The “Big Bang” of Modernity

Innovation through Firearms, Expansion through War: A Look back to the Origins of Abstract Labor The Enlightenment myth that the modern commodity-producing system sprang forth from a “Civilizing Process” (Norbert Elias) as the product of peaceful trade and development, bourgeois industry, scientific curiosity, inventions that raised the standard of living, and daring discoveries in opposition to the brutal culture of the so-called Middle Ages has proven tenacious. As the bearer of all these beautiful things is named the modern “autonomous subject,” which supposedly freed itself from feudal-agrarian bonds in favor of the “freedom of the individual.” What a shame then that the form of production that arose from this mass of pure virtues and progress is characterized by mass poverty, global pauperization, world wars, crises and destruction. The truly destructive and murderous results of modernization point to a different origin than that of the official ideological fairytale. Since Max Weber pointed out the ideological connection between Protestantism and capitalism the history of modernity's origins has only been crudely, and in no way critically, classified. With a certain degree of “bourgeois shrewdness” the motives and developments that brought forth the modern world have been largely obscured, so that the rosy dawn of bourgeois freedom and the unleashing of the system of commodity production shine in false immaculateness. There is an opposing approach to the official historical narrative, however, one that reveals that the origins of capitalism in the early Modern period were in no way due to the peaceful expansion of markets, but rather were essentially military-economic in nature. It is true that from as early as antiquity there were money and commodity relations, trade routes and markets of greater or lesser scale, but all without the possibility that a totalitarian monetary/market system like the modern one would ever arise. These were always, as Marx had recognized, economic “niches,” positioned on the edge of agrarian economies. The idea that the origins of a system, in which money as an “automatic subject” (Marx) is fed back to itself, is not to be found in the Protestant revolution alone, but also in the innovation of firearms in early-modern militaries, appears even in Max Weber's research. But Weber, as a notorious ideologue of the old German imperialism, obviously had no interest in pursuing and systematizing these thoughts. The social and economic historian Werner Sombart had already explicitly drawn attention to the military-economic roots of modernity in his work “War and Capitalism” in 1913. But he, too, pursued this avenue no further, as a short time later he joined the ranks of the leading warmongers and was eventually led by his anti-semitism to join the Nazis. More than half a century passed before the connection between capitalist genesis and the “political economy of firearms” was taken up again, by the economist Karl Georg Zinn (“Canons and Plague,” 1989) in Germany and the modern historian Geoffrey Parker (“The Military Revolution,” 1990) in the anglophonic world. Although these studies contain damning evidence, they are not free of apologetic elements. The rosy view of modernization passed down from the Englightenment has been allowed to continue clouding our vision. The Failings of Historical Materialism One might think that the radical social critic of the Marxist milieu would be destined to pick up the  matter where bourgeois theory left off and develop it further. It was Marx, after all, who analyzed not only the destructive functional logic of the “automatic subject” and the encompassed social form of “abstract labor” which is detached from needs, but also portrayed the anything but civilized history of capitalism in unvarnished terms, such as in the chapter on “so-called primitive accumulation.” It must be admitted that even in this depiction the military-economic origin of the logic of capital remains underemphasized. Marxism following Marx's death also failed to take up this point again: the history of the pre-industrial development of the system of commodity production was troubling because, in terms of Marxist doctrine, it was peculiarly ambiguous. There is, in fact, a reason in the theory of Marx why this connection, which was so uncomfortable for  bourgeois apologists, had to be suppressed even by Marxists themselves. A central component of historical materialism is the depiction of history as a series of “necessary” stages of development in which capitalism also has a place and to which is even ascribed a “civilizing mission” (Marx). A fully anti-civilizing foundational history in which capital-in Marx's words-is born “with blood and dirt coming out of every pore” poorly suits this construction, which has been passed on to us by Enlightenment philosophy and Hegel, and has only been applied materialistically and renewed through socialism. If the logic of exploitation and abstract labor were not born “from the womb” of the pre-modern agrarian society through the development of increased productive power, but was instead a sheer “development of destructive power,” one which imposed itself upon and smothered the natural economy from outside as a foreign principle instead of developing it beyond its narrow bounds, this would seriously contradict the premise of historical materialism. In order to preserve the metatheoretical, historical and philosophical paradigm, the Marxists also left out the early developmental history of capitalism or classified it counterfactually. Clearly the chief motivation was the fear of abetting reactionary thinking, but this is a false alternative, one that arises constantly out of the contradictions of bourgeois ideology. An Enlightenment-era mythology of progress on one hand, reactionary cultural pessimism and agrarian romanticism on the other are merely two sides of the same coin. A longing for a positive ontology forms the basis of both mindsets. If the negative impulse prevails to “overthrow all relations in which man is a debased being,” however, no ontological construct is necessary. One could conclude from this that the essentials of historical materialism apply only to one social form, namely the capitalist one. Aside from that, the question   arises exactly how the capitalist system of production evolved from the “political economy of firearms.” Unchivalrous Weapons At some point in the 14th century, somewhere in southwestern Germany, there must have been a powerful explosion; a carelessly-assembled mix of saltpeter, sulphur and other chemicals blew up. The  inquisitive monk who carried out this experiment was named Berthold Schwarz. More precise information about him is unavailable, but that explosion was likely the big bang of modernity. It should be noted that the Chinese had been familiar with gunpowder far longer and also utilized it not only for splendid fireworks but also occasionally in war. But they didn't think of using it to launch projectiles over distances, an application that had far-reaching effects, in the truest sense of the word. This application was reserved for the pious Christians of Europe. The earliest recorded use of a cannon dates from 1334, when Bishop Nicholas I of Constance defended the city of Meersburg with one. With that the “firearm” was born, to present day the most common murder weapon. This fundamental innovation of modernity brought about first a “military revolution” (Parker), which marked the historical rise of the west. In the Middle Ages the consequences of effective distance weapons for the traditional social order had already been recognized. Ideological fears of this sort were realized around the year 1000, when the newfangled crossbow was imported from the orient. The second Lateran Council forbade the use of this instrument of war in 1129 as an “unchivalrous weapon.” It was not for nothing that the crossbow became the primary weapon of thieves, outlaws and rebels. Firearms made the proud, heavily armoured knightly class fully ridiculous, militarily speaking. Grimmelshausen [17th century German author-translator's note], writing during the Thirty Years' War about the career from backwoods farmboy to military officer, had this to say in his Simplicissimus: “What has made me into so great a man is the fact that the lowliest stableboy can shoot dead the most courageous of world's heroes; had gunpowder never been discovered, however, I would have been forced to mind my p's and q's.” The “firetubes” were certainly no longer to found in the hands of outsiders. For as soon as the possibilities of the new technology were demonstrated there was no holding it back. Fearing that they would fall behind lords great and small scrambled around the explosive weapons. No council would help now; the know-how of the new weapons of annihilation spread like wildfire. In the Renaissance cities of northern Italy, with their relatively advanced craftsmanship, the technology of firearms progressed especially quickly. All achievements and discoveries during this birth period were adapted from the art of building and using cannons. The north-italian theorist Antonio Cornazano described the decisive role of firearms at the beginning of the 16th century, practically singing the praises of cannons and designating them quite affectionately as “Madama la bombarda, whose son is the rifle. This diabolical art has superseded all others and opens fortified cities to their enemies, making whole armies tremble with their roar.” (Cited in Zur Lippe, 1988, pp. 37) Ever better rifles were built and above all ever larger cannons, which could fire ever farther. The largest field artillery even earned their own individual names. In response new fortifying techniques were developed. Thus the first push for modernization was at the same time an arms race and this process has repeated itself periodically until the present days, making it something of a trademark of modernity. The larger and more technologically developed cannons and bullwarks became, the more pronounced the society-altering character of the “military revolution” became. The Military Machine Isolated It quickly became clear that the effects of the innovation of firearms would not be limited to a simple change in military technology. The resulting transformation in the organization and logistics of war cut much deeper into social relations. Until this point the civil and military forms of organizations in agrarian societies had been largely identical. As a rule every free, fully-fledged citizen was also a member of the military, inasmuch as they had military obligations to fulfill. An army was gathered only when the highest power responsible, whether in the form of emperor, king, duke or consul, made a “call to arms” and led them to war. Between these events there generally existed no military apparatus worth mentioning. Although some larger empires like the Chinese or late Roman Empires had more or less powerful standing armies, these left no more than a superficial mark on the methods of production or way of life of a society, no matter how costly or elaborate they were. The decisive difference lies in the problem of equipment. Pre-modern warriors brought their weapons with them and wore them on their person daily, or kept them at home. Helmets, shields and swords could be produced by most any village blacksmith, and every sheperdboy knew how to use a bow and arrow or a sling. The entire logistics of war could be organized in a decentralized fashion. This corresponded entirely to the decentralized relations of a highly-developed agrarian society. The central authority, even a despotic one, had limits to its influence and its reach barely extended into daily life. With modern military innovation, however, that was all a thing of the past. Muskets and especially cannons could not be produced in just any village and then stored at home, or even carried on one's person. The instruments of death had suddenly reached a higher order and broke the boundaries of human relations. In some respects we find the archetype for modernity in the cannon: it is namely a tool that begins to control its maker. A new industry of armament and death arose, which was a protoype for later industrialization and whose stench of corpses modern society, including the global market-democracies, have never been able to wash away. The military apparatus began to tear itself free from the civil organization of society. The handiwork of war became a specialized occupational field and armies became permanent institutions that began to dominate the rest of society, as Geoffrey Parker shows in his research: “Associated with this development were a marked growth in army size right across Europe (with the armed forces of several states increasing tenfold between 1500 an 1700), and the adoption of more ambitious and complex strategies designed to bring these larger armies into action. (…) finally, [the] military revolution dramatically accentuated the impact of war on society: the greater costs incurred, the greater damage inflicted, and the greater administrative challenges posed by the augmented armies.” (Parker 1988, 2) In this way social resources were redirected to military purposes to an unheard of degree. On occasion there had been a sort of squandering militarism, but never for this long or involving such a large portion of social production. The new armament and military complex rapidly developed into an insatiable Moloch that swallowed up monstrous amounts of material and to which the best social possibilities were sacrificed. Despite, or perhaps because of their many heroic songs and war-like demeanor the pre-modern cultures consumed relatively little in terms of armaments; their wars could almost seem like harmless brawls. As regards this point, Karl Georg Zinn makes a comparison that is an even less flattering for modernity: “Measured by the development of weapons technology in the 14th century, the Middle Ages (...) had only a relatively weak military force at its disposal. War and armament burdened Medieval society far less than in the modern period. The proportion of agricultural surplus used for the purpose of destruction remained relatively slight during the Middle Ages; otherwise there would not have been enough to invest in necessary agricultural advancement, nor would there have been so many cathedrals, new cities or fortresses erected. The most pronounced difference between the Middle Ages and the modern period lies in the fundamentally different quality of technical progress: agricultural advances in the Middle Ages, urban armament and luxury technology with neglect of agriculture in Modernity.” (Zinn 1989, 58) “Madama la bombarda” devoured not only a disproportionate part of social production, but also gave the monetized economy a decisive boost, which had been rather limited until that point. By dint of the rising agricultural and cottage-industrial productivity alone the breakthrough of money as the anonymous ruling power would never have been possible. Over the millenia there had always been technical advances, but people generally preferred to apply the profits of increased productivity for greater leisure or sensual enjoyment rather than the accumulation of monetary capital. Such a mad form of productive development could only be imposed from outside, and the socially detached armament and military complex offered the best prospects for achieving it. Because the production of firearms could no longer be carried out decentrally within the bounds of agrarian natural and household production, it had to be concentrated. The same applied for the standing armies and military apparatuses, whose members were now professional killers and could not sustain themselves from household production. The only medium of reproduction for the unhinged military machine was money. The abstraction of the firearms-based military apparatus from the material needs of society corresponded to the money-form as an adequate medium. The permanent arms-economy of the canon and the structurally independent armies of scale translated, socially speaking, into a similar expansion of social mediation by money. It may have sustained itself from various sources, but all sprang forth as consequences of the “military revolution.” War Financiers, Condottieri and Lansquenets The early modern mercernary captains (Condottieri) and the musketeers and canoniers under their command were the first subjects to be fully freed from agrarian reproduction and without social attachment. Thus their existence was the prototype of the subject form itself, which starting in the modern period was to evolve into a general social principle as the abstraction of labor from needs. In the analyses of the cultural historian Rudolf zur Lippe it becomes clear how the new, bloody “craftsmen of death” transformed into the template of modern wage labor and its management: “The planning of military actions ... had to submit to the primacy of profit calculation. Chivalric notions of honor and fearlessness befitting one's rank was no longer in demand. (...)The unfunctionalized remains of feudal bearing, that is to say, the direct relations to the people and things for which one fights, gradually disappeared with one generation of “last knights” after another. (...) Indeed, the great mass of warriors had transformed into soldiers, recipients of guerdon or pay, and their leaders were paid out of the treasuries of states and offices. The first technological discovery of decisive practical importance was introduced to a field where things like abstract labor and replaceable wage workers had long been in existence: cannons were commensurate to the goal of wars in which the aim was something as abstract as the accumulation prospects of mercantile capital. (...) Since the number of lansquenets in an armed force represented nothing more than the number of people that the contractor could pay, the abstract composition of martial strength in cannons as machines of destruction was the logical consequence.” (zur Lippe 1988, 37) The old mercantile capital was not the logical causa prima for this relationship between abstract labor and the innovation of firearms, as it was claimed here in the sense of an ontology of historical materialism. It wasn't the abstract killing machine, the cannon, that answered to mercantile capital with an already abstract interest in accumulation, but the reverse; the genesis of this interest-form itself was due to the “military revolution” and its social consequences. At this point historical materialism would have to go a little crazy, as its assumption of an “economic basis,” in this case early modern mercantile capital, doesn't conform with a dialectic of “productive power and productive relations” that in truth was itself a late-coming result of the capitalist mode of production. What productive powers called the abstract accumulative interest of early modern merchant capital into being? The compass or the discovery of eye glasses? The alleged causal nexus doesn't exist. In truth the abstract interest of accumulation and the free entrepreneurs of modern monetized economy couldn't have arisen immediately out of the medieval urban merchants and craftsmen. These groups, positioned in the niches of agrarian society, remained bound by guilds and trade associations to a narrow-minded system of mutual obligations and traditions. Their markets were not characterized by free competition and even less by the abstract logic of accumulation. Not until clans of merchants-such as the infamous Fuggers-rose to become war financiers under the regime of firearms did interest shift to sheer monetary accumulation. As the guarantors of princes these financiers had a stake in obtaining the most exorbitant monetizable plunder possible. This profit calculation, free of all social bonds, was reflected in the mercenary captains. The abstract rationale of modern business management sprang from the muzzles of rifles and canons in the hands of professional murderers and arsonits, not an interest in the general welfare. The use of muskets and canons was to a certain degree an early form of “abstract labor.” Even today most people stop short when faced with this term, although it's not difficult to understand what is meant by it. “Abstract labor” is any activity carried out for money where the money is the deciding factor, that is to say, the content of the work is relatively unimportant. Modern monetary subjectivity in its original form carried this indifference to the point of obliteration, even risking one’s own. The objectification of the world for the purpose of indifferent profiteering included self-objectification through mortal risk. Entrepreneurs and workers of death were prototypically in equal parts the identical subject-object of history, the mercenary captain a.k.a manager just as much as the soldiers a.k.a wage workers. It doesn't matter against who or for what one fights, in what branch of production money is invested, what sort of work one does; so long as the price is right it doesn't matter how many worlds burn to the ground. The nihilism of money disguised itself at first with images of farming life. “Hay” was the first slang expression for money, and one sought “to make money like hay” [used in German for “to make pots of money”-translator's note], regardless of all else, as one lansquenet song reveals: We care not for the Roman Empire, If it dies today or tomorrow it's all the same to us, And if it goes in pieces as long as the hay suffices we'll sew it together. Wir haben keine Sorgen Wohl um das röm'sche Reich Es sterb heut oder morgen, Das gilt uns alles gleich. Und ging es auch in Stücke, Wenn nur das Heu gerät, Draus drehen wir ein Stricke, Der es zusammen näht. The simple soldiers in the developing military apparatuses brutalized and were socially denigrated at the same time for their lack of productive means. They were also the first people to be able experience unemployment. When there was no money left in the treasuries of warlords the jobs in the armies melted away. Many musketeers and cannoneers fell victim to massive layoffs; they found themselves, without any safety net, literally thrown out on the street and were feared as wandering beggars, thieves and occasional murderers. The image of the rootless and often unemployed soldier was a mass phenomenon. The Monetization of Society War booty and borrowing from war financiers was not enough to keep the military machine running, however. The whole of social reproduction was exhausted for the purpose of feeding this machine and at the same time it was subjected to the monetary form. At first this meant monetizing the material levies. While the natural-economic taxes had been tied to real agricultural yields, monetary taxes abstracted these fully from natural conditions and carried forward the logic of the military apparatus into the realm of daily life. The unsatiable hunger for money under the firearms-regime came to dominate social life. According to recent calculations the tax burden rose by no less that 2,200% between the 15th and 18th centuries. That forcing the monetary form upon the people caused demoralization is attested to in numerous sources. Even Rousseau tells in his autobiographical Confessions of how he learned of the sufferings of the weakened rural population during the vagabondage of his youth: “After several hours...I called at a peasant's home, weary and almost dying of hunger and thirst. I bid the farmer provide me with a midday meal for payment. He offered me skimmed milk and rough barley bread and told me it was all he had. ... The farmer, who had questioned me thoroughly, concluded from my appetite that my story was true. After he explained that he could see that I was a good, honest young man and not come to swindle him, he opened a small trapdoor next to his kitchen, climbed in and came back a moment later with a fairly thick pancake. ... When it came to payment he was gripped again by agitation and fear; he wanted no money, but refused it with extraordinary embarrassment...and I could not think of what he feared. Finally, trembling, he brought forth the terrible words: 'Commissar' and 'Cellar Rats.' He informed me that he hid his wine on account of the officials and his bread on account of the tax, and that he would be lost if suspicions arose that he was not dying of hunger. ...I left his house equal parts outraged and touched, and lamented the lot of such beautiful areas on whom nature had wasted her blessings to make them into plunder for tax agents.” These tax agents represented, alongside war financiers and condottieri, another prototype of free marketeers in that they purchased in one lump-sum from the state the right to collect taxes. And if necessary those who couldn't pay would have their last cow or their tools confiscated by the bailiff, so that money might be squeezed out of it. But the conversion of nature's fruits into tax money and its exorbitant rise was also unable to satisfy the money-hunger of the war machines. The military despots of modernization moved on to founding their own productive enterprises outside of the guilds and trade associations; the aim of these enterprises was no longer fulfilling needs but solely the acquisition of money. These state manufactories and plantations produced for the first time for a large, anonymous market, which was to finally become the precondition for free competition. And because no one volunteered themselves as cheap wage laborers, convicts, mentally-ill prisoners and on the periphery slaves were used. Special crimes were even invented so that forced labor could be obtained en masse. The directors of the new penitentiaries and workhouses for the free market, which developed during the forced monetization of society, completed the illustrious collection of free enterprise prototypes. War for State-Building The condottieri, who sold themselves and their private armies to the highest-bidding city or ruler, were a transitional occurrence. Soon the princely administrations, who had at first appeared only as clients, took the matter into their own hands. What would later become a law of development for modern economics asserted itself first on the plane of the great powers that waged war with firearms: the big fish devoured the small ones. Once set into motion by the self-perpetuating dynamic of the “military revolution,” the newly-minted early-modern state entities clashed with each other in a wave of expansion. In bloodbaths that at the time were without parallel they tested their strengths, which for the first time were grounded in large-scale technology, in order to battle for supremacy in Europe. The liberal-conservative Swiss historian Jacob Burckhard hit the mark when he spoke of the “State-building war” of the early modern period, for it was then that the foundations of today's still-existing power structures were laid and when what we term politics, the flip-side of monetized production, came into being. This dynamic was accelerated by the discovery of the Americas. In the same manner that the development of modern military technology was set into motion, colonial expansion in both parts of the Americas (unthinkable without firearms) developed out of the military machines' hunger for money. As is well known, adventurers like Pizarro slaughtered entire Indian nations with a few canons and a handful of musketeers. The arms economy and colonialism pushed each other to new heights. The continuous traffic across the Atlantic demanded huge fleet-building programmes, which once again could only be carried out with an abstract monetary economy. The “State-building War” took on transcontinental dimensions. Behind the logic of cannons lurked the hubris of world domination. Thus the Seven-Years'-War (known as the “French and Indian War” in the United States) from 1756 to 1763 between Prussia and England on one side and Austria, Russia and France on the other was the first world war, because it took place simultaneously in Europe and the colonies of the New World. History now comprised an ever-accelerating sequence of military conflicts. According to Geoffrey Parker modernity has been the least peaceful period in the whole of human history, both in terms of the frequency as well as the length and scale of wars. This concentration of warfare and the militarization of the economy accompanied a necessary centralization of society. The big fish ate the little fish not only outward among states, but also inwardly domination was formed anew in the cannon-defined states. Until the 16th century there had been no organized administration stretching from above to below. The common people had to pay taxes in the form of natural produce or labor corvees, but were otherwise left to their own devices. Most affairs were managed by institutions that were both autonomous and limited in their authority. There were even large regions with free farmers and craftsmen that were armed and knew no feudalism; the repressive character of structures here arose from the narrowness of affairs predicated upon blood-relation. Modernization meant at first nothing other than the destruction of these forms of “narrow-minded autonomy” from above and outside so that the people could be subjected to the “political economy of firearms” in the form of monetary taxation and finally be turned into into money-producing units of abstract labor. From the peasant wars of the 15th and 16th centuries to the “Luddites” of the 19th century, independent producers defended themselves in desperate rebellion against their being hammered into fodder for the war machine and its abstract monetary economy. This resistance was bloodily suppressed. The absolutist state apparatus, built on the foundation of firearms-innovations, implemented its imperatives by force. The Economy Isolated Behind the ubiquitous modern compulsion to earn money stands the logic of thundering cannons. These triggered a dynamic of social transformations that began to turn on their creators in the 18th century. The “political economy” of an arms and military apparatus, detached from society and only sustainable via abstract labor, became independent of its original purpose. From the early-modern military despots' hunger for money rose the principle of the “valorization of value,” which operated under the name of capitalism from the early 19th century. The rigid shell of military-statism was cast aside only to allow the the now-independent money machine to progress as a pure end in itself within an “economy isolated” (Karl Polanyi) from all social and cultural shackles, and to give free reign to anonymous competition. This form of total competition bears the mark of Cain that bespeaks its origins in total war, even down to its terminology. It is no coincidence that Thomas Hobbes, founder of modern liberal state theory, declared the “war of all against all” as the natural human state. It was the proponents of the so-called Englightenment who translated the imperatives of the “isolated economy” into an abstract philosophical ontology of the “autonomous subject” in the 18th century, which had nevertheless been predefined by the totalitarian value form. Socialism, on the other hand, merely laid claim to the state as a transcendental subject as the opposing pole of the same bourgeois ontology and thereby inherited the war-economic origins of the modern world. The Marxism of the workers' movement had a reason for unselfconsciously adopting the phrase “Armies of Labor.” For the global-market democracies of the present the “detached” end-in-itself of valorization of value  and abstract labor has long since been internalized and is accepted as natural. They have carried both the monetization of all areas of life as well as the attendant bureaucratic human administration to extremes. All rights and freedoms, all supposed self-determination and responsibility, all politics and all party programmes are always subject to this mute apriori. A radical critique of capitalism will be blocked so long as it shares the ontological fundament of bourgeois subjectivity. Most leftist critics of bourgeois ontologists are themselves proponents of bourgeois ontology. Implicitly or explicitly they wish to reassure themselves with the ontological constructs of bourgeois enlightenment and adopt an agnostic stance towards the real origins of modernity by asserting counterfactually that capitalism emerged directly out of agrarian society. An opposed and emancipated anti-modernity will not foster a backwards-looking ideology, but rather proceed seriously with the “negative dialectic” beyond Adorno and historical materialism; in short, it will break with the enlightenment subject-ontology once and for all. That includes a new evaluation of history, one that will no longer ignore the origin of  modernity in the “political economy of firearms.” Robert Kurz 25.02.2011 Translated from German by John Carroll Literature Norbert Elias: Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt/Main 1990, first1936. Rudolf zur Lippe: Vom Leib zum Körper. Naturbeherrschung am Menschen in der Renaissance. Reinbek bei Hamburg 1988, first 1974. Karl Marx: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Erster Band. Berlin 1965, first 1867. Geoffrey Parker: The military revolution. Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500 - 1800. Cambridge - New York 1988. Karl Polanyi: The great transformation. New York 1975, first 1944. Werner Sombart: Krieg und Kapitalismus. München 1913. Max Weber: Die protestantische Ethik. Tübingen 1984, first 1920. Max Weber: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen 1985, first 1922. Karl Georg Zinn: Kanonen und Pest. Über die Ursprünge der Neuzeit im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Opladen 1989. http://www.exit-online.org

La révolution arabe n'a pas encore eu lieu

peut-on lire un peu partout, même sous la plume de prétendu révolutionnaires, non, elle est en cours.

Pense-t'ils que la révolution française fut réalisée d'un seul coup le 14 juillet 1789 ?

Mais alors qu'est ce que la fusillade du champ de mars qui obligea à fuir  en juillet 1791: Marat, Danton (en Angleterre) et Robespierre et Desmoulins pour avoir demandé la république ?

Voici un texte de cet acabit:

Quelques leçons peuvent être tirées des événements récents. Premièrement, la révolution arabe n'a pas encore eu lieu : en Tunisie et en Égypte, les mêmes têtes – hormis Ben Ali et Moubarak – sont toujours aux commandes du pays. La révolte de 2011, pour l'instant, c'est un peu la fuite à Varennes sans la prise de la Bastille ni l'abolition des privilèges : le président est parti, mais de nombreux prisonniers politiques sont encore à l'ombre et une législation d'exception continue de protéger les puissants. En Egypte, l'armée, qui a fourni à la République tous ses présidents, de Naguib à Moubarak, tient le pays ; la page de la révolution militaire de 1952 n'est toujours pas tournée.

Deuxièmement, les révoltes arabes ne sont pas la révolution iranienne. Il est vrai que les islamistes jouent un rôle important (faux) dans les mobilisations égyptienne et bahreïnie. Mais ni les Frères musulmans ni les partis chiites n'ont organisé les journées de 2011 : ils se contentent de soutenir une mobilisation qui les dépasse. Et contrairement à Khomeiny, ils ne parviendront pas à monopoliser le pouvoir : si le clergé iranien était un pilier de l'Etat, les Frères étaient bannis de la scène politique égyptienne, et les chiites de Bahreïn sont durement marginalisés. Si la révolte arabe peut être comparée à la révolution iranienne, c'est parce qu'ici et là, le soulèvement populaire a fourni à une partie de l'Etat (le clergé en Iran, l'armée en Égypte, le prince héritier à Bahreïn) l'occasion de rebattre les cartes du pouvoir.

Troisièmement, la révolte arabe témoigne de changements politiques telluriques. En l'absence de partis crédibles, les mosquées ont longtemps été d'importants lieux de contestation. Mais le religieux a lui aussi été victime de la répression. Militants emprisonnés, mosquées sous surveillance, religion devenue objet de grande consommation : tout a concouru, pendant les dix dernières années, à la dépolitisation de l'islam politique lui-même. En même temps, la révolution technologique a fourni des armes nouvelles à la contestation. Pour s'organiser dans un État policier, on peut compter sur ses réseaux familiaux ; mais mieux vaut utiliser internet. La toile a permis de démultiplier la protestation, d'échanger des tuyaux et de bénéficier de la mobilisation de millions d'internautes. Mais qualifier la révolte arabe de "révolution Facebook" reviendrait à confondre l'instrument et l'objectif, les moyens et les fins. La révolte de 2011 est, tout simplement, démocratique : Tunisiens et Égyptiens sont descendus dans la rue pour rappeler aux puissants qu'ils étaient plus puissants – et plus nombreux – qu'eux.

Quatrièmement, la nouvelle génération arabe, plus urbaine, mieux éduquée, plus ambitieuse que la précédente, offre un spectacle que peu d'observateurs, obnubilés par les progrès de l'islamisme et du terrorisme, avaient daigné remarquer. Technologiquement habile, prompte à tirer parti de l'espace urbain, partisane de slogans universels (fin de la répression, départ des corrompus, dignité et respect), son succès à infléchir le cours de l'histoire a paradoxalement tenu à ce que les régimes la croyaient négligeable. Les yeux rivés sur Al-Qaida, personne n'a songé à suivre de près ce que faisait la nouvelle génération. Des trottoirs de Tunis aux places du Caire et aux ronds-points et rocades du Golfe, la jeunesse a transformé les villes arabes en machines à protester. Ce faisant, elle rappelle une vérité importante : le réseau social le plus efficace, celui qui favorise le plus les échanges, la communication et la révolte, ce n'est pas Facebook. C'est la ville.

Extraits du texte de:

Pascal Menoret

NOT BORED! is banned from a "Libertarian Communist" website

 Embarrassing text about Guy Dauve is censored

Just a few hours after it was posted to http://libcom.org, an allegedly "libertarian communist" website, our translation of a text about Gilles Dauve's father, Guy Dauve, was removed; and, without warning or rational explanation, we ourselves were summarily banned for "pointless smearing and being a general obnoxious arsehole." LibCom is completely alone in their belief that the text we translated should be censored: Infoshop saw no problem with posting it; Anarchist News was OK with it, too. And that's because, in translation or in the original French, the text is a legitimate, significant and valuable piece of reporting. If LibCom rushed to suppress it, the problem lies with LibCom, and not with the text.

In the words of Ultra-151: "This text from Bill Brown is interesting as not just an exemplary tale of how spookdom works in practise & where it recruits its' functionaries from, but also in the comments, of the dubious integrity of the 'libertarian' community Libcom." And, in the words of Lawrence, a reader of Infoshop News, the fact "that LibCom banned BNB and disappeared this essay speaks poorly of the intellectual courage of the administrators of LibCom."

To follow the history of this unconscionable instance of censorship, see our original comments concerning Dauve's dodgy text "The X-Filers"; the page that formerly hosted our translation of Didier Daeninckx's text about Guy Dauve; and the text as it currently appears on the NOT BORED! website.

Note well that, now that the messenger has been killed, these alleged "libertarian communists" now feel themselves at liberty to discuss the contents of his message amongst themselves. In the awkward words of "jweidner," "Please keep the discussion to verified, legitimately sourced and preferably english information."

Note well: anything that is written in or translated from the language in which Dauve himself writes is not "preferable" because it cannot be "verified" or considered "legitimately sourced" by people who do not know French and must rely upon translators to read his writings! And so, when the French "edition" of Wikipedia says Ne en 1947, il est le fils de Guy Dauve (commissaire des Renseignements Generaux), while the English "edition" says nothing at all about a "Guy Dauve," this can only mean . . . what? that the former is lying or engaging in a "smear" campaign? is the French "edition," unlike its honorable English counter-part, engaging in what "jweidner" calls "vicious anti-Dauve hysteria and vitriol"? No, of course, not. But in the xenophobic (or at least Francophobic) world of these "libertarian communists," logic and rationality aren't in great supply. For example: Bone-stupid "Steven" can pass for smart among these befuddled people when he realizes that "It would be good if [Gilles Dauve] could just comment himself, because it can be difficult to tell exactly what someone means by their writing" -- especially when "their writing" is only available to you in translation!

In the aforementioned thread, one encounters the following:

"Steven" (same as above), the site administrator who likes to pretend he is even-handed and yet banned us without due cause from his electronic sandbox, concedes that "The role played by Dauve's father in allegedly helping break the communist movement in France during and after World War II is very interesting."

"jweidner," the worst of the ad hominen attackers against the messenger himself, admits that "[Gilles Dauve] often seems a bit glib about taboo type stuff."

"revol68" allows that "in a few of Dauve's texts I think he runs too far in his 'anti moralism' and I can see how it could possibly sit fit with, if not an actual apologism, perhaps a kind of dismissal of the issue as being little more than a side concern of bourgeois morality. Likewise I think his comments about the Holocaust in 'Fascism and Anti Fascism' are too glib and don't address the specific mechanisms of the Holocaust that make it stand out from other genocides."

"Jef Costello" declares that "I think that this [remark by Gilles Dauve] is extremely close to the defences of paedophilia which we are all too accustomed to seeing within anarchist circles and given the nature of the writing it's hardly surprising that I gave up at around this point." Furthermore, "I'm not convinced that [Dauve's text] uses the example of the child in a very sensible or relevant way" and "On the whole I think the problem with this text is that it flirts with these ideas and uses them in what seems to me to [be] a cheap lunge for shock value. I pretty much agree with revol and jweidner on that."

Not content with just one thread to discuss the matter amongst themselves, these "libertarian communists" have created a second page in which to express themselves without undue distractions.

"Vlad336" concedes that "hardly anyone knows anything about [Gilles Dauve's] background," allows that "I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to actually check," and insists that "pro-paed bullshit was published in LB, undoubtedly with Dauve's permission" and that "the issue of Dauve's paed apologism is real enough to merit some discussion."

Someone who hides behind the moniker "treeofjudas" was able to discover, all by himself, that "Pierre Guillaume, owner of the Old Mole, who was, in fact, a supporter of gas chamber negationists, at least according to this Zionist Holocaust-botherer text I've got."

A "Felix Frost" is smart enough to realize that "Dauve's connections with Guillaume and other ultra-leftists turned negationists are the main reason for these attacks against him."

"Jef Costello" realizes -- too late, alas! -- that "Some person started making mental claims about Dauve's Da and Holocaust denial but in doing so brought to light an actual proper issue with Dauve's nonce apologism."

25-28 December 2009

During the night, the privilege of being a member of the LibCom "community" was restored to us. But members of the general public, or even other members of this "community," would be hard pressed to find the bland announcement of this restoration, because it -- "admin: BNBs temporary ban has ended" -- was buried, if not hidden, at the bottom of a post by someone named "lumpnboy" (not within a proper post by the LibCom administrators) and posted to the thread concerning Dauve's dodgy text "The X-Filers" (not in a new thread, nor in either of the two threads [see above] that were started in response to our comments about Dauve, nor in the older, long-forgotten thread that various members of the LibCom "community" found and resuscitated with the sole intent of ridiculing our work and insulting us). These injuries were certainly made worse by the preposterous notion that the ban upon us was "temporary." This ban was illegitimate from the start, and so any attempt to distinguish it from a "permanent" ban cannot be taken seriously.

We note with disgust that this restoration of our privileges, like our banning, was delivered without any explanations or apologies. The manner in which we were privately informed of this restoration was just as insulting, inadequate and cowardly: a simple email from a robot indicating that "Your account at libcom.org has been activated," as if we'd just created this account, and had not been in possession of it for almost an entire year.

What are we supposed to do with such access? And access to a website that is both administrated and (for the most part) visited by cowards, Francophobes, arrogant know-nothings, bullies, and character assassins? We know full well the type of trap that has been set for us. If we attempt to answer any or all of the dozens of ridiculous comments, calumnies or complaints that have been made about us during our "temporary" absence from the LibCom "community," we will be quickly re-convicted of being an "obnoxious arsehole" and, once again without any warning or rational explanation, we will be "permanently" banned.

But these, of course, are minor matters compared with LibCom's unconscionable removal of our translation of Didier Daeninckx's text about Guy Dauve, which is still censored. This remains unacceptable, and is the worst possible indictment of these "libertarian communists" that we could imagine. Of course, we will never again participate in LibCom, and we will continue to publicize their scandalous behavior, even if apologies are made and this censored text is restored.

27 December 2009

The responses to this "affair" from people who speak French fluently are beginning to come in. Dimitri from Hors-d'Oeuvre (Montreal) says:

As for the polemic with libcom.org, we do not have sufficient information to follow the affair and take a position upon it. Nevertheless, after reading [what you've written], the censorship appears to be idiotic and counter-productive, and this is why we support the initiatives that you have undertaken so as to denounce the managers of that site. (29 Dec 09, our translation)

Afanasius Jerry from Aaargh International says (30 Dec 09, in English):

BILL "NOTBORED" and Daeninkxxx are tow big unctuous heaps of shit.
Please circulate.
aaa

It would appear that "tow" is a typo, and that "two" was the intended word.

30 December 2009

Another discussion of this affair has begun at a blog called Anti-German Translation, which has also added a wealth of information on the subject.

6-7 January 2010

Even though it is now six months later, these "libertarian communists" have found it necessary to create a third thread concerning their censorship of the translated text about Guy Dauve (still in force) and their decision to "temporarily ban" me.

25 June 2010

I take some comfort in the fact that some people who contribute to LibCom, whether as a result of my efforts or not (it doesn't matter), are beginning to ask good questions about Gilles Dauve.

21 July 2010

Inevitably -- it only took seven months -- someone who posts to LibCom (a fellow named Peter) has managed to say a few truthful words about Gilles Dauve: "His father was definitely a cop and not just an ordinary plod on the beat but one involved in surveillance/repression of the left. Hence Dauve's use of a pseudonym in his early writings." Fortunately for Peter, he has not been banned ("temporarily" or "permanently") by any of LibCom's misadministrators, not has he been subjected to any personal attacks, calumnies, etc. from the peanut gallery.

http://www.notbored.org

Salle de consommation pour usagers de crack

L’utilité des salles d’injection n’est plus à prouver, notamment grâce au rapport de l’Inserm, les salles d’inhalation pour usagers de crack posent encore question en France.  A Rotterdam dans le centre « BoumanGGZ » , qui possède une salle de consommation à moindre risque pour usagers de crack.

De la gare ferroviaire de Rotterdam, 15 mn de marche sont nécessaire pour arriver devant le centre « BoumanGGZ ». Il est situé dans un quartier résidentiel calme aux maisons hollandaises classiques. Rien ne le distingue des autres bâtiments.
Léo Thomassen , le directeur, accueille avec un café en dressant un panorama de sa structure.
Elle est ouverte de 10h à 18h, 7 jours sur 7, avec 5 salariés travaillant en même temps. Elle coute 500 000 euros par an. C’est la ville de Rotterdam qui la finance et veille à son acceptabilité sociale, ce qui la force à s’adapter sans cesse au contexte et à trouver de nouveaux points d’équilibre avec la cité.
Chacun des 310 usagers de la file active est enregistrée par son nom et prénom et a une carte d’accès à la salle correspondant à sa domiciliation, une façon de les intégrer dans le quartier, mais aussi de les responsabiliser. 250 usagers de crack ont accès à la salle d’inhalation et moins de 5 usagers injecteurs d’héroïne fréquentent la salle d’injection.

Pour être reçu ici, il faut au moins 5 ans de vie à Rotterdam et avoir plus de 23 ans. Ceux qui sont en dessous de cet âge sont réorientés vers une structure spécialisée. Selon Léo Thomassen, c’est une manière de séparer ceux qui sont déjà très ancrés dans la consommation, de ceux qui sont dans l’expérimentation. Pour les deux catégories d’usagers, le chemin doit être différent et ils doivent se rencontrer le moins possible. De même, il y a une salle de nuit pour inciter les usagers à bouger et eviter qu’il ne passe pas leur vie dans la structure.
La structure emploie 18 salariés à plein temps, principalement des intervenants issus du « mainstream ». Léo Thomassen ne veut pas de « bureaucrates » assis derrière un bureau, mais des intervenants qui puissent avoir une relation d’égal à égal avec les usagers. Un médecin est présent 3 heures par semaine le vendredi.
La ville a également ouvert de nombreuse places d’hébergement connus sous le nom d’« housing fisrt », ainsi que des programmes sociaux. Pour cette ville de 800 000 habitants, il existe 52 programmes en direction des addictions et de la précarité sociale. L’effet est spectaculaire. Alors qu’il y a 15 ans la ville était envahie par plus de 2 500 usagers de drogues venant de toute l’Europe, il y a aujourd’hui très peu d’usagers qui consomment dans la rue. En conséquence, le nombre de salle de consommation a beaucoup diminué. Il reste aujourd’hui 4 centres sur les 8 du départ et les autorités pensent en fermer deux autres en 2011. Les usagers se sont petit à petit stabilisés et sont sortis en partie de la grande précarité.  

Le chef de police 

Le chef de la Police locale, Jan Von Dorst, invité pour l’occasion, nous rejoint. Il sert les mains des usagers qu’il connait tous personnellement,, qui n’ont absolument pas peur et ne sont pas surpris. Un usager de la salle nous interpelle même en riant « It’s the best police !». Nous sommes un peu ébahis devant la sincérité et la simplicité des rapports entre les usagers et ce policier. Les usagers de drogues français de notre délégation qui n’ont pas l’habitude d’un tel traitement se tiennent un peu en retrait dans un premier temps, puis viennent se faire photographier avec le policier..

Le premier message qu’il nous adresse, c’est qu’il faut mettre des limites aux nombres d’usagers accueillis et qu’il faut concevoir la structure en fonction du nombre attendus. Point très important pour que le voisinage ait une réaction positive. Ensuite, il nous fait un vrai cours de réduction des risques sur le crack. Par exemple, selon lui, fumer avec une pipe augmente le craving. Il vaut mieux fumer en utilisant une feuille d’aluminium. 

Il ajoute que la police et le centre ont un intérêt commun : la police veut des rues « clean » et de la sécurité pour les usagers, le centre veut une meilleure vie et la sécurité pour les usagers. Selon lui, la répression ne peut pas résoudre le problème de l’usage de drogue dans la rue. Elle est responsable de l’effet « lit à eau » : quand on chasse les usagers d’un endroit, ils vont ailleurs. Ce qu’il faut faire, c’est réguler.
Le policier ne peut venir dans la structure que s’il y est invité. Pour lui, tant que l’endroit est sous contrôle, il n’a pas à intervenir à l’intérieur.

Source

http://www.asud.org

Im Grunde realistisch

 »Die Erwerbsarbeit muss zentral bleiben für die Organisation unseres Sozialstaates. Das Ziel der Vollbeschäftigung dürfen wir nicht aufgeben.«
Andrea Nahles (SPD)
»Am Ziel der Vollbeschäftigung selber sollten wir festhalten. Weil wir tatsächlich das Ziel haben sollten: Arbeit für alle.« Michael Sommer (DGB-Vorsitzender)
»Ganz konkret gilt auch: Vollbeschäftigung ist machbar.« Guido Westerwelle (F.D.P.)

Der Ruf nach Arbeit und die dauernde Betonung ihrer segensreichen Wirkungen macht eins deutlich: Arbeit ist in dieser Gesellscha eine wesentliche Größe. Oh Arbeit geht nicht viel. Wir leben ft ne in einer Arbeitsgesellschaft. Ziel ist nach wie vor, dass alle Arbeit haben. Vollbeschäftigung heißt das und wird allenthalben eingefordert.

Vermittlung über Arbeit

»In der Reduktion der Menschen auf Agenten und Träger des Warentauschs versteckt sich die Herrschaft von Menschen über Menschen. Das bleibt wahr trotz all der Schwierigkeiten, denen mittlerweile manche Kategorien der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie konfrontiert sind. Der totale Zusammenhang hat die Gestalt, daß alle dem Tauschgesetz sich unterwerfen müssen, wenn sie nicht zugrunde gehen wollen, gleichgültig, ob sie subjektiv von einem „Profitmotiv“ geleitet werden oder nicht. (... ) Jeder fast kann an sich erfahren, daß er seine gesellschaftliche Existenz kaum mehr aus eigener Initiative bestimmt, sondern nach Lücken, offenen Stellen, „jobs“ suchen muß die ihm den Unterhalt gewähren.« (Theodor W. Adorno: Gesellschaft)

Diese Schwerpunktsetzung der Politik auf Arbeit ist Ausdruck der Tatsache, dass der tatsächliche Zugang zu den von der Gesellschaft produzierten Gütern und Dienstleistungen an Arbeit gekoppelt ist. Wenn ich arbeite, stelle ich in aller Regel
nicht Dinge her, die für mich bestimmt sind. Ich produziere vielmehr etwas, das dann von anderen genutzt wird. Und andere produzieren das, was ich benötige. Damit wird meine Arbeit zum Mittel, mir die Arbeit anderer aneignen zu können. Nicht direkt natürlich. Aber letztlich eben doch, wenn auch vermittelt
über das Geld.
Zu dieser gesellschaftlichen Handlungsform gibt es dann auch eine passende Ideologie: das Leistungsprinzip. Gemäß dieser Annahme wird davon ausgegangen, dass der eigene gesellschaftliche Status ebenso wie die Möglichkeiten, auf gesellschaftlichen Reichtum zugreifen zu können, ein direktes Ergebnis der persönlichen (Arbeits-)Leistung wären. Darin wird dann ein Unterschied zu feudalen Gesellschaften gesehen, in denen die persönliche Lebenssituation weitestgehend durch Ge- burt oder göttliche Auserwähltheit vorgegeben zu sein schien.

Das Leistungsprinzip erscheint somit als demokratische und aufklärerische Errungenschaft über jede Kritik erhaben. Dabei lassen sich durchaus einige sehr wesentliche Probleme ausma-chen, die das Leistungsprinzip unter einem weniger rosigen Licht aufscheinen lassen.
So muss jede Form von Tätigkeit, soll sie über den Zugang zu gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe entscheiden, in einer allgemeingültigen Form ausgeübt werden, die einen Vergleich der unterschiedlichen Tätigkeiten möglich macht. Praktisch heißt das: es muss Lohnarbeit sein – oder eben warenproduzierende Arbeit.
Es gibt jedoch eine ganze Reihe Tätigkeiten, die für das Selbstverständnis und das Funktionieren dieser Gesellschaft notwendig sind, die aber außerhalb von Ware-Geld-Beziehungen ausge- übt werden.

Nach PDF vollständiger

http://www.180-grad.tk

Oman: La révolte sociale fait six morts

 À Oman, les manifestants campent sur une place de Sohar, le 2e port du pays bloqué

  #/maratiste

Des manifestants omanais, demandant des emplois et des réformes, campaient lundi sur une place de Sohar, à 210 km au nord de Mascate, où ils ont passé la nuit, au lendemain de heurts avec la police qui ont fait deux morts.

Plusieurs centaines de manifestants ont bloqué ce matin l'accès routier du port de Sohar, le deuxième d'Oman, interdisant l'entrée et la sortie de camions. Des heurts ont éclaté. Les manifestants, entre 900 et 1200 personnes, ont saisi plusieurs camions avec lesquels ils ont bloqué l'entrée du port, à 200 km au nord de Mascate, la capitale du sultanat connu pour sa stabilité. Le port est à une vingtaine de kilomètres du centre de la ville, où des protestataires, qui organisent depuis samedi un sit-in, ont affronté dimanche la police dans des échauffourées qui ont fait au moins un mort.
Les manifestants demandent "le jugement de tous les ministres" pour corruption, "la suppression de tous les impôts et taxes sur les soins de santé et sur l'enregistrement des terrains offerts par l'Etat". Ils ont annoncé leur intention de poursuivre leur action jusqu'à "la satisfaction de leurs demandes". Un hélicoptère survole le rassemblement qui a formé des "comités populaires", l'un pour le ravitaillement des manifestants et l'autre pour les protéger.

Selon les manifestants, qui ont dressé des barricades sur des routes de cette ville industrielle, les heurts ont fait cinq morts mais ce bilan n'a été confirmé ni de source officielle ni de source médicale. Ils ont également incendié un centre commercial proche de la place où ils campent, le rond-point de la Terre, rebaptisé rond-point de la Réforme par les manifestants.

Les manifestants disent être sur place depuis samedi. Ils ont résisté dimanche à une tentative de la police de les éloigner du rond-point qui commande la route reliant la ville à Mascate. «Mon frère a été tué d'une balle réelle», a affirmé à l'AFP, Mohammed Ali Mohammed. «Mon frère n'a pas participé à la manifestation. Il a été atteint alors qu'il se tenait sur le trottoir».

«Nous voulons que l'argent du pétrole soit réparti équitablement dans la population», a lancé un opposant dans un porte-voix. «Nous voulons moins d'expatriés à Oman pour que davantage d'emplois soient créés pour les Omanais», a-t-il ajouté. 

Dimanche, d'autres manifestations ont eu lieu à Salalah, dans le sud du sultanat, où des opposants au pouvoir campaient près du bureau du gouverneur provincial.

Pays placé stratégiquement sur le détroit et producteur de pétrole, Oman est une porte d'entrée de la révolution dans toute la péninsule arabique. 

Sur une statue de la place principale de Sohar, des graffitis disent «Les gens ont faim» et «Non à l'oppression du peuple».

«Il n'y a pas d'emploi, pas de liberté d'expression», a dit Ali al Mazroui, chômeur âgé de 30 ans. «Les gens en ont marre et veulent de l'argent. Ils veulent mettre fin à la corruption.».

Oman, qui entretient de forts liens militaires et politiques avec les États-Unis, n'est pas membre de l'Opep et extrait environ 850.000 barils par jour. 

Le Mouvement du 20 Février au Maroc

Un vent de  révolte continue de souffler au Maroc. Malgré les morts, malgré la répression ce qui se passe au Maroc est un fait historique. La peur est désormais dans le camp du Makhzen qui tremble. Les manifs ont repris de plus belle les 26 et 27 février dans presque toutes les villes du Maroc, Meknes, El Hoceima, Agadir, Marrakech, Kelaa Srghna, Larache, Khénifra, Safi, Tetouan, Taourirte, Chaouen etc. sous le même mot d’ordre : lutte pour la liberté, la démocratie et la justice sociale et contre la corruption, l’escroquerie et l’abus du pouvoir.

Des centaines d’arrestations, de disparitions et beaucoup de blessés ont été enregistrés lors des manifs du 26 et 27 février à Agadir, Mèknes, Larache, Khémisset et Guelmim. Selon des sources fiables 218 citoyens sont en détention depuis le déclenchement du mouvement et le nombre des blessés est alarmant. Quatre citoyens ont déjà écopé de 40 ans de prison ferme. Azzdine Elmenjli, secrétaire de la section de Sefrou de La Voie démocratique a été agressé par un commando de policiers en cagoule. Et a lancé un appel aux défenseurs des droits humains dans le monde. Les manifestants accusent le régime d’avoir engagé des milices pour semer le désarroi dans les villes et d’être responsables des actes de vandalisme et de détériorations de biens publics. 

Le mouvement du 20 Février  appelle a se joindre massivement à toutes les manifestations de soutien et de solidarité avec les peuples du Maroc, de Tunisie, d’Égypte, du Yémen, du Bahreïn, de Libye, d’Algérie, d'Oman, d'Iran, de Palestine…

 

La police chinoise réprime des manifestations à Shanghaï et Pékin

Chine: Nouvel appel aux "rassemblements du jasmin"

Les forces de sécurité chinoises ont beau empêcher par la force tout début de contestation dans la rue, allant jusqu'à brutaliser les journalistes étrangers, un nouvel appel à des "rassemblements du jasmin" a été lancé lundi sur Internet. Les organisateurs, toujours anonymes, d'une campagne antigouvernementale sur la Toile ont appelé à des rassemblements dimanche prochain dans un message posté sur Facebook, Twitter et d'autres réseaux étrangers.
"D'après les retours que nous avons reçus, le 27 février, le mouvement s'est propagé à cent villes, dépassant largement notre attente initiale de vingt-sept villes", dit le texte, appelant à une nouvelle "marche" de protestation dimanche 6 mars. C'est d'abord dans treize villes que la population avait été appelée, sur le site de Chinois expatriés  Boxun, à manifester dans l'esprit de la "révolution du jasmin" tunisienne, pour exiger davantage de transparence du gouvernement et de liberté d'expression.

Les auteurs du texte appellent "tous ceux qui souffrent d'injustice", notamment "les intellectuels, les diplômés au chômage, les chrétiens, les membres [de la secte] du Falungong, les personnes expropriées et la jeune génération" à protester. Les mystérieux "Organisateurs de la révolution chinoise du jasmin" promettent de "faire connaître leur identité en temps voulu".

Dans la capitale, des centaines de policiers en uniforme et des centaines d'autres en civil, parfois acompagnés de chiens policiers, ont fait une démonstration de force rue Wangfujing – endroit du ralliement –, restreignant l'accès et empêchant sans ménagement les journalistes, surtout les vidéastes et photographes, de travailler. Une douzaine de journalistes ont été menés au poste de police. Un journaliste de Bloomberg News a été roué de coups par au moins cinq hommes de la sécurité en civil alors qu'il tentait de filmer et a dû recevoir des soins à l'hôpital, a annoncé lundi le groupe de presse américain, sans préciser la gravité de ses blessures.
Le gouvernement tremble-t-il? Officiellement pas du tout, quel gros mensonge: «L'idée qu'une révolution du jasmin pourrait survenir en Chine est absolument grotesque et irréaliste», déclarait la semaine dernière Zhao Qizheng, le chef de la commission des Affaires étrangères.  Les conditions sont réunies pour qu'un soulèvement populaire de grande ampleur vienne submerger la Chine.

 

Plus de 100 militants ont dû subir ces derniers jours des interrogatoires, des assignations à résidence ou autres brimades. Certains ont complètement disparu. Le Centre d'information pour les droits de l'Homme et la démocratie de Hong Kong évoque «l'une des répressions les plus draconiennes de ces dernières années». C'est également vrai pour la censure, qui frappe un nombre sans précédents de réseaux sociaux et sites de micro-blogging mais le réseau FreeNet reste imperméable aux polices chinoises et abrite le cœur de la subversion. Le potentiel de tensions est bien réel, les manifestations de masse sont quotidiennes aux quatre coins du pays, une partie importante de la population s'indigne des injustices, de la corruption, des évictions forcées.
Pékin: La police chinoise réprime des manifestations à Pékin.
Dimanche 27 février, dès 13h30, la grande rue piétonne de Wangfujing - ce lieu central de Pékin où la population était appelée à rejoindre "le rassemblement du jasmin", une allusion claire à la révolution tunisienne - ressemblait à un gigantesque terrain d'entraînement pour régime autoritaire en alerte. Policiers en uniforme ou en civil, "Swat" surarmés, Chengguan, agents secrets du Guoanbu, volontaires civiques, membres de la "police armée du peuple" et même des chiens renifleurs d'explosifs. Assistés de six camions de nettoyage aspergeant les jambes des promeneurs pour les inciter à décamper, une dizaine de balayeurs, l'oreillette dissimulée sous la capuche, servaient d'indics pour les policiers en civil. Probablement deux mille hommes, vêtus de noir et agglutinés dans les boutiques avoisinantes, prêts à se jeter sur le premier manifestant. A partir de 14h30, la rue était bouclée à chaque extrémité, tout comme les ruelles parallèles. Le quartier se tenait prêt à un nouvel exercice : l'arrivée d'un régiment de "policiers du peuple" en uniforme kaki. Trois internautes seront jugés pour "tentative de subversion de l'Etat" après un simple "retweet" de l'appel à manifester. Les mots "aujourd'hui", "demain" et "jasmin" ont été supprimés de l'outil de recherche de Weibo, l'équivalent chinois de Twitter. Depuis la Chine, l'accès vers les sites étrangers demeure toujours fortement ralenti.
在一天，共产党曾公开展示的策略，应防止在阿拉伯国家经历相同的命运是：承诺，富足的生活秘密镇压任何抗议。因此，在整个一周内，当局已导致对持不同政见者去打猎，由一名主席致电党领导更加独特引导舆论。超过百年的人权活动分子发现自己在家里委托。 Yun费然作家和律师滕彪已经从字面上消失了。三冲浪者将被审判“企图颠覆“后，一个简单的“锐推“的号召抗议。这句话“今天”，“明天“和“茉莉花“等字样的搜索工具威博，相当于汉语的Twitter。由于中国的访问国外网站仍然是大幅放缓。

sources: Mix-presse-P2P-Free