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Monday, May 30, 2022

Doing justice


Maximilien-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre

Nowadays many people are highly indignant when people are prosecuted only because they use their right of freedom of expression; because they expose abuses by the state; or because they want to live their own lives without interference by higher authorities who consider them a threat for the state just because of this. In modern society, it is the individual that comes first and not the state. I became again aware of this, when I read Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel, written more than a century ago; especially when I read chapter III-II, where Sorel explains why Robespierre used so much violence against his opponents. It made me clear that oppression by dictatorial regimes is not simply a matter of the exercise of power by tyrannical rulers in favour of themselves, but that it is a different way of thinking what is right. Since I think that it’s good to understand this other way thinking in order to be better able to fight against it, let me share with you what Sorel wrote.
Although in a democratic country, basically the state is subordinate to the individual, in France of the Old Régime, so in France before the Revolution of 1789, it was just the other way round: the individual was subordinate to the state. This meant that any action not supporting the state might be considered subversive and criminal. “One of the fundamental ideas of the Old Régime”, so Sorel, “had been the employment of the penal procedure to ruin any power which was an obstacle to the monarchy. … [P]enal law … was a protection granted to the chief and to a few privileged persons whom he honoured with special favour … and … the courts of justice [were] considered as instruments of royal greatness. … The king constantly demanded of his courts of justice that they should work for the enlargement of his territories. … Justice, which seems to us nowadays created to secure the prosperity of production, and to permit its free and constantly widening development, seemed created in former days to secure the greatness of the monarchy: its essential aim was not justice, hut the welfare of the State.” [italics by Sorel] And so it could happen that feudal manors were confiscated for arbitrary motives, or that individual acts were not judged from the point of view, whether the individual had the right to act so but whether they undermined the state. The State, not the individual, was central in law.
The French Revolution didn’t simply change this mentality. Such a mentality doesn’t simply change by a regime change. After the fall of the Old Régime the new leaders came from the same social layer of dignitaries that had applied the law before the Revolution. (also Robespierre was a lawyer) So, although the regime had changed, much remained the same. The ideas changed but the mentality didn’t. Following Sorel again: “The Revolution piously gathered up [the old] tradition that gave an importance to imaginary crimes …; it seemed quite natural to explain the defeats of generals by criminal intentions, and to guillotine people who had not been able to realise hopes fostered by a public opinion, that had returned to the superstitions of childhood. … [N]owadays it is not easy to understand how a citizen can be seriously accused of plotting or of keeping up a correspondence with foreign powers or their agents in order to induce them to begin hostilities, or to enter into war with France, or to furnish them with the means therefor. Such a crime supposes that the State can be imperilled by the act of one person; this appears scarcely credible to us. Actions against enemies of the king [before the Revolution] were always conducted in an exceptional manner; the procedure was simplified as much as possible; flimsy proofs which would not have sufficed for ordinary crimes were accepted; the endeavour was to make a terrible and profoundly intimidating example.” All this was also found in the new legislation after 1789, for example, as quoted by Sorel: “The proof necessary to condemn the enemies of the people is any kind of document, material, moral, verbal or written, which can naturally obtain the assent of any just and reasonable mind. Juries in giving their verdict should be guided solely by what love of their country indicates to their conscience; their aim is the triumph of the republic and, the ruin of its enemies.” [italics by Sorel]
So, although the Old Royal Regime had fallen and the citizens had taken power, this didn’t involve as yet a transition to a modern democratic state. Far from that. The regime had changed, but the personnel hadn’t. In a sense it was old wine in new bottles. After a promising start, soon the mentality of the Old Régime returned, leading to much chaos and bloodshed and to Napoleon’s restoration of the former autocratic France. It was a new “Cult of the State” (Sorel). The Old Régime had been replaced by a “democratic despotism”, in which “the Government would have been in theory the representative of everybody, controlled by an enlightened public opinion; practically it was an absolute master.” (Tocqueville)
Once I had read this section of Sorel’s Reflections on Violence, it was easy to see the similarities with present dictatorships. Then I think in the first place of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. You can see the same phenomena (less so, but they clearly are there) in several Eastern European countries. Also in countries like the Netherlands and modern France still relics of the old state mentality have been left. Comparing the Russian regime change in 1991 with the French Revolution: After the fall of the Soviet Union, first there was a period of (economic) chaos and then Putin’s Restoration followed. Look how there organisations that receive foreign money are considered “foreign agents”. Look how the press is curbed by the state. The structure of the country has changed after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the same personnel stayed and by that the Soviet mentality. Also in many other countries the state continuously tries to subject the individual. The Old Régime mentality keeps reigning everywhere. Often the law of the individual is still subordinate to the law of the state, while it should be the other way round. 

Source
All quotations are from section III-II in Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Random quote
One must be very simple to suppose that the people who would profit by the demagogic dictatorship would willingly abandon its advantages.
Georges Sorel (1847-1922)

Monday, May 23, 2022

How to become a dictator


Everyone should read the newest book by the French neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik. Recently, I saw an interview on the French TV in which Cyrulnik talked about his book and although I had something else to do, I couldn’t stop watching till the program had ended. The book is basically about inner freedom and voluntary servitude. This duality and the way you develop into one direction or the other makes that the book is about how you become the person you are. However, it also helps understand the rise of new dictatorships in this world, after a period in which democracy had been spreading. And just this aspect makes that the book is not only important to understand yourself but that it is also politically relevant. In view of the present war in Ukraine, which is actually a fight between a new democracy and a new dictatorship – the latter is new after a short democratic intermezzo –, it is not surprising that just this aspect of the book has drawn my attention. It’s not mere chance that you can interpret the book this way, for Cyrulnik’s personal experience as a Jewish child that survived the Second World War is continuously in the background of this book, which can also be seen as Cyrulnik’s way to understand these experiences. The book is so rich in ideas and analyses that I cannot do justice to it in this blog. Therefore – with the Russia-Ukraine War in my mind – I’ll pick one aspect of it: How to become a dictator.
When talking of dictators, I think that now most people will think of the Russian president Putin, but the tricks I am going to present exist already since it has become possible to manipulate your public and followers with the help of modern media. So, maybe Hitler and Mussolini were the first dictators who used them, but here there is no need to discuss about this historical question. Modern dictators mentioned by Cyrulnik are the ayatollahs in Iran, Putin in Russia and the Turkish president Erdoğan, although, to my mind, the latter is not yet a fully-fledged dictator, for in Turkey there is yet so much democracy left that it is still possible to stop Erdoğan. I want to add to these names the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, although also in Hungary it is still possible to stop his dictatorial manipulations by democratic means; even more so than in Turkey.
Most modern dictators or semi-dictators like those just mentioned didn’t get their power by a kind of coup d’état. Hitler, Putin, Erdoğan and Orbán were all elected by normal democratic procedures. Only once in power they made the steps to a dictatorship by misusing their power or by manipulation. It’s also not so that statements by future or settled dictators are not true, like statements that, for example, they have “saved” the country. The point is that dictators use such true or false statement to pretend to have reasons to break the law, to suppress the freedom of the press, to manipulate the people, to form an inner circle of supporters in order to undermine the democratic rules and institutions, to establish their personal power, and to eliminate their political opponents (event by arresting or killing them), despite the presence of laws that protect democracy and especially legally protect their opponents.
What then must a politician do to try to become a dictator? Here is Cyrulnik’s recipe:
- Say “I will be your hero”.
- Say “I am prepared to die for you”.
- Use simple words and use often the word “people”.
- Make popular allusions and insinuations, but not too many. Just for rhetoric reasons and for showing that you don’t belong to the “arrogant elite”.
- Say that there is a domestic enemy (the traitor) or a foreign enemy (like immigrants or a foreign power), and when doing so sustain your words with much drama like an opera singer dying on the stage killed by another singer.
- Finish your speech with words like: “If you want that I liberate you, obey me, follow me, vote for me.”
Present yourself as the liberator, speak the language of the people, promise fantastic results, make the people enthusiast and say that you are going to free them from the humiliations by others and from the corruption of those in power. Then, once you have been elected, you can begin to undermine democracy in favour of yourself and your future dictatorship. How? There are many who can show you the way, like Orbán, Erdoğan and Putin. 

Source
Boris Cyrulnik, Le laboureur et les mangeurs de vent. Liberté intérieure et confortable servitude. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2022; esp. pp. 96-99.

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Random quote
Repression itself produces the counter-forces that will eventually defeat its instigators.

Willem Frederik Wertheim (1907-1998) 

Monday, May 16, 2022

1914



1914 *)

War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin**),
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.

For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.

Wilfred Owen

*)   Read: 2022
**) Read: Moscow

Source: https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-21179

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Random quote
If he is of an exalted temperament, and if, unfortunately, he finds himself armed with a great power, allowing him to realize an ideal he has forged, the optimist can lead his country to the worst catastrophes.

Georges Sorel (1847-1922)

Monday, May 09, 2022

War rhetoric

Peace Palais in The Hague, Netherlands, the seat of one of the
international courts of justice in this town that tries to combat
 war and its excrescences. 

Gradually the words of the politicians of the parties involved in the Russia-Ukraine War become harder. For instance, some time ago the American president Biden called the Russian president Putin a killer and recently he called him a war criminal. Now it is so that pres. Biden is a free citizen and like any citizen of the USA he is free to express his opinion. However, pres. Biden is not just a citizen of his country, but he is a political leader who has responsibilities towards his country, especially bringing welfare and peace there. Is it therefore right to call his political opponent a war criminal, even though and even if there are good reason to think so?
Let me first say something about the term “war criminal”. “War criminal”, or rather “war crime”, is a legal term. I’ll not go into detail here, but what a war crime is, has been determined by international treaties and law, like the Geneva Conventions. In short, it is a superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering inflicted upon an enemy like wilful killing, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity, deliberately targeting civilians, deliberately killing innocent civilians, etc. If there is a suspicion that a war crime has been committed, the International Criminal Court in The Hague can start an investigation and prosecute the suspected offender. Recently, the Court has started such an investigation in Ukraine in order to find out whether war crimes have been committed there (by both sides). So, at the moment the case is, what we call, sub judice. However, judicially it still has to be proven that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine and who the offenders are. When a case is sub judice, it is common practice that politicians refrain from making statements about it in order not to influence the investigation and the verdict. Therefore, politicians like pres. Biden should not say whether pres. Putin is a war criminal or isn’t.
So far the juridical side. However, there are also practical reasons not to call pres. Putin a war criminal. Some people may not think so, but we need politicians for many reasons. Restricting myself to the present Russia-Ukraine War, it is their task to bring this war to a decent end. As president Zelensky of Ukraine stresses again and again, this war can end only with negotiations. But who wants to negotiate with a war criminal? Can you make it to negotiate with a war criminal? Of course not. You talk only with a war criminal, if it is the easiest way to get the person in prison. In other words, calling Putin a war criminal makes negotiations to end this war impossible. That’s why you shouldn’t do so, even if you think he is. That’s why, for example, neither pres. Zelensky nor pres. Macron of France does so.
In addition, calling Putin a war criminal can also backfire on the war and even prolong fighting and atrocities. There is a psychological effect that people accused of bad behaviour may shield themselves off from the accusations instead of getting the insight that they are on the wrong way. They can even become proud of what they are doing. Accusations of bad behaviour can also make that they are just supported in their behaviour by their inner circles (who often also are implicated in the crimes). This can make that war criminals not only continue their crimes but even increase them, because they don’t give a damn about what others say. So, war crime accusations can lead to more war crimes.
Calling Putin a war criminal, and, sadly enough, also the investigations, whether war crimes have been committed by the Russian army, can also backfire in another way. As Joseph Wright and Abel Escribà-Folch write in The Conversation: “Leaders who face the prospect of punishment once a conflict ends have an incentive to prolong the fighting. And a leader who presides over atrocities has a strong incentive to avoid leaving office, even if that means using increasingly brutal methods – and committing more atrocities – to remain in power. When losing power is costly, leaders may be more likely to fight to the death”, like when they risk to be prosecuted for war crimes.
In view of all this, it is important that politicians should moderate their words when involved in a war, certainly in a war like the Russia-Ukraine War that will be difficult to end, as it seems now. Hard words, like calling Putin a war criminal, will make this war last longer and will make it difficult to solve the conflict. But what we see is that the rhetoric becomes harsher and harsher. Now pres. Biden and others say that Russia must be weakened, but an analysis like the one just given will make clear that also this statement probably will make that the war will last longer. Do I want to say then that Western politicians must keep their mouth shut? Of course not. They must say what their limits are, and I think they have said so already clear enough: Western democracy, for short, and the internationally accepted borders, like the borders of Ukraine and the other European countries with Russia. This plus real support to Ukraine is a clear sign. To my mind, by starting this war, Russia has weakened itself already so much that it will need a long time to recover. Why then spend words on it that only will make the problem bigger? Politicians must solve problems, not make them. They must bring problems to a good end and find decent solutions, once problems are there.

Thursday, May 05, 2022

Random quote
The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it.
François Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

Monday, May 02, 2022

Killing in war


Malinowski on Trobiand Isles, 1917/1918 (Source)

Hundred years ago the First World War (1914-1918) had just ended. Then it was called the Great War. It was one of the cruellest wars ever in number of victims. How many people died because of this war is not known and figures vary from about 10 till 20 million people dead. Let’s say that 15 million people died because of this war, half of them being soldiers, half of them being civilians. In those days – it was in 1917 or 1918 – the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski had a conversation with a cannibal on the Trobriand Islands. This is what Malinowski tell us about it:

“I remember talking to an old cannibal who from missionary and administrator had heard news of the Great War raging then in Europe. What he was most curious to know was how we Europeans managed to eat such enormous quantities of human flesh, as the casualties of a battle seemed to imply. When I told him indignantly that Europeans do not eat their slain foes, he looked at me with real horror and asked me what sort of barbarians we were to kill without any real object.” (Source)

I think that the cannibal was right.