the unemployment benefit). Nevertheless, the methods used by Flosse to obtain the vote of no confidence probably deserve closer scrutiny : allegations that Paris threatened to reduce the subsidies that keep the colonial economy afloat, and even accusations from the French Socialists that Flosse’s machinations had support from the heart of the central government…
Tension is “palpable” in Papeete these past few days, and an attempted knife attack during the parliamentary debate on Friday night suggests that this situation has the potential to rapidly turn ugly…
Photo: Nrbelex
A nice column in the Guardian by Instapundit‘s Glenn Reynolds on the complex interplay between the conservative/liberal dichotomy in US politics and the role of religion on both sides of the divide…
“…religiosity – something often associated, especially by Europeans, with American conservatism – is also a staple of the US left. Just look at that icon of US liberalism, Hillary Clinton. The north-eastern style leftism associated with her is sometimes frankly, sometimes implicitly, religious.”
It’s been fascinating to watch the lead-up to yesterdays decision by the EU to commence accession talks with Turkey. Deutsche Welle TV has been running a series of profiles on Turkey on various programs over the past few weeks, and Le Monde ran a profile of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan last week. It is clear that any eventual decision to bring Turkey into the EU fold will impact deeply the sort of community that the EU is destined to become.
Why is France so jumpy? Apparently, there is too much influence from market-driven Anglo-Saxon policies in Ankara. There is certainly concern in Paris that the French model of an intergrated Europe is losing influence as the EU expands. But in addition, there is the unvoiced concern and self-interest around religion, cultural difference and the potential threat to the French workforce…
As Euro-MP (and former Polish foreign minister) Bronislaw Geremek said this week in an online dialogue: “Une partie de l’opinion publique polonaise partage tout a fait la crainte des Francais. Il me semble que dans les deux cas, les raisons de la mefiance sont similaires. Il s’agit d’abord de l’etendue geographique et du potentiel demographique de la Turquie. Deuxiemement, c’est le probleme culturel et religieux. On craint que l’entree d’un grand pays musulman dans l’Union europeenne change la situation à l’interieur de l’Union et brise l’unite religieuse de celle-ci.”
Indeed, despite the ‘liberal’ image that is often painted of EU nations, xenophobia and mistrust is never far from the agenda. . Will we ever see an EU that stretches from the west coast of Ireland to the border with Iran? Etnobofin watches with interest …
Image: Lance McCordRumsfeld queries whether there were ever ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden…
Here’s Rummy two years ago. (Thanks to Russell Brown’s blog once again for the link)
Admit that you’ve done a little bit of a flip-flop on this one Donald ? Nah, that’d be too easy.
Photo: Heartonastick
Vitamin S tonight features Chirgilchin, the current champions of the Tuvan national throat singing competitions! They’re dropping in to Odeon on their way to Dunedin. This sounds unmissable.
(Update) Wow, what a joyful musical occasion. The trio was greeted by a PACKED Odeon Lounge, and performed a 30 minute set of some of the most extraordinary and perfectly conceived music I’ve ever heard. Anyone who hasn’t heard throat singing should google it and find some mp3 samples, or look up Chirgilchin on Amazon. The documentary Genghis Blues is of course at the root of popular awareness of this musical style in the West, and is well worth catching, and is a good introduction to the sound and landscape of Tuva.
Photo: Maarten Mooljman
A new album Streamer from trumpet player Nils Petter Molvaer this time recorded live in Tampere and London. From an initial listen to the demo mp3s, it all sounds appropriately Nordic, ice-cold crystal production, simmering pads and chunky beats that were manufactured by viking dwarves on a North Sea oil rig. And that guitar work – Northern Europe must be the last refuge of shaggy haired axemen. (Indeed, Northern Europe gave birth to great hordes of shaggy haired axe-men, but that was about 1500 years ago…)
*sigh* NPM is an artist I’ve always wanted to like, but haven’t ever quite crossed his bridge when I come to him. But if you’ve ever wanted to hear Miles Davis meeting Kruder & Dorfmeister in an Oslo basement club, this is probably as close as you’ll get.
This weekend’s Le Monde has this story covering the Michael Moore-esque “Time to go John“, a series of shorts pulled together by Australian film makers exposing some of the questionable actions of the Howard government.
Interesting to see that a European paper should take notice of political and articistic manouevrings so far from the metropole – if only there was a more active critique in the metropolitan French media of the continuing colonial regime in the Pacific….
The Observer also has a horrifying article giving a glimpse into the extent of the criminal networks abducting and trafficking women and children across eastern Europe. Where is this all heading?
It is ultimately abhorrent that there are people growing rich off the prostitution and abuse of children anywhere in the world. But this is happening on a large scale inside (or at least within spitting distance of) the European Union. Do we actually care? Are we powerless to stop this?
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