Nov 26, 2011 | North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°49
Five months after the emergence of the 15-M Movement (Movement of May 15th), the success of the world day of indignation demonstrates the consolidation of a new transnational space of social movements. Organized on October 15th, 2011, this event assembled almost a million protestors who marched in over 950 cities. However, the 28 countries concerned did not see the same intensity in protest: if the European states – particularly Spain and Italy – and North Americans are the largest concentration of participants, African and Asian cities have remained off of the momentum. Despite these disparities, the success of these efforts attests to the vitality of these mobilizations responding to the global call, All united for a global change. This slogan is reminiscent of the slogans of the anti-globalization movement, which along with a handful of outraged protesters contested the G20 summit meeting in Cannes on November 3rd and 4th, 2011. These apparent victories should not obscure the difficulties of police repression – like the evacuation of the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) camps – or organizational dilemmas. However, the fact remains that the various citizens’ initiatives show some cohesion, crystallized in the use of labels – indignation, Occupy – and similar practices.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
First, note that the day of October 15th, 2011 is inscribed in the singular history of transnational social movements. Recall as well the precedent of February 15th, 2003 when demonstrations against the war in Iraq assembled several million people in sixty countries. For many commentators, this unprecedented synchronization of peaceful groups on a global level reveals the emergence of a new actor: international public opinion. If this observation were to be strongly criticized, the emergence of anti-globalization – embodied by the gathering in Seattle in 1999 and the regular meetings of the WSF (World Social Forum) since 2001 – can be considered as an index of the process of transnationalisation of civil society associations. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of this activism and its ambivalent relationship to politics – illustrated by the recurring controversy on the form of the World Social Forum – tends to limit the consistency of this space, often described as unclear.
With respect to this indignation, it is characterized by a historical trajectory, which is distinguished by the rapidness of its extension in local, but very diverse contexts. As a premise, we discuss some collective actions beginning at the end of 2010, beginning with the Arab revolutions as well as the Estamos hasta la madre movement in Mexico or the Purple People – Il Popolo Viola – in Italy. All these preliminary signs of an initial protest denounce the generalization of plans of austerity and socio-economic consequences of the crisis. After the founding of the 15-M Movement in Spain, many countries were successively hit: from Greece to Italy and notably Israel, Switzerland, Portugal, and to a lesser extent in France. In this respect we include the extension of the movement to North American cities and the popularization of the general term Occupy, since the OWS began in mid-September 2011. The spontaneous success of these initiatives and the call of October 15th have contributed to a second phase of swarming on every continent: examples include Auckland, Seoul and Berlin. Finally, remember the proximity maintained with a certain number of social conflict which appear more circumscribed, whether is the Senegalese Y En A Marre, the anti-corruption protests in Brazil, the student strikes in Chile or the British No-Cuts!
Theoretical framework
1. Local Coordination and Global Convergence. The rapid internationalization of the movement leads to consider its methods of distribution, linking struggles rooted in national contexts to a critique of the meta-political world system. This invites us to analyze the ambivalent relationship between indignation and the global justice movement, these two spaces are not easily disassociated.
2. Imaginary Community of Protestors. This conceptualization – proposed by Benedict Anderson in his founding research of nationalism – can prove useful to understand these symbolic connections between protestors. In fact, they not only share a similar repertoire of action – based on social networks, non-violent occupation of public spaces, deliberative democracy – but also a set of common representations.
Analysis
In the first place, the contagious explanation seems insufficient to understand the dynamics of transnationalisation at work since May 2011. Mechanically linking protest and financial crisis, this approach ignores the strategies of actors and their work towards self-presentation (Goffman). The repeated failures of French indignants, despite the enactment of a Draconian austerity plan, serves here as a prime counter-example. Additionally, if social networks and digital tools have played a crucial role – because they have strongly reduced the costs of communication – it is important not to overstate their impact in a strictly technical perspective. On the one hand, the export process was partly orchestrated by the protestors: Democracia Real Ya had announced in May 2011 of the World Day on October 15th. On the other hand, there is no denying the ripple effect generated by the unexpected and symbolic rallying of American cities. In this logic, the switching of local power relations, such as the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, have contributed to accentuate the phenomenon. Especially since the public support of intellectuals such as Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz or Naomi Klein, the legitimacy and credibility of this space of indignation is reinforced.
Evidently, this emerging community of protestors is affirmed by dividing tactics against political parties, trade unions and the media. However, it is a continuation of the anti-globalization movement. Not only have the indignants recruited some of their members, but they have also borrowed the specific know-how, particularly in terms of democratic expression. Yet, they have retranslated these contributions in an original grammar of protest articulating these techniques in the symbolic occupation of places. Dissatisfied with the organizational model of their predecessors, the indignants aim to stem the institutionalization – and its pernicious effects of vertical integration or customization – by participative plans focused on the horizontality of individuals. To this end, the indignants and anti-globalization appear to be two spaces of protest distinct, but interdependent, also concurrent and complementary by the circulation of people and the practices that unit them.
Therefore, we must analyze some consequences of this original position, namely the embarrassment of the political and media fields, which are confronted with vocal protest of their easily identifiable control and lack of leadership. In this case, the authorities range from brutal repression – like the evacuation of Oakland – and so far ineffective attempts to recover. At the same time, the indignants denounce the inadequate treatment, almost caricature-like to which they are subjected: media professionals are accused of reducing the movement to a hierarchical political organization while completely neglecting the importance of mini-mobilizations. This has lead to the creation of alternative channels of information by protestors, which have resulted in the consolidation of a world of shared values. Without prejudice to the sustainability of such a label, we emphasize its dynamic character and composition, which demonstrates through the diffusion of unifying slogans, such as 99% of that of real democracy. For now, global indignation, reinforced by the intensification of transnational communications, seems to take shape as imagined communities overlooking state borders.
References
Anderson Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1983.
La Vie des idées, « Débats autour du 15M. Républicanisme, démocratie et participation politique », 20 sept. 2011, à l’adresse web : http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Debats-autour-du-15M.html [21 novembre 2011].
Paule Clément, « La structuration politique de l’indignation. Le mouvement transnational des indignés », Passage au crible (45), 27 juillet 2011.
Nov 2, 2011 | Passage au crible (English), Peace, Security
By Jean-Jacques Roche
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°48
The National Council of Transition announced that the former Libyan leader, Mouammar Kadhafi, was killed on October 20th, 2011 and was buried that Tuesday in a secret location somewhere in the Libyan Desert. His son, Mouatassim was buried at the same ceremony.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
After he had just received the Sakharov Prize, the Arab Spring did not seem to be only the result of peaceful demonstrations. This was certainly the case in Tunisia and Egypt where power was given up due to the pressure from the street demonstrations. However, the recourse to force was necessary to liberate Libya from an old tyrant of forty years.
These revolts took a new dimension when disproportionate repression led to an intervention in the name of the responsibility to protect. Put into effect yesterday by NGOs, the duty to intervene must from now on support the armed forces, which – in the name of Just Causes – engage in new just wars that they fail to finish because they have anticipated what could be a Just Peace.
Theoretical framework
This question is not new and has been nourished by debates since Cicero and St. Thomas Aquinas. The opposition between Realists and Liberalists returns today, in the domain of theories of International Relations, an argument, which has become very classic and is divided into two lines of thought.
1. Realists would fall more on the side of the opponents of tyrannicide for two reasons. They recall that the Six Books of the Republic by Bodin was published four years after St. Bartholomew. They emphasize as well that the state actor remains the principal instrument of pacification of a civil society, which is naturally violent. When the violence of the tyranny aggregates factors of internal division, such that the chances of implosion of the country are realized because only the State allows “the avoidance of the explosion of animosity into pure passion and brutality without restriction” in the words of Aron. Secondly, it is not the place of States to interfere in the domestic affairs of other states. To the contrary, peace and international security exist, according to the Charter of the United Nations, by the development of amicable and peaceful relationships between its members, founded primarily on non-intervention. A reminder of this requirement may be seen in the recent ASEAN charter in 2007, which attests in this regard to the permanence of this rule.
2. As for liberals, they defend the principle of the necessary right to consider the domestic affairs of a country for two reasons. In the first place, when the tyrant has stopped being the legal representative of his citizens, he has violated his mandate. To eliminate a despot is consequently not undermining the Social Pact because it predates the Political Pact. In other words, the real sources of law naturally exist in the heart of social structures (families, clans, tribes….) and precede the emergence of the public power: the tyrant cannot thus pose as the protector of this single source of law. Secondly, liberals find themselves supporting the principle of responsibility to protect to be incumbent on all actors when sovereignty has proven ineffective in accomplishing this mission. Considering that sovereignty is conditional – the powers, which it creates remain dependent on its capacity to protect its citizens; they retain the natural right to create justice when the State can no longer fulfill its mission – liberals advocate the emancipation of civil society when facing state supervision. Especially when they are repressive or are simply incapable of responding to the transnational issues with which they are presented.
Analysis
The emergence of civil societies in the international arena disturbs traditional landmarks and forces the rethinking of the mechanisms of international pacification in the framework of intrastate conflicts, which have today become internationalized. While some State intends to intervene in the name of Just War, they do so without having anticipated the failure of these operations and benefitting from a reflection on Just Peace.
The dismantling of authoritarian States which have imposed until then an appearance of unity and weak credibility of imported structures renders the rapid installation of rule of law, promised by its initiators as illusionary. Even if elections could be quickly organized, the polarization among the ethnic communities and religious devotion, in the best of cases, reinforce the most powerful group, to the detriment of minorities who will contest very quickly the verdict of the ballot box. In a situation of open or latent civil war, the organization of general elections is not a guarantee of peace. Sometimes the prospect of an elective process can trigger fighting, such as was the case in Congo-Brazzaville in 1997. Moreover, even if international observers provide a good report of the overall election process, they seem to fear that the new leaders – too inexperienced after being out of power for decades – can be overly influenced by outside forces or may succumb to the temptation of corruption. In either of those two cases, their opponents would be happy to denounce the foreign intervention or the venality of new government leaders to justify the return to fighting. If, as in the case of Iraq, the old structures of power – the political party and the army – were dismantled, the insurgents may freely equip themselves with arsenals that the occupying forces have not completely secured and then these former military members may challenge, through guerrilla warfare, the occupying forces. They are much less at ease in facing this type of combat than all of the other alternatives to adapt to revolutionary wars, conflicts of low-intensity, asymmetrical exchanges or to the counter-insurgency as they are limited by legal constraints such as their adversaries use the legal pretext of their numerical and material inferiority to ignore these rules. It is, in effect, always difficult to confront the Mao guerrillas “at ease among the people like a fish in water” in the destruction of a stock of arms stored in a school or to eliminate an entire community on the roof of a hospital. The interpretative guide of the ICRC of 2009 deals with the direct participation in hostilities, which seem incapable of eliminating the menace of a Taliban insurgent who quietly cultivates his land for nine months of the year as it is to neutralize a hacker who can interfere with the systems of observation and communication from thousands of miles away.
The fragility of new imported structures, corruption, the spread of weapons, the capacity of harm to specific minorities constitute some of the factors, which radically transform the crisis. In fact, it has taken the form of a test of imposed force by the vanquished, which they have believed to carry an easy victory in justifying the conduct of a Just War. However, they have been revealed as incapable of negotiating a Just Peace, which would allow them to pass the stalemate.
References
Allan Pierre, Keller Alexis, What is Just Peace, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Badie Bertrand, Un Monde sans Souveraineté, les Etats entre Ruse et Responsabilité, Fayard, 1999.
Commission Internationale de l’Intervention et de la souveraineté, 2001, http://www.iciss.ca
Kaldor Mary, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War, Wiley-Blackwell, 2003.
Oct 11, 2011 | European Union, Financial crisis, Passage au crible (English)
By André Cartapanis
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°47
The crisis of the sovereign Greek debt is far from being resolved. These uncertainties remain based on the magnitude of the drop in ratings, which now inevitably must be assumed by the holders of this debt. The recent agreement by the Bundestag of a new support plan for Greece, with the promise of a loan of 109 billion Euros, which allows the pursuit of the adjustment of public accounts without the default of the Greek State. However, the magnitude of the budgetary adjustments under consideration – to the order of 10% of Greek GDP in two years – and the brutality of wage deflation have provoked a recession without precedent since post-World War II: with a drop of GDP of 4.4% in 2010 and of 5% in 2011.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Shortly after the victory of PASOK (the Panhellenic Socialist Movement) in the elections of October 2009, the new Greek Minister of Finance announced a revision of the figures of the budgetary deficit. Contrary to the 3.7% predicted in the beginning of the year, he anticipates a deficit of 12.5% of GDP. This is the starting point of the crisis of the sovereign indebtedness of Greece. Since this occurred, international investors were fearful of not being reimbursed for the debt they own. Financial markets require thus prohibitive risk premiums in order to continue to buy the Greek debt, while rating agencies have contributed for their part to the maintenance of the panic in degrading the Greek note in the markets, but also those of Spain and Italy. Since Fall 2009, the phases of intense crises that followed have left a fear of default on payment, notably in the Spring of 2010 and in August-September 2011. They have been interrupted by periods of remission, determined by the procrastination of diverse European countries. Simultaneously, towards the end of 2009, the return of global growth – truly to a moderate rate – drove the countries of the Euro Zone to privilege the reduction of public deficits, in order to not expose themselves to the defiance of rating agencies and financial markets. This has resulted today in a slowdown, which has left the fear of a second recession and new crises among the European banks, particularly for those which hold the important portfolios of the Greek, Spanish and Italian public debts. This is to say that the Greek crisis reveals the macroeconomic dynamic that has followed the financial crisis in Europe. However, this also equally sanctions the effects of the creation of the Euro where the Monetary Union has reinforced the heterogeneity of the Euro Zone and where the countries of the South have accumulated commercial unbalances or budgetary deficits throughout the 2000’s. Such has been made apparent before the crisis, Greece represented the archetype of this type of trend, budgetary incompetence and statistical lies.
Theoretical framework
1. The Consequences of Banking Crises. The history of financial crises teaches us in the aftermath of banking crises that there is a contraction of economic activity, which appears almost inevitable. Additionally, this weighs considerably on public finances through various channels: 1) a strong decrease in fiscal receipts; 2) a mechanic growth of social expenditures which add to the cost of bank bailouts; 3) a discretionary increase of the budgetary deficit in order to exert a countercyclical effect on economic activity; 4) an increase in interest rates.
2. The Propagation of Banking Crises to Crises of Sovereign Indebtedness. In their last work dedicated to the history of financial crises over eight centuries, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff clearly emphasize these mechanics. On average, since the post-War era, the public debt increased by 86% in three years and then created a serious banking crisis. However, certain countries induced more important effects. From this point of view, the growth of the Greek debt between 2007 and 2010, to the order of 105% of GDP to 142% corresponds to a much weaker degradation, only around 35%. As a case in point, the banking crisis that hit Finland in 1991 resulted in an increase of the public debt by nearly 280%. The budget balancing fluctuated thus from +1% in 1990 to -10.8% in 1994. One observes the same phenomenon for the banking crisis of Sweden in 1991: from a budgetary surplus of 3.8% the year preceding the crisis to a deficit of 11.6% in 1993. This systemic inheritance of the banking crisis is naturally all the more painful than the public indebtedness which was elevated before the crisis, and which was exactly the case in Greece with a budgetary deficit of 10% in 2008 and of 15% in 2009. It has contributed to the disastrous management of the crisis by the member countries of the Euro Zone.
Analysis
Since the onset of the Greek crisis, the specificity of a crisis of sovereign debt for a country belonging to a monetary union appears clearly through several markers: 1) the impossibility, in theory, to appeal monetary refinancing of the ECB (European Central Bank); 2) the difficulty of considering a recourse through the IMF, imposing loan-conditionality in macroeconomic policy on one of the members of the Euro Zone; 3) the profound resistance of other member countries to consider a sovereign default, due to the risk of contagion among them; 4) the absolute impossibility of using the weapon of the exchange rate and of the depreciation to alleviate the cost of the budgetary rigor in giving a boost to exports. From this point on, it falls to the leading organs of the European monetary union to confront this issue. This is what the ECB did – under the decisive impulse of Jean-Claude Trichet – in adapting in a pragmatic way his doctrine and by massively buying the Greek debt. This polity was taken not only to avoid a default, but also to prevent the collapse of its price, which was susceptible due to international speculation to trigger an unsustainable increase on the interest rate on the Greek public debt. In return, on the side of governments, one is stuck in the hesitations and analytical errors. Principally determined by considerations of internal policy or by doctrinal options, certain countries – Germany primarily – refused, in the first place, to grant the urgent loans to Greece, in overestimating the capacity of their economy to rapidly adjust its public accounts, even if massively degraded, through a rigorous budgetary policy. Similarly, they have reclaimed a restructuring of the Greek debt, implicating private investors: they have also overestimated the effects induced by the liquidity, or even the solvability, of European banks or financial institutions, which hold Greek titles. Yet they have resolved to engage in the support plans and have endorsed the creation of European Funds of Financial Stability. This turning point came, however, after interminable equivocation which accounted for the defiance of market, not only to the respect of the Greek or Spanish debts, but towards the Euro and the strength of banks in Europe. Additionally, the budgetary policies have privileged, since the end of 2009, the reduction of deficits. They have contributed thus to the weakness of growth, as much in the heart of Europe as in the periphery of the Euro Zone, in Spain, Italy, and above all in Greece. The crisis of the sovereign Greek debt was aggravated, so the recession reduced even further their capacity to repay and the road to Athens rumbled.
References
Aglietta Michel, “La longue crise de l’Europe”, Le Monde, 18 mai 2010.
Cartapanis André, “June 13, 2010, The Unachieved Integration of the Economic and Monetary Union, The Crisis of the Euro Zone”, Chaos International, PAC (Passage au Crible), (25), 12 juin 2010.
Cohen Daniel, “La crise grecque. Leçons pour l’Europe”, Revue économique, 62 (3), mai 2011.
Reinhart Carmen et Kenneth Rogoff, Cette fois, c’est différent. Huit siècles de folies financières, Paris, Pearson, 2010.
Jul 31, 2011 | Human rights, International Justice, Passage au crible (English), UN
By Yves Poirmeur
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°46
Indicted since 1995 for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), General Ratko Mladic was arrested on May 26th, 2011 by Serbian authorities. Colonel of the Yugoslavian Army in Knin, Croatia (1991), then General Commandant of the Serbian Amry from 1992-1995, he was one of the principal leaders of the military creation, on the ruins of Yugloslavia, of a Grand Serbia which would have reunited the Serbs of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovnia, and of Montenegro. With the arrest on July 21st, 2011 of Goran Hadzic, pursued for his implication in the murders of hundreds of Croates during the Croatian War (1991-1995), Serbia has now remanded to the ICTY, 44 indicted persons whom they have requested. The ICTY has thus the power of disappearing throughout the years and has come to have completely accomplished its mission since the 161 people whom they have indicted have been deferred to them.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
To re-designate borders, in a multiethnic country, Ratko Mladic did not recoil before any crime. He drove a policy of ethnic cleansing – by murders, deportation, massacres of civilian non-Serbian populations, bombardments of villages – in order to realign Serbia and Western Bosnia with Croatian and Bosnian Krajinians. Additionally, he played a central role in the Bosnian War which had over 100,000 deaths and was marked by the tragic siege of Sarajevo (1992-1993) in which the terrible massacre killed nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica (July 1995). After the arrests of Slobodan Milosevic (2001) who was in power in Serbia from 1989-2000, and Radovan Karadic (2008), the leader of the Bosnian Serbs from 1992-1995, R. Mladic had remained the last main leader responsible for the ethnic cleansing still at large. It was not for 16 years that he was caught by international justice and delivered to the ICTY.
Instituted on May 25th, 1993 by Resolution 827 of the Security Council of the United Nations, the ICTY represented an ad hoc criminal jurisdiction charged with judging the leaders of grave violations of international humanitarian law committed in the Former Yugoslavia since 1991. This was the first resurgence of international justice which had single precedents in ad hoc military tribunals in Nuremberg (1945) and Tokyo (1946), its creation – such as the ICTR in 1994 to judge the genocide in Rwanda – was made possible by the end of the East-West conflict. In this new international conjuncture, the Security Council created a liberal interpretation of the United Nations Charter (Chapter 7). In fact, it decided to put in place ad hoc criminal jurisdictions which could participate in the maintenance of peace and international security. Despite the functional obstacles and overall policies, these two ad hoc instances have brought a fundamental contribution to the fight against impunity. In creating the demonstration of these international criminal jurisdictions rendering efficiently justice, they have also validated the project of establishing a new implement which would be at once permanent and capable to recognize the most serious international crimes, and who has committed them. The creation of the International Criminal Court in 1998 and its vigorous entry in 2002 has been consequently situated in its wake. However if this latest implement translates well into taking root for criminal justice for international institutions and the rationalization of its functioning, it leaves all at once the persistence of structural difficulties revealed before the ICT in their fight against impunity. Without the disposal of a judicial police, the international criminal jurisdictions must obtain the collaboration of States in order to make their investigations, to retrieve evidence and to obtain the arrests of the indicted. In order to do this, they must develop a true diplomatic judiciary before the group of political actors implicated in the conflict. In other words, the chances of success depend on a complex ensemble of relationships in forces, such as was demonstrated by the course of General Mladic.
Theoretical framework
1. A Diplomatic Judiciary in Motion. The international criminal jurisdictions consecrate a substantial part of their work in tying relationships with national, local and international authorities in order for them to accept to put police in their service so they will have them at their disposal. The advancement of procedures remains thus tributary to the interests of diverse actors, of which the Investigator and the President must understand and analyze well in view of direct cooperation.
2. The Refusal of Impunity. Serbia must accept a European condition of eventual adhesion to EU : Serbia must refuse all impunity. In doing so, the European Union imposed soft power, which became efficient in motivating Serbian leaders as they cannot envision a future for their country outside of Europe.
Analysis
Created while the war was still raging, the ICTY was constantly confronted by contradictions of judicial and political logic, the arrest of the indicted and the completion of investigations dependant on governments. This is only because the mandate of NATO forces (1997), under the pressure of the President of the ICTY, which had arrested indicted persons and that the leaders of the war began to be brought before the tribunal. The international forces were preferred to the weak local police force that these arrests facilitated the application of the Dayton Accords (1995). NATO had thus operated under its mandate (accomplished by the end of 2004), 30 arrests. But, while he was installed in Serbia, the shelter of international forces profited Mladic, as well as Karadzic, as inertia of large powers tied, without doubt, to the circumstances of the incident in Srebrenica. In fact, as, the American, English, French governments and NATO had begun secretly negotiating their participation in peace accords, Mladic had been left to prepare the siege around the village.
For a long time, Mladic benefited from the multiple complicities of the army, the state apparatus, and the many nationalists. Then, the change of the relationship of political forces in Serbia, which manifested in 2008 by the election to the Presidency of the Democracy, Boris Tlalic, and the intransigence of the European Union on the question of impunity, had permitted his capture. The fundamental choice of Serbia to integrate into the European Union was finally what sealed his fate.
The fight against impunity remains a permanent fight in which the ICTY has accorded an eminent contribution. Far from preventing the establishment of peace – such as some had feared – it has demonstrated that it can, to the contrary, facilitate in the establishment of peace, in permitting international forces to placing indicted criminals outside the state of harm so that they may be arrested. It has also conferred a true credibility on the international criminal justice in demonstrating that it is capable of judging the extreme serious crimes which, without it, would without doubt go unpunished. Additionally to the issue of due process, it has conferred severe penalties. Thus, in accomplishing the arrest of indicted persons who have claimed a permanent stake on the international scene and in intervening, against all beliefs, and remanding them to the ICTY, it has inscribed the repression of international crimes in history, fighting as well against the culture of impunity.
References
« Justice pénale et politique internationale », Confluences Méditerranée, (64), 2007-2008.
Gaboriau Simone, Pauliat Hélène (Éds.), La Justice pénale internationale, Limoges, PULIM, 2002.
Schoenfeld, Heather, Levi Ron, Hagan John, “Crises extrêmes et institutionnalisation du droit pénal international”, Critique internationale, (36), 2007, p. 36-54.
Jun 27, 2011 | Development, North-South, Passage au crible (English), Poverty
By Clément Paule
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°45
Announced as the National Day of Mobilization, June 19th, 2011 represents a new success for the 15-M Movement (Movement of May 15th). In fact, many dozens of millions of people are marching throughout all of Spain, reaffirming their indignation in facing the socio-economic situation of the country and denouncing the indifference – that is to say, the corruption – of the political scene. Thus, if this new actor of citizen protest seems to be reinforced locally, it must be stated that other initiatives launched in many European States, do not always see the same magnitude of effect.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In the first place, it is important to evoke the impact of the financial global crisis which, since Fall of 2008, has lead to many considerable repercussions. As evidenced by the number – frequently cited – of unemployment in Spain, it is estimated at over 20% of the active population and at almost half of the youth under 25 years of age. In a more general manner, the social consequences of these financial disorders are found to be amplified by the austerity plans of different governments, under the impetus of the IFIs (International Financial Institutions). These rigorous measures, aiming to reduce the public deficit, have provoked strong criticism that they are accompanied by substantial plans to save the banking sector, according sometimes without large compensation or obligations. Citing for example, the strong mobilization in Iceland towards the end of 2008, which provoked the fall of the government five months later. Mentioning also the manifestations of the Geração à Rasca – or the desperate generation – which has attracted several hundred thousand people to Portugal since March 2011. This opposition to drastic public policies, seen as socially unjust, is expressed most recently in the United Kingdom since the March for an Alternative assembled in London on March 26th, 2011, which had between 250,000 and 500,000 participants. Finally, it is convenient to mention the strong protest in Greece, which began with the National Strike of May 2010.
Note that this transnational wave may have nourished the success of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. In fact, these last movements were able to beat down, by popular pressure, authoritarian and repressive regimes. It is in this context of social and political struggles that the 15-M Movement appeared in Spain, and the indignants. In this instance, on May 15th, 2011, the protestors have assumed a historical place in Madrid, La Puerta del Sol, so that the country could hold a few days of municipal elections.
Theoretical framework
In the absence of sociological data on the composition of the 15-M Movement and its followers, a simple ideological analysis would prove to be less productive. In return, the methods of organization and the action of the protestors seem to demonstrate pertinent indicators.
1. Rationalization of a repertoire of innovative action. It is helpful to evoke the specifics of the strategy of the 15-M Movement, founded in the first place on a conquest of the public space supported by a total refusal of cooperation with the political field. In this respect, one must emphasize the establishment of sophisticated processes of direct democracy, associated with self-management and a rejection of all leadership, a rejection guaranteed by the obligatory rotation of responsibilities.
2. International circulation of the protest. In this logic, it is necessary to observe the diffusion, that is to say the externalization of these social fights, towards other States, begun by Greece, France or Italy. Nonetheless, their magnitude, variable according to each country, is explained by the structure of political opportunities, each for their own.
Analysis
One of the salient characteristics of the movement resides in its resolutely anti-partisan orientation. As evidenced by the shelving of Cayo Lara, the Coordinator General of the Izquierda Unida – a Left political formation – when he appeared with members of 15-M during a sit-in. Since then, it is important to open a certain amount of discourse taken by the Movement and to convey the preconceptions which hinder their comprehension. Thus, certain commentators have believe that they can prove the proximity which exists between the apolitical disposition of the protestors – translated concretely by a refusal to associate themselves with political parties or unions – and the Populism of the far-right. Recall also that this type of strategy of demarcation is routinely defended by political personnel, begun by many alterglobalists. Now that the recuperation is seen as illegitimate, it does not seem necessarily associated with Populism. Finally, this position claimed by the Indignants, the same as their resistance towards all hierarchal organizations or all identifying markers – the movement presents itself as simply citizen-based – founded on the values of direct democracy opposed to repressive government. In other words, the rationalization of their repertoire of action has all at once a pacification of types of action and notably a refusal of violence which the forces of order may impose. In this regard, it must also be considered as a cognitive transformation of social movements, to become reflexive actors.
In fact, the transnationalization of these types of citizen protests does not constitute a recent phenomenon, as can be seen in the studies of the case of fighting in favor of the abolition of slavery or even in the native cause. In return, the process seems for now trivialized with the growing role played by non-state actors – NGOs, civil society, etc. – in the international space, a role well-documented thanks to the work of altergobalists. Then, one of the most remarkable traits of the movement of Indignants resides in the transnational circulation of ideas, practices, even the actors themselves. On this point, we cite the work of Stéphane Hessel, Indignez-Vous! where the title was also adopted by protestors. Since its publication in October 2010, this pamphlet has seen major success. Translated today in many languages, this short essay has rapidly sold millions of copies throughout the world. In Spain, it was prefaced by the intellectual José Luis Sampedro, and was then sold again, in large quantities.
This overall sharing of ideas, importation, but also externalization – stimulated by the lowering of costs of access and transmission of information – reveals the progressive insertion these mobilizations in a transnational space with more and more anonymity. From now on, indignation will take various forms and will be diffused throughout countries. It has taken a sociopolitical form which the governments of States can no longer rightfully ignore in the global dimension.
References
Della Porta Donatella, Tarrow Sidney (Éds.), Transnational Protest and Global Activism, New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Nez Héloïse, « “No es un botellón, es la revolutión !” Le mouvement des indignés à Puerta del Sol, Madrid », Mouvements, 7 juin 2011, consulté sur le site de la revue :
http://www.mouvements.info [20 juin 2011]
Pina Fernández Adrián, « La prise de la Puerta del Sol à Madrid : chronique du mouvement social du 15 mai », consulté sur le site de Métropolitiques : http://www.metropolitiques.eu [21 juin 2011]
Site Internet du quotidien El Pais : http://www.elpais.com
