Beijing, China, May 23-25, 2012
Humanity and Dierence in the Global Age XXV Conference of the Academy of Latinity
R EFERENCE T EXTS
5
Spaces of Difference (Part II)
Seeing Global Susan Buck-Morss
Figure 1 — Section of the Dunhuang star atlas, mid-seventhcentury (early Tang Dynasty), displaying from the north circumpolar region, down to a celestial latitude of about +50° (Map 13, Dunhuang Star Atlas, Or. 8210/S.3326, British Museum).
You are looking at a section of a Chinese scroll containing the oldest complete atlas of the heavens that has been preserved from any civilisation.1 It is a seventh-century 1 In comparison, the Farnese Atlas, the second-century (all dates in this essay are Christian Era) Roman statue of Atlas holding the celestial globe— famously replicated at Rockefeller Center in New York City—is scientifically naive. Considered to be a copy of a Hellenistic original, it shows the Western constellations from a god-like perspective of the outside looking 297
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(Tang Dynasty) star chart, discovered near Dunhuang, an oasis town on the Silk Road where two main branches of the western network of trade routes converge and continue eastward to China’s capital city of Xi’an.2 While the purpose of the Dunhuang atlas was astrological divination (celestial events were believed to mirror those on Earth3), it was based on accurate scientific observation. Beautiful to look at, it is a remarkably precise astronomical document. Its multiple panels are a graphic depiction of the entire visible sky. The scroll displays unambiguously the position of 1,500 stars within the traditional Chinese constellations. Its panels are a sequence of circumpolar regions in azimuthal projection, a method of measurement still in use today.4 The Dunhuang atlas is believed to be a more roughly exin and without the positioning of individual stars. Ptolemy’s second-century text, Almagest (Arabic for “Great Constellation”) included a catalogue of 1,022 stars but unlike the Dunhuang atlas, without their position in the sky. Lost to Europe until the twelfth century, the Almagest catalogue of stars was used by Dürer to depict the Western constellations in 1515. 2 The Dunhuang Star Atlas was found nearby the town in Mogao, a Buddhist holy site known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas cut into the rock of a cliff. Discovered in 1907 by Aurel Stein, this scroll chart is now in the British Museum. A detailed description of the manuscript was published in 2009 by astrophysicist Jean Marc Bonnet-Bidaud and the astronomer Françios Praderie, working together with Susan Whitfield, Director of the International Dunhuang Project at the British Museum. See “The Dunhuang Chinese sky: a comprehensive study of the oldest known star atlas”, http://idp.bl.uk/education/astronomy_researchers/index.a4d (downloaded 24 December 2010). 3 “Astronomy in China was an essential imperial science as the divination based on the sky events taking place in the celestial mirror image of the empire was the way to rule the state”, Bonnet-Bidaud et al, op. cit. 4 An azimuth (from the Arabic as-simt, “direction”) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system.
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ecuted copy of an imperial original, which, as portable, would have been useful for caravan navigation.5 Visibility changed with the seasons, but along the East-West trade routes that were roughly the same latitude, Silk Road travellers and residents saw the same stars whether they were on the shores of the Mediterranean or the borders of China, and knowledge of the stars was disseminated along its length.6
Star charts measured distance in time, the movement of the heavens, allowing caravans to traverse space. With an eye on the stars, one did business on Earth.
Figure 2 — T-O Map, Silos Beatus, Andalusian illustrated manuscript from the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos 1106 ad, British Library, London.
Figure 2 is a European Map of the World (Mappa Mundi) that was produced by Christian monks in an Iberian monastery three centuries later, at a time when most of 5 “It is possible that we have in hands [sic] not a scientific text intended for scientists only but a product of more general use which existed in several copies for several users (...) [T]he purpose of such a scroll could have been to help travelers or warriors on the Silk Road who needed both predictions of the future from the aspect of the clouds [images of cloud types were included in the scroll] and assistance in their travel from the aspect of the night sky.” Bonnet-Bidaud, et al, op. cit. 6 Susan Whitfield, The silk road: trade, travel, war and faith, Exhibition catalogue, The British Museum, London, 2004, p. 35.
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the peninsula, then called Al-Andalus, was under Muslim (Umayyad) rule. The type is known as a T-O Map, because of its shape: a circular (O) depiction of the inhabited world surrounded by ocean, with Jerusalem, the navel (umbilicus) of the Earth, pictured at the centre above a T formed by the Mediterranean Sea, the River Nile to the south and River Don to the north. These three major waterways separate the world into the known continents. Asia is above, with Europe on the left and Africa on the right, and there is a fourth continent below Africa, described as “not known to us because of the heat of the sun.”7 This T-O map appears in one of a series of illustrated commentaries on the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, that describes in calamitous detail the apocalyptic end of a fully Christianised world. The copiously illustrated manuscript series (of which there are 26 extant copies) is known as the Liébana Beatus, after the monk who produced the (lost) original prototype in 785 ad. It is a Christian perception of the whole of Earth’s space imagined in terms of time, from Adam and Eve to the End of Days that would come after 7 This description is from Isidore, Bishop of Seville, whose writings are among the sources used by Beatus, the eighth-century monk of Liébana who wrote the original commentary. Isidore adds, “It is said the legendary Antipodes live there, a fabulous people whose feet are positioned in the mirror image of our own, and who, included on some of the Beatus maps, are depicted as Sciopods, ‘shadow-footed men’ whose leg is lifted overhead as a parasol;” See John Williams, “Isidore, Orosius and the Beatus Map,” Imago Mundi, 49, 1997, p. 7-32. The definitive (if still debated) study of the 26 extant variants of the Liébana Beatus is the 5 volume work by John Williams, The illustrated Beatus, a corpus of illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, Harvey Miller, London and Turnhout, 1994-2003.
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the world was fully exposed to Christianity through the apostolic missions. China, the Orient, is the Garden of Eden and beginning of the world, as you can see clearly in the Silos Beatus variant of the Liébana Beautus series. The Christian, symbolic meaning of space as time, the eschatological depiction of the history of the world, placed little value on scientific accuracy. Indeed, “Christianity began with the announcement that time and history were about to end.”8 Within these temporal limits, geographical measurement of space was not a theological concern.9 Compare the T-O map with the Mappa Mundi in the Tabula Rogeriana by the Muslim geographer Muhammad alIdrisi (Figure 3), created only half a century later in 1154. Descendent from a Moroccan family of Princes and Sufi leaders, Al-Idrisi studied at Cordoba in Muslim Andalus (now Spain) at the same time that Christian monks to the north were still at work, diligently copying the prototypes of the Liébana Beatus. He had access to the extensive work of contemporary geographers, and himself travelled widely in Africa, Anatolia and parts of Europe before settling in Sicily at the court of the Norman King Roger II, who commissioned him to create this map. The King, whose 8 Paula Fredriksen, “Apocalypse and redemption in Early Christianity: From John of Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” Vigiliae Christianae, 45, 1991, p. 151-83 (p. 151). 9 The Liébana Beatus series was also a commentary on current events, given the arrival of Muslim rulers in the early eighth century, and given the fact that the Prophet Mohammed appeared to re-open the tradition of prophecy that the book of Revelation had announced as closed. Just what meaning contemporaries were to take from the juxtaposition of the advent of Muslim rule and the book of Revelation is left open in the commentary, which is an amalgam of previous interpretations.
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Figure 3 — Fifteenth-century copy of the Mappa Mundi in the Tabula Rogeriana, 1154, by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi (North was at the bottom, the convention for Arab maps, shown here in inverted form to facilitate reading.) Bibliotheque nationale de France (MSO Arabe 2221), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TabulaRogeriana.jpg.
Norman father (Roger I) had overthrown the previous Arab rulers of Sicily, welcomed Muslims whose scientific knowledge he valued, thereby maintaining Sicily’s multiconfessional culture. Roger II commissioned Al-Idrisi to create this map and others as part of an encyclopaedic text incorporating knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East, gathered by merchants, explorers and cartographers from various civilisations. It is considered “one of the most exhaustive medieval works in the field of physi-
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cal, descriptive, cultural, and political geography.”10 Al-Idrisi’s map remained the European standard for accuracy for the next three centuries. Accuracy, however, while necessary for trade or plans of conquest, did not displace maps with more lofty theological values.
Figure 4 — Hereford Mappa Mundi, ca. 1300, Hereford Cathedral, England (Wikicommons: http:// commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Hereford_Mappa_ Mundi_1300.jpg). 303
The Hereford Mappa Mundi (Figure 4) is a Euro-Christian version produced more than a century later (ca. 1300). While the geographical detail makes this map more topologically convincing, it is still a classic T-O map with Jerusalem at centre, the Orient on top, Europe at bottom left, and Africa, bottom right, and spatial significance marked according to theological understanding. In other words, even when geographic space was known scientifically, Christians per10 Sayyid Maqbul Ahmad, “Cartography of al-Sharif al-Idrisi,” in J. B. Harley and David Woodward, The history of cartography, v. 2, Book 1: Cartography in the traditional Islamic and South Asian societies, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 160.
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sisted in depicting the world in the eschatological terms of space as time. Figure 5 — Da Ming Hun Yi Tu (Great Ming Dynasty Amalgamated Map), 1389. 大 明 混 — 图 Wikicommons: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:Da-ming-hun-yitu.jpg Image enhanced by contributor: http://geog.hkbu. edu.hk/GEOG1150/Chinese/ Catalog/am31_map1.htm.
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Figure 5 is a section from the Ad Ming Hun Yi Tu (Great Ming Dynasty Amalgamated Map). This is the oldest surviving, Chinese world map.11 Benefiting from Islamic science and geographic knowledge, it is a detailed and sophisticated rendering, painted on silk in 1389 ad but with Manchu language captions on paper slips superimposed on the Chinese several centuries later. We might be tempted to remark how backward Western and Christian Europe seems! But it would be wrong to limit our own historical understanding of the history of cartography in terms of a telos of scientific progress. The experts warn against the distortions caused by “scientific chau11 It is currently kept in protective storage at the First Historical Archive of China in Beijing. A full-sized digital replica was made for the South African government in 2002. The degree of “Chinese” knowledge of world geography is debated. Much of the controversy would disappear, perhaps, if knowledge were not presumed to be the possession of a particular civilisation. Maps were translatable tools, not ethnic expressions. While the necessary knowledge took effort to acquire, it was held in common.
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vinism” that judges past maps anachronistically according to the modern value of accuracy of measurements, erasing theological and historical meaning and replacing them with the secular goals of science, whereby the history of cartography is made to chart the rate of progress among competing civilisations, a history written as “the saga of how the unmappable was finally mapped.”12 If we consider later copies of the Mappa Rogeriana, the distortions of scientific chauvinism become evident.
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Figure 6 — Variant of Al-Idrisi’s map of 1154, from a Cairo manuscript dated 1348 and attributed to the Balkhi school of map-makers (inverted here to facilitate reading) This is the only known version without the more “scientific” latitudinal markings of climate boundaries.
Figure 6 shows a variant that was produced two centuries later by a different tradition of Muslim map-makers, the Balkhi school, named after the tenth-century geographer Ahmed ibn Sahll al-Balkhi. Here, the map’s decorative aspects appear to overpower scientific description. Indeed, Is12 J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), The history of cartography, v. 1: Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 3-4.
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lamic world maps with stylised spatial features similar to the T-O maps were produced by the Balkhi school. But even more to the point: what we call scientifically “advanced” in Al-Idrisi’s Mappa Rogeriana was actually tied to the past: the 1,000 year old tradition founded by the second-century Greek geographer, Ptolemy, that had been lost in Europe but remained alive and was made more accurate by Muslim cartographers as early as the ninth century under the patronage of Al-Ma’mun, the great Abbasid patron of philosophy and science, and would continue unabated within the Muslim world, despite multiple changes in that world’s theological and political orientation.13 306
13 “Essential to an understanding of the Arabs contribution to mapmaking is their approach to geodesy—the measurement of distances on the curved surface of the earth. Such distances can be measured either in linear units, such as the Arabic mile, or in angular units—longitude and latitude. To convert from one to the other one must know the number of miles per degree or, equivalently, the radius of the earth. In the Greek classical period, before the general use of latitude as an angular coordinate, the inhabited areas (the oikoumene) was [sic] divided into zones, or climates, according to the length of the longest day in the central part of the zone. Thus Ptolemy, in his Almagest, takes seven boundaries in steps of one-half hour, running from thirteen to sixteen hours. The practice continues in Islamic mathematical geography (...). Simultaneous observations of a lunar eclipse in two places provide in principle a means of determining the difference of longitude between places.” Sayyid Maqbul Ahmad, “Cartography of alSharif al-Idrisi,” J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), The history of cartography, op. cit., vol. 2, Book 1, p. 175-6. For Europe’s renewed reception of Ptolemy, see Kathleen Biddick, “The ABC of Ptolemy: mapping the world with the alphabet,” in Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles (eds.), Text and territory: geographical imagination in the European Middle Ages, Philadelphia, 1998, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 268-93.
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In short, when it comes to map-making, its history does not fit the narrow conception of history as progress. In fact, none of the ordering binaries of modernity (science v. art,14 religious v. secular,15 Occident v. Orient16) enable us to grasp the empirical history of maps that had multiple traditions, and that were used simultaneously by theologians, court astrologists, imperial conquerors, travelling scholars, religious pilgrims and merchants of trade. The contrast being made here is a limited point of comparison. Star maps and land maps charted space in a way that allowed one to traverse space in time, as opposed to the theological approach whereby divine history—time—was mapped as the space of the world. In terms of the philosophy of history, the Christian depiction of space as time can be seen as proto-Hegelian: the beginning of time is in the East, the “Orient,” and the end, the highest stage, is in the West. 14 Al-Idrisi wrote that his maps were both aesthetic and scientific, “a true description and pleasing form.” Ahmad, in J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), History of cartography, op. cit., v. 2, n. 1, p. 163. 15 In China, accuracy of astrological prediction was necessary for the religious legitimacy of imperial rule, and divination by star charts was based on the belief that events in heaven could be read as a reflection of those on earth. In the Islamic world, “the concept of sacred direction (qibla in Arabic and all other languages of the Islamic world) in ritual, law, and religion, applying wherever the believer was, (...) gave rise to the charts, maps, instruments and related cartographic methods,” but this religious belief produced a “dual nature of science,” on the one hand “folk science,” advocated by legal scholars that was “innocent of any calculation,” and on the other “mathematical science,” derived mainly from translations of Greek sources, “involving both theory and computation.” Ahmad, in J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), History of cartography, op. cit., v. 2, n. 1, p. 189. 16 Ptolemaic science was fundamental to both Eastern and (after the twelfth century) Western traditions; O-maps centred on Jerusalem existed in Christian and Islamic forms.
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Figure 7 — Ptolemy’s world map, redrawn in the fifteenth century from Ptolemy’s Geographia (ca. 150 ad), indicating ‘Sinae’ (China) at the extreme right, beyond the island of ‘Taprobane’ (Sri Lanka, oversized) and the ‘Aurea Chersonesus’ (Southeast Asian peninsula). The British Library Harley MS 7182, ff 58v-59 Wikicommons: http:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PtolemyWorldMap.jpg.
Now to make this small point, why have I submitted you to all this cartographical data? It is to show you that the deeper one delves into empirical history (and this is generally true of historical research), the more the material evidence overthrows unilinear narratives of cultural developments belonging to particular civilisations. When empirical facts are not presumed from the start to belong to the histories of different political territories or religious spaces, the findings go against the conventions of history as a discipline. What I would like to propose is a different construction of history altogether—to cite the past, as one might sight the stars, bringing elements of it together within con-
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stellations of meaning that relate to our own time as the vanishing point. Constellations
In August 1966 the US moon satellite Lunar Orbiter II transmitted the first picture of Earth shining over a lunar landscape. Two years later the first manned spacecraft, Apollo 8, orbited the moon and took this picture (Figure 8) that was named Earthrise.
Figure 8 — Earthrise, first image of the whole Earth taken by humans (Bill Anders on Apollo 8), 24 December 1968 http://www.archive. org/details/297755main_ GPN-2001-000009_full.
The timing—Christmas Eve—was not accidental. The scientists were politically pressured to meet that deadline so that the crew of Apollo 8, orbiting the moon ten times, could make a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first ten verses from the book of Genesis (from the King James version of the Biblical text). So much for the so-called secular West! (Figure 9).17 Landing on the 17 “By television, people saw the earth from a distance of 313,800 kilometers. They saw the moon’s surface from a distance of 96.5 kilometers and watched the earth rise over the lunar horizon. (...) [“Then followed on Christmas Eve one of mankind’s most memorable moments. ‘In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.’ The voice was that of Anders, the words were from Genesis. ‘And the Earth was without form and void
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moon took place one year later. This was a triumph of modernity as the technological dream of human progress.18 It was the apogee of American power. In a real sense, however, this culmination was also an ending.
Figure 9 — US postage stamp, 1969.
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and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and God saw the light and that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.’ [“Lovell continued, ‘And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. And let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made firmament, and divided the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And evening and morning were the second day.’ [“Borman read on, ‘And God said, ‘Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together in one place. And the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.’ Borman paused, and spoke more personally, ‘and from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.’” Accessed June 24, 2011: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch20-9.html. The flight recording is available on audio: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/apollo8_xmas.mov. 18 The Soviets began the Cold War competition by sending the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961.
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German historical philosopher Hans Blumenberg writes that the American moon landing initiated a transformation in human consciousness that “took place rapidly and almost silently.”19 It was the stream of transmitted pictures of the Earth that marked the world significance of this event—not the political staging, not the words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”, and not even the images of the first moonwalk (a visually pitiful, even dubious event), but rather the images sent back to us of Earth. Blumenberg writes: “Perhaps it would not have been necessary to send people to the Moon at all if what was to be brought back was, above all pictures.”20 He called this event the end of the Copernican Age. Rather than looking out into space, human beings look back from it, and see themselves. Images of the Earth are returned to us in the cosmic mirror and, for the first time, humanity sees its whole body reflected. It is a body in pieces. If, in Blumenberg’s sense, the event of seeing the planet Earth, a “cosmic exception,”21 marks an end to Copernican modernity, let us claim the right to authorise this lunar vision of Earth as the origin of a new era, one entered into in common by Earth-dwellers, and name it the Era of Globalisation.22 19 Hans Blumenberg, The genesis of the Copernican world view, translated from the German by Robert N. Wallace, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 1987, p. 678. 20 Ibid., p. 676. 21 Ibid., p. 679. 22 That such a right is an act of sovereign power is the claim of Kathleen Davis in her recent book, Periodization and sovereignty: how ideas
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Figure 10 — Liu Kuo-song, The Sun is coming, 1991.
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Others were paying attention to this event of the birth of globalisation. One was the Taiwanese artist Liu Kuo-song. Liu was inspired by the Apollo 8 space mission to paint a series of images depicting the newly visible realities by fusing traditional Chinese brush techniques with those of contemporary hard-edged abstraction (Figure 10). He was one of the co-founders of the Wuyue Huahui (Fifth Moon Group) a painting society of Taiwanese artists active in the sixties. Liu taught in Hong Kong in the seventies and eighties, and was a visiting artist and professor in the United States on several occasions. Invited to Beijing in the eighties, he has since become well known on the mainland. A major retrospective
of Feudalism and secularization govern the politics of time, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. But if, as Fredric Jameson suggests, we cannot not periodise, then let us extend the “we” to a communal (dare I say Communist?) inclusiveness with this inaugural event. See Fredric Jameson, A singular modernity: essay on the ontology of the present, London and New York, Verso, 2002, p. 94.
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exhibition of his work was held at Beijing’s National Palace Museum in 2007.
Figure 11 — Poster for Perfumed Mightmare, film by Kidlat Tahimik, 1978.
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A second artist, the filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik (Figure 11), was a young man at the time of the moon landing, living in a small village in the Philippines. He produced a film about that experience, which he describes as awakening from the “cocoon of American Dreams.”23 Entitled Perfumed nightmare (1978), it received numerous international awards. In the film, Kidlat tells of his youthful enthusiasm when hearing reports from the Voice of America of Apollo 8 on his portable radio. It was the time of the US military occupation (and the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos), and Kidlat became the founder and head of the village fan club for Werner von Braun, the rocket scientist whose brilliance made the space voyages possible. 23 http://www.focus-philippines.de/kidlat.htm; accessed October, 2010.
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But that is not the whole Von Braun story. Before being recruited to the American space effort as its director, he worked as a scientist in his native Germany. Having joined the Nazi party in 1937, he became a Germans SS officer during the war. If we bring these three human beings into the same constellation under the sign of the 1968 lunar vision of Earth, we get an idea of just how fragmented the now globally visible body of humanity was (and, of course, still is). Hans Blumenberg, whose description of the moon landing is the climax of his lengthy philosophical history, The genesis of the Copernican world, was a student in Germany during the Hitler years. A Catholic, he was labelled a half-Jew by the Nazis, spent some time in concentration camps and was hidden by his future wife’s family toward the end of the war. (He does not credit, or even mention Werner von Braun in his book.) Blumenberg was born in 1920, Liu in 1932, Tahimik in 1942. If we were categorising them according to nationality, chronological age or the genre of their work, they would never come into contact with each other. Blumenberg was a Western modernist, Liu merged modernism with traditional landscape painting, Tahimik’s Perfumed nightmare was singled out by Fredric Jameson as a Third-World example of postmodern cinema, coming out of a neo-colonised formation.24 But rather than keeping them in place within existing mappings of the intellectual landscape, within a global constellation, these three figures are allowed to converge.
24  Fredric Jameson, The geopolitical aesthetic: cinema and space in the world system, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1992.
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Figure 12
Globalization as a historical era—a time, not a space— entails a transformation of consciousness. “Think global, act local” has become the political slogan for an alternative to the present world order, a mandate to think through what it means to inhabit a physical planet, not a composite of political states. It is proving surprisingly difficult to do so. We are hindered in re-imagining the present because our sense of historical time has been structured in terms of col-
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lective distinctions—nations, cultures, civilizations. Rather than trying to add up these partial stories into a massive world history, the model of constellations encourages us to refigure the historical armatures that hold the past together across such narrative divides. These armatures need to be flexible, allowing historical fragments to enter multiple, changing relationships, and, in the process, training our own consciousness and suppleness of thought. Conceptualising the Global “Art teaches us to see things. It is training in observation.” (Walter Benjamin.) 316
A book published in 2006 under the title Is art history global? debated whether the study and teaching of art could, or should, be global in terms of its methods, its contents and its canon. James Elkins, the book’s editor, questioned the extreme position of Mieke Bal, a founding figure in the field of visual studies, who was seemingly content to dissolve the disciplinary boundaries of art history completely. Elkins favoured, instead, turning to (Western) theory as the foundation of a global discipline of art. He finds exemplary the work of specific art historians: T. J. Clark, who grapples with Hegel; Michael Fried, who does the same with Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein; Michael Camille with Derrida; and Didi-Huberman with Lacan. While supportive of non-Western art practices, Elkins concludes, “I think it can be argued that there is no non-Western tradition of art history, if by that is meant a tradition with its
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own interpretive strategies and forms of argument.”25 His evidence: Chinese specialists are not hired to teach art in Western universities on the basis of their ability to deploy indigenous—that is, specifically Chinese—historiographical methods. The Bal-Elkins debate will not concern us here.26 We take a detour around art history as a discipline, with its established, undeniably Western-centric traditions, and, sidestepping the interdisciplinary/non-disciplinary concerns and internecine struggles of the academy, push ahead by changing the question. Rather than considering the relevance of theory for art historians, we will look at how looking at art, studying art, making visual connections and cross-references among art works and artists, can help us conceptualise the global in a different way. Cultural production thus conceived as global is not world culture, where25 James Elkins (ed.), Is art history global?, London and New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 9. This is the third volume in The art seminar, an ongoing, international programme held at the Stone Art Theory Institute under the auspices of the Chicago Institute of Art. This volume took as its starting point David Summer’s book Real spaces: world art history and the rise of western modernism, New York, Phaidon Press, 2003. The rapid obsolescence of Summers’ approach to questions of global art history (based on lectures given in the preceding decade) indicates how quickly the picture has changed. Several of the contributors to Elkins’ volume make the point we make here, that the answer to these questions will not come from the West and its traditions. 26 Elkins himself has modified his position. The next volume in the series, Art and globalization, co-edited by Elkins, Zhivka Valiavicharska and Alice Kim (The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 2010) shows not only how assumptions change, but more, how the global art world has produced a counter-culture of resistance to its own hegemonic practices.
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in universality is understood as inclusion—expanding the existing art canons around abstract terms that imply universality, giving equal time to civilisations or cultural differences or arranging the art of civilisations in a chronology that culminates in a universalised, globalised modernity. Rather, global aesthetic imagination, the capacity to apprehend artistic production in a new way, emerges at a particular time, marked by certain common historical experiences. These experiences have their origins not in the West, but in the postcolonial world. Acknowledging this shift in location requires a conceptual break between the modern and the global. “The modern” is locked into a Western concept of time, one that itself is not at all modern, but dates back to the mediaeval T-O maps that I showed you and that conceives of space itself as a teleological progression, so that some parts of the globe are judged to be forward and others are backward, trailing behind. The teleological imprint on aesthetic and political modernity is encapsulated in the concept of the avant-garde. To be modern is to be avant-garde, at the cutting edge of historical time, economic development and political progress—all three. Western theorists have named the sequel to Western modernity “postmodernity”—a feeble term if ever there was one. Postmodernity as a stage in a teleological sequence can take us nowhere. The West’s self-understanding leads to a conceptual dead end. But globalisation is allowing the emergence of a new, planetary imaginary and the discovery of a new temporality, one that belongs, potentially, to all of humanity—that post-Copernican humanity which, coeval and diffuse, appears to us now as a body in pieces.
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In the postcolonial world, as Elizabeth Giorgis has recently argued, aesthetic modernity was intrinsically bound up with national projects of modernisation. Even countries not colonised accepted the conceptual equation of modernity and West—which meant that they shared in the conscious attempt to mimic Western historical patterns of urban-industrial development and nation-state formation.27 From this perspective, the only way to be modern as an artist was by Western standards that, while claiming universality, were in fact quite specific. Moreover, by those standards, non-Western artists would always be found lacking, their modernity always belated, derivative, mimetic. At best, artists were able to catch up with an avant-garde that had already arrived at a future to which the whole world was heading. As a consequence, postcolonial artists were caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, they were part of the national political project. They were relied upon to produce a separate, national identity as part of what it meant to arrive as a modernised nation state. On the other hand, that national cultural identity would need to be based on indigenous aesthetic traditions that were, by definition, not modern. In the struggle to be both new and national, artists developed transnational strategies that rescued past traditions by subjecting them to a radical transformation. In the process—and this is the decisive point—they emerged from the 27 Giorgis claims that whereas Ethiopian intellectuals insisted on the uniqueness of Ethiopia as a country never colonised, they were under the sway of colonial intellectual hegemony, accepting Western definitions of modernisation and modernity as universal. Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism: a subaltern perspective, PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, 2010, p. 8-9.
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postcolonial dilemma into new territory, a common ground belonging to no nation, no culture exclusively, opening up to a new, universally accessible (and in this new sense, communist) aesthetic. It is in this space, I am arguing, that an incipiently global consciousness emerges out of the modern and, in the art works themselves, comes into view.
Figure 13 — Wifredo Lam, The Jungle, 1943.
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A key figure in this development is the African-Chinese-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam. Only as an international figure who spent years in Spain and France and was befriended and promoted by Picasso, André Breton, and others, did Lam come back to Cuba with a thoroughly modernist sensitivity to the African heritage that he sought to rescue from two fates. One was its dehistoricised appropriation by European modernists; the other was its historical erasure from Cuban national identity.28 The painting The 28 This was a widespread dilemma, experienced between the world wars in New York’s Harlem Renaissance by Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Alain Locke and others. “[T]he challenge (...) was to establish their identi-
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Jungle (Figure 13) that Lam produced in 1944 after his return to Cuba was both figural and abstract, both nationally specific to Cuba and anticipatory of a new, transnational consciousness of Négritude.29
Figure 14 — Skunder Boghossian, Night Flight of Dread and Delight (Juju’s Flight of Terror and Delight (Nourishers Series), 1963.
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There are striking parallels between this strategy and that taken by the Ethiopian artist Skunder Boghossian (Figure 14). Within Western histories of art, if Boghossian is considered at all (which is rarely), it is as a late arrival to the Surrealist tradition, as dreamlike and primitive—in short, ahisty in an era when they were expected to draw on their African heritage but when that heritage had already been appropriated, decontextualized, and ‘essentialized’ in the service of modernism.” Lowery Stokes Sims, Wifredo Lam and the international avant-garde, 1923-1982, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2002, p. 218. On Locke’s non-essentialising, universally humanising conception of the New Negro artist, see Michelle René Smith, Alain Locke: culture and the plurality of black life, PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, 2009. 29 The importance of Negritude in the postcolonial context cannot be overestimated, its African identity leading dialectically to the emergence of a global subjectivity, tying Afro-American artists to Caribbean theorists (Frantz Fanon), to the Algerian anti-colonial movement, and beyond.
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torical. But that was not Boghossian’s intent. “I am aware that I am a witness to my time, other times. I am just time itself,” Boghossian stated, and the time of the modern for him meant developing imagery that, as Giorgis, writes, presents a “critical account of the political culture of the colonial and postcolonial eras,” involving a ‘conceptually complex’ dialogue between nationalism and transnationalism and anticipating the kind of “hybridisation” that has been claimed by postmodernism, exhibiting the latter’s anti-essentialist qualities before the metropolitan West.30 Like Lam, Boghossian spent time in Paris, an experience that was less a pilgrimage to the European centre for colonial artists than a meeting place with others in their situation.31 Boghossian recalled seeing drawings by Wifredo Lam in a Paris gallery window as he was passing by, “that actually gave me a bodily shock.”32 It was, again, the all-important decade of the sixties, when Frantz Fanon was also in Paris and Boghossian’s circle included the African Martinique—born philosopher Aimé Césaire and the Senegalese Muslim—born historian Cheikh Anta Diop, who carved out transnational political positions that condemned French colonialism and existing African regimes, both at once.33 Bog30 Cited in Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 75. 31 Lam returned to Paris in the fifties, settled in Albisola, Italy, while still spending time in Havana, New York and Paris. 32 Cited in Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 78. 33 As Giorgis notes, echoing Walter Benjamin, this doubly problematic contemporary reality, not some primitive past, was the collective dream out of which Africa needed to a historical awakening. Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 83. Boghossian returned to Ethiopia to teach at the Fine Art School for three years in the late sixties, leaving a
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hossian’s 1969 painting, Juju’s Wedding, is a fusion of African animism and Christian divinity, idols and icons, showing the influence of traditional Ethiopian magic scrolls that Giorgis compares with the influence on Lam of the AfroCuban cult of Santería.34
Figure 15 — Wifredo Lam, Totem, 1968.
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lasting impression on young Ethiopian artists before moving to the United States, where he was active in the civil rights movement. He joined Howard University in 1972 as a colleague of Jeff Donaldson, initiator in 1968 of the Afri-Cobra movement of black visual art and black power. Like Lam, multinational experiences were reflected in his art, defying any simple cultural categorisation. Lam compared himself to a Trojan horse, smuggling elements of Santería and Lucumí into European modernism. See Lowery Stokes Sims, Wifredo Lam and the international avant-garde, 1923-1982, op. cit., p. 223. Boghossian “acknowledged the ruptures and discontinuities which constituted precisely his uniqueness.” See Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 113. 34 Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 108. “‘Influence’ here should be understood as a contemporary aesthetic and critical interest, rather than a desire literally to return to the past. Wifredo Lam delighted in the fact that that the Afro-Cuban symbology in his work could ‘disturb the dreams of the exploiters’ while insisting, ‘I have never created my images according to a symbolic tradition, but always on the basis of poetic excitation.’” Cited in Lowery Stokes Sims, Wifredo Lam and the international avant-garde, 1923-1982, op. cit., p. 217.
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Figure 16 — Skunder Boghossian, Ju-ju’s Wedding, 1969.
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Giorgis describes this simultaneity of history and modernity as a Benjaminian sense of time, in which “the meaning of the past is realized in the present.”35 This particular use of the past in order to be modern, whereby the aesthetic power of historical objects is released within a contemporary force35 Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 83-6. Giorgis makes us realise that if Boghossian’s images were dreamlike, if they could be described as “spiritual,” then it is in Benjamin’s sense, as an historical image, and not one that is universal and unchanging (Carl Gustav Jung), or individual and ontological (Jacques Lacan). She points out that the rescue of tradition in Boghossian’s paintings is in opposition to its treatment by Western art historians, who classify early Ethiopian Christian art within the Byzantine world (whereas Africanists ignore this early Christianidentified art). Hitherto, the histories of Ethiopian art have been written by Europeans most of whom did not know Amharic and therefore could not carry out original historical research. The standard text, Major themes in Ethiopian painting by Stanislas Chojnacki, classifies the paintings into two periods: “mediaeval” and Gonderane. Giorgis criticises “the complete omission by European scholars of transcultural influences from the neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda, which Boghossian easily fused into many of his works, and which one can easily identify in Ethiopian Christian traditional paintings and architectural forms.” Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 106.
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field that is crisscrossed by multiple currents of politics and culture, produces a non-sequential temporality and is exemplary of the new, global imagination. Within this same historical constellation is Sadequain (Figure 17), who became the founding figure of Pakistani national art.36
Figure 17 — Sadequain, The Red Couple, 1960s. 325
Like Lam and like Boghossian, Sadequain became nationally famous only after a sojourn in Paris (1961-1967) and some degree of international success. Like Lam and like Boghossian, he appropriated elements of modernity for very different purposes than artists of the West. The Parisian exhibitions of modernist painters were his musée de l’homme—a toolbox of raw materials, and with this toolbox he returned home to become the leading artist of the newly created Muslim nation of Pakistan. 36 Much of my material on Sadequain Naqqash (1930-1987) stems from the recent book by Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia (Islamic civilization and Muslim networks, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
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Called upon by the Pakistani government in the sixties to construct murals in public buildings, Sadequain painted historical panoramas that matched in their monumental sweep the Mexican murals of David Siqueiros and Diego Rivera.37 His relation to the nation-building project was complicated by the intertwining of modernity with the national hegemony of Islam as the form of cultural identity.38 Surprisingly, it was not in his murals but in his most personal, most Parisian paintings that references to Islam were decisive.
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37 Siqueiros and Rivera belong to an earlier generation of artists who went to Paris and returned home to become nationally identified artists. Sadequain’s inspiration was Persian thinker Muhammad Iqbal (some of whose poems he illustrated). Iqbal, born in British India, studied in Britain and Germany (where he read Nietzsche with appreciation), and after the founding of Pakistan became the country’s most nationally revered poet. Sadequain’s murals depicted the histories of multiple civilisations. They included Treasures of time (State Bank of Pakistan), depicting the ascent of human intellectual life from Plato and Euclid to al-Ghazzali and Rumi, from to Shakespeare to Goethe and Marx, and from Confucius to Iqbal and Einstein; Saga of labor at the Mangla Dam project (built in the sixties as the twelfth largest dam in the world; and a series of ceiling murals at the Lahore Museum, described thematically as man struggling to overcome the infinitude of space. In the eighties he painted several murals in India, including 99 calligraphic panels of Asma-e-Husna (the beautiful names of God) at the Indian Institute of Islamic Studies at Delhi (1971-1972). He completed a mural for the power station in Abu Dhabi in 1980. 38 This was a difference between Sadequain and the Mexican muralists, whose point of departure for transnational subject matter was Marxist in inspiration. Both had an audience with Stalin, arranged by Mayakovskii, in 1928; travelling home together, they quarrelled divisively over Trotsky, whom Rivera supported. Like the Mexican muralists, Sadequain, too, meant his work for “the people,” including Islamic elements precisely for that reason. Dadi notes that the artist exhibited his paintings of Qur’anic verses on sidewalks and public spaces in an industrial area in Karachi “with the intent that they would be viewed by poor laborers.” Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, p. 175.
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Figure 18 — Sadequain: the artist in his studio.
In the sixties he produced a series of self-portraits of the artist in his studio that clearly echo the work of Picasso (Figure 18), but with the not so minor difference that the artist is depicted with his head in his hand—an intentional self-reference to the seventeenth-century Sufi mystic Sarmand, who wandered about naked and wrote transgressive verses that got him in trouble with the political authorities. Sarmand was beheaded in 1661 under the charge of heresy.
Figure 19 — Sadequain, SelfPortrait, from the booklet, Sadequain: sketches and drawings, 1966.
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Figure 19 is Sadequain’s self-portrait, naked, with sheltering hands that in their branch-like expanse, spell out the name Allah. Arabic calligraphy, that may appear to be nonrepresentational abstraction in Western eyes, is filled with historical, cultural and political content for those who are able to read it.39 The artist accomplished a revival of the art of Arabic calligraphy with a distinctly modernist sensibility. Its appearance in his Self-Portrait is vegetative rather than textual, setting up a circuit of meaning that moves between nature and history mediated by the artist’s own subjectivity.40 Iftikhar Dadi has called such uses of hand writing in art “calligraphic modernism,” characterised by the affective, gestural communication of the brushstroke itself, the emotive quality of which can be appreciated despite linguistic obscurity.41 At the same time, in other parts of the Islamic 39 Dadi writes that while Sadequain never adopted an official ideology (nationalist, Islamist, or Communist), the political strength of his work lay in the fact that his “singular persona continued to serve as a reminder of the personal, sexual, and Sufistic surplus that could not be contained in [General] Zia’s coercive and austere Islamization project.” Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, op. cit., p. 175. 40 He claimed to have “found the essence” of calligraphy in the late fifties in the silhouette form of cactus plants growing in Pakistan’s seaside landscape: “Everything that I have painted since then—a city like Rawalpindi, buildings, a forest, a boat, a table or a chair, a man, a mother and child, or a woman—has been based on calligraphy, which in itself issues from the structure of the cactus.” Cited in Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, op. cit., p. 150. The mural paintings have cactus-like forms in the landscape and in the drapes of clothing. Illustrations of Persian poems, including his own, integrate textual calligraphy directly. 41 Iftikhar Dadi, “Ibrahim El Salahi and calligraphic modernism in a comparative perspective,” South Atlantic Quarterly, v. 109, n. 3, 2010, p. 55576. As a modernist method, it allows us to compare the work of various artists from multiple nations and cultural sites, from Sadequain in Pakistan to
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world artists were using the traditions of calligraphy to negotiate the postcolonial tensions between national belonging and a new consciousness that was, in Dadi’s words, “larger than the iconography of any single nation state.”42
Figure 20 — Sadequain, illustration, 1960s, from Rubiyat-eSadequain Kuliyat, published in 2010.
329 Figure 21 — Madiha Umar, Baghdad, n. d.
A decade before Sadequain, the Syrian born artist Madiha Umar explored the formal elements of Arabic calligraphy Franz Klein in New York City. See also Iftikhar Dadi, “Sadequain and calligraphic modernism,” Chapter 3 of Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, op. cit., p. 134-76. 42 Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, op. cit., p. 161. Artists working “not collaboratively or possibly without even knowing much about each other’s work” were creating through calligraphy “an aesthetic of Muslim cross-national modernism” that “bears some correspondences” with the transnational Black aesthetic of Négritude.
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(Figure 20). “Modern” in Umar’s work (Figure 21) is the way she breaks apart the letters into their visual components, a destruction of literate-ness that has been described as working to “free the Arabic letters from its bondage.”43
Figure 22 — Ibrahim Mohammed ElSalahi (Sudan), The last sound, 1964.
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By the sixties, calligraphic modernism as a practice that de-emphasised literal meaning became widespread, allowing artists to communicate to each other across national and linguistic divides. The Sudanese artist El-Salahi created an 43 The first woman to receive a scholarship for international study from the Iraqi government in the thirties, she lived in Europe and the United States before returning to Iraq, and was in dialogue with Western art historians (Richard Ettinghausen, for instance) on the significance of calligraphy for Islamic aesthetics more generally. See Fayeq Oweis, Encyclopedia of Arab American artists, Greenwood, Westport, Connecticut, 2007, p. 256. Dadi also acknowledges Umar as a forerunner, but would question calligraphy’s role as the determining figure in a uniquely Islamic history of art, rather than seeing the emergence of Islamic calligraphic as a distinctly modernist practice, allowing global comparisons to other artists of the time. Compare with Giorgis’ critique of Ethiopian historians of art, above, footnote 37.
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interplay between calligraphy and figuration, combining African motifs with calligraphic elements, and celestial bodies with animate forms in the 1964 painting The last sound (Figure 22). While the work’s title refers to a specific Islamic practice of reciting prayers for the dead and dying to accompany the soul’s passing from the corporeal to the celestial, it is “manifestly modern” in its dynamic integration of forms.44 El-Salahi’s experimental practices, rejected in the salon culture of postcolonial Sudan, engaged with “a more democratic and vernacular visual culture.”45 It was El-Salahi’s use of Arabic calligraphy that inspired the Ethiopian artist Boghossian (when the two were in Paris) to create his Feedel series, which incorporated the forms of Amharic letters (the script of the Ethiopian Christian church), intentionally merging the oppositional moments of abstraction and realism, the sacred and the profane.46 In Iraq, and Iran as well, the Arab cosmopolitanism of “calligraphic modernism” was, writes Dadi, a progressive aspect of the return of artists to tradition: “the abstract/calli44 Iftikhar Dadi, “Ibrahim El-Salahi and calligraphic modernism,” op. cit., p. 555-6. El-Salahi was educated at London’s Slade School of Fine Art in the fifties; in the sixties he travelled in West Africa, Europe, Mexico, and (with extended fellowships) in the United States. 45 Ibid., p. 563. Dadi writes, “As [El-Salahi] describes it, this transformation demanded breaking open the Arabic letter and exploring the new aesthetic universe that emerged from the fragments and the interstices.” 46 Boghossian “started working on calligraphy in Paris, heavily influenced by Ibrahim El-Salahi of Sudan, who at the time was working on Arabic calligraphy. Boghossian joked that an Ethiopian always wanted abstraction with a bit of realism, and is the reason why he started creating the Feedel series.” Elizabeth Giorgis, Ethiopian modernism, op. cit., p. 89-90.
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graphic mode pries open the boundaries of the nationalist frame,” cutting “across temporality and geography, thereby propelling this body of work into the present.”47 Interestingly, a parallel revival of calligraphy also took place in East Asia in the sixties.
Figure 23 — Liu Guosong, Which is Earth?, n. 9, 1969. 332
The Moon series by Liu Guosong, which we have already considered, evinced a similar technique (Figure 23), combining the brush techniques of traditional landscape painting with the cosmopolitan potential of calligraphy. Liu wrote that he discovered abstraction precisely within the brushstroke of traditional Chinese landscape painting that often incorporated calligraphic forms.48 China, it should 47 Iftikhar Dadi, “Ibrahim El-Salahi and calligraphic modernism,” op. cit., abstract and p. 567. 48 David Clarke, “Abstraction and modern Chinese art,” Kobena Mercer et al. (eds.), Discrepant abstraction, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT
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be noted, was a politically fractured landscape, including the Maoist People’s Republic of China, the British colony of Hong Kong, and the nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan—areas whose residents speak such different dialects that only through writing is communication possible. Yet for Liu as well, the familiar calligraphic shapes, released from literal meaning, became visual forms that have affinities with the natural world. His description of the process echoes the motivations of Boghossian, Sadequain and El-Salahi, treating the past, as a modern painter, in order to break away from it. In 1965 he wrote, “We are neither ancient Chinese nor modern Westerners. If copying ancient Chinese paintings is forgery, so is producing modern Western paintings.” His goal was to achieve a new kind of painting altogether: “‘Chinese’ and ‘modern’ are the two blades of the sword which will slash the Westernized and traditionalist schools alike.”49 In all of these examples of calligraphic modernism, language—that element in social life which is experienced as most exclusionary—leaves textual rootedness and even semantic legibility, and allows artists to participate globally in the creation of something new. There is another shared aspect of the new global aesthetic that deserves comment, the fact that in the various instances we have been considering (from orbiting the moon to postcolonial art), the reproduced image has been fundamental in the emergence of a global sensibility. Temporal simultaneity and spatial coexistence on a global scale are Press, 2006, p. 80. 49 Ibid.
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“experienced” only virtually, mediated by the image. For postcolonial art, the importance of the reproduced image is striking. While the artists we have been considering spent a significant period of time training and working in the West, their first exposure to modernism was mediated. Wifredo Lam first became familiar with the work of Picasso and Matisse through magazines brought back from Paris by friends.50 Dadi writes that “Sadequain had formed his initial impressions of European modern art from magazine reproductions,” a decontextualisation that allowed for “mistranslation” of the European modernist works, freeing them “to be perceived in the Pakistani context without their ideological baggage.”51 Again and again we find documentation of this fact.52 The technologies of reproduction—camera and film, illustrated magazine and televised broadcast—allow the image 50 Lowery Stokes Sims, “The postmodern modernism of Wifredo Lam,” Kobena Mercer (ed.), Cosmopolitan modernisms, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2005, p. 89. 51 Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the art of Muslim South Asia, op. cit., p. 150 and 153. 52 Mitter, writing on Indian modernism, notes, “From the 1920s onwards, as modernist ‘technologies’ like cubism came into India, and were adopted, we need to examine how art reproductions in books and magazines contributed to the reinterpretation of cubism that was specific to the Indian context (...) [T]he main sources used by colonial artists were reproductions (...).” Partha Mittler, “Reflections on modern art and national identity in colonial India: an interview,” in Kobena Mercer (ed.), Cosmopolitan modernisms, op. cit., p. 26. Pakistan-born London artist Rashid Areen recalls being introduced to modern art in Karachi “through the information we used to get in the magazine and books imported from the West (...),” ibid., p. 162. Perhaps, echoing Blumenberg (see above), it would not have been necessary to send artists to Paris after all if what was to be brought back was, above all, images!
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to meet the beholder halfway (to paraphrase Walter Benjamin53). And far from being a problem for artists, far from degrading artistic production through a loss of aura, these widely dispersed images decreased the authority of the metropole over the postcolonial artist, for whom modernist techniques, ripped out of their original contexts, became useful tools within transnational networks producing intercultural solidarities. The anti-auratic appropriation of the image via technological reproductions is foundational for a global aesthetics.
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Figure 24 — Sadequain, Martin Luther King (Christ series), 1960s.
53 “Technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for he original. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway.” Walter Benjamin, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” in Illuminations, Hannah Arendt (ed.), translated from the German by Harry Zohn, New York, Schocken Books, 1969, p. 220.
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Not only artistic but also political experiences circulated through images, bringing issues of social justice to world visibility in a global public sphere. Since the sixties, no political issue has been merely national (Figure 24), and yet international solutions have remained elusive. Postcolonial societies learned during the Cold War that US foreign policy all too often sacrificed democratic ideals for national self-interest. At the same time, postcolonial movements attracted to Marxism became disillusioned by the Soviet Union’s equally self-interested policy of backing brutal dictatorial regimes. All of the artists we have been considering experienced the political ambiguities that the Cold-War rhetoric of absolute differences disavowed. None of them compromised their creative independence to back a particular political regime; none of them followed the whims of the art market; all of them risked the existential security of a simple national or cultural identity as a consequence. But the political significance of this art for us is not limited to the intention of the artists. By rescuing local traditions as a way of being global, they anticipated the political challenges of our time. Conclusion
To return to the question is art history global?, the answer calls for remapping time as well as space, and questioning the most basic categories of our historical narratives—ones that privilege the sorting out of aesthetic production by national, civilisational or cultural identities. It
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demands that we question models of explanation based on causal influence, defining creativity in terms of an authentic original, disseminated mimetically in the form of degraded copies. From a global perspective, what is primitive about the modern is precisely the opposite of the mythic or the archaic. “Primitive” here is fully historical: it means originary, the first stage, describing Urforms of the global present and possibilities of a time to come.54 What is called for is nothing short of a transformation of scholarship, its empirics, its theories, but also, and perhaps most significantly, the social relations of art as property (of the artistcreator, or the culture/nation/ethnicity to which s/he “belongs”) that underlie both theoretical conceptualisations and the empirical research that sustains them. Elkins’ comment regarding Western universities not hiring Chinese-trained historians of art is valid within the given frameworks of knowledge. But if the established disciplines cling to their foundational narratives that lead into the cul-de-sac of postmodernism, then Western universities will find themselves irrelevant and no self-respecting intellectual will want to teach at them. But the alternative is not to get on the bandwagon of art’s present globalisation—commercial markets, museums and biennials as currently arranged. No rupture with the past would jus54 Urform (primordial) means primitive in this sense. The term has a scientific correlate: the “primitive” streak is the beginning of life: “a faint white trace at the uppermost end of the germinal area, formed by an aggregation of cells, and constituting the first indication of the development of the blastoderm.” See the American illustrated medical dictionary, p. 702.
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tify totally jettisoning the history of art as just too much excess baggage, in favour of a continuous contemporaneity that flatters the already amnesia-prone profession, and lulls artists, critics and art promoters into believing that their blissful ignorance is liberation. We need history, now more than ever, but it will involve a transnational expropriation of the cultural heritage, a rescue of history in the communist mode. Today we hold the world in our hands, but only virtually. Modernity’s hoped-for “family of man” remains a body in pieces. The creative forces of the present explode the structures of history, scattering fragments of the past forward into unanticipated locations. These fragments have multiple affinities that cannot be known beforehand, which is a good thing. Their juxtaposition in the present produces unforeseen constellations, providing new readings of the past as a way of charting a different future. Entering multiple constellations, they shine the brighter for it.55 In the early twenties, with the rise of European modernity, Georg Lukács lamented the fact that modern society had lost every image of the whole. Influenced by Hegel, he believed that the totality of the past could only be grasped as a sequence of stages that led all of humanity from feu55 If the reader detects in this conclusion a theological inflection after all, I admit to having in mind Walter Benjamin’s description of utopia, in the context of his philosophy of history: “[N]othing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past —which is to say, only for a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments.” Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the philosophy of history,” Illuminations, p. 254.
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dalism to capitalism and beyond. This trajectory of history has indeed come to an end. But the history of humanity, far from over, may be just at the beginning.
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Humanisme créole en Afrique Mario Lucio Sousa
Afrique, créole et humanisme
Nous sommes confrontés à des mots communs, mais ce sont des concepts qui nous interrogent en permanence. Donc, évoquer chacun de ces mots, et à la lumière de la pensée moderne, devient un impératif. Car une nouvelle vision d’anciens concepts peut nous ouvrir un terrain de relations tout à fait inédites, dans la mesure où la tradition et l’attachement ont tendance à préserver ce qui a été acquis et à loucher devant la lumière qui émane chaque jour de la contradiction entre tradition et modernité. L’importance de revisiter les concepts provient de ce qu’ils nous aident à mieux comprendre le monde en mutation. Et cela est d’autant plus important si nous considérons que la société est toujours en transformation. Mais nous serons incapables de 341
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remarquer de tels changements si nous gardons toujours la même image de soi et des phénomènes. Parler d’Humanisme créole en Afrique nous oblige, avant tout, à questionner ce que signifie l’Afrique, ce qu’est l’Humanisme et ce que créole veut dire dans la pensée contemporaine. Ces dernières années, un courant de pensée a fait qu’une partie du monde accepte l’existence d’une vision stéréotypée de l’Afrique. Et, quelquefois, pour compenser, une vision apologiste. Ces deux circonstances compétitives, parfois paternalistes et parfois chauvinistes, ont fait que l’on ne parle presque jamais de l’Afrique comme on le ferait d’une autre région quelconque du monde. À peine il nous suffit-il de dire tout simplement Afrique. Il faut toujours que nous ayons une excuse ou une certaine complaisance. Cette fausse image a caché une Afrique qui s’étend de Cartage au Cap de la Bonne Espérance, de Madagascar aux îles du Cap Vert, comprenant les pharaons, l’empire mandingue, la bibliothèque de Timbuctu et l’architecture éthiopienne. Nous nous sommes habitués à parler d’une Afrique primitive et karmique, oubliant que nous nous référons au même continent Afrique qui a déjà eu quatre empereurs à Rome et deux papes au Vatican. Une Afrique qui comporte animistes, catholiques, hindouistes, juifs, musulmans, protestants, bouddhistes, indiens, européens, américains, asiatiques et, évidemment, africains qui vivent ensemble. Une Afrique qui a des blancs, des jaunes, des indigènes, des pygmées, des mulâtres et, évidemment, des noirs qui cohabitent. Une Afrique comptant des pays qui figurent par-
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mi les dix nations les plus démocratiques du monde, et aussi des pays qui — pratiquement chaque deux ans —, engendrent un coup d’état. Une Afrique avec des nations qui figurent parmi les plus anciennes de la planète, des villes parmi les plus propres du monde, des zones parmi les plus violentes de l’actualité. Une Afrique où nous voyons des pays reconnus comme étant les plus riches du globe, et des pays considérés les plus pauvres de la terre, etc. Bref, la même Afrique qui, sans pudeur ni honte, a géré Mobutu Sese Seko et, sans déshonneur ni grandeur, a aussi donné naissance à Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Et que signifie humanisme pour un continent qui a vu vingt millions de ses enfants être vendus comme esclaves? Ce ne sera nécessairement pas un humanisme semblable, ni différent de l’essentiel, mais il sera certainement un peu plus épuré. À vrai dire, il est stimulant de se questionner sur les nuances de l’humanisme. L’eurocentrisme a réduit l’humanisme aux Droits de l’Homme. Aujourd’hui, nous avons sur la plus grande partie de la planète un humanisme qui ne parle pas des Devoirs de l’Homme. Si nous comparons la notion européenne aux philosophies asiatiques et africaines, nous constatons que la première est un humanisme qui se soucie peu de la relation avec l’autre. La notion de l’humanisme européen est celle d’un humanisme qui s’intéresse à moi et à mes droits, que les autres sont tenus de respecter. C’est pourquoi on parle tant aujourd’hui de Droits des Animaux, comme s’ils étaient nécessaires pour com-
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penser ou compléter les Droits de l’Homme, pour emplir un humanisme au fond égoïste. Notre humanisme est un humanisme incomplet. Cependant, dans cette incomplétude, il y a la conscience que l’humanisme doit être dirigé vers l’autre. Notre humanisme doit être notre humanité, et pas notre moi. Et les cultures les plus anciennes l’ont toujours su. Il suffit de voir que, pour aller au plus profond de cette notion d’humanisme, certaines écoles bouddhistes soutiennent l’inexistence du moi. Or, entre l’ancien, le nouveau et le très nouveau de l’humanisme, commençons donc par parler de la poétique de la relation, et de l’importance de l’humanisme créole en Afrique. La poétique de la relation n’a jamais été aussi cruciale qu’à présent — en cette ère marquée par les guerres ethniques. La contribution la plus profonde que la poétique créole offre à la notion de l’humanisme est sa philosophie, à la fois ancienne et moderne. Car c’est dans cette philosophie que nous trouvons, pour la première fois, l’idée que moi, je suis l’autre. Mais l’autre, ici, n’est pas entendu dans le sens chrétien, le proche, mais dans le sens créole, le plus éloigné possible. L’autre, c’est le différent. C’est dans ce contexte-là que nous devons parler de l’identité créole, du nouvel homme né d’anciennes rencontres, de la nouvelle nation née d’un vieux continent, du futur d’un passé qui n’est déjà plus. Ma notion de créole est celle de l’homme de l’ère de la mondialisation, une mondialisation qui a vu le jour au XVème siècle. L’homme créole
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est une identité qui a défié les races, les continents et les océans, qui a défié les couleurs et les distinctions étanches, qui a synthétisé les cultures et s’est institué comme celui qui veut être dans la relation avec tous. Ainsi que je l’ai déjà mentionné ailleurs, le créole n’est rien qui ait déjà été esquissé avant, c’est une assomption. Le créole n’est pas le métis, rien d’autre qu’un phénomène génétique: c’est une culture, et une culture, cela s’assume, se choisit, s’adopte. Il n’en a pas été toujours ainsi, ce n’était pas comme ça avant, mais aujourd’hui, ça l’est devenu. Aujourd’hui, est créole qui désire l’être. Car la culture se choisit; et ce, grâce à la libération du passé que l’identité créole a apportée à la relation des hommes. Par conséquent, cette idée naît remplie d’une grande dose de liberté. Cette perspective, aussi inédite que vraie, quoique pas très bien que peu répandue, introduit un nouveau thème dans notre agenda: que serait devenue l’Afrique, sans la créolisation? Je dois dire que cette question est délicate. C’est peut-être la raison pour laquelle elle est posée pour la première fois, mais je pense qu’elle a martelé sans pitié l’intellect des penseurs de la créolisation. À mon avis, l’une des raisons pour lesquelles elle ne s’est jamais posée vient du fait que ces penseurs n’étaient pas africains. Et l’Afrique a toujours nié aux autres la légitimité de parler d’elle. Je sens que je possède cette légitimité: je suis créole et africain. Tout de même, cette légitimité est plus revendiquée par nous qu’elle n’est reconnue par les africains. Traditionnellement, la question reste toujours: comment serait l’Afrique sans l’Esclavage et la Colonisation?
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Le consensus dit que nous aurions certainement eu une meilleure Afrique. Bon, ce fait est déjà consumé, ne pleurons plus sur le passé. Toutefois, une question reste latente, un phénomène dialectique non encore consumé ni consolidé, qui tiraille chaque jour le “penser l’Afrique”: la question du créole en Afrique. Or, la question de savoir comment serait l’Afrique sans la créolisation est évidente: nous devrions encore être en train d’en faire le deuil. Le deuil de l’esclavage et de la colonisation. Alors, le chagrin, le désir de se venger, la colère et les conflits seraient encore plus aigus. Sans cette nouvelle culture qui concerne tout le monde, l’esclavage n’aurait laissé dans son sillage que des corps déchiquetés, des gens jetés à la mer, des bêtes de travail mutilées, la tuerie, le mépris, et une injustice qui mettrait deux éternités à être réparée. Le créole est ainsi le meilleur héritage historique, ou le seul positif, que l’horreur de l’esclavage ait légué au monde. Disons, le créole dans toute ses dimensions: celle de la musique synthèse, de la langue multiple, de la tolérance incontournable, de l’alternance nécessaire, de la liberté de la peau, de la libération du passé et de la possibilité de communion de ceux qui se sont rencontrés dans la violence, dans la domination des uns sur les autres. Ici, nous devons mettre en relief une constatation essentielle: l’abolition n’a pas eu lieu sur le continent africain, mais parmi les africains et leurs descendants du monde entier. Que serait devenue l’Afrique sans la créolisation? En revenant au contexte de l’abolition de l’esclavage, nous com-
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prenons. Ce à quoi nous pouvions nous attendre, c’est que le lendemain de l’annonce de l’abolition de l’esclavage, une longue tuerie de blancs se produirait pour compenser la tuerie de noirs, et puis, par la suite, peut-être une autre tuerie de noirs pour garantir la survie des blancs, puis une nouvelle tuerie de blancs pour couper le mal à sa racine, et ainsi de suite, jusqu’à ce qu’il ne reste au monde que deux bouches, une noire et une blanche, pleines de dents pointues. Ce n’est pas ce qui s’est passé. Ce phénomène n’a pratiquement pas été analysé, nous n’avons presque jamais réalisé à quelle hécatombe nous avons échappé au début du XVIIème siècle. Voici donc un regard créole jeté sur l’épisode qui a touché blancs et noirs. Ou mieux, on a toujours cru que cet épisode n’avait touché que les blancs et les noirs. Je dois cependant dire que la tuerie a été projetée. Il suffit de lire la déclaration d’indépendance du Haïti. Voyez ce que Dessalines a écrit, noir sur blanc: (…) Qu’avons-nous de commun avec ce peuple bourreau? Sa cruauté comparée à notre patiente modération, sa couleur à la nôtre, l’étendue des mers qui nous séparent, notre climat vengeur, nous disent assez qu’ils ne sont pas nos frères, qu’ils ne le deviendront jamais, et que s’ils trouvent un asile parmi nous, ils seront encore les machinateurs de nos troubles et de nos divisions. Citoyens indigènes, hommes, femmes, filles et enfants, portez vos regards sur toutes les parties de cette île: cherchez-y, vous, vos épouses; vous, vos maris; vous, vos frères; vous, vos sœurs, que dis-je? Cherchez-y vos enfants, vos enfants à la mamelle; que sont-ils devenus? (…) je frémis de le dire (…) la proie de ces vautours. Au lieu de ces victimes intéressantes, votre œil consterné n’aperçoit que leurs assassins; que les tigres dégouttant encore de leur sang, et dont l’affreuse présence vous reproche votre insensibilité et votre coupable lenteur à les venger. (…) Qu’attendez-vous pour apaiser leurs mânes? Songez que vous avez voulu que vos restes reposassent auprès
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de ceux de vos pères, quand vous avez chassé la tyrannie; descendrezvous dans leurs tombes sans les avoir vengés? Non! leurs ossements repousseraient les vôtres. (…) sachez que vous n’avez rien fait, si vous ne donnez aux nations un exemple terrible, mais juste, de la vengeance que doit exercer un peuple fier d’avoir recouvré sa liberté et jaloux de la maintenir; effrayons tous ceux qui oseraient tenter de nous la ravir encore; commençons par les Français (…) Qu’ils frémissent en abordant nos côtes, sinon par le souvenir des cruautés qu’ils y ont exercées, au moins par la résolution terrible que nous allons prendre de dévouer à la mort quiconque né français souillerait de son pied sacrilège le territoire de la liberté.
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Sauf que l’imprévisible s’était déjà interposé sur le chemin de la dichotomie. L’esclave libéré et ses enfants se sont rendu compte qu’ils seraient orphelins de père, dans certains cas, s’ils tuaient tous les blancs. Les blancs se sont aperçus que beaucoup de leurs enfants deviendraient aussi orphelins si les autorités blanches décidaient de tuer tous les noirs. Un nouveau phénomène frappait à la porte du monde: l’humanisme créole. Et il a poursuivi sa chevauchée jusqu’à nos jours. Une probabilité de cohabitation était venue se poser au sein du malheur potentiel. Quelle importance cela peut-il avoir? Et bien, avec le créole, l’Europe a vu qu’elle n’était déjà plus constituée de pur sang bleu. Et l’Afrique a accepté le fait que le continent africain ne soit pas uniquement le continent noir. Il y avait toutes les îles d’Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique: il y avait les hindous de l’île Maurice, les aborigènes de la Réunion, les africains de la Guadeloupe, les juifs du Cap Vert, les américains du Suriname et de la Guyane. Alors, nous avons pu observer deux situations inédites dans l’univers des hommes: la naissance du sang arc-en-ciel et de l’archi-
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pel monde. Les blancs et les noirs ne pouvaient plus se placer chacun d’un côté et pointer leurs armes à feu et leurs lances sur l’autre côté. Il existait maintenant un terrain de rencontre qui exigeait tolérance, paix, harmonie, patience, démocratie, liberté et, surtout, un humanisme défiant. Défiant, du fait de présupposer le pardon, le deuil, la réconciliation et la résignation. Au cours des derniers siècles nous avons assisté à plusieurs exemples d’héritage que l’expérience de la créolisation nous a laissés. Le cas de l’Afrique du Sud est le plus récent. Avec la fin de l’apartheid, on a commencé à parler de confrontations entre noirs et blancs. Tout à coup, les voix des chinois, des indiens, des afrikanders, des malgaches, et d’une vague de nouvelles gents dont les rhizomes étaient éparpillés dans de nombreuses communautés à la fois, se sont mis à chanter sur un autre ton. Quelqu’un a compris le phénomène et s’est aperçu que, s’il y avait une guerre entre les blancs et les noirs en Afrique du Sud, une énorme partie de la population se retrouverait entre les deux, sans savoir qui tuer. Chaque agression serait un coup, une agression contre ses propres racines. Et tout cela parce que la question de la créolisation dépasse celle de la couleur de peau. Lorsque l’Afrique a été divisée au centimètre près à Berlin, sans que les nations, communautés et ethnies ne soient respectées, on a délibérément créé un foyer de tuerie potentielle. Les guerres ethniques seraient infinies, et cela rendrait la présence de l’Europe en Afrique perpétuelle. Que s’est-il passé? L’im-
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prévisible, à nouveau: les guerres ont changé de direction et ont même diminué avec le temps. Un phénomène inattendu de cohabitation a commencé à donner naissance à des régions multi-ethniques. Quoique cela ne cache pas les aberrations, car ceux qui font appel aux origines pour continuer à tuer et à commettre des génocides en Afrique sont toujours là. Or, ici, la question est toute autre. Elle réside davantage dans la manipulation que dans l’intolérance. Nous pouvons en conclure que, sans la créolisation, la violence conçue pour défaire l’Afrique serait certainement beaucoup plus banale et quotidienne. L’humanisme créole en Afrique n’est pas une condition des créoles, mais plutôt des parties qui sont mises en relation. Des parties rivales, parfois, contradictoires et ennemies. Ce n’est pas quelque chose qui se passe dans les pays de langue créole, ni exclusivement chez les créoles, mais partout, car la créolisation se situe dans la possibilité des rencontres que le phénomène engendre. C’est pour cette raison que je préfère parler de créolisation, au lieu de créolité. Je me réfère non pas à un attribut de quelqu’un, mais à un processus qui appartient à tous. L’humanisme créole dépasse aussi le continent africain. Quand nous parlons de l’humanisme créole en Afrique, nous parlons aussi des afriques qui habitent les périphéries de Paris, Londres, Lisbonne, Rotterdam, Bruxelles, etc. Il y a à peine dix ans, les créoles rêvaient en permanence d’un back to África; aujourd’hui, le discours a changé. Il a changé parce que ces créoles-là sont européens, nés en Europe, ils ont un passeport européen. Bien sûr, ils sont
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confrontés à la classification d’européen d’origine africaine. Mais l’origine ne signifie plus le point de départ, mais plutôt le point de rencontre de l’individu, avec luimême et avec les autres. Et l’Europe n’est pas non plus uniquement le point d’arrivée. L’Europe est devenue également le point de rencontre. Les conséquences les plus pratiques et visibles de ce phénomène sont: la conquête de la liberté, associée à l’humanisme et à la perte d’une identité-cliché. L’autre conséquence est la perte de la peur et de la domination, respectivement, entre les parties en rapport. Cela est dû au fait que la créolisation ait tendance à éliminer les espaces d’exclusion. Souvenons-nous du cas du président de Côte d’Ivoire, lorsqu’il a voulu imposer que ne pourraient être candidats à la présidence de la république que ceux qui étaient ivoiriens jusqu’à la quatrième génération ascendante. Il a nommé l’argument ivoirienité. Cet argument pouvait peser quelques décennies en arrière, mais l’ivoirienité a été un leurre, et a presque abouti à la catastrophe. L’ethnie qui auparavant servait même de démarcation de territoires et de nations, s’est transformée, avec le temps, en un point d’union entre plusieurs peuples et cultures, y compris contre les politiques et les gouvernants. Une même ethnie est devenue “supranationale”, comme dans les cas de complicité existant entre le Mali, la Guinée Conakry, le Sénégal, la Côte d’Ivoire et le Burkina Faso. L’humanisme créole se rapporte à une nouvelle culture qui s’enracine en Afrique, bien qu’elle ne soit pas née sur le continent. Il s’agit d’un phénomène historique, qui reste
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imprévisible. Il est bon de souligner que l’Afrique est certainement plus résistante aux changements à cause de la force des traditions. Cependant, ce changement est si subtil et libérateur qu’il est adopté comme une évolution naturelle, et non pas comme un produit engendré par une rencontre entre cultures. À vrai dire, le phénomène de la créolisation est beaucoup plus visible en Europe qu’en Afrique. Mais un gain considérable a été obtenu. L’ethnisation des démocraties et des droits et libertés n’est déjà plus possible. On parle même d’une nouvelle génération de politiciens africains. Mais il est bon de rappeler que Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Senghor, Amílcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, étaient des intellectuels qui parlaient déjà de négritude à leur époque. Comme le poète Aimé Césaire. Parler de négritude dans les années 50 et 60 est la même chose que parler aujourd’hui de créolisation. Ce sont des prises de conscience et des arguments d’inclusion. Car, souvenez-vous, on allait jusqu’à refuser aux noirs leur propre négritude. La négritude n’était pas reconnue en tant que culture. Plus tard, avec l’indépendance de certains pays du Maghreb et des îles, on a commencé à parler d’Africanité. C’est la raison pour laquelle parler aujourd’hui de la créolisation signifie l’existence d’un nouvel espace identitaire.
6
Mapping the Global Age (Part I)
Brazil, China, and the emergence of the South* Renato Janine Ribeiro
Our long, maybe lasting peace
In the last two decades we have seen three major developments in world politics that we can think of as either convergent or divergent. First of all, the prospect of a global war that would imply the destruction of the planet and maybe of life itself has vanished with the demise of the Soviet system. Wars subsist but are waged on a local basis and without involving major powers as foes. World peace is closer to us and seems to have a stronger basis than ever in the 20th century. Actually, if we emphasize the “central * A previous version of this paper has appeared as “Other cultures come to the political fore: South-South possible contributions to political globalization,” in Fudan—Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, v. 4, n. 4, Dec. 2011, p. 12-26. 355
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countries� of the world, a concept which means Europe for most of the second millennium of the Common Era but has come to include several other countries and maybe even continents in the course of the last century, we can say we had global peace from 1870 to 1914, from 1919 to 1939, and since 1945. This last period is the longest one, at least in the history of the Western world since the fall of the Roman Empire more than fifteen-centuries ago, and seems to have good chances to last. This is a very important development. From 1914 to 1985, roughly speaking, the prospect of a Great or a World War always loomed before us. Death would have ensued on an industrial scale, as happened during the Great War of 1914-1918 or from the massive Japanese aggression against China, in the early 1930s, to the end of the II World War. And if a nuclear war had been waged in the years after the surrender of the Axis the planet as such could have been destroyed, with the end of human species and most living beings. But in the last half century the several peace initiatives that have converted foes into commercial partners and even friends have been instrumental in order to save humankind from destruction. We are fortunate to live in an epoch in which overall destruction no longer seems likely. Secondly, autocracy and dictatorship have receded all around the world; never before has so large a share of humankind benefited from basic freedoms, both private and public, such as the right to choose one’s profession or spouse, and from some political rights as well. There are of course several different conceptions of the meaning of lib-
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erty and freedom, and as political liberty does not necessarily entail economic or private freedom (and conversely), what really matters is not so much the content given to these words, but the sheer fact that they have become universal or semi-universal values. Different cultures will understand them differently, but in our days very few would praise political repression, arranged marriages, or the absence of personal initiative as being good things. Even societies or countries which do not recognize major liberties are expected by many to do so in the forthcoming years. New political cultures come to the fore
We are at the point where some would celebrate the global triumph of Western democracy and its values. Francis Fukuyama did it, in a famous essay published when the French Revolution, the seminal event that spelt the end— or the beginning of the end—of absolute monarchy in the European continent, was celebrating its 200th anniversary.1 We could say that around 1989 the crucial changes in political landscape initiated by the English, American, and French Revolutions were completing their work. However, in the last twenty years several cultures other than the mainstream North Atlantic ones have come to the political fore. This is our third and most important point. We must then first of all dwell on the issue of different meanings given to the same or similar words. To be aware that some beautiful words, such as freedom or equality, may have dif1 Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man, 1992. The original essay (“The end of history”) had been published in 1989.
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ferent but equally legitimate meanings is a quite recent development. Indeed, the West has been able in the last five centuries to ensure its hold on the whole world, from the economic, the political and even the cultural points of view (but its cultural and spiritual dominance has not been as strong as the other two dimensions, at least in Africa and Asia). Of course, this powerful and ever expanding “West” has been defined in several distinct ways. If we emphasize Western expansion, or the Westernization of the world as the expansion of Western values, we will begin by Portuguese navigations and “discoveries,” then switch to Spanish hegemony under the Habsburg dynasty (the Austrias, as Spaniards call them), later to the dispute between the French and the Britons for the control of the successive New Worlds that had been discovered, including the Indies, both Eastern and Western; and we will finally come to the 20th or “American century,” when the United States has been able to become the richest and most powerful country in the world. Western foes have also been changing during these centuries. When European expansion began, their major enemy were the Muslims. In the “short 20th century,” from 1917 to 1989, their place has been taken by the Soviets, but in the last ten or twenty years the Muslims have returned as the major foes of the West, even if as imaginary rather than real ones. The meaning of that Western culture in expansion has also changed several times. We could perhaps say its most positive original feature has been the rule of law, the idea that law should be stable and independent from the whims
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of rulers, that legal matters should be discussed by judges autonomous from the executive power, and that law should not vary according to personal status but be one and the same for all. There was however a certain flaw in this great novelty: it tended to create in European countries, and later in their colonies spread all over the world, a huge gap between two social or ethnic groups. One of those groups would benefit from all the advantages of the rule of law and, later, of both democratic and republican values. The other one would be considered as not being worthy to enjoy all the benefits of citizenship. Slaves, for instance, but also native people in all the major continents colonized by the Europeans, would rate as no more than second-class people, as less than citizens. Abraham Lincoln himself would tell Negroes that between their race and the white one no common cultural ground did exist; and let us not forget the same Lincoln said the Negro abolitionist Frederick Douglass was the worthiest man he ever met.2 At the time of the American Civil War, in several Northern States, even if African-American citizens were free, they did not have the right to vote, to witness in court if one of the parts was white, or to serve as jurors. Democracy and linked values have proved, however, so strong that they have appealed more and more to those who were deprived of their benefits: to take as an example the African continent, the last one to gain its independence from colonial rule, many Af2  Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, 2006. After meeting Lincoln, Douglass was surprised to see the President was completely devoid of any racial or color prejudice.
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ricans have endeavored to have the same citizen rights as those born in their former metropolises. In so doing, they followed the American example, since what the Thirteen Colonies essentially wanted in the 1770s was to enjoy the same rights as the British subjects of the crown.3 In both cases, in the long run they gained their independence from the former metropolis. In both cases, they achieved it at least in part because they began claiming the same rights as their former masters. It would however be incomplete to depict the history of the last five centuries as a progressive triumph of Western values, or as their globalization, because in the last few decades or even years different political cultures have begun to have their say on what is the meaning of politics. They do not want simply to copy what has been successful in the West, but they wish or sometimes they even need to 3  We could not say the same, however, concerning the creole subjects of Portuguese and Spanish crowns in the Americas. Even if Latin American Creoles were considerably angry at being seen as second-rate subjects of their metropolises, with fewer rights than the ones born in Europe, both Iberian states have been absolute monarchies for a long time—while the United Kingdom and France have incorporated many democratic features in their polities since their revolutions. Creole aristocracies in Latin America lacked the privileges their Spanish and Portuguese counterparts enjoyed—while American subjects of the British until the 1770s, as African and Asian men and women colonized by the Europeans since the 19th century, were deprived of the rights the Europeans were entitled to. We should remark this has been a problem for the Libertadores of Latin America, since it was sometimes unclear if they were fighting in order to have aristocratic privileges such as their Iberian cousins enjoyed, or universal rights that would benefit all the denizens of their newly independent countries, including the native population of indigenous descent and slaves of African stock.
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bring something more original, something more pertaining to their culture, to ideals as strong as liberty, democracy or, to put it simply, the way we live together. We will emphasize two among those cultures. Brazil and Latin America: affectivity
I will begin talking about the part of the world I know the best, Brazil and Latin America. Our main contribution to the understanding and even the reshaping of democracy concerns very likely the importance of feelings in politics. Emotions have been carefully excluded from democracy and republic in the West during the last centuries. Broadly speaking, in the field of politics the presence of feelings has been deemed to add to partiality. Judges, for instance, should be as impartial as possible. Even elected magistrates, such as presidents and deputies, should avoid being too partial. In most democratic countries all elected magistrates belong to parties, which would mean they would be partial par définition, but they must avoid it as far as possible when they hold power. Since they rule all but especially for all, they should not exert power in a sectarian way. They should also refrain from letting their emotions interfere in their decisions. Even phrases often employed by absolute kings, such as “tel est mon beau plaisir” (it is my pleasure to command you to…), were to be understood already under the Ancien Régime as no more than mere formulae, meaning only that the will of the king is a sufficient cause for a decision to become law. The same would apply to the Roman adage quod principi placuit habet vigorem legis, “what pleases the prince has the force of law,”
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that was to be understood as no more than the will of the prince—or maybe of an assembly, as they would replace the princes as sovereigns, after the English and French Revolutions—was enough to make a law. Plaisir or placer should not mean pleasure or whim, but only that no explanations were due by the ruler. He was not considered to be someone who satisfies his pleasures—as was often told of the Sultan, most of all by Montesquieu4 —but only as someone whose decision did not need, in absolute monarchies, to be subject to the scrutiny of the citizens of their States, even less of foreign rulers such as the Roman Catholic Pope. So, already in the age of absolute monarchies, pleasure was losing ground to reason as a political Leitmotiv. And, as time goes on and princes are either deposed or downsized, politics becomes more and more rational. Politicians that appeal to emotions have usually been among the more conservative ones, such as Huey Long in Louisiana, Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, and a string of right-wing leaders in Brazil, such as the former governors of Bahia, Antonio Carlos Magalhães, and São Paulo, Paulo Salim Maluf.5 But what can be really interesting is that, 4 Since his Persian letters, and later in Of the spirit of the laws, Montesquieu has presented Oriental despots—especially the Muslim ones—as rulers that preferred to enjoy the pleasures of the harem, rather than dedicate themselves to the tasks of the State, a burden they would more or less happily confer on their viziers. 5 It might be noticed that American and British heads of government have never appealed to the affectivity of the citizens in the same scale as the names I mention here. In France there has been an affective appeal by the first Napoleon and later, but to no avail, by General Boulanger. The three Western rulers who fought and won II World War always refrained from
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to focus on these two Brazilian politicians, the former one who has been a major influence in the country for more than two decades, and the latter who fell short of being nominated as president in 1985, they have often employed the picture of a heart in their propaganda. Magalhães wrote the name Salvador—the capital city of Bahia—with a heart replacing the “o,” and Maluf has almost been elected governor of his State using the Brazilian version of the expression “I (heart) NY” with São Paulo in the place of Manhattan. What is a touristic completely apolitical expression in New York has become a very political tool of propaganda in Brazil. We should also notice that, against these rightwing populists who have been quite popular among their constituencies, the more intellectualized Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s PSDB—an acronym for Party of Brazilian Social Democracy—employed slogans such as “honesty and competence,” which obviously even unfortunately would have a rather low popular impact. The point, however, is that during his whole term as President Lula da Silva has employed a series of metaphors that did have an enormous impact on the electorate, even contributing to making him maybe the most popular presi-
the excesses indulged by the politicians I have quoted. Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and even Charles de Gaulle have been statesmen, among other reasons, precisely because they were not demagogues. In Brazil it must be remembered that the only head of State to go to affective excesses has been Jânio Quadros, who governed the country for less than seven months in 1961 but was able to leave behind him a crisis that would lead to the 1964 coup d’état and to twenty-one years of military dictatorship.
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dent in Brazilian history.6 He would compare the delays in implementing promises he had made during his electoral campaign to the nine months it takes for a child to be born, or to the couple of years it takes for him or her to walk, or to the ten years a Brazilian tree takes to give its delicious fruits, the jaboticabas. His predecessor, the scholar Fernando Henrique Cardoso, would prefer to quote Max Weber7 to account for the same delays in implementing his politics, but it is obvious that an explanation couched in emotional experience will get to the public much more effectively than one that has the best academic references. Anyway, if Lula has been particularly able to replace what I have elsewhere called the authoritarian affectivity by something that could introduce a new brand of democratic affectivity,8 the reality he dealt with is not deeply different from the one that can be seen in the United States, France, or Italy. All these countries, when they were even prouder than today of their democracies, have elected as presidents or prime ministers people who were patricians, rather than coming from the common stock. Winston Churchill was of pure aristocratic descent, having as one of his ancestors the Duke of Marlborough. Statesmen as Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, 6 Of course presidential popularity polls began only in the mid-20th century. But before 1945 Brazilian presidents were not properly elected, since electoral fraud was enormous. 7 We obviously mean Max Weber’s Science as a vocation and Politics as a vocation, both published in 1919, sometimes printed separately and sometimes together, as in Portuguese. 8 See my O afeto autoritário: televisão, ética e democracia, São Paulo, Ateliê editorial, 2004.
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François Mitterrand, for instance, would come from the upper classes and be quite educated, even if their policies could help the poorer populations. Roman Catholics all around the world may have feted the election of the first American president of their belief—and, so far, the only one—but by 1960 the Kennedies were already very well integrated into American élite. However, in the last decades politicians have come more and more from the vulgus. They will not and they should not show their electors their high education or their intellectual capacity as an asset; it has rather become a liability. Rulers as George W. Bush, Nicholas Sarkozy and Berlusconi are deemed, be it true or not, to be much less educated and cultivated than their political foes or the élites that had governed their countries before them. In their countries, even if power has been conferred for a long time by popular vote, the people had been used to elect their presidents and prime ministers among their “betters,” that is, among men who would have education and money; this is no longer the case, at least concerning education. Electors will now cast their votes for men or women whom they will consider as more similar to, and no more worthier than, them. This means that a new sort of political discourse is becoming the norm. Recently, I interviewed former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and asked him about this. Specifically I asked him about the performance of the great populist leader Getulio Vargas who was dictator of Brazil from 1930 to 1945,9 then elected president from 1951 to 9 To be exact, from 1934 to 1937 he ruled the country as President, elect by a packed Congress.
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his suicide in 1954. He is responsible for most social rights working people now enjoy. Many trade unions were created, and controlled, by him. “[In spite of the differences between Lula and me],” Cardoso answered, “we talk to the masses. In other times it was not necessary. Getulio Vargas did not speak as us. He read speeches that were absolutely erudite and boring” (italic added). When I asked Cardoso if common people would understand President Vargas, he continued: I don’t think so. They would grasp a symbol. Getulio would talk to the masses wearing a hat, smoking a cigar, he even played golf. This may seem curious, but you must take into account that at that time the society had much less communication than in our days, and the State control was much stronger. 366
Cardoso, who is not a populist, can thus portray himself as being more able to communicate than Vargas, who for a long time has been considered as the paradigmatic populist leader in Brazil. Cardoso considers himself to differ from Lula because he is “more rational,” but he adds that he employ[s] reason at the level of common sense, so that people can understand [him]. Each one has his way to express himself, but, if you devise no way at all [to express yourself], if you don’t go beyond your own circle, how can you be a political leader? You won’t be one.10
If President Obama has been able to say at their first meeting that Lula was “the guy,”11 meaning the then Brazilian president was the most popular political leader in the 10 Interview published in Sociologia, Ciência e Vida¸ n. 30 (2010), available athttp://sociologiacienciaevida.uol.com.br/ESSO/Edicoes/30/artigo18 1631-1.asp. 11 April, 2009, in London.
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world, it was most likely due to this charismatic ability of Lula’s, which is however an ability that most politicians are required today to share, under the threat of not being able to lead their peoples. This seems to spell the end of patrician rule, as well as the coming to the fore of new and more popular leaderships. I would risk the hypothesis that those countries that have been considered until now as the most important democracies and economies of the world have recently begun to show a strong need for new sorts of leadership: the affective or emotional feature is becoming prominent in the description of these new leaders. The people—no more the idealized populus of classical political philosophy, no more the rational actor suggested by some recent political scientists—have brought to the stage a new political agenda, where communication is essential. Ergo, leaders must be able to constantly renew their credentials as spokespersons for and most of all to their people. Some time ago, leaders would speak for their people, on behalf of them; but what really matters from now on is that they should constantly talk to their people, as FDR did some 80 years ago, but with an enormous difference that we can exemplify by a simple detail: the American president that created the New Deal would always hide from his people the fact that he was a paraplegic, while today this would be one of the most apparent features of his personality. His illness would probably have prevented him from becoming president in the 1930s, where as today it could lead us to admire him so much that it could be an important asset in his elec-
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toral campaigns, making him someone who has been able to overcome a severe personal problem.12 Finally, these winds that come from Latin America, where people are considered to be more casual, not so rational, and more emotional than in the North Atlantic countries may contribute to reshape the way democracy has been understood and practiced until now. If modern societies must integrate more and more people, if people less literate and less cultivated than, say, a century ago are deciding their vote by themselves and no longer according to the examples set by their “betters,� meaning the patricians or the aristoi, then a verbal, rational communication will have to lend more room to non-verbal, not-so-rational features of communication. Feelings will be taken into account. The important challenge, if we keep ourselves inside the world of democracy, of the rule by the people, is how to shape a democratic affectivity, something that would break with an ages-old usage of emotions that prevented common people from thinking and maintained them as subordinate characters in political life. It will not be easy to associate affectivity and democratic values, but it is feasible. It will require a huge endeavor not only in political fields but also, and maybe foremost, in those of a pedagogical nature. For instance, elementary education might be asked to give more 12  We should not forget that in 2008 an African-American and a woman were the two favourites for the Democrat nomination for president of the United States. To be able to overcome difficulties, such as being a paraplegic, an African-American or a woman, has become something that is now deemed to be very positive.
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room to some aspects of morality that stress equality: we should respect each other independently of their gender, wealth, religion, or origin. In some countries it is already happening. In many others it will be quite a revolution. China and Asia: identities
From Asia comes another important possibility that can change the Western-dominated landscape of politics and society, even if it might be very different from the one I have just tried to present. Speaking of and from Latin America, it is impossible not to put the question: do we belong to the West? Of course, all American countries have been colonized by Europeans; from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th, all of them have been colonies. Most Spanish colonies and the only Portuguese one attained their independence in the years between 1810 and 1830. However, a minority did not separate from their metropolises before the 20th century, as was the case of Cuba and still happens to French possessions in the Western hemisphere.13 Their native populations were exterminated, as happened in the south of Argentina, decimated, as in Brazil, or so repressed in the political, economic, and cultural fields that until a few years ago very few presidents in the continent had been of Indian stock, even in countries where most citizens descend from the native populations 13  Since Guyane, Martinique, and Guadeloupe are considered as dÊpartements d’outre-mer and their inhabitants share the same rights, including the social ones, as the French citizens living in the metropolis, it is not obvious to term them as colonies.
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of the Americas. But, even if present-day Latin Americans owe a lot to the West with respect to their culture— and the great majority of them have as their maternal language either Portuguese or Spanish—it is more appropriate to think of them as a dissident Western culture, rather as a branch of the culture of Europe and North America. The dissidence I just mentioned can pertain to several aspects, but I would stress the affective dimension that I have emphasized above. When we go to Asia and some other countries, however, even if we refuse to consider Latin America as a full member of the Western condominium, we see that differences are sharper. I will leave aside the Near or Middle East, the countries around the Mediterranean and those which form the Islamic world, because they present particularities quite different from what the West will call the Far East, or Asia beyond the mostly Muslim world. A few important countries were never colonized, such as Japan and Thailand. Afghanistan was never ruled from abroad until the Soviet and later the American invasions, both very recent. Other countries, even if they were subject to strong foreign interference amounting to a sort of invasion, such as Iran, kept their independence. China is the most complex case, because it has been consistently aggressed for more than a century, from the Opium Wars to the end of the II World War; it never lost its independence, but important parts of the country were occupied, many people were murdered as in the infamous Rape of Nanking, and it has been a huge task, after the Liberation, to first of all rebuild
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the country and then to build a new one. However, even in the worst scenarios, it has been impossible for the colonizers to destroy Asian cultures. Comparing them to Latin America, in our subcontinent many ethnic groups and/or their cultures have completely disappeared, and their languages have been replaced almost everywhere by European ones.14 Explorers that discovered Mayan ruins in Central America had some difficulty in explaining to their native guides that those magnificent pyramids had been built by their own ancestors, such is the difference between the now extinct American civilizations—such as the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Incas—and people of their descent. Cities and roads far superior to their European counterparts, such as Tenochtitlan and several others, have been replaced by slums. This is not a matter of impoverishment; it is a matter of utter destruction. In Asia, things have developed in a completely different way. With the major exception of India and Pakistan, where British colonization coexisted with a great number of local, mutually incomprehensible languages, so that the 14 Among the few exceptions we can mention the língual geral, or general language, that had two versions, a Paulista one that has long prevailed over the Portuguese in the South of Brazil; of Tupinambá origin, it was still widely spoken in the city of Sao Paulo at the time of Brazilian independence, in 1822, but later disappeared; and there also was and is an Amazonian língua geral, still spoken in our days by some thousands of Indians in the North of the country; we can also remember the Papiamento, a blend of European (mostly Portuguese) and aboriginal languages in the Caribbean. Of course, Guarani, Quechua, Aymara and other purer aboriginal languages are spoken in several countries, but they are politically subordinate to Portuguese and Spanish employed by the national states.
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language of the colonizer ended by becoming a sort of lingua franca, the original languages have been maintained, along with other important cultural Asian features. Even those two large countries have kept most of their cultures. This means that at least some major countries, most of all China, are able to integrate important elements of Western culture without destroying their own identities. To continue our comparison, what happened in Latin America was an almost utter destruction of the original cultures, replaced by the languages, the religion, and many of the customs of the Conquistadors; if something comparable also happened everywhere where colonialism took its toll, the degree it attained in Asia was much less evident than in South and Central America. As I said before, Latin American culture, as a blend that has some origins in the decimated aborigines, some other roots among the Africans imported as slaves, and maybe the most visible ones in the several European immigrant populations, most of them poor, has been able to be quite distinct from the cultures that prevail in Europe and North America. Now, in Asia, the cultural devastation and the physical massacre of the native populations, even if they must be condemned, have exacted a smaller cultural toll than in Latin America. This means that the issues of identity, even if they are important in all former European colonies or quasi-colonies, be they Western or Eastern, acquire quite different meanings in Asia and in Latin America. Among other factors, preservation of one’s culture, demography, territory, and natural wealth may have a role in defining the degree of inde-
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pendence that a country can contend for. Let us not forget that, if the three last factors we have just mentioned are almost natural,15 the first one derives from the sheer political will to maintain or create an independence, and it may coexist with either natural riches or poverty. Sovereignty only for the happy few?
If we consider the countries that we now have in the world—almost 200 of them, if we take as a criterion membership in the United Nations—we could say that only a few indeed exercise the attributes that political theory books consider pertaining to an independent national state. Full sovereignty, in the times of globalization, has been restricted to a few countries. The United States is the obvious example. It has a currency that not only is respected everywhere but also circulates, even if informally, in many other countries. Its deficit is a burden other countries carry, as much or even more than the U.S. does itself. Its armies are accountable to nobody but their government. China, even if it is a relatively recent member of the closed club of the richest countries in the world, is a second case of sovereignty. Its population, its developing economy, and maybe most of all its strong conviction not to make more con15 Or quasi-natural. Territory may be shaped according to history and politics. Wealth can be stolen by the colonists—as Portuguese did in Brazil during the 18th century, when huge amounts of gold were sent to Portugal, and then to Rome or to England. Population can be decimated. But geography, natural riches, and the number of inhabitants a country has are closer to the “natural” world than political will, which is a feature almost purely human.
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cessions than it would deem fair, make it another “sovereign state,” as all countries should be according to political science textbooks, but very few are in practice. The European Union is also, as a union even if not as a collection of national states, a case, albeit quite different, of state sovereignty. It is true that the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have all been important states; but now this is history. In the 1930s almost all important decisions in international politics were taken by them, because the United States had decided to “isolate” itself and the Soviet Union was excluded from the international scene. It is true that two of these European countries are still permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations; but today they are really strong only insofar as they have been able to integrate themselves in the European Union. This is not bad at all, however, since their integration has put an end to internecine European wars that soon became global ones, their experience keeps the U.S. from being more powerful than it already is, and last but not least because they can serve as a model for other countries. The Mercosul, for instance, could benefit very much from being able to integrate its members as Europe has done; however, this is not something we could foresee in the near future. Russia could be a fourth member of this select group, among other reasons because it has preserved from its Soviet golden days an atomic-bombs arsenal that cannot be ignored. But our main point could be: how many countries, among the almost two hundred we can find in the world, are really able to hold a meaningful degree of sovereignty? With-
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out any doubt the four actors we have just mentioned; other countries may follow, among them the remaining BRICS, i.e., Brazil, India, and maybe South Africa; but, as far as we may go, we will not arrive at twenty quasi-sovereign countries, even if we reasonably include Australia, Argentina, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan, besides the above-mentioned states. This means that around 90% of the countries in the world are not strong to the point of being able to assert or at least negotiate their independence or, if you prefer, their sovereignty. By “sovereignty” we can mean several features, including the ability and will to pursue an independent economic policy committed to national and popular aims, the prioritization of national interests, the definition of a cultural and educational policy and, last but not least, the endeavor to preserve certain important elements of what we can call, even between inverted commas, national “identity”.16 Let us remember two examples of countries which have practically no more than the merely symbolic—not the real, effective—aspects of sovereignty. The centuries-old Republic of San Marino has for a long time being funded by the Italian state, for instance, in order not to have a television of its own, that would compete with the Italian networks. The sale of postal stamps—that will not 16 I am strongly critical of the ideal of a national identity. People are plural, and this is why humankind—and every human being—can be spiritually rich. However, we can perceive that cultures are different and, when one is dominated by another, it usually loses more than it gains. This is why a concern with preserving some cultural features is so important.
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be used to post letters—has also been an important source of revenue for San Marino, as well as for many other small countries.17 My other example is the Pacific Republic of Tuvalu. Due to mere chance, its Internet country code is .tv, and this meant that rather high sums have been paid for it by television networks all across the world; this quasi-bonanza has allowed this 10,000 inhabitants archipelago to send ambassadors abroad in order to try to protect the physical existence of their islands against global warming. This could seem a literary, Faustian tale: in order to save itself from almost certain death, a country needs to sell part of its own identity. Many countries face predicaments as such, and both San Marino and Tuvalu are far from being the unhappiest among them. It seems thus that most countries do not have the power to ensure the minimal “realistic” criteria that ensure their sovereignty. They can have a large territory, an enormous population, a traditional culture and, with all that, be unable to negotiate what they want from other cultures, and what they do not want. It means that only some countries have been able, until now, to not allow some cultural annexation to the major cultures. China is one of the countries that are able to do that. Its population, territory, wealth and most of all the policies it has followed in order to make the best possible blend—the best, according to its 17 Curiously they will not be accepted by philatelists, since philately only recognizes as stamps those which are usually employed in letters or packages sent by the post. However, many tourists or curious buy these beautiful images sold as stamps and keep them at home as souvenirs.
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own ideas—between East and West constitute an interesting example of an alternative to the still dominant Western or American ideal of globalization. Of course we could say something similar about India, and surely there are other countries able to tread a similar path. We are not talking here of some sort of deterministic fate, according to which only big, populous and potentially wealthy countries could shape their destiny; as important as such inputs—territory, population, land, and minerals—are the popular will and the official policies that each nation chooses to follow. But it seems that these differences from the mainstream Western policies should be taken more into account than they have been in recent years. After a brief span of time when it seemed that the end of Soviet power would ensure an overall American triumph over the world, our planet seems to have become rather multipolar. If we give more room to discussing the different strategies that different peoples can resort to in order to define their different ways of living in a globalized world, we—most of all we who come from peripheral countries—can bring to the fore something new and noteworthy. Humanities will of course be essential in so doing, because human and social sciences can take into account our differences without treating them as problems, liabilities, or social deficits. Indeed the main role of humanities in our new world is to understand and to employ our differences as assets.
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Sciences et technologies: des représentations modernes aux images postmodernes Gilbert Hottois
Dans cette conférence, je décrirai comment les représentations de la science et de la technique ont évolué dans l’imaginaire au cours du 20ème siècle. J’analyserai à cette fin la littérature la plus directement suscitée par les sciences et les techniques: la science-fiction qui inclut d’innombrables utopies et dystopies. Afin d’illustrer et de concrétiser, j’ai privilégié le thème de la ville, car la ville est un concentré de techniques et de sciences, un espace artefactuel, un “technocosme”. Elle est aussi une expression essentielle de la globalisation et de la postmodernité.1 Historiquement, la notion de “pomo” s’est développée d’abord dans la réflexion et la pratique archi1 “Postmoderne”, “postmodernité” abrégés ci-dessous par “pomo”. 379
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tecturale et urbanistique. Cette notion prospère, en outre, depuis une vingtaine d’années au sein de la science-fiction2 et de sa théorie critique. 1. L’image de la science et des techniques dans la SF du Golden Age
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Le Golden Age (GA) de la SF, principalement américaine, va des années 1920 aux années 1950. Son premier essor est dû à Hugo Gernsback, un entrepreneur américain d’origine luxembourgeoise, importateur, fabricant, vendeur et promoteur de la nouvelle technologie, aussi révolutionnaire à l’époque que l’Internet de nos jours: le poste de radio. Dès 1908, Hugo Gernsback insère dans la revue technique et commerciale qu’il publie — Modern Electrics3 — de courts récits autour d’inventions à venir. Son public était celui des radio-amateurs, plus généralement des hobbyistes de la technique en un temps où celle-ci était largement compréhensible et accessible qu’il s’agisse de postes à galène, de plaques photographiques, de moteur d’automobile ou d’avion… Ce groupe technophile constituera le cœur de son lectorat lorsque Gernsback lance en 1926 Amazing Stories: The Magazine of Scientifiction; en 1929, il sort un autre magazine — Science Wonder Stories — et forge l’expression “science fiction” dans l’éditorial du n. 1.4 Le second grand éditeur du GA sera John W. Campbell Jr., qui 2 Ci-dessous: sf. La sf elle-même — cette expression hybride — peut apparaître comme un “objet” postmoderne. 3 Rebaptisé The Electrical Experimenter en 1913, puis Science and Invention en 1920. 4 Juin 1929.
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prend la direction du magazine Astounding Stories en 1937. La quasi totalité des classiques de la SF — Asimov, Van Vogt, Clarke, Heinlein, Leinster, etc. — ont d’abord paru sous forme sérialisée dans ce genre de magazines. A parcourir ces fictions, à lire les éditoriaux et le courrier des lecteurs, quelle image obtient-on? 1. L’enthousiasme pour le progrès scientifique et technique qui est une aventure, une exploration, une conquête de frontières toujours nouvelles: image très américaine. Lorsque dans les années 1950, le GA fleurit brièvement en France, un écho y répond non sans humour: le “Club des Savanturiers” qui réunit des écrivains et intellectuels favorables à la SF, tels Queneau, Vian ou Audiberti.5 2. Bien qu’il s’agisse principalement de mettre en scène la technique, on parle de “La Science”, car ce mot bénéficie d’un prestige plus grand et souligne l’universalité du mouvement: les inventions techniques découlent des lois scientifiques qui sont universelles. 3. La “méthode scientifique” est célébrée à travers les éditoriaux. Elle inspire la manière dont les héros, savants et ingénieurs mais aussi hommes d’action, résolvent les problèmes théoriques et pratiques. Son objectivité et son efficacité rendent les considérations morales et, plus généralement, subjectives, non relevantes.6 4. Le progrès est affaire d’individus exceptionnels: l’inventeur, l’explorateur. Ce n’est pas une entreprise foncière5 Voir Esprit, mai 1953; numéro sur “Mensonges et vérités de nos anticipations”. 6 Le récit paradigmatique de l’amoralité de la méthode scientifique est “The cold equations” de Tom Godwin, in Astounding, 1954.
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ment collective, bien que ses résultats et retombées soient valables pour tous. 5. Le futurisme: quiconque s’intéresse à la science songe au futur et vice versa: “Science is the gateway to that future”, note Campbell.7 Seul l’avenir donne sens à travers des projets d’action, d’invention, de construction, suivant une idéologie du progrès universel. Le sens ne vient ni de la tradition ni de la nature (ni d’une puissance surnaturelle ou supra-humaine). Le futur tel que le projette le GA est unilinéaire: il n’est pas ouvert sur un nombre indéfini de possibles contingents; il dépend de l’avancement des sciences et des techniques, qui est univoque, car tout problème ne connaît qu’une bonne solution rationnelle.8 C’est pourquoi cette SF se voulait anticipation quasi prophétique. 6. L’émotion suscitée par la science est d’abord l’émerveillement: le fameux “sense of wonder”, cœur du plaisir science-fictionnel. Cet émerveillement va aussi aux découvertes scientifiques et aux inventions techniques réalisées, dont les magazines informent leurs lecteurs. Fidèle au titre de son magazine (Science Wonder Stories), Gernsback cultive l’éditorial didactique dont le titre commence par “Wonders of…”: de la mer, du corps, de l’espace, de la machine, de la greffe d’organes, de la planète Mars, 7 Editorial d’Astounding, mars 1938. 8 Dans “Science, Scientism and…?” (Foundation, n. 41, hiver 1987, p. 65), George Hay souligne la continuité du paradigme du progrès linéaire, dont l’origine est chez Verne, assumé par Campbell et le mieux illustré par Asimov. Ce paradigme est toujours respecté par des auteurs récents tels Pournelle et Niven, alors que sous l’influence de la physique quantique, la théorie de la science évolue et une nouvelle génération s’affirme.
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etc. Campbell définit la science comme “the magic that works”9 et Clarke lui fera écho en précisant qu’une technologie suffisamment avancée paraît magique à une civilisation moins développée.10 Ces propos n’expriment pas de confusion entre science et magie, mais seulement une foi illimitée dans la science et la technique. 7. Car la conviction est qu’à la longue rien n’est impossible: il est, écrit Gernsback, “most unwise in this age to declare anything impossible”.11 Affirmation mise en relation avec la valeur de la liberté et la vertu de tolérance: ceux qui ne cessent de proclamer des impossibilités sont intolérants et dogmatiques. 8. Au moins aussi fondamentale que la raison est la volonté. Dès l’éditorial de 1929, Gernsback écrit: “What man wills, man can do” est la croyance de l’homme moderne. Campbell fait écho dans un éditorial d’Astounding: “Men will reach the planets because they want to.”12 9. Mais la dominante du GA est clairement apolitique, même lorsqu’un rapprochement avec le mouvement de la Technocracy (Howard Scott) est brièvement opéré par Gernsback. La technocratie, l’idéologie scientiste et techniciste, sous-jacentes à l’imaginaire sfictionnel, ne sont pas perçues comme de nature politique, car elles sont portées 9 “The place of SF”, in Bretnor, éd. (1953), Modern science fiction. Its meaning and its future, Coward McCann, p. 5, 15, passim. 10 C’est la “troisième loi de Clarke”: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”, in A. C. Clarke (1973), Report on planet three, Londres, Corgi Books, p. 147. 11 Amazing, n. 4. 12 Stounding, novembre 1949.
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par des individus génériques — le Savant, l’Ingénieur — qui incarnent l’humanité en marche, à la conquête théorique et pratique de l’univers. Gernsback rejette tout manuscrit comportant de la “propaganda against the Machine Age” “which tends to inflame an unreasoning public against scientific progress, against useful machines, and against inventions in general”.13 10. Dans la Cité technocratique, le débat politique cède la place à l’ingénierie matérielle et sociale. La cité est gérée par des machines et un conseil d’experts. Il arrive que la gestion devienne l’apanage exclusif d’un calculateur central. On a alors ce que Jacques Ellul14 appelait un “système technicien” à distinguer de la technocratie qui demeure un mode socio-politique de gouvernement médiatisé par des hommes. 11. Centralisée avec une organisation fonctionnelle et une surveillance panoptique, la Cité futuriste oscille entre individualisme et massification. Elle alimente le fantasme du surhomme: les individus de l’élite doués de capacités extraordinaires grâce aux techniques. D’autre part, les gens ordinaires sont fonctionnalisés par le système qui ne les distingue pas et les gère comme des quantités objectives (flux, statistiques). L’idéal étant l’intégration fonctionnelle heureuse: faire aimer l’asservissement au système. 12. Le technocosme futuriste est généralement vertical, tendu vers le ciel et, au-delà, vers les étoiles, comme le monument nostalgique d’une transcendance perdue ou 13 Editorial, v. 3, n. 2 (juillet 1931), intitulé “Wonders of the machine age”. 14 J. Ellul (1977), Le système technicien, Calmann-Lévy (Liberté de l’esprit), Paris.
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le désir d’une transcendance nouvelle. La ville futuriste est aérienne, par ses gratte-ciel vertigineux. Son ambition semble être littéralement de voler et même de s’envoler loin au-delà de la Terre. L’idée de villes de l’espace exprime, très tôt au 20ème siècle, le plus purement l’idéal technocosmique soit sous forme de stations spatiales gravitant autour de la Terre, soit sous forme d’immenses vaisseaux-cités toujours en mouvement à travers l’espace.15 A côté de ces rêves d’envol, le futurisme technocratique imagine la mégalopole totale au sens où elle a fini par recouvrir toute une planète. L’archétype en est la planète-ville de Trantor, capitale de l’empire dans la série Fondation d’Isaac Asimov. L’urbanisation y a pénétré l’écorce de la planète sur plusieurs kilomètres de profondeur de telle sorte que le sol est difficile à situer encore.16 15 L’illustration classique est la série intitulée Cities in flight (Villes nomades) que James Blish débute en 1955. Mais l’œuvre qui illustre peutêtre le plus directement cette thématique moderne, en l’accompagnant d’une réflexion critique constructive, est la fresque de Pierre Barbet sur les cités de l’espace: Oasis de l’espace (1979), Cités des astéroïdes (1981), Cités interstellaires (1981), Les colons d’Eridan (1984), Cités biotiques (1985), tous publiés dans la fameuse collection Anticipation du Fleuve Noir, et réédités groupés aux Ed. Claude Lefrancq, Bruxelles, 1997. Le thème se perpétue sous des formes postmodernes dans le cycle de la Culture de Iain Banks. 16 Xavier Bonnaud (2008), De la ville au technocosme, L’Atalante, Nantes — évoque “la métropole et la planète désormais unies dans un seul et même métabolisme, ce grand système urbain intégré (…) décrit ici comme technocosme” (p. 66). Face à cette couverture du globe et à ses conséquences, certains géologues imaginent d’introduire une nouvelle ère géologique. Nous ne serions plus dans l’holocène (dix mille ans), mais dans l’“anthropocène”, car l’impact et les traces laissées sur la planète sont de façon de plus en plus dominantes anthropiques, produits par les humains et leurs artefacts.
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13. Universelles et univoques, sciences et techniques sont transférables transculturellement sans problèmes. Il y a un modèle culturel — et aussi un modèle d’habitat: la ville technocosme — qui doit s’imposer partout dans l’univers conformément au progrès qui constitue le métarécit dominant. 14. La philosophie des techniques sous-jacente est un anthropocentrisme instrumentaliste qui continue de penser la technique comme une boîte à outils gigantesque. Le corps humain, la nature humaine et ses besoins ne sont pas profondément bouleversés. Les besoins sont satisfaits et les facultés humaines physiques et cognitives sont seulement améliorées ou augmentées. On se veut dans le prolongement de l’humanisme progressiste. La relation hommetechnique reste en extériorité, même si l’aliénation sociale des individus peut être très profonde: la robotisation psychologique — souvent dénoncée — n’est pas comparable au fantasme du cyborg. 15. La pensée s’organise de façon binaire par couples de concepts distincts, opposés et souvent hiérarchisés: artifice/nature, machine/vivant, homme/femme, futur/passé, dehors/dedans, ville/campagne, modernité/tradition… Les rapports paraissent simples: d’opposition, de subordination, d’exclusion… Parfois, il y a un espoir de synthèse. Mais il n’y a pas de place pour le métissage, l’hybridation, la multiplicité, le pluralisme, l’osmose, la permutabilité, etc. En conclusion, – Le GA exprime le désir de ce que l’on appellera plus tard la “hardsf” (ci-dessous: hsf), gravitant autour des sciences dures, avec des héros scientifiques et ingénieurs,
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le respect de la science disponible et la vraisemblance dans l’extrapolation. Si fantastique qu’il puisse apparaître, son imaginaire se veut sérieux. La littérature du GA se veut référentielle, réaliste somme toute: relative à des possibles futurs réels. – Au fil du 20ème siècle, cette modernité progressiste naïve a été de plus en plus conduite à reconnaître ses ambivalences, son refoulé et ses effets destructeurs sur ce qui est autre (les traditions prémodernes, les cultures non occidentales…), mais également ses effets autodestructeurs et ses profondes contradictions, les fractures entre ses rêves et sa réalité. Pierre Ansay, philosophe belge engagé dans la politique urbaine écrit: Depuis la Renaissance, (…) la ville utopique pourrait se réaliser dans la triade Ville-Machine (tout le réel urbain est manipulable par processus), Ville-Univers (la ville est le tout du réel; la non-ville n’existe pas); Ville-Dieu (la ville est un stock de mémoire génétique qui programme successivement ses créations).17
Cette triple qualification s’applique parfaitement à l’une des utopies/anti-utopies les plus éclatantes de la modernité au 20ème siècle: la cité de Diaspar dans The city and the stars d’Arthur C. Clarke (1948-1956). Diaspar est gouvernée et continuellement créée matériellement sur base des données de l’ordinateur central qui a en mémoire les plans de la Cité jusqu’au moindre détail. Elle n’est pas seulement une cité close (seul un parc artificiel y rappelle la nature); elle est immuable et ne connaît 17 Pierre Ansay et René Schoonbrodt, eds. (1989), Penser la ville, Bruxelles, AAM éd., p. 83.
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pas l’usure. Il s’agit moins d’une technocratie que d’un véritable système technicien matérialisé, avec une ontologie informatique qui s’étend aux habitants eux-mêmes. Le récit s’achève cependant sur l’espoir d’une humanité de nouveau capable d’affronter avec prudence, la nature, le dehors, les aventures de l’histoire et de l’espace. En ce qui concerne la représentation des rapports entre sciences-techniques d’une part et politique d’autre part dans l’imaginaire du Golden Age, il est intéressant de rappeler ce qu’écrivait, au début du 17ème siècle, l’un des philosophes qui ont institué la modernité technoscientifique: Francis Bacon. Bacon distingue une claire hiérarchie morale que détermine “les trois degrés de l’ambition humaine”: les individus égoïstes “avides d’accroître leur propre puissance au sein de leur pays”; les politiques “s’efforçant d’accroître la puissance et l’empire de leur patrie au sein du genre humain”; les savants qui “travaillent à restaurer et à accroître la puissance et l’empire du genre humain lui-même sur l’univers. (…) Or l’empire de l’homme repose tout entier sur les arts et les sciences” (Novum Organum, 1620). Il est aussi intéressant de méditer ce passage de Descartes illustrant la Méthode rationnelle pour la recherche de la Vérité, qui fait table rase du passé, dans la deuxième partie du Discours de la méthode: Ces anciennes cités qui, n’ayant été au commencement que des bourgades, sont devenues par succession de temps de grandes villes, sont ordinairement si mal compassées, au prix de ces places régulières qu’un ingénieur trace à sa fantaisie dans une plaine (…) on dirait que c’est plutôt la fortune que la volonté de quelques hommes usant de raison qui les a ainsi disposées.
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En revanche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, dont les Philosophische Untersuchungen constituent une des sources d’inspiration majeures de la pensée postmoderne, compare le langage au développement polymorphe d’une ville dans les termes suivants: On peut considérer notre langage comme une ville ancienne, comme un labyrinthe fait de ruelles et de petite places, de maisons an ciennes et de maisons neuves, et d’autres que l’on a agrandies à différentes époques, le tout environné d’une multitude de nouveaux faubourgs avec leur rues tracées de façon rectiligne et régulière, et bordées de maisons uniformes. Or la solidité du fil ne tient pas à ce qu’une certaine fibre unique court sur toute sa longueur, mais à ce que de nombreuses fibres se chevauchent. (Wittgenstein, Recherches philosophiques, n. 18 et 67.)
2. La New Wave: refus de la modernité futuriste scientiste et technocratique et prémices d’une (post)modernité critique
La New Wave (NW) naît dans le contexte des mouvements de contre-culture des années 1960,18 alors que la SF existe déjà depuis près d’un demi-siècle; elle va se pencher de façon critique sur le Golden Age. 1. En développant une conscience littéraire: la NW refuse la division des genres, spécialement l’exclusion de la SF de la littérature mainstream, mais aussi la distinction entre SF et fantastique ( fantasy). La NW a le souci du style et de la forme et critique l’intention explicitement référentielle, extravertie du GA. L’ambition de décrire des possibles futurs réels est réinterprétée comme élaboration métaphorique de réalités présentes: l’extraterrestre — c’est-à-dire 18 Qu’elle intègre à des degrés divers: drogue, psychédélisme, libération sexuelle, pacifisme anti-militariste et anti-impérialiste (Vietnam).
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“l’autre” — est, en fait, le Noir ou l’Indien, la conquête de l’espace une poursuite de la colonisation occidentale. 2. En développant une conscience politique critique: la NW conteste l’apolitisme apparent du GA et le réinterprète comme véhicule implicite et inconscient d’une idéologie technocratique, associée au scientisme et au capitalisme impérialiste, moins souvent au totalitarisme communiste. Elle y voit un escapisme, vers le futur et vers l’espace, en réalité conservateur dans la mesure où il ne fait nullement évoluer les institutions, relations et rôles sociaux. La NW dénonce tabous et discriminations sexistes et racistes, invitant à reconsidérer en profondeur le rapport à “l’autre” quel qu’il soit, dans la perspective d’un égalitarisme pluraliste. Des auteurs tels que Ursula Le Guin (The dispossessed: an ambiguous dystopia, 1974), Joanna Russ (The female man, 1975), Samuel Delany (Trouble on Triton: an ambiguous heterotopia, 1976), illustrent cette réévaluation des différences ethniques et génériques. La NW promeut les valeurs non commerciales et refuse celles de la performance et de la compétitivité; elle alerte sur la démographie incontrôlée et l’épuisement des ressources, toutes inquiétudes qui commencent à être dans l’esprit du temps.19 Bien que sa cohésion idéologique fût lâche, la NW s’est voulu SF engagée. 19 Voir Tom Moylan (1986), Demand the impossible. SF and the utopian literature, Methuen: “This general oppositional vision is challenging corporate and allied state interests. (…) The new opposition is deeply infused with the politics of autonomy, democratic socialism, ecology, and especially feminism (…) ‘to eliminate the principle of performance, the ethic of competition, accumulation (…) replacing them with the supremacy of the values of reciprocity, tenderness, spontaneity and love of life in all its forms’” (p. 11-2).
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3. En développant une conscience intellectuelle: la NW conteste le cœur de la HSF: le paradigme dominant des sciences dures et de leurs héros scientifiques et techniciens. Elle refuse le futurisme et l’idéologie naïve du progrès humain dérivant automatiquement de celui des sciences et des techniques. Elle veut privilégier les sciences humaines, l’analyse psychologique et même psychanalytique, substituer l’exploration de l’“inner space” à celle de l’“outer space” (Ballard) et montrer les racines inconscientes de la fascination de l’espace. Ballard rédige une série de nouvelles sur l’espace décrivant des astronautes, non en héros quasi surhumains, mais comme des “troubled anti-heroes, locked in psychotic delusion or (…) stupified with nostalgia for the glory days of space that had long since past away”.20 L’intérêt des sciences et des techniques devient au mieux indirect: imaginer les conséquences sociales, politiques, psychologiques, morales de l’insertion sociétale d’une invention et assurer ce que John Brunner appelait une “veille prospective”.21 Mais fondamentalement, la NW marginalise, voire nie les technosciences: cela va de l’indifférence et du scepticisme à l’anti-science et à la technophobie. Elle juge les technosciences anti-humanistes et même inhumaines.
20 Voir aussi son essai “Which way to inner space?” (New Worlds, n. 118, 1962): un programme pour prendre ses distances critiques par rapport à la modernité envahissante (R. Latham, “The new wave”, in D. Seed, 2005, A companion to SF, Blackwell, p. 208-9). 21 Selon Raphaël Colson et André-François Ruaud (2006), Sciencefiction. Une littérature du réel, Klincksieck, p. 94s.
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Le courant Cyberpunk s’affirme au cours de la décennie 1980. Les fondateurs du mouvement sont William Gibson et Bruce Sterling. Gibson publie en 1984 le roman le plus fortement associé au Cyberpunk.22 Neuromancer.23 Neuromancien est le début de la “Sprawl trilogy”, la trilogie de la Conurb, cette immensité urbaine qui s’étend de Boston à Atlanta via New York et Washington. Case, l’anti-héros, est un hacker surdoué et manipulé par des puissances humaines (une Multinationale) et post-humaines sous forme d’IA (Intelligences Artificielles) plus ou moins autonomes. L’action se déroule simultanément dans l’espace physique de technocosmes (villes et stations spatiales) et dans le cyberespace (néologisme dû à Gibson),24 deux espaces également artefactuels. Les récits cyberpunk sont situés dans un futur proche: le plus souvent, au sein d’une méga(lo)pole aux limites in22 “Cyberpunk” est forgé d’abord par Bruce Bethke en titre d’une histoire publiée dans Amazing en 1983. Le néologisme est repris et imposé par Gardner Dozois (rédacteur en chef de Asimov SF Magazine) à travers un article du Washington Post sur “SF in the Eighties” en 1984 pour décrire la fiction de Gibson, Sterling, Shiner, Cadigan et Bear (cfr. M., Bould, “Cyberpunk”, in Seed, 2005, o.c., p. 217). 23 Certains critiques estiment que la SF devient postmoderne avec cette publication (cfr. Hollinger, “SF and postmodernism”, in Seed, 2005, o.c., p. 237). Mais d’autres estiment que le postmoderne SF est présent dès la NW. D’autres encore soulignent les adhérences modernes du cyberpunk qui constituerait, sous cet angle, une régression bien plus qu’une avancée “post”[cfr. D. Broderick (1995), Reading by starlight, Routledge, p. 80]. 24 Neuromancer est une source majeure de la série de films The Matrix. Gibson utilise “Matrix” comme une sorte de synonyme de cyberespace.
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définies, grouillante, étouffante, labyrinthique et sombre. Un espace mal famé, plein de détritus, où la multiculturalité, la marginalisation et la criminalité mafieuse manipulées obscurément par les Puissances corrompues (Multinationales, Etats) ont désintégré la société en gangs, clans, tribus et territoires. Cette faune citadine utilise et trafique autant les techniques anciennes que la high tech, notamment pour modifier le corps: des drogues aux prothèses, implants et autres artefacts cyborganiques. Les façades de la ville sont des écrans géants où les images se projettent sans répit et font écran en dissimulant cette réalité répugnante.25 L’analogie cyberespace/ville est la métaphore englobante: les parcours et processus en réseaux de la ville sont comme la Matrice: “it was possible to see Ninsei as a field of data” (p. 26);26 symétriquement, les descriptions métaphoriques du cyberespace ressemblent à la vision d’une cité nocturne toujours en mouvement: Gibson parle de la “city of data, the city of the cores” (p. 303s). En conclusion: 1. Le Cyberpunk est le plus urbain des sous-genres de la SF. Complètement immanente à la méga(lo)pole, il a ou25 Voir Cormier: “Regards imaginaires sur les écrans des sociétés contemporaines”: à propos de Minority report: “passer de l’autre côté des écrans de l’information-spectacle (sur les façades-écrans des immeubles), de la promotion ou de surveillance (…) revient à réincarner le réel (…) par des motifs répugnants: vomissement; pourriture; mutilation; décomposition.” [in F. Berthelot et Ph. Clermont, eds. (2007), Colloque de Cerisy: SF et imaginaires contemporains, Bragelonne, p. 401s]. 26 Neuromancer, Ed. Harper (Voyager), 1995.
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blié le dehors ou les transcendances verticales que symbolisaient les cités futuristes toutes tendues vers les étoiles. 2. Il renoue avec la HSF, mais on a changé de technosciences: place aux TIC27 et aux biotechnologies, et à toutes les combinaisons technoscientifiques, à tous les bricolages. 3. L’hybridisme, le mélange, sont omniprésents; mais le plus souvent violents, sombres, sauvages et non régulés. Le mélange dominant est le cyborg, l’individu branché sur le cyberespace et sur une infinité de prothèses dont la ville constitue la somme englobante. La technique est aussi immédiate, car elle pénètre physiquement les corps et les cerveaux humains, soit pour les manipuler, soit pour les amplifier, soit pour les interconnecter. Dans l’univers cyberpunk, la médiation symbolique a quasiment disparu. 4. Il n’est plus du tout question de science, mais exclusivement de technique: la visée cognitive, désintéressée est oubliée. Plus technophile que technophobe, ne manifestant aucune nostalgie pour la nature ou le passé traditionnel, le Cyberpunk exprime la fascination de la technique, du mode d’être technique avec ses ambivalences. Cette technique est étroitement associée à l’argent, au commerce de marques globales comme au marché noir. Les innovations sont produites par des multinationales et par le bricolage de “la rue”. La cité “wasn’t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself” (Neuromancer, p. 19). Les techniques croissent dans tous les sens exclusivement motivées, semble-t-il, par le désir, le plaisir et le pouvoir. 27 Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication.
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Les héros ou anti-héros ne sont pas des scientifiques, ingénieurs ou même politiques: ce sont des marginaux geek, des hackers. 5. La manipulation est universelle, non seulement physique (technique) mais aussi psychologique, sociale, politique: la paranoïa et le complot sont omniprésents et insolubles: derrière les masques se dissimulent d’autres masques. Les individus ont une identité instable; leur autonomie est tout à fait incertaine. L’idéal du sujet rationnel et libre de la Modernité n’a plus aucune consistance. 6. Bien qu’il comporte la critique implicite permanente du techno-capitalisme ou du techno-totalitarisme, le cyberpunk ne propose aucune politique alternative, à la différence de la NW.28 C’est la faillite intégrale de la cité politique. 7. L’univers cyberpunk est intégralement matérialiste mais sans métaphysique. Tout est matière ou énergie — du quark au gène, du neurone au cyberespace — opérable, transformable indéfiniment. Cette matérialité intégrale se nuance suivant un éventail qui va du plus subtil — la réalité virtuelle du cyberespace — au plus grossier: les milliards de tonnes de déchets et d’ordures produits continuellement. En tant qu’ils sont encore des corps, les humains relèvent de la matière lourde. Mais cette “viande” (meat et non flesh) leur pèse et les nouvelles technologies entretiennent les fantasmes non plus d’autres planètes, mais d’autres mondes, d’autres transcendances quasi-immaté28 Il ignore “the great social movements of our day: feminism, ecology, peace, sexual liberation, and civil rights (…)” que portait la NW (Damien Broderick, 1995, o.c., p. 80).
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rielles à la pointe des nouvelles technologies électroniques dématérialisantes. 8. Le Cyberpunk est nihiliste du point de vue des morales traditionnelles et modernes. Les idéaux du juste, de la vérité, du bien commun, de l’émancipation, de la solidarité sont oubliés ou jugés illusoires; c’est un monde sans morale ni idéal. Les mégapoles sont des villes au moins implicitement (post)apocalyptiques, des tératopoles qui incarnent la faillite des idéaux progressistes modernes et prolifèrent parmi les ruines du système social et écologique. Si les changements sont omniprésents dans cet univers de processus, il n’est plus question de progrès: aléas et chaos entropique menacent de toutes parts. 9. Ayant rompu avec l’humanisme traditionnel et moderne, le cyberpunk est fasciné par des thèmes transhumanistes et plus encore posthumanistes qui suggèrent la transformation radicale ou la disparition pure et simple de l’espèce humaine. Le Cyberpunk n’a pour l’être humain aucune sollicitude, aucun respect: il projette dans le posthumain suivant deux trajectoires: celle du cyborg ou anthropotechnique; celle des artefacts non humains intelligents qui peuplent tant le technocosme physique (toutes espèces de “robots”) que le cyberespace (les Intelligences Artificielles). 4. Postmodernité et modernité réflexive au tournant du millénaire
En SF, le “pomo” s’exprime doublement: dans les fictions d’une part et dans la critique et la théorie littéraires d’autre part. Ces dernières s’inspirent d’auteurs français:
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Deleuze, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, Latour…, et de l’Américaine Donna Haraway.29 Parmi les principaux théoriciens du débat: Frederic Jameson, Scott Bukatman, Brian McHale… La revue universitaire Science Fiction Studies a consacré un numéro à “SF and postmodernism” dès 1991.30 Dans la caractérisation générale du “pomo” qui suit, je me réfère à trois sources: le débat théorique et critique autour de la SF; les représentations des sciences et des techniques; et celles de la ville. 4.1. La postmodernité science-fictionnelle en théorie
1. La SF du GA avait une volonté référentielle: elle visait le réel présent ou futur ou possible. Le “pomo” se caractérise par la disparition du Référé (du Réel, du Vrai): on est dans un univers de simulacres manipulables à l’infini et ne renvoyant jamais qu’à d’autres simulacres: un monde de signes de signes. La littérature de SF elle-même serait devenue a-référentielle: ses textes ne renvoyant qu’à d’autres textes, à l’encyclopédie de la SF où elle trouve matière à citation, pastiche, allusion, clin d’œil, érudition et ludisme; la SF serait essentiellement inter-textualité, et n’intéresserait que l’analyse littéraire. 2. D’autres soulignent que sous le jeu apparent des signes, il y a des joueurs, et que la fin des référés stables 29 Les références philosophiques historiques classiques sont Wittgenstein et surtout Nietzsche. 30 N. 55, novembre 1991.
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(Nature, Vérité, Dieu…)31 ouvre sur le désir et le pouvoir des hommes. Bref, sous le jeu des simulacres se cache la politique. La politique et l’économie capitaliste, plus exactement le “techno-capitalisme”. Celui-ci exprime la synergie de deux opérateurs de change illimité: l’argent et la technique. L’argent (le marché) permet de tout échanger, tout trouvant son prix; la technique — et plus généralement le rapport technicien à toute réalité — permet de tout modifier, traite tout comme produit, artefact. 3. Parmi les couples conceptuels déconstruits, tels que nature/artifice, homme/femme, corps/machine, etc., il y a le couple science/technique. D’où la fortune postmoderne du terme “technoscience”, fréquent dans la critique et la théorie de la SF à partir des années 1990. Déjà, dans la SF du GA et de la NW, c’était de technique qu’il s’agissait, plus que de science, mais on s’inscrivait dans le schéma classique d’une science théorique qui découvre des lois et des technologies qui les appliquent, avec un feed back positif entre technique et théorie. Désormais, synergie ou entraînement réciproque sont devenus absorption de la science dans la technologie qui commande en fonction d’utilités attendues. L’image est recomposée comme suit:32 – l’utilitarisme dominant exige des sciences et des techniques au service des entreprises et de la société; 31 Baudrillard parle d’un virage capital car “toute la foi et la bonne foi occidentale se sont engagées dans ce pari de la représentation” vraie du réel: (1981), Simulacres et simulation, Galilée, p. 16. 32 Voir aussi Gilbert Hottois (2005), La science: entre valeurs modernes et postmodernité, Vrin.
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– ces utilités sont définies par des acteurs multiples aux intérêts divers: le sujet de la technoscience est pluriel et conflictuel: s’y croisent scientifiques, techniciens, entrepreneurs, financiers, juristes, économistes, politiques, éthiciens, lobbies et associations d’intérêts divers…; – ce sujet complexe est un sujet parlant: ce sont des discours, textes, informations, argumentations, des signes qui s’échangent, se négocient, s’associent, s’opposent ou convergent; – le “pomo” tend à considérer que l’essentiel en ce qui concerne la R&D se joue à ce niveau: celui des représentations, des textes et de leur critique; ce qui s’appelle “technoscience”, c’est la R&D&I33 appréhendée sous cet angle; c’est pourquoi on a pu écrire qu’il n’y a pas de différence entre “science studies, cultural studies, text studies”, que les pratiques technoscientifiques sont fondamentalement sémiologiques, socialement construites et idéologiques; – citons Hollinger: “in today’s environment of transnational capitalism and globalized politics, the traditional distinctions between ‘pure’ science and ‘applied’ technology no longer hold. Knowledge is intertwined with power, and technoscience is a political and cultural practice, neither ‘objective’ nor ‘value-neutral’”;34 Csicsery-Ronay repère “the axiom that science is a practice within the field of representations, not the explication of extradiscursive
33 Recherche&Développement&Innovation. 34 “Science Fiction and postmodernism” in Seed, o.c., p. 232-3.
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phenomena”;35 Damien Broderick souligne l’inter-textualité de la SF et de sa théorie,36 en ajoutant: “(…) certain current meta-scientific analyses find science to be primarily yet another form of discursive negotiation and construction, to be textuality without referent, and nothing more (…)” (p. XIV); ou encore: “Bref, il n’y a rien qui soit clairement et distinctement descriptible soit comme science soit comme culture soit comme technologie.” lit-on dans Technoscience and cyberculture.37 Je considère que ces lectures sont abusives lorsqu’elles en arrivent à masquer ce qui apparaît depuis le début de la science moderne comme le cœur de la technoscience: son opérativité objective, physique, technique, mathématique. C’est ce primat de la référence extralinguistique commune — l’attestation répétable des faits et des nombres — porté par la “Méthode scientifique” qui permet de trancher — en tous cas provisoirement — des conflits que la dialectique des subjectivités loquaces (et souvent violentes) entretient autrement sans fin Plus modérée et pertinente est la reconnaissance de l’immanence sociétale des technosciences qui implique une certaine dépendance culturelle des choix qu’il faut faire. Cette 35 “The SF of theory: Baudrillard et Haraway”, in Science Fiction Studies, n. 55, nov. 1991, p. 389. 36 Son ouvrage (1995), o.c., illustre le “pomo” méta et inter: érudit, mais citatif à la limite de l’anthologie ou de la compilation, ce livre participe activement à l’autonomisation de la critique SFictionnelle. Broderick reconnaît d’ailleurs utiliser une technique de “collage” (p. XIV). 37 Edité par Stanley Aronowitz, Barbara Martinsons et Michael Menster (1996), Routledge, p. 294.
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contextualisation des technosciences encourage le questionnement autour de leur translocation dans des cultures et des traditions différentes de l’Occident. Quelles technosciences développeront ou non les Chinois, les Indiens, les Africains compte tenu de leur contexte, traditions et histoire spécifiques, dès lors qu’ils décideront de se les réapproprier, si la globalisation ne conduit pas à une homogénéisation généralisée des cultures? Ce sont des questions autour desquelles la SF postmoderne imagine des situations et des récits qui rompent avec l’occidentalocentrisme de la SF antérieure. 4.2. Illustrations
Après cette caractérisation critique générale, je vais me concentrer sur cette variété d’utopisme SFictionnel “pomo” expressive aussi d’une modernité réflexive, plurielle, critique, et à nouveau assez confiante. On peut l’appeler la “HSF pomo”, avec des auteurs tels que Egan, Stephenson, Robinson, Benford, Banks, Resnick, Vinge, etc., qui ont intégré les apports positifs des phases antérieures. Voici cinq références à titre d’illustrations: Le Cycle de la culture de Iain M. Banks (1987-…)
Space Opera “pomo”, la Culture comprend une multitude de mondes partageant quelques valeurs telles la tolérance, le respect de l’autre, l’égalité, le goût de la diversité, du changement et du libre-échange, une philosophie matérialiste et hédoniste. Elle est profondément technophile et co-gérée par des humanoïdes et des IA, auxiliaires multiformes et omniprésents. Les citoyens de la Culture ne
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vivent pas sur des planètes dans des villes même futuristes, mais dans des technocosmes absolus: de gigantesques vaisseaux toujours en mouvement à travers la galaxie ou des Orbitales, anneaux-mondes de plusieurs millions de kilomètres de circonférence, tournant sur eux-mêmes comme des roues et gravitant autour d’une étoile. La Trilogie de Mars de Kim Stanley Robinson (1992-1996)
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Mars la rouge, la verte et la bleue constitue une somme encyclopédique et épique sur la colonisation transnationale de Mars en plusieurs siècles: elle illustre tous les aspects de l’aventure: scientifiques et techniques soft et hard de la géologie à la psychologie; aspects économiques, politiques, écologiques, culturels, éthiques, philosophiques, sans oublier les rapports difficile avec la Terre confrontée à ses propres problèmes. Distress (L’énigme de l’univers) de Greg Egan (1995)
Stateless est une île du Pacifique sud, produite et entretenue par génie génétique avec une société de tendance libertaire qui partage quelques valeurs, une culture technoscientifique et la conscience de sa précarité et vulnérabilité. La diversification suivant sept sexes ou genres et la condition cyborganique y sont bien acceptées, les prothèses étant “partie intégrante du corps comme n’importe quel autre organe”. A l’occasion d’un Congrès sur la Théorie de Tout, l’île réunit le gratin de la physique et est envahie par des sectes et lobbies anti-science. Elle devient un grand bazar
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techno-culturel “pomo” par rapport auquel le narrateur prend ses distances. The Diamond age de Neal Stephenson (1995)
Shanghai et New Atlantis que les nanotech ont fait pousser dans l’estuaire du Yangtse constituent une mosaïque multiculturelle de territoires où deux technologies, basées sur les nanosciences s’affrontent. Celle des Compilateurs de matière est centralisée, hiérarchisée; elle nécessite une infrastructure lourde de distribution et favorise la concentration urbaine. En revanche, la nanotechnologie de la Graine, elle, favorise l’autonomie de l’individu et de collectifs restreints. L’alternative technologique — assez comparable à l’alternative nucléaire/solaire — est associée à des visions socio-politiques et traditionnelles (Occident/ Orient) différentes. Kirinyaga de Mike Resnick (1998)
Kirinyaga raconte comment l’esprit d’invention et de progrès ressurgit spontanément et incoerciblement au sein d’une communauté utopique Kikuyu qui a choisi de s’isoler totalement de toute influence externe afin de vivre selon ses coutumes ancestrales et dans son milieu naturel reconstitué. A noter que cette communauté n’est elle-même qu’une émanation d’une civilisation globale “pomo” qui permet ce genre d’expérience culturelle communautaire. 4.3. Caractères des utopies postmodernes
1. La diversité et l’inclusion. L’utopie “pomo” est accueillante à la diversité culturelle ou ethnique, à la diversité
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des histoires et des traditions, à la diversité des techniques. Elle est pluraliste. Elle n’ignore ni la complexité, ni les ambivalences ni les risques. 2. Il n’y a pas un modèle de ville et les villes imaginées — mi-réelles mi-fictives — ne sont pas toujours occidentales. Les mégapoles non occidentales ou très multiculturelles constituent un espace privilégié pour les expériences de pensée explorant la question: comment des cultures historiquement très différentes de la culture occidentale — en Asie, en Afrique — pourraient pratiquer, orienter, la R&D&I, compte tenu de leurs propres racines philosophiques et religieuses? Dans quelle mesure l’importation et l’adoption des technologies occidentales ont-elles aussi introduit l’esprit occidental de R&D à l’infini? Dans quelle mesure la créativité technoscientifique peut-elle être décuplée par la diversité culturelle, symbolique? 3. Un groupe de nouvelles sciences et technologies joue un rôle de plus en plus important: les TIC avec la digitalisation universelle et les nanotechnologies.38 Technologies nano et numériques paraissent radicalement transversales par rapport aux distinctions classiques: tout est numérisable et tout est constitué de particules atomiques et subatomiques. Ainsi réduit, tout devient interconnectable, recombinable, mobilisable. Les oppositions et distinctions stables qui caractérisent la tradition et la modernité s’estompent: il n’y a plus de différence essentielle entre matières inertes, 38 Globalement, on parle des NBIC (Nanosciences et nanotechnologies, Biotechnologie, Informatique, sciences Cognitives) ou “technologies convergentes”.
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vivantes, pensantes, naturelles, artefactuelles. Tout communique et est diversement articulable suivant ce matérialisme pluriel et opératoire, compatible avec les diverses formes de dématérialisation permises par les TIC (du wifi au cyberspace) et par les nano (quasi-intangibilité). La Cité postmoderne est simultanément un espace de fortes matérialisation et dématérialisation techniques. Ce matérialisme complexe, pluriel et ouvert est valorisé positivement. 4. La dissolution des structures conceptuelles duelles hiérarchisées concerne tant la différence des genres ou sexes que les oppositions nature/artifice, réalité/apparence, etc. Mais cette situation n’est pas vue comme l’expression d’un chaos nihiliste, tragique, catastrophique ou monstrueux. Le nihilisme, c’est à dire la dissolution des valeurs fondamentalistes et essentialistes, est devenu positif: créativité indéfiniment ouverte, diverse et multiple, gage de liberté et de tolérance. Il y a un réenchantement matérialiste artificialiste du monde. Commentant l’œuvre d’Egan, Blackford observe: “Such a universe has no meaning, and requires no gods or other metaphysical entities. Yet, the feeling conveyed is not of terror or despair, but of wonder.” Ou encore: Egan a “a science-friendly worldview”, libératrice et rejetant “traditional sources of meaning or value, such as religious faith, or popular substitutes such as New Age spirituality”.39 5. Nous ne sommes plus dans une philosophie anthropocentriste et instrumentaliste. La référence stable d’une na39 “Egan” dans Seed, o.c., p. 446s.
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ture humaine immuable ne tient plus. La technique est plus et autre chose qu’un ensemble d’outils externes disponibles, elle est même plus qu’un milieu englobant, puisqu’elle pénètre l’homme de toutes parts et peut le transformer radicalement, aussi biophysiquement. Dans les utopies postmodernes, la nature artificieuse technicienne de l’homme — notre espèce technique: species technica40 — est acceptée. Le rapport à la technique est plus détendu, apprivoisé, convivial; il peut aussi exprimer avec humour une connivence ludique. En outre, la technophilie “pomo” n’implique pas de focalisation exclusive sur la seule high tech. Elle est ouverte à la diversité des combinaisons techno-culturelles. 6. Une culture technoscientifique et un certain nombre de valeurs et de principes (tolérance, respect de l’autre, pluralisme, goût de la diversité et du changement, l’absence de recours à la violence et à la force si ce n’est défensive, un hédonisme décomplexé…) sont souvent mis en avant. Leur partage rend possible le tenir-ensemble, les échanges, et empêche que la diversité et le respect des différences n’entraînent l’isolement des individus et le morcellement de la société, voire de l’humanité. Le postmoderne encourage la décentralisation mais non l’atomisation; il va avec la complexification et la réticulation qui permettent de gérer de façon minimalement conflictuelle et dysfonctionnelle la diversité et le changement. 7. La disparition de l’opposition dure entre nature et technique se traduit concrètement par le développement 40 Voir Gilbert Hottois (2002), Species technica, Vrin.
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de milieux urbains techno-bio-cosmiques; l’artificialisation non violente du vivant y va de pair avec la naturalisation des machines et des produits que l’on fait “pousser” et que l’on “cultive”, plus qu’on ne les fabrique. On décrit des “smart cities” qui ne tomberaient pas dans le piège des mégapoles totalitaires environnementalement insoutenables et aux dispositifs panoptiques contraignants et répressifs, négateurs de la liberté individuelle et de la vie privée. 8. Hostile au capitalisme monopolistique privé autant qu’au totalitarisme et au capitalisme étatiques, une tendance libertaire se manifeste, prônant l’autonomie et l’autarcie individuelles ou communautaires associées au développement de nouvelles technologies écologiques, à faibles empreinte et poids matériels et énergétiques, et décentralisées. A côté de la dominante centripète — vers l’espace urbain —, il y a des tendances centrifuges associées au libertarisme, au développement des nouvelles TIC et écotechnologies fonctionnant sans infrastructure matérielle lourde ni centralisée. Le souci écologique n’implique ici ni préjugé ni amalgame technophobe, anti-science ou antiprogrès. 5. Conclusion générale
1. Les représentations des sciences, des techniques et de la ville-technocosme ont fort évolué au cours du 20ème siècle. Cette évolution passe par trois phases qui se sont, dans une certaine mesure, mélangées autant que succédées: une phase de modernité naïve, non critique, très technophile et technocratique; une phase d’ambivalences à
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tendance technophobe voire nihiliste; une phase plus détendue, à la fois technophile et critique, réfléchie et plurielle.41 2. Au cours des deux dernière décennies, un regain de la HSF encourage une vision à la fois positive, critique, nuancée, du progrès technoscientifique compte tenu de la diversité des formes de vie et des sociétés en évolution. Cette vision qui reconnaît que la R&D est une entreprise collective, n’évacue ni l’opérativité objective des technosciences, ni leur intérêt cognitif ni leur contextualisation historique, culturelle, sociale, économique et politique. Observons que l’utopisme “pomo” postule généralement résolu le problème de la rareté grâce aux technosciences. Mais il ne les réduit pas à des utilités définies. Il préserve l’ouverture multiple, imprévisible, de l’avenir même proche et, évidemment sur le long terme. Consciente de la vulnérabilité et de la précarité, cette vision invite à poursuivre l’aventure, avec confiance et prudence.
41 Voir aussi la notion de “deuxième modernité” (U. Beck, A. Giddens).
Mariátegui and the Andean revolutionarism Javier Sanjinés C.
Rereading the classics in the social sciences, one begins to notice that even authors who analyze social reality from the perspective of class struggle tend to interpret societies as organic “wholes,” subject to rules of analysis that reinforce the criteria of unity and homogeneity through which human events are usually evaluated. The same is true when, as often occurs in the study of postcolonial societies, a historical analysis ignores the deep ethnic and racial divisions that mark political life in those nations. As I look into the discourse surrounding the nation— which, because it deals with the collective organization of the people, is the most important discourse in the enlightened construction of modernity—I will emphasize that, when critics talk about imagining the nation, they rarely 409
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take the complex relationship between nation and ethnicity into account as they should. In other words, this chapter asks whether an explanation of the nation also calls for an ethnic component, or whether the nation itself, unmoored from any situation predating its own organization, is the sole source of nationalism. To my way of understanding, the nation can only be theorized in strict relationship with the theme of ethnicity, which is linked to profound cultural conflicts that influential modern essays have ignored. For Benedict Anderson (1983), the origin of the nation lies in a “print-capitalist” nationalism that emerged from the sphere of the educated elite. This nationalism swallows up ethnic differences with a Eurocentric vision that overlooks or minimizes local conflicts. To counteract this view of things, in this essay I will examine how José Carlos Mariátegui of Peru, a superlative intellectual and analyst of Latin American culture, could not separate the study of modernity from the cultural conflict generated by ethnic identities that, given their archaic character, obstructed and called into question the forward progress of the official nation. The “persistence of ‘then’ within ‘now,’” the simultaneous presence of the non-modern in the historical time of modernity, can be seen in the stubborn presence of ethnic identities as described in the essays of Mariátegui from the early twentieth century. These identities, uncomfortably grafted onto the project of Latin American nation-building, reveal notable exceptions among intellectuals—writers who took a critical view of the triumphal liberal per-
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spective on history, who were more cautious than most in fathoming the perilous formation of our nations. Wishing to update the social criticism of Mariátegui, another aim of this essay is to bring him into the present. Thus, I analyze how he linked the theme of ethnicity to the concepts of “subalternity,” and “the people.” I feel that Mariátegui can help us reflect on themes that form part of the discussion about the nature and composition of the most recent social movements. Mariátegui and the Case of Peru
In the case of the Andes, states were built before any true nations had been organized (Favre, 1998). Compared with the independence movement that took place in Mexico, Peru became independent in 1821 with insufficient support from the masses. Nor did it have enough support to settle accounts with its colonial past. On top of this frustration, some years later there came Peru’s military defeat in 1879, the occupation of a portion of its national territory by Chile, and economic collapse. With all this background, it is clear that Peru was not a nation, and that the project of building a republic had failed. At the close of the nineteenth century, according to historian and essayist Alberto Flores Galindo (1989, p. 5), there was no telling what the social reality of Peru was. Indeed, after a full century, Peru had still not been able to resolve the cultural conflict between elites and the popular classes, and the differences that the colonial structure had established in politics, religion, ethnicity, and gender had only grown more pro-
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found. In broad outline, Peruvian society was divided between a rich and privileged dominant class of European origin, and a broad, poor popular sector composed of indigenous people, the descendents of enslaved Africans who had been brought from West Africa to Peru in the seventeenth-century, and Chinese laborers who worked in the nineteenth-century guano mines. An intellectual precursor of José Carlos Mariátegui, the anarchist Manuel González Prada, called nineteenth-century Peru a country “of gentlemen and of servants.” Men of letters—letrados—such as the prototypical traditional intellectuals Víctor Andrés Belaúnde and Francisco García Calderón Rey presented their own social class, the early twentieth-century Peruvian oligarchy, with a vision of the country that lacked any kind of collective project. Writing from Paris, García Calderón replicated the theoretician’s practice of separating ideas from their historical context. Thus, his writing bore the same anti-Yankee stamp that Uruguayan writer José Enrique Rodó had displayed in his critique of North American imperialism, written in 1900, when the North had just begun to encroach on Latin America. Rodó’s “Arielismo,” whose sphere of influence included García Calderón, formed part of that long letrado tradition that I have described above, in which writers from El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega through Sarmiento and beyond forged a “national culture,” which, when combined with the Arielismo of the late nineteenth-century, became a critique of capitalist materialism. These critiques, which
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never completely broke with the romantic liberalism of that era, were contradicted by a group of Peruvian writers, and in particular by the ideas of José Carlos Mariátegui. Unlike Francisco García Calderón, Mariátegui did not reflect on society “from” Paris, but rather “from” Lima. For the place where Mariátegui elaborated and enunciated his ideas was not simply coincidental; it was, to the contrary, consubstantial with the Peruvian Marxist’s two reasons for parting ways with Arielismo, a philosophy rooted in an exclusively culturalist analysis of the problems of Spanish America and of Peru in particular. In the first place, Mariátegui’s thinking was no longer just an imitation of European views. By thinking about the reality of Peru from within the very heart of the colonial structure, Mariátegui could see the colonial condition from “outside” the ways of thinking cultivated in Europe and the United States, though he later said that he had received his best intellectual training in Europe. One result of his geopolitical location was an insistence that any analysis of reality had to be grounded in the material and political economic history of the moment, quite apart from all philosophical abstractions. When he thus revealed the economic basis for neocolonialism, he put his finger right on the problem—and doing that touched a raw nerve: Peru was not, and would never become, a modern European society, because the very origins of its modernity was burdened with a different sort of colonial structure, with a socio-economic structure that exhibited “the contemporaneity of the
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non-contemporaneous” that called into question the linear and teleological flow of history. Thinking against the grain about the meaning of history was the basic change that Mariátegui introduced into his reading of the realities of Latin America. The evolutionary meaning of history that Hegel had set out—the notion that the world is all governed by the same historical time, with Europe at the center of the movement of history— had a powerful influence on European Marxism. In contrast, the school of progressive and “organic” intellectuals from the South—Antonio Gramsci is their most important thinker—creatively questioned Hegel’s logocentrism. This was the transformative school of Marxism to which Mariátegui belonged. He began the new Latin American tradition of complementing a reading of reality in the old class-structure terms (aristocracy, bourgeoisie, proletariat) with a novel understanding of material inequalities, contextualized in space and time. Secondly, his work helped put an end to the culture fetishism into which Eurocentric theoreticians had largely fallen in Peru. By turning their full attention to cultural matters, they had forgotten the socioeconomic basics that should condition any reading of reality. A heterodox Marxist in the fullest sense of the term, Mariátegui was the first to undertake a rigorous analysis of Latin American society. In the 1920s, when Mariátegui was elaborating his thesis about Marxism as a myth for our times, the Mexican thinker José Vasconcelos, along with other important Latin American intellectuals, was using the concept of indi-
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genismo to explain the future of Latin America. Vasconcelos and the others did this based on understandings that had little to do with the actual cultural conflicts in which our countries were immersed. It was different with Mariátegui. His Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928, trans., Seven interpretive essays on Peruvian reality, 1971) gave an illuminating perspective on the situation of indigenous people in the real economic, political, and historical context of the Andes. Other factors made Mariátegui’s thinking even more relevant, especially his plan of applying the principles of historical materialism flexibly so that they could take root in the socioeconomics of history and culture without falling into economistic determinism. Two currents of revolutionary thought from the early 1900s help explain Mariátegui’s heterodox Marxism: first, Italian Marxism, to which he had been exposed during his years in Italy through his relationship with the Communist Party and its newspaper, L’Ordine Nuovo; second, through the ideas of Georges Sorel, which deeply influenced him. In the confluence of these two European currents of thought, Mariátegui created his own messianic views, uniting rationality and myth. Mariátegui ended up in Italy from 1920 to 1923 after being sent into exile by the Augusto Leguía dictatorship. While writing a column, “Letters from Italy,” for the Lima newspaper El Tiempo during these years, he attended the famous 1921 Livorno Congress of the Italian Socialist Party, which led to the founding of the Communist Party of It-
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aly under Antonio Gramsci, a founding editor of L’Ordine Nuovo. There is no indication, however, that Mariátegui came into contact with Gramsci’s thinking during his relatively long stay in Italy. Though it is generally assumed that Mariátegui had access to Gramsci’s ideas when he undertook his analysis of Peruvian reality, nothing in the records can prove a direct influence of Gramsci on him. It seems he was slightly acquainted with Gramsci, but he does not cite him—unlike other Italian writers, especially Benedetto Croce and Piero Gobetti, whom he does quote regularly. The links between Mariátegui and Gramsci are undeniable. Indeed, Gramsci’s new approaches to Marx were in the air of Italian culture, and Mariátegui probably discovered them through the works of Piero Gobetti, who analyzed the function of the economy in the creation of a new political order. But his assimilation of Gobetti’s historical criticism should not make us lose sight of the fact that Mariátegui always thought “from” Peru. Thus, by connecting the indigenous problem with the problem of land and the contemporaneity of distinct cultures, Mariátegui’s criticism discovered in the agrarian structure of Peru the roots of the nation’s backwardness and the reasons why the indigenous masses were excluded from political and cultural life. Hence his understanding that, by identifying the Indian question with the land question, he had discovered the crux of a problem that only a socialist revolution could resolve. However, the fact that linked Mariátegui to the indigenista movement, and that distanced him from Marxist orthodoxy, what his political (rather than doctrinaire) per-
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spective on the confluence between the “modern” workers’ movement and the peasantry. Simultaneously with Gramsci, Mariátegui understood that the peasant question was, above all, an indigenous question (Aricó, 1980, p. xi-lvi). He was greatly helped in this by his knowledge of and interest in other Peruvian writers who were dedicated to the analysis of indigenismo. It was during his research, mediated by his reading of the works of Castro Pozo, Uriel García, and most importantly Luis E. Valcárcel, that Mariátegui got into the rural world of Peru. As a good organic intellectual, Mariátegui connected his reading with his publication of Amauta, a journal that helped link the intellectuals of coastal Peru, influenced by the urban workers’ movement, Marxist socialism, and other European currents of thought, with the intellectuals of Cusco, who represented the indigenista movement. It is worth looking more deeply into the similarities between Gramsci and Mariátegui, particularly in regard to the spatial nature of their thought. On the level of methodology, both differed from other letrados in that they insisted on taking political economy into account while being careful not to fall into orthodox Marxist determinism, with its rigid separation between “base” and “superstructure.” Both Gramsci’s essay “Some Aspects of the Southern Question” and Mariátegui’s Siete ensayos emphasized space, and especially the political and economic inequalities generated by geographic differences—between northern and southern Italy, in the case of Gramsci; between coastal and highland Peru, in the case of Mariátegui. While
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Gramsci emphasized spatial inequalities, Mariátegui read them historically, over time, as the results of colonialism and imperialism (Aboul-Ela, 2007, p. 31). Likewise, while the central issue for Gramsci was the gap that had opened up between the proletariat of the north and the peasantry of the south, Mariátegui only mentions the proletariat sporadically, as an important phenomenon in the growth of Peru’s cities. Mariátegui was clearly conscious of the role that class analysis played in European Marxism; its sporadic, ever-changing character was one of the aspects that he underlined. One of the most salient characteristics of this interpretation of Latin American reality was his analysis of the cause of the spatial inequalities that colonial rule created. In the chapter on Peru’s economic evolution in Siete ensayos, Mariátegui makes clear that the attainment of national independence (across Latin America generally, and in Peru in particular) did nothing to free the region from economic dependency, which was only consolidated when trade and financial exchange between the new nations and the new empire grew in the nineteenth century. Here, Mariátegui had done an in-depth analysis of the intrusion of North American hegemony at a time when other writers, especially the “Arielistas,” perceived only a vague, abstract, spiritual threat from the North and never approached to the social-economic heart of the problem. The other fundamental aspect of Mariátegui’s thought is his critique of lineal, teleological time, which he declared inappropriate for explaining Peru’s complex situa-
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tion. He intensified this critique when he had the unprecedented idea of creating a “cultural field” where rationality and myth might meet. This came from the impact of Georges Sorel—or rather, the myth of Sorel—on Mariátegui’s thought. Introducing Sorel in one of his key essays, “El hombre y el mito” (1925, p. 28), as “one of the representatives of twentieth-century French thought,” Mariátegui counted him as a critic of Marx on the path towards parliamentary social democracy. Indeed, Sorel’s influence was important because his ideas took the place of Marxist orthodoxy in Mariátegui’s analysis of the process of industrial civilization. This important change, which can also be seen in the work of Piero Gobetti (Paris, 1980, p. 127), is fundamental to an understanding of “El hombre y el mito,” the essay in which Mariátegui explains “the Sorelian theory of myth.” Criticizing the exclusively rational nature of the perception of historical time, Mariátegui justified “the peremptory need for myth” as a vacuum—infinite space, in Pascal’s terms—that opposed and even dissolved “the idea of Reason” on the plane of life experiences. Insisting that humans are “metaphysical animals” and that “without a myth, the existence of man makes no historical sense,” Mariátegui, influenced by Sorelians such as Édouard Berth, emphasized the role of myth in the explanation of human events. Robert Paris argued, quite accurately, that “Pascal’s wager,” which oriented the Sorelian concept of myth, had no place whatsoever in any individualist philosophy that was divorced from community (Paris, 1980, p. 137). Thus,
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myth, the irrational or mystical element inherited from Sorel, appears in Mariátegui’s works as the instrument of a dialectic that seeks to bring the values of the past into the present. In this return of the past, one cannot help noticing a metahistorical paradox similar to the one St. Paul enunciated when he spoke of values that are of the world but that do not reside in the world. In other words, the sphere of myth cannot be that of modern Reason, and in the final analysis rational, lineal, teleological discourse is also incapable of explaining the intricacies of the complex realities of Latin America. When he returned from Europe, Mariátegui was faced with a great agrarian convulsion, which, as in 1915, affected every local jurisdiction in the southern Andes. The structural tension between peasant and landowning economies, the preaching of the indigenistas, the conflicts between midsized merchants and regional bosses—these facts brought out for Mariátegui the messianic, nativist stamp of this stubborn past, which refused to disappear, which indeed was very much present in every uprising that took place, always preceded by the rebirth of indigenous culture. The persistence of “then” within “now”
Mariátegui’s thinking grew out of his consciousness that Peru was immersed in a very different reality from Western societies, so he was particularly sensitive to the fact that Peruvian reality combined different times, superimposing disparate stages of history in a single territory,
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from the primitive to the modern industrial economy. For Mariátegui, this motley Peru did not call for a modernized theory but for a collective myth, which, as a true “wager,” would fight to realize its values, even without a guarantee of success. There was, then, an undercurrent of spontaneous enthusiasm in his thought. We can see it in the relationship he established between “the mystical wager,” indigenous communities, and the past as resource for the present. How can we explain this “wager,” which brought the indigenous community and its constitutive values closer to the present? When he compared the Peruvian and European experiences, Mariátegui observed that the criollo class of large landowners wanted to skip a basic stage in capitalist development: they wanted to become entrepreneurs without first undergoing the necessary dissolution of feudalism. In his judgment, this was an unrealizable dream; the landowners were behaving like feudal lords and rentiers, and were unable to transform their class character into that of a genuine bourgeoisie. What path, then, did the country need to follow? Should the great landowners disappear? Be forced, perhaps, to learn in the hard school of small-scale farming? Such a solution would have led Mariátegui to back the standard liberal ideal of creating a numerous agrarian petite bourgeoisie. Perfectly aware of this liberal solution, Mariátegui radically distanced himself from it, proposing instead a utopian solution whose protagonist and agent would not be the criollo or mestizo small landowner living from his rents, but the indigenous peasant.
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The indigenous people, then, with their social and cultural forms from the pre-Hispanic past, would provide the necessary elements for solving the land problem that had been created first by Spanish colonial rule and then by liberalism. We can now glimpse the ways in which, for Mariátegui, the situation of Peru had modified the traditional Marxist schema: first, its bourgeoisie was not a true bourgeoisie but merely a group of aristocratic liberals or liberal oligarchs, incapable of creating the conditions for the rise of capitalism; second, the protagonists of its socialist revolution would have to be a proletariat expanded to include the indigenous peasantry. Mariátegui’s point of departure was an idea developed by Manuel González Prada, a Peruvian anarchist who deeply influenced the country’s left in that era: the indigenous question was not a problem of philosophy or culture, but primarily of economics and agriculture; it was a question of distributing land to benefit the country’s masses, four fifths of whom were indigenous and peasants. Of course Mariátegui was well aware of the vast differences between modern communism and the communism of the Inca era, systems that were only comparable in “their essential and incorporeal likeness, within the essential and material difference of time and space” (Mariátegui, 1971, p. 74). Here we see the modification wrought by Andean space on the lineal concept of time in European Marxism. If socialism had to be imported, it would have to be by discovering the proper soil, the exact geocultural conditions, that would allow it to flourish: it couldn’t be thought of as a
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mere blueprint. It was a new European creation, and it demanded a precise knowledge of the terrain. Having described the problem, Mariátegui, like his contemporary Luis E. Valcárcel (1927), found that he had to rethink the ayllu, the indigenous Andean community structure, not as an analogue to modern socialist structures, but as something distinct, something that could only be understood if one started from a meticulous analysis of the local space within which it existed, that is, an analysis of Peru’s agrarian history. Nevertheless, and despite the need to undertake a detailed analysis of how the indigenous community—the non-modern structure of modernity—should be incorporated into the nation, Mariátegui expressed his conviction that an indigenous resurgence would not come about through a process of material “Westernization” of the Quechua lands, but through myth. It was a surprising conclusion, and it led his critics to accuse Mariátegui of being inconsistent. In effect, Mariátegui argued that the great landowners were incapable of “skipping ahead” and becoming capitalist entrepreneurs without first going through the stage of the dissolution of feudalism, yet at the same time he was arguing that the marginal, exploited indigenous peasantry could go straight from their serf-like condition to socialist organization. That is, in one case he believed in the necessity of a Westernizing, feudal dissolution/capitalism building process, while in the other case he felt that indigenous peasants could skip all that and achieve socialism directly. Is there really a contradiction between these two arguments? I think not. With his conceptualization of the indigenous community, Mariáte-
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gui was simply arguing that the mobilizing power of myth transcended that of liberalism, and became one with the power of the indigenous masses. But there was still a need to organize a working-class protagonist that could carry out the socialist revolution. It wasn’t that the indigenous people should take the role of the proletariat; it was that the proletariat should expand and become much more inclusive. In other words, if his wager on mysticism went beyond individualist liberalism and connected Mariátegui with the indigenous masses, his Marxism forced him to rethink who the protagonists of revolution would be and to assign a key role to the peasantry. But this did not mean that his would be a Marxism only for the peasants and would exclude the industrial proletariat. Quite the contrary: Mariátegui insisted on the importance of the proletariat and spoke of a class-based party, a workers’ party that would include both industrial workers and peasants. In sum, Mariátegui called for total revolution in Peru. To achieve this, he called on the strength and influence of messianic sentiments and argued that it was imperative to incorporate them into his revolutionary project. Aware that Marxism could only have a chance for success in Peru if it first joined together with Andean culture, Mariátegui introduced the mystical wager of the indigenous community into his thinking. Indeed, the defense of community strengthened their rejection of capitalism. Due to the non-contemporaneity of this contemporaneous structure, Peru could follow a different historical evolution from that of Europe. In reality, as Antonio Cornejo Polar argues, Mariátegui looked at the course of Peruvian history as a
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“process of conflicts imbricated in a future in which certain alternatives are hegemonic in each moment, while under the surface, subordinate options constantly arise that could become salient and then hegemonic at some future period”; he goes on to point out that “what once was hegemonic can subsist residually for greater or lesser amount of time” (Cornejo Polar, 1993, p. 60-1). Mariátegui located himself in the tension between these opposing contemporaneities, according to Cornejo Polar, on a radically terrain of analysis and reflection: the problem was not to develop capitalism, nor to recapitulate the history of Europe and Latin America; it was to construct Peru’s own way forward. Thus, it could be said that the essential trait of his thought was the rejection of progress and the lineal, Eurocentric image of world history. On negativity: “subalternity” and “pueblo”
How should we understand the ethnic problematics of Mariátegui’s texts today? Should we look at it strictly in terms of the view of lineal history associated with modernity? Perhaps be amazed by the obstinacy with which ethnicity has refused to disappear, and then admit that it had to be in order for us to attain our longed-for social cohesion? I think there is no clear answer to these questions, because, as I have been arguing throughout this essay, the key to solving the problem of ethnicity cannot be history if history is conceived as unidirectional progress towards a final, universal, and totalizing goal. Two points should be clarified here. First, the unity of social actors—whether designated by the concept of “subalternity,” or of “the people”—is not the result of some pri-
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or logical connection that can subsume all subjective positions under a single, predetermined conceptual category. “The people” is always a contingent moment, a “floating signifier” (Laclau, 2005, p. 129) that “fills up” with a plurality of social demands through “equivalential (metonymic) relations of contiguity” (p. 227). Having no a priori constitutive role, these demands are permanently in flux. Second, the passage from one configuration of “the people” to another involves a radical break, not a chain of events located in logical order, and so the temporal causality of such events is fragmented. This doesn’t mean that the elements of the emerging formation must be totally new, but rather that the point of articulation—the partial object around which hegemonic formations are constructed as new wholes—does not arise from any sort of logic related to the historical time of modernity. In this way, what is decisive in the emergence of “the people” as a new historical actor is that they should be able to articulate popular demands, not that there be any prior logic to coordinate those demands. Laclau explains that speaking of the people means referring to a “constitutive and not derivative” configuration; that is, it constitutes an act in the strict sense, for it does not have its source in anything external to itself. The emergence of the ‘people’ as a historical actor is thus always transgressive vis-à-vis the situation preceding it. This transgression is the emergence of a new order (Laclau, 2005, p. 228.)
The constitutive aspect of the “politics of the people” is very visible in Mariátegui’s analysis of Peruvian reality. His version of socialism called for building new social relations and a new state that would overcome the limita-
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tions of the parliamentary system and bourgeois democracy. His raised understanding of peasant rebellions in the Andes, and the debate on indigenismo that he helped start, show that Mariátegui was aware of another possible way of situating socialism, far removed from orthodox Marxism. Revolutionary but nondogmatic, Mariátegui counterposed heterodoxy against revolution. Indeed, his Gramscian notion of the “popular/national” was closely linked to the fact that the Peruvian working class was small in numbers. It caused him to pay close attention to other social groups that were also being exploited. The limited number of industrial workers could be supplemented by joining forces with peasants, sugar and cotton plantation laborers, and artisans. Finally, and in correlation with today’s indigenous movements, Mariátegui supported the role of the peasantry because he was one of the first to think about them from the perspective of their unusual condition as both a class and an ethnic group. They were peasants, but they were also Indians, that is, human beings who stubbornly held onto their own culture in spite of Spanish colonial domination and the persistence of feudalism after independence. Mariátegui saw quite clearly that, if indigenous culture had managed to keep its own languages and customs, that was because the material bases of the culture had also been consistently maintained. In this way, as Robert Paris has noted (1980, p. 119-44), Mariátegui’s Peruvian socialism had room for both workers and peasants, encompassing both within its view of “the proletariat.”
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By incorporating the indigenous into his view of the new popular subject, Mariátegui linked artisans to poor peasants, plantation and industrial workers, and middleclass intellectuals. He clearly contrasted his socialism with the construction of the democratic subject as imagined by the dominant sectors. Thus, in his popular politics the vanguard of the proletariat would be the miners, with their double status as both workers and peasants. Therefore Mariátegui, far from conceiving of an authoritarian party, opted for a socialism that intended not to solve every possible conflict, but rather to unite the masses and offer them an identity. The construction of the popular subject was, then, a serious attempt to raise once more the subject of revolution, assigning the peasantry a key role in it. This does not mean that Mariátegui denied the importance of the working class, only that he strove to build a class-based party that would include both workers and peasants. The construction of “the popular” placed Mariátegui’s Andean humanism far ahead of that of other progressive thinkers of his time.
Bibliography Aboul-Ela, Hosam M. (2007). Other South: Faulkner, coloniality, and the Mariátegui tradition. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.
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Anderson, Benedict (1983). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London, Verso. Aricó, José (ed.) (1980). Mariátegui y los orígenes del marxismo latinoamericano. México, Ediciones Pasado y Presente. Cornejo Polar, Antonio (1993). “Mariátegui y su propuesta de una modernidad de raíz andina.” Anuario mariateguiano, v. 5, p. 58-63. Lima, Empresa Editora Amauta; Editorial Gráfica Labor S.A. Favre, Henri (1998). El indigenismo. México, Fondo de Cultura Económica. Flores Galindo, Alberto (1989). La agonía de Mariátegui. Lima, Instituto de Apoyo Agrario. Gramsci, Antonio [(1930-1932) 1992]. Prison notebooks. Vol. 1-3. Trans. Joseph A. Buttigieg. New York, Columbia University Press. Laclau, Ernesto (2005). On populist reason. New York, Verso. Mariátegui, José Carlos [(1925) 1959]. El alma matinal y otras estaciones del hombre de hoy. Lima, Amauta. _______ [(1928) 1971]. Seven interpretive essays on Peruvian reality. Trans. of Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana, by Marjory Urquidi. Austin, University of Texas Press. Paris, Robert (1980). “El marxismo de Mariátegui”. In: Aricó, José (selección y prólogo). Mariátegui y los orígenes del marxismo latinoamericano. México, Ediciones Pasado y Presente, p. 119-44. Valcárcel, Luis E. (1927). Tempestad en los Andes. Lima, Editorial Minerva.
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Mapping the Global Age (Part II)
Lessons from Mount Lu: China and cross-cultural understanding Zhang Longxi
Mount Lu is a famous mountain in Jiangxi Province in southeast China, famous not just for its natural beauty, but also for its rich historical associations. Throughout the centuries, many poets and writers have immortalized the mountain in numerous poems and literary prose, of which a short quatrain, “Written on the Wall of the Temple of West Woods,” by one of China’s greatest poets, Su Shi (1037-1101) in the eleventh century, is perhaps the most memorable. The poem describes Mount Lu in four lines: Viewed horizontally a range; a cliff from the side; It differs as we move high or low, or far or nearby. We do not know the true face of Mount Lu, Because we are all ourselves inside.
The particular appeal of this poem lies in its philosophical insight into the interaction between recognition and 433
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perspective, the changing views of an object as the hermeneutic horizon moves and changes, and the difficulty of knowing anything in its entirety and from within. “We do not know the true face of Mound Lu,” says the poet, “Because we are all ourselves inside.” The last two lines are so well-known that they become part of the common parlance with the implication that the very interiority of the location makes it impossible for the knowing subject to have true knowledge, that the insider may have blind spots and epistemic limitations, while presumably the outsider may command a better view and have better knowledge at a critical or reflective distance. That has indeed been many readers’ understanding of that famous poem. If we take Mount Lu as a synecdoche for China as a whole, then, such a reading of the poem could be taken to imply an endorsement of Sinology or China studies that looks at China not from within, but from the outside. The Sinologist as an outsider could then be seen as the one who understands China better than a native Chinese does, given the latter’s necessary limitations and blind spots. Many Sinologists, particularly those trained in social sciences in the West, do think of China as an object of study, as something to be analyzed by employing Western social scientific theories and methodologies. In some cases, there is what I would call a “social science arrogance,” which also smacks of an Orientalist bias, in the sense that a Western scholar would think of China and the Chinese only in terms of providing materials for a critical analysis made possible only in the West by using Western theories with precision and
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sophistication. China and Chinese language materials become serviceable only as so much grist to the Sinological mill, but cannot speak in their own voice, nor can they have their own stance or present their own insights. Sinology or Western China studies lay claim to better understanding of China precisely because they are not native Chinese scholarship, and that they observe Mount Lu, so to speak, from the outside. In American China studies, however, that attitude has gone under challenge and severe criticism. According to Paul Cohen, to look at China from a Western perspective is precisely the problem with Western Sinology in general, and American Sinology in particular. He identifies three different American models in China studies. The first one, the “Western impact and Chinese response” approach, understands Chinese history from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth, i.e., from the Opium Wars in the 1840s to the 1911 Revolution and the establishment of the Republic of China, as a history determined by the impact from the West on China as a stagnant, weak, and dying empire. The second is the “modernization” approach that interprets modern Chinese history as a continuous but ineffective effort at modernization, which is understood as Westernization. Finally, there emerged in the 1960s the framework of “imperialism,” namely, a framework in which progressive China scholars discussed how Western imperialism had influenced and impeded the unfolding of modern Chinese history. All three of these approaches look at China from an outsider’s perspective, in which whatever is considered im-
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portant in the study of Chinese history is judged by a Western measurement at the cost of native experience and the internal route of development in modern Chinese history. Therefore, Cohen argues, “all three, in one way or another, introduce Western-centric distortions into our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century China.”1 Against such Western-centric distortions of Chinese history, Cohen advocates a “China-centered” approach that puts emphasis on Chinese language materials and Chinese perspectives, and tries to adopt a native’s point of view empathetically. The new approach “begins with Chinese problems set in a Chinese context,” says Cohen. No matter whether or how these problems may be related to the West, they are, says Cohen, “Chinese problems, in the double sense that they are experienced in China by Chinese and that the measure of their historical importance is a Chinese, rather than a Western, measure.”2 As an American scholar himself, Cohen was courageous to present his critique of Western-centrism in American Sinology in the early 1980s; his book marks an important point of paradigmatic change in China studies, but it has also remained somewhat controversial. The difficulty with Cohen’s “China-centered” approach lies not just in the still strong sense of the theoretical superiority of Western social science models, which most Western scholars necessarily embrace, that is, a sense of supe1 Paul A. Cohen, Discovering history in China: American historical writing on the recent Chinese past, New York, Columbia University Press, 1984, p. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 154.
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riority that may account for the resistance to, if not downright rejection of, Cohen’s proposal by many Sinologists. The difficulty lies rather in the theoretical dilemma of the “China-centered” approach itself. First of all, it is impossible for Western China scholars to become native Chinese and adopt a native point of view, even if they are willing to do so, and, second, the native point of view does not guarantee better understanding of historical events or the reality of any given period of history. Of course, Cohen realizes this, and what he asks Western China scholars to do is not “eliminating all ethnocentric distortion,” but “reducing such distortion to the minimum.”3 That is certainly reasonable, but the sheer enormity and complexity of China and its history make it very difficult to reach a level of understanding that can claim to have the true view of the matter or the “true face of Mount Lu.” Even if one can imitate or emulate a native participant’s experience and point of view, it is just a particular individual’s experience and point of view, which may be very different from the totality of historical experience we call China or Chinese history as a whole. In the nineteenth century, developing an insight expressed first in Giambattista Vico’s New science, Wilhelm Dilthey once claimed that “the first condition of possibility of a science of history is that I myself am a historical being, that the person studying history is the person making history.”4 Vico and Dilthey, however, have not solved the 3 Ibid., p. 1. 4 Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, VII, p. 278, quoted in HansGeorg Gadamer, Truth and method, 2nd revised ed., trans. revised by Joel
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problem of how finite individual historical experience can become knowledge of a given period of history as a whole. H. G. Gadamer argues that positing homogeneity as its condition conceals the real epistemological problem of history. The question is how the individual’s experience and the knowledge of it come to be historical experience. (…) the important question remains how such infinite understanding is possible for finite human nature.5
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Whatever you see as Mount Lu is just a particular sight or part of it, and how that particular view can claim to be the true face of Mount Lu is the difficult epistemic question for all historical understanding. Su Shi seems to suggest that a “China-centered” view is unable to reach a complete view or comprehensive historical understanding, because the insider’s finite experience and knowledge are hardly transferable to a true understanding of Mount Lu as a whole. The way Cohen solves that problem is by dividing China into small pieces of more or less manageable sizes, “horizontally” into regions, provinces, prefectures, counties, and cities, and “vertically” into various levels and social strata, and by so doing he makes the study of China more concretely as the study of regional and local histories on the one hand, and popular and non-popular lower-level histories on the other. Once China studies is localized and cut up into small-size studies, however, as Cohen himself admits, the approach “is not China-centered at all, but reWeinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, New York, Crossroad, 1975, p. 222. 5 Gadamer, ibid., p. 222, 232.
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gion-centered, or province-centered or locality-centered.”6 Not only that, but the theories and methodologies of Cohen’s China-centered paradigm are not Chinese, either, as he “welcomes with enthusiasm the theories, methodologies, and techniques developed in disciplines other than history (mostly, but not exclusively, the social sciences) and strives to integrate these into historical analysis.”7 As all these social science theories and methodologies are developed in Western scholarship, the use of these would seriously undermine the “China-centered” approach that puts so much emphasis on native Chinese experience and native Chinese criteria in value-judgment. This constitutes a real challenge to any claim to native perspective vis-à-vis a “Western” perspective, or an insider’s view vis-à-vis an outsider’s view. The insider, again as the poet Su Shi tells us, does not know “the true face of Mount Lu” simply because he is trapped in his own limited horizon or perspective. Indeed, Cohen’s “China-centered” paradigm has its problems, but its critique of Western-centrism is certainly valid and important, for the outsider may be equally limited in his external perspective that often lacks inside experience. Sinology or China studies in the West are by definition Western, and a Sinologist cannot but look at China from the outside. That is not a problem, but a problem arises when a Sinologist insists that only an outsider can have 6 Cohen, Discovering history in China, p. 162. 7 Ibid., p. 186-7.
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a better view of Mount Lu, or that the inside and the outside are mutually exclusive and incommensurate. The former, i.e., the conviction of the superiority of the outsider’s view, is an assumption sometimes consciously, but often unconsciously, held by many Western scholars, while the latter, i.e., the concept of the East-West dichotomy, is often explicitly expressed in Western discourses on China. Influential thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, for example, even though they have no interest in Sinology or China studies as such, nevertheless use China as a symbol of a cultural “Other” fundamentally different from the European self. Foucault’s most strange and unconceivable “heterotopia,” manifested in a bizarre classification system of animals, an “exotic charm of another system of thought” allegedly found in a “Chinese encyclopaedia,” offers a curious example.8 Derrida’s claim that the largely non-phonetic Chinese scripts embody the perfect “différance” and bear “the testimony of a powerful movement of civilization developing outside of all logocentrism” offers another.9 Such claims and assertions about China as the opposite of the West are telling signs of the intellectual climate of our times, and it is therefore not surprising to find some China scholars working to further these claims. The French scholar François Jullien is probably the most vocal in asserting the fundamental differences between 8 Michel Foucault, The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences, New York, Vintage, 1973, p. xv. 9 Jacques Derrida, Of grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. 90.
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Chinese and Greek perspectives and values, and he understands Sinology as ultimately an effort to return to the European self through the experience of China as pure difference, for he maintains that “China presents a case study through which to contemplate Western thought from the outside.”10 For Jullien, China represents an alternative to Europe, and he claims that “strictly speaking, non-Europe is China, and it cannot be anything else.”11 In his numerous publications, Jullien often sets up two columns of concepts or categories, one Greek and the other Chinese, perfectly opposite and contrastive to one another. Those contrastive columns, however, have more to do with Jullien’s predilection for contraries than with Greek or Chinese thought and culture as such, for it is his contrastive argument that turns his image of China into the reverse of Greece. His systematically contrastive method makes it predictable that whatever he finds in China is the opposite of Greece, thus always a confirmation of fundamental cultural differences. In setting up a dichotomy between China and Europe, particularly ancient China and ancient Greece, Jullien follows a French intellectual genealogy, in which differences between the East and the West, particularly China and Greece, are often brought to a philosophical level of language and thinking. For example, under the influence of 10 François Jullien, Detour and access: strategies of meaning in China and Greece, trans. Sophie Hawkes, New York, Zone Books, 2000, p. 9. 11 François Jullien with Thierry Marchaissse, Penser d’un dehors (la Chine): entretiens d’Extrême-Occident, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2000, p. 39.
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Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s concept of the collective and distinct mentalité, Marcel Granet proposed the idea of a distinct Chinese mentalité or la pensée chinoise, which differs profoundly from that of the West.12 Likewise, in examining the failure of Christian mission in China, Jacques Gernet attributed that failure to fundamental differences between China and the West, “not only of different intellectual traditions but also of different mental categories and modes of thought.”13 These arguments obviously anticipate Jullien’s Chinese-Greek opposition. As Jonathan Spence remarks, to set up “mutually reinforcing images and perceptions” of an exotic China “seems to have been a particularly French genius.”14 That is not quite true, however, because it is not just French scholars who put excessive emphasis on cultural differences between the East and the West. The American scholar Richard Nisbett, for example, puts incredibly large numbers of people together as mutually incommensurate groups and argue that “members of different cultures differ in their ‘metaphysics,’ or fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world,” and that “the characteristic thought processes of different groups differ greatly.” 15 What he is 12 See Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise, Paris, Editions Albin Michel, 1968. 13 Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian impact: a conflict of cultures, trans. Janet Lloyd, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 3. 14 Jonathan D. Spence, The Chan’s great continent: China in Western minds, New York, W. W. Norton, 1998, p. 145. 15 Richard Nisbett, The geography of thought: how Asians and Westerners think differently… and Why, New York, The Free Press, 2003, p. xvixvii.
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talking about here are two huge groups, one “Asians” and the other “Westerners,” who, according to Nisbett, differ fundamentally in thinking and in behavior. So in Western scholarship on China or the East, we may often find such an either/or opposition or East/West divide, which sets up a Western self against which the various aspects of China or Chinese culture are brought up as contrast or as a reverse mirror image. These are self-consciously outsiders’ points of view, and in their discussions of Chinese language, literature, thought, and culture, these scholars almost totally ignore the insiders, that is, Chinese scholars and their works written in Chinese. This certainly runs counter to the spirit of the “China-centered” paradigm, which, as Cohen puts it, tries “to get inside China, to reconstruct Chinese history as far as possible as the Chinese themselves experienced it.”16 The problem with such dichotomous claims is the “social science arrogance” I mentioned earlier, i.e., Western claims and assertions that are put forward as though they are universal truths applicable to China or things Chinese. Instead of a humble acknowledgement that we “do not know the true face of Mount Lu,” either from the inside or from the outside, such claims are often presented as scientific representations of the “true face of Mount Lu.” Given the predominant influence of the West in economic, political, and many other aspects of social life in our time, it is particularly important to be alert to the lim16 Paul A. Cohen, China unbound: evolving perspectives on the Chinese past, London, Routledge-Curzon, 2003, p. 1.
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itations of universal claims to truth based on European or Western experience and history. A case in point is the debate of the very concept of “China” as a nation-state. In Western scholarship, the nation-state is understood as a modern concept, a political entity formulated during the Renaissance or early modernity. “The modern state is a sovereign state. Sovereignty is a concept that was invented in the modern world-system,” says Immanuel Wallerstein.17 Obviously the concept of a sovereign state is formulated on the basis of European history, with no consideration of the other parts of the world, but because of the influence of the theory of world-system and the concept of nation-state, some have come to question whether China before the seventeenth century could have been a nation state, or just an “imagined community.” This has become an important issue in China, and a leading Chinese scholar, Ge Zhaoguang of Fudan University, has made a powerful argument against the anachronistic imposition of a modern European concept on ancient China and its very different history. “Different from Europe, China’s political territory and cultural space spread out from the center towards the peripheries,” says Ge. Even without mentioning the pre-Qin antiquity, at least from the time of the Qin and the Han dynasties, by “unifying the width of vehicle tracks, unifying the written scripts, and unifying moral codes,” language and writing, moral principles and customs, and the political system began to gradually stabilize the nation within this space, and this is quite different from the European understanding of the nation as 17 Immanuel Wallerstein, World-systems analysis: an introduction, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2004, p. 42.
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a new phenomenon in late human history. Therefore, the theory that separates traditional empires and modern states into two different eras does not fit in well with Chinese history, nor does it fit the Chinese consciousness of a nation or the history of the emergence of a nation.18
Ge puts his question straight for wardly: We may ask in return: does a historian need to consider the particularities of Chinese history that differs from European history? The general homogeneity of Chinese civilization, particularly of the Han nationality, the coincidence between the living space of the Han people and the space of the various dynasties, the continuity of the Han tradition and the allegiance to the Han political authorities—are all these simply “accidental” and “controversial”? Is China a nation-state set up gradually only in modern times (understood as Western modernity)?19
With ample historical evidences and solid textual analysis, Ge Zhaoguang proposes to understand China not just internally, but in relation to the larger context of East Asian history. At the same time, he has a strong sense of the specific stance a historian will necessarily take in a particular historical and cultural tradition, from which a Chinese historian may challenge the validity of mechanically applying Western concepts to non-Western histories and realities. After all, an outsider’s view may also be limited with its own blind spots. When we read the Su Shi poem on “Mount Lu” again, we may realize that the poem is perhaps a victim of the success of its own last two lines; so much so that people tend to read it as an endorsement of the outsider’s point of view. 18 Ge Zhaoguang, Zhaizi Zhongguo: chongjian youguan ‘Zhongguo’ de lishi lunshu [Here in China I Dwell: reconstructing the historical narratives of ‘China’], Beijing, Zhonghua, 2011, p. 28. 19 Ibid., p. 24.
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It is true that the poet says: “We do not know the true face of Mount Lu,/Because we are all ourselves inside”; but it is important to note that the poet does not say that we would know “the true face of Mount Lu” if we get outside. If we pay attention to the equally important two opening lines, then we may realize that the meaning of this poem is quite different from the conventional reading. In the very first line, Su Shi presents two very different views of Mount Lu as “a range” and “a cliff,” which are equally valid as representations of Mount Lu, though viewed from different angles, “horizontally” or “from the side.” The poet continues to say that Mount Lu “differs as we move high or low, or far or nearby,” thus completely invalidates any particular view or particular representation as the only true one. Su Shi is far too subtle and perceptive a poet to endorse the simplistic claim to truth either by the insider or the outsider, and to read this poem as privileging the outsider’s view is only to misread it. What the poet endorses is the plurality of views or the multi-dimensionality of Mount Lu as a compelling and complex presence that can be viewed from diverse perspectives. To put it differently, neither insiders nor outsiders have a privileged point of view, and, by extending this insight to our discussion of China studies, we may realize that no particular point of view has privileged access to knowledge in the understanding of China, its history, society, culture, and tradition. At best, insiders and outsiders are all limited in their respective horizons and finite determinacy, and at worst, the insider’s blind spots are matched only by the outsider’s ignorance and lack of sensitivity.
Lessons from Mount Lu: China and cross-cultural understanding
In an insightful 1972 essay, the famous sociologist Robert Merton had already exposed the limitations of both insiders and outsiders who claim to have a monopolistic or privileged access to certain kinds of knowledge. “In structural terms,” says Merton, “we are all, of course, both Insiders and Outsiders, members of some groups and, sometimes derivatively, not of others; occupants of certain statuses which thereby exclude us from occupying other cognate statuses.” This is obviously true with any individual or social group, but more importantly, we should realize “the crucial fact of social structure that individuals have not a single status but a status set: a complement of variously interrelated statuses which interact to affect both their behavior and perspectives.”20 More recently, Amartya Sen also puts emphasis on the same crucial fact that it is the illusion of singular and exclusive identities that breeds conflict and war in our world. “Violence is fomented,” he says, “by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror.”21 In making sense of identities, we must realize that we always have plural affiliations and multiple identities: “We are all individually involved in identities of various kinds in disparate contexts, in our own respective lives, arising from our background, or associations, or social activities.”22 The 20 Robert K. Merton, “The perspectives of insiders and outsiders,” in The sociology of science: theoretical and empirical investigations, ed. Norman W. Storer, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1973, p. 113. 21 Amartya Sen, Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny, New York, W. W. Norton, 2006, p. 2. 22 Ibid., p. 23.
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lessons from Mount Lu do not come to form a simple endorsement of any particular point of view, either the insider’s or the outsider’s. With such an insight into our plural and interrelated “statuses” or multiple “identities,” we may now realize that it is untenable to hold that only Chinese can understand China or, equally absurdly, that only a Western scholar can provide an outsider’s “objective” view and thus provide us with true knowledge about China. The point is that no particular horizon or perspective can guarantee better knowledge, but that knowledge or scholarship as such should be assessed with a set of intellectual criteria that transcend the simple opposition between native scholarship and Sinological lore, or an insider’s historical experience and an outsider’s critical reflection. Understanding China and Chinese history requires integration of different views from different perspectives, but such integration is not a simple juxtaposition of insiders’ and outsiders’ views; it is more of an act of interaction and mutual illumination than simply adding up native Chinese scholarship and Western Sinology. “We no longer ask whether it is the Insider or the Outsider who has monopolistic or privileged access to social knowledge,” to quote Merton’s words again, “instead, we begin to consider their distinctive and interactive roles in the process of seeking truth.”23 In the pursuit of knowledge, being an insider or an outsider is often functionally irrelevant, and we must negotiate among our plural affiliations and multiple identities as well as those of others in order to reach a better understanding. 23 Merton, The sociology of science, p. 129.
Lessons from Mount Lu: China and cross-cultural understanding
In the postmodern questioning of fundamental truths, however, there is a tendency to emphasize the constructness of all categories and to negate the very presence of anything as entities objectively or really there. History is thus thought of as a textual construction, not as something as solid as a mountain. And yet, the mountain metaphor for understanding history is quite appropriate, for as E. H. Carr argues, though we should discard the positivistic notion of “objectivity,” the finite determinacy of our own horizon cannot erase the existence of “the things themselves.” Carr remarks, as though in conversation with Su Shi: It does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes. It does not follow that, because interpretation plays a necessary part in establishing the facts of history, and because no existing interpretation is wholly objective, one interpretation is as good as another, and the facts of history are in principle not amenable to objective interpretation.24
The mountain metaphor works to the extent that historical events always happen at particular locations and geographical territories, in concrete circumstances and with materiality of their own. Nation, sovereignty, people and their cultures all have spatial connotations. History as such, however, means more than just the concrete, material, and territorial, and therefore its richness and complexity cannot be captured entirely by the mountain metaphor. Historiography not only as record but also as interpretation involves more than what the concrete mountain met24 E. H. Carr, What is history?, Harmondsworth, Eng., Penguin Books, 1964, p. 26-7.
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aphor may suggest, as it must have the historian’s engagement and participation, thus the limitations of horizons and perspectives. In that sense, Su Shi’s poem on Mount Lu is more instructive than a simple description of a mountain, for it speaks more of the difficulty of understanding than the presence of “things themselves,” though the existence of the mountain is tacitly acknowledged. This difficulty, the limitation of our horizons and our finite determinacy, the difficulty of knowing something far away or up close, constitutes the challenge of China studies as it does all other humanistic disciplines. But it also encourages us to open up to different perspectives and other views, to look from various angles, to judge all with a set of intellectual criteria that transcends group allegiances and local identities, and to reach what might be a closer approximation of Mount Lu, or whatever it is that we set out to study.
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case of Uruguay in Mercosur and Unasur Gerardo Caetano
What does being a “small country” mean in the world today? In recent times, in which such dizzying changes have occurred, how has the traditional subject of the relationship between “small” and “gigantic” been redefined? Uruguay’s self-image has historically been that of “a small country between two giants”; what can this country contribute—in its capacity as a “watchtower”1—to this ana1 Uruguayan essayist Alberto Methol Ferré, an active promoter of an integrationist vision for Latin American countries, used to note in his work that despite its inveterate insular and pro-European mind-set, Uruguay constituted a suitable watchtower from which to interpret the region and the world. In the original version of this paper, in Spanish, the term atalaya is used, which is defined in the latest edition of the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary as: “atalaya. (Del ár. hisp. attaláya‘, y este del ár. clás. talā’i‘). 1. f. Torre hecha comúnmente en lugar alto, para registrar 451
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lytical perspective? How has the geopolitical balance shifted in the Río de la Plata basin? How has this view been reshaped in a country that for over 21 years has been using as the cornerstone of its strategy for international inclusion that of being a State Party in a regional bloc such as Mercosur (the Southern Common Market), born and still visualized today as an exceptionally asymmetrical integration pact between “two large countries and two small ones”? What does Uruguay’s status, as the southern neighbour of today’s emerging Brazil and being a part of the South American integration process in Unasur (Union of South American Nations), add in this regard? This paper contains some reflections as input for a broader and more current debate on the more general subject of changing standards in the relationship between “small” and “large” in the contemporary world. 1. A reformulation of the subject of “scale” among countries
Over one hundred years ago, a Salesian priest born in France, who had arrived in Uruguay in 1897 and whose name was Gilbert Perret, but who signed his work under the pseudonym H.D. (Hermano Damasceno—Brother Damadesde ella el campo o el mar y dar aviso de lo que se descubre. 2. f. Eminencia o altura desde donde se descubre mucho espacio de tierra o mar. 3. f. Estado o posición desde la que se aprecia bien una verdad.” (1. A tower usually built in a high place, in order to watch over land or sea and report on what is discovered there. 2. A promontory or high place from which a great deal of land or sea can be seen. 3. A state or position from which a truth can be better appreciated.)
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case…
sceno), maintained insistently in the most successful of his school books (Ensayo de historia patria—An essay on national history) that Uruguayans should rid themselves of the notion that theirs was a “small country.” To this end, he found no better argument than to display the contour of Uruguay enclosing various European countries, as shown in the maps below. Notwithstanding this unusual approach, H.D.’s suggestion introduced a significant concept: a definition of scale should be based on comparisons and these should be grounded on the widest and most comprehensive perspective. The author also pointed out in his history book (which was written for school children): This [Uruguay] is not a small homeland, even in geographical terms: our country covers two hundred thousand square kilometres. This area is two thirds the territory of England and of Italy, almost half of France, of Germany and of Spain; it is six times larger than Belgium, five times larger than Switzerland, three times larger than Greece— this territory is equal to Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Greece put together. This is quite large enough.2
The comparisons chosen by the Salesian priest revealed the pro-European disposition of the Uruguayan viewpoint. He was well aware that for his Uruguayan readers, even though they were children, any international comparison would only be convincing if European countries were used as a reference. The “American Switzerland,” a term which people within and without the country prided themselves on insistently repeating, saw the world through the prism 2 H. D., Ensayo de historia patria [An essay on national history], volume 2, Montevideo, Barreiro y Ramos, 1941, pages 951 and 952.
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Map of Uruguay in comparative terms
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Map on left: ENGLAND (without Scotland), 151,000 km2 BELGIUM, 29,000 km2. Map on right (clockwise from top): SWITZERLAND 41,000 km 2; HOLLAND, 33,000 km 2; BELGIUM, 29,000 km 2; Danish Islands / DENMARK, 40,000 km 2.
Comparative size of Uruguay
England and Belgium together fit within the territory of Uruguay. In addition, Uruguay is larger than Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland together. The area of the Republic, including the section of Lake Merín which is part of its territory covers some 190,000 km2. Source: H.D., Ensayo de historia patria [An essay on national history], Montevideo, Barreiro y Ramos, 1941 (7th edition).
of its “transatlantic borders,” focusing on Europe in the first place and on the United States in the second. All the rest, even the close neighbours on which the country mainly depended, were viewed as “complementary,” or on the margins of this dominant cultural world vision.3 3 As from the 1900s, a vision of itself as a “European island” separate from its Latin American neighbours predominated in the self-perception of Uruguayan society. The most successful syntagma devised in this
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For his part, in 1953, Eduardo J. Couture, a noted Uruguayan intellectual, published an emblematic book. Its title, La comarca y el mundo [The region and the world], was already outlining a broad interpretative horizon with strong links to some of the reflections contained in this paper.4 After describing several of the features which in his view characterized the Uruguayas of his period (among which he highlighted their “confrontational temperament” and, at the same time, their basic agreement regarding “democracy as a superior form of human coexistence”), Couture asked himself how he could discover whether his interpretation was “correct or mistaken.” He himself proposed a way to answer this question: (…) the best way to understand one’s own country is by comparison. Uruguayans still use comparison very sparingly. Furthermore, when they do compare, they do so by contrasting reality with ideals. (…) In order to cure oneself of exaggeration it is advisable to take one’s distance from time to time. Any distance in time and space is beneficial in order to learn about one’s own country (…): the region seen from afar and the world seen in relation to the region.
Later, Couture recreated a “journey” of reflections based on a number of notes and comments on different places in America and Europe that he had visited. At the conclusion of a lengthy itinerary, the celebrated Uruguayan jurist returned to the beginning of his book, “recalling,” as he himregard was that of the American Switzerland, but there were others: the South American France, the Athens of the River Plate, the Río de la Plata Antwerp, etc. 4 Eduardo J. Couture, La comarca y el mundo [The region and the world], Montevideo, 1953.
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self noted, “the geography of the region.” “Finally,” concluded Couture, our life is based on a square metre of land. (…) We should form an awareness of the world and work towards it; but we shall never work harder for the world than when we strive to ensure the authenticity of our own small region. (…) the more a man belongs to his own country and time, the more shall he belong to all countries and eras. In the beginning was the region. The world was bestowed in addition.
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This was 1953. Although several “cracks in the wall” (as Carlos Real de Azúa put it) were already apparent in their early welfare state, Uruguayans still had reason to dream of the “eternity” of their “American Switzerland” and their “hyperintegrated society.” The stubbornly present “transatlantic borders” continued to cloud the vision of what Luis Alberto de Herrera so rightly called an “international Uruguay.” A growing provincialism was beginning to be felt, with all of its dangers. The world was experiencing profound changes and Uruguayans—with some exceptions— seemed to be unaware of them. In any case, there were still enough inherited features and energy to postpone—if only for a short time—the tragedy which finally overwhelmed the country in the sixties and seventies. Nearly sixty years later and in view of everything we have experienced since that time, there is no doubt that provincialism is a failing that nobody can afford, either in the region or in the world. And yet this increasingly dangerous trait continues to haunt us, particularly in matters involving foreign affairs and strategies for international inclusion or its political and cultural foundations. How can we fight this provincialism, which is always harmful, but particu-
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larly so in this time of renewed and overpowering globalization? There are, in fact, no fixed formulas with which to do so. However, in any case, it appears to be advisable to accumulate comparative knowledge, solidly focused on an effectively global “world,” without “short-sightedness” of any kind, with the specific objective of providing greater connectivity for problems and approaches. In this respect, the suggestions of H.D. and Couture may be useful, although it is imperative to endow them with new meaning in order to make them genuinely contemporary. In order to reflect on scale, within and without one’s own country, it is still necessary to compare. However, the world has changed, or perhaps the West should make visible some of the “regressions” that its ethnocentric vision has obscured. At the same time, an “awareness of the world” is indispensable in order to situate one’s “region” without provincialism and constitutes a starting point which is as essential as the need for “new spectacles.” As a point of departure from which to begin delving into the “Uruguayan case” with regard to the link between “large” and “small” in the world today, the following brief series of demographic, geographic and economic data is provided as a comprehensive update of some of the comparisons suggested one hundred years ago by H.D., in order to acquire a better understanding of Uruguay. Chart 1 shows territorial and population data for the Mercosur countries, as well as for Belgium, Holland and France, to use some of the examples handled by the author of the old school book. Charts 2, 3 and 4 show comparative econom-
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ic data (exports, imports and GDP at present rates of exchange) for the same countries. An overview of these charts calls for some brief remarks: i. the geographic and demographic scale of the countries under review displays very considerable asymmetries and contrasts; ii. these asymmetries do not relate to their economic performance, particularly with regard to their flow of trade as well as, to a lesser extent, the evolution of their GDP.
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The following inferences arise from the data presented above and exemplify these two points: with barely one sixth of the territory of Uruguay (the smallest of the Mercosur countries), in 2000, Belgian exports more than doubled the exports of the entire Mercosur, and with the addition of Holland (the surface area of both these countries together is two and a half times less than Uruguay’s), this proportion was approximately 4.5 to 1. Ten years later and after the flow of trade increased very significantly in Mercosur, particularly during 2005-2010, Belgian exports are almost the same as the annual exports of the entire Mercosur, whereas if we include Holland, the ratio also decreases, but is still markedly superior, at 2.5 to 1. With regard to the evolution of GDP, despite its variations over the tenyear period under consideration, the relation has remained more or less stable at 2.5 to 1 in favour of Mercosur as a whole. Comparisons could continue to be made, but they would certainly all lead to the need for increased problemposing efforts in considering the scale of countries and how
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case…
Chart 1
Comparative population and territorial data Territory and population per country/region
Country/Region Belgium Holland France MERCOSUR Argentina Brazil Paraguay Uruguay
Population (*) (millions of inhab.) 10 827 16 785 65 821
Territory (km2) 30 528 41 526 674 843 2 766 890 8 514 877 406 752 176 215
40 091 190 732 6 349 3 494
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/. (*) This figure is estimated for 2011 in the case of Belgium and corresponds to 2011 for France. Figures for Holland are estimated for 2008. Figures for Argentina and Brazil are for 2010 and figures for Paraguay and Uruguay are estimated for 2009.
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Chart 2
Comparative economic data (2000) Exports, imports and GDP per country/region 2000 (billion US dollars)
Country/Region
Belgium Holland France MERCOSUR Argentina Brazil Paraguay Uruguay
Exports
181.4 210.3 325 26.5 55.1 3.5 2.6
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/.
Imports
166 201.2 320 25.2 55.8 3.3 3.4
GDP (current rate of exchange) 259.2 388.4 1448 476 1.130 26.2 31
Gerardo Caetano
Chart 3
Comparative economic data (2005) Exports, imports and GDP per country/region 2005 (billion US dollars)
Country/Region
Belgium Holland France MERCOSUR Argentina Brazil Paraguay Uruguay 460
Exports
Imports
255.7 293.1 419
235 252.7 419.7
GDP (current rate of exchange) 322.3 497.9 1794
33.78 95 2.94 2.2
22.06 61 3.33 2.07
543.4 1.536 29.11 33.98
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/.
Chart 4
Comparative economic data (2010) Exports, imports and GDP per country/region 2010 (billion US dollars)
Country/Region
Exports
Belgium Holland France MERCOSUR Argentina Brazil Paraguay Uruguay
279.2 451.3 508.7
281.7 408.4 577.7
GDP (current rate of exchange) 394.3 676.9 2145
68.5 199.7 7.97 6.7
56.44 187.7 9.57 8.3
596 2.172 33.31 47.99
Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/.
Imports
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case…
it reflects on the field of economics and development. In the end, and notwithstanding his simplifications, perhaps H.D. was not so far off track in the “calls” to reflection he made a century ago. 2. Patterns in the relationship between “small” Uruguay and its “giant” neighbours: change and permanence in the neighbourhood
In recent decades, the relationship between Argentina and Brazil has changed radically in terms of historical perspective, which has led to the logical consequence of significantly tipping the regional balance in the American Southern Cone. Argentina and Brazil have not yet fully grasped the various implications of their new associational relationship; neither have the remaining “border States” of the region been able to decode these repercussions from their respective viewpoints. Whereas Brazil is becoming an increasingly “global” actor, a trend which at least reshapes the level of its commitments and interests in the region, Argentina does not appear to be able to make the right moves with regard to establishing new levels of contributions and demands in this new bilateral relationship with its former rival. Although a number of different generalizations continue to be made with regard to this point, Mercosur as a whole has also failed to pinpoint accurately the impact of this new “privileged bilateralism” on its regional project. To this we should add that it is not easy to imagine in practice how this preferential Argentine-Brazilian relationship could be specifically deployed without giving rise to exclusions. In any
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case, the old equation between two competing “hegemonic States” and three “border States” which are very different, but with fairly similar stop-and-go rationales, is no longer current in the Río de la Plata basin, but it does not appear to have been replaced by any effective alternative new balance. In the following pages, we shall attempt to contribute some historical input regarding this problematical matter. We shall adopt two perspectives:
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i. in the first we shall provide some more remote background to Mercosur, related to tensions arising from the stimuli of conflict, cooperation and integration in the region; ii. in the second, and from a Uruguayan viewpoint, we describe some guidelines for analysis in order to bring into question the currency of the more “enduring” challenges with regard to an “international Uruguay” and its forms of inclusion into the region and the world. “Hegemonic States” and “border States” in the Río de la Plata Basin
Both in geographic and historical terms, the territory of the Río de la Plata basin presents a bipolar outline with two hegemonic poles—the large states of Argentina and Brazil—and a border area composed of the three “small” remaining countries (Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay). The long-standing competition for regional leadership between Argentina and Brazil was undoubtedly the foremost source
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case…
of the conflict-based paradigm that prevailed in the region until at least the eighties in the 20th century. For their part, the remaining “border” countries basically oscillated—although in different ways, as we shall see—between the two giants. The isolationist alternative was closed to them definitively after the ominous destruction of “early” Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance. Landlocked since the also reprehensible War of the Pacific, Bolivia as well as Paraguay became, in a way, geopolitical prisoners, with the resulting severe limitations arising from such a situation. Uruguay, on the other hand, given its privileged location at the mouth of the Río de la Plata estuary, was able to enjoy other opportunities for connection beyond the region, and yet its history, as we shall see, cannot be understood other than in close relation to the vicissitudes befalling the region—although with a greater degree of flexibility. Each in its different way, even including belligerent confrontations (Bolivia and Paraguay engaged in the fratricidal Chaco War between 1932 and 1935), the three smaller countries of the basin constituted a border area whose support the two “giants” of the region keenly disputed in their attempt to strengthen their respective projects and aspirations regarding leadership. In this regard, Paulo R. Schilling has rightly pointed out in one of his works: The region exhibits the following situation: two large countries, Brazil and Argentina, with unconcealed expansionist tendencies, and three small countries (geographically, demographically or economically small): Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay. The last two are landlocked
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countries without a coast: “geopolitical prisoners” (…). Their liberation essentially depends on integration. Uruguay, strategically located on the Río de la Plata basin, between the two large countries and the Atlantic Ocean, with the possibility of building a superport in La Paloma (for the ships of the future), could play a fundamental role in the future of an integrated region.5
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This duality or bipolarity constituted, and still does to a large extent, one of the keys to understanding the political vagaries of the Plata region throughout its history. As we shall see in greater detail below, most of the conflicts arising throughout the history of the region were related to the implications of this duality, particularly to the disputes generated by the struggle for leadership between the two hegemonic States and by the limited action implemented by the three border States in their attempt to seek advantages in the disputes between their two “gigantic” neighbours and thus strengthen their interests and rights—constricted by the obvious asymmetries in the region. A quick overview of these conflicts shows how their resolution, particularly over long periods when conflict was the prevailing rationale in the region, depended to a large extent on the forms of interrelation which in each case the two poles acquired:
5 Paulo R. Schilling, El expansionismo brasileño [Brazilian expansionism], Mexico, El Cid Editor, p. 133. Quotation from Eliana Zugaib, A hidrovia Paraguai-Paraná e seu significado para a diplomacia sul-americana do Brasil [The Paraguay-Parana waterway and its significance in Brazil’s South American diplomacy], Brasília, Instituto Rio Branco, 2005, p. 42.
“Small” countries and “large” countries: the case…
i. free shipping on all inland waterways, confirmed by “fire and sword” after the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-1870); ii. the progressive creation of national states in the territory of the Plata basin, with the precarious demarcation of their respective territorial boundaries;6 iii. the determination that lengthwise or cross-cutting axes should predominate, which led to the resolution of the contest regarding whether water sources (favouring Portugal first and Brazil later, after its military successes with its bandeirantes or army, from colonial times to the 19th century) or river mouth (favouring Argentina, for obvious geographic reasons) should prevail; iv. the long-standing disputes in relation to the use of the hydroelectric potential of the Plata basin; v. controversy surrounding how to handle issues such as environmental care or water resources; vi. the design of the so-called “exports corridor” and whether the landlocked countries (Bolivia and Paraguay) should face the Atlantic or the Pacific; vii. beyond the basin’s waterways, overall engineering and their geopolitical orientation between the Atlantic and the Pacific; 6 On this subject, see most particularly, Luis Alberto Moniz Bandeira, Argentina, Brasil y Estados Unidos. De la Triple Alianza al MERCOSUR [Argentina, Brazil and the United States. From the Triple Alliance to Mercosur], Buenos Aires, Editorial Norma, 2004; and by the same author, La formación de los Estados en la Cuenca del Plata. Argentina, Brasil, Uruguay, Paraguay [The formation of the States of the Plata Basin. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay], Buenos Aires, Editorial Norma, 2006.
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viii. the most recent controversy regarding the possibility of promoting energy exploitation and connectivity projects through oil and natural gas, as well as involvement (mainly on the part of Brazil) in the generation of biofuel or alternative forms of energy. There are many others that we could mention.
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Upon close observation, underlying all of these points of conflict is the historical dispute between the supremacist aspirations of Argentina and Brazil (preceded by their colonial predecessors, the American empires of Spain and Portugal). At the same time, however, the resolution of each of these matters also depended on how the “large countries” interacted with the “small countries” of the region. This interaction sometimes took on the belligerent stance of military conquest, as in the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay, in which Mitre’s Argentina and Pedro II’s Brazilian Empire acted in unison, with Uruguay playing a bit part, or when Brazil acted on its own with very specific objectives, such as the capture of the sources of the three great rivers (Parana, Paraguay and Uruguay), which constitute the three great waterway systems of the basin. At other times, such as during the 19301980 period, which many authors agree in describing as the “geopolitical era,” instruments for action were implemented through diplomatic initiatives or bilateral negotiations, mainly involving the hydroelectric exploitation of the international rivers. During this latter stage, the conflict between the hegemonic states was translated into tension between bilaterality versus multilaterality. For many
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reasons, which range from the geographical to the political and historical, Brazil clearly tended to prefer and defend the first strategy, whereas Argentina, much less successfully (as well as with less strategic planning), attempted to resist the encroachments of the northern giant by upholding the principles of a multilateral position. The resolution of this latest cause of tension was also closely linked to the attitude assumed, on the whole separately, despite the ineffective URUPABOL initiative, by the three border states we have mentioned. The border states, the three “small” states of the Plata basin, did not, however, experience or handle their common situation in the same way. In the first place, it was not possible for them to do so for both geographic and historical reasons. Bolivia, landlocked since 1870, could be considered to be “the least interested country in the Plata basin”,7 particularly—as we shall shortly see—owing to the lack of attention and to the burdensome alternatives offered to the country by the region’s “giants,” especially Argentina, with regard to strengthening its interests in the area of the Río de la Plata. For its part, as Bernardo Quagliotti de Bellis rightly pointed out, the “voice of history” imposed on Paraguay and Uruguay 7 Luis Dallanegra Pedraza, Situación energética argentina y la Cuenca del Plata [The Energy Situation in Argentina and the Plata Basin], in Luis Dallanegra Pedraza (coord. and comp.), Los países del Atlántico Sur. Geopolítica de la Cuenca del Plata [The countries of the South Atlantic. The geopolitics of the Plata Basin], Buenos Aires, Editorial Pleamar, 1983, p. 20.
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very different—almost antagonistic—forms of acting in their nature as border countries. Different structures and historical functions would consolidate in Paraguay its condition as a “march” area, a besieged and upright bastion of closed borders, and, in Uruguay, the natural extension of the Banda, land of its own land, a dynamic world of relationships in the gaucho area, an open border.8
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In addition, these different forms of living and acting based on their status as border states were also related to their structural as well as circumstantial positioning with regard to Argentina and Brazil, which without a doubt was a highly conditioning factor in their initiatives and projects. In this respect and in relation to the Montevideo he well knew, Juan Bautista Alberdi had said prophetically in the first half of the 20th century: Montevideo’s geographical location leads to a twofold sin, which is to be necessary to the integrity of Brazil and the integrity of Argentina. Both states need it in order to complement themselves. Why is this? Because on the shores of the tributaries of the Río de la Plata, to which Uruguay is the principal key, are located the most beautiful of the Argentine provinces. As a result, Brazil cannot govern its own river provinces without the Banda Oriental; nor can Buenos Aires rule over the Argentine river provinces without the cooperation of that same Banda Oriental.9
This latter element of community and diversity makes it necessary to examine the political trends which each of the three border states developed separately in geopoliti8 Bernardo Quagliotti de Bellis, Uruguay en la Cuenca del Plata [Uruguay in the Plata Basin], in Luis Dallanegra Pedraza (coord. and comp.), Los países del Atlántico Sur… etc., op. cit., p. 175. 9 Ibid., p. 179.
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cal terms. In the case of Paraguay, as Eliana Zugaib rightly notes, after the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance, and once the country was able to recover slightly, it sought to alternate between Brazil and Argentina in search of better conditions for the development of its national interests. In geopolitical terms, Paraguay was particularly significant for Argentina, as the country was in possession of the key to the consolidation of the basin’s longitudinal north-south axis. However, owing to various circumstances, among which the absence of specific policies and plans on the part of Argentina’s rulers should be underscored, Paraguay eventually opted to throw in its lot with Brazil. In the case of Bolivia, after its defeat in the Pacific War in 1870, in which Chile wrested from Bolivia its access to the sea, and beyond the fact that this core historical claim became henceforth the principal focus of its foreign policy, it also incorporated on several occasions a fluctuating rationale, which, however, differed from that implemented by Paraguay. Bolivia did not—as Paraguay did—enjoy the status of key country and final decision-maker with regard to which axis (north-south or east-west) would prevail in the Southern Cone region, and at the same time, lacked the hydroelectric resources that allowed Paraguay to negotiate—in very limited terms, it is true—with regard to the vast works it shares with the “greats” of the region. All of this made Bolivia extremely dependent on Brazil and Argentina. Brazil held the key to the high reaches of the Paraguay River, through which Paraguay could project its pro-
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duction towards the Parana-Plata system. The northern giant continued to have the final say, with regard not only to the high plateau country (Bolivia), but also to Paraguay, as it held sway over the access of both countries to these river courses. A further alternative for Bolivia to gain access to the Atlantic was through the Santos-Arica railway, which reinforced Brazil’s power. Other ways out to the Atlantic through Argentine territory were very expensive and Argentina failed to adopt a generous stance in this respect, limiting itself to granting Bolivia merely two free-trade zones in its ports. In the case of Uruguay, it should be said, first of all, that throughout its history, its most significant feature has been precisely that of being a border country. The circumstances that led to its territory becoming first a boundary area between Portuguese and Spanish dominions in the region and then a “buffer state” (“a piece of cotton-wool between two pieces of glass,” as it has more than once been described) between the “two greats,” persistently imposed upon the country an oscillating role. However, very quickly, as we shall see, by virtue of its privileged geographic location at the mouth of the Río de la Plata and despite the prolonged absence of an oceanic port on the coast of Rocha (which for 150 years has been referred to as a strategic key), which without a doubt would have given Uruguay many more geopolitical and commercial alternatives with which to confront Brazil, the country was often able to fulfil a central role as a factor in the regional balance. As Luis Dallanegra Pedraza rightly indicates:
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The role of Uruguay comes across as that of an essential area with which to maintain the “balance” of the harmonious integration of the Plata basin. To this end, the first step should tend towards the organization of its internal areas, according to established priorities and in keeping with its possibilities and socio-political and economic interests. Plans for Uruguayan reality should be based on the geopolitical possibilities of its space, seeking coincidences with other external processes of socio-economic transformation; this will provide the country with strategic security. Uruguay is obliged to implement its calling for a dynamic international policy in the region, and, internally, to achieve a coherent territorial structure with planned socio-economic development.10
In short, despite persisting, and in some cases, irreversible asymmetries between the hegemonic poles of the South American “giants” and the “small” countries of the Plata basin border areas, these smaller countries have played, and continue to play, an essential role in the destiny of the region. With them or against them, even in unison, historical perspective appears to indicate that the two “greats” cannot resolve their conflicts and much less provide the region with governance, with the many implications this involves. An “international Uruguay” as an historical challenge
We can state, without fear of contradiction or exaggeration, that Uruguay is a country that has been obsessed with the “outside” world and region throughout its history. It will be difficult to contradict this perception if we observe the course taken by its social history, if we note the 10 Luis Dallanegra Pedraza, Situación energética argentina y la Cuenca del Plata [The energy situation in Argentina and the Plata Basin], in Luis Dallanegra Pedraza (coord. and comp.), Los países del Atlántico Sur… etc., op. cit., p. 9.
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evolution of its demographic organization in the process of constructing its culture, in its collective forms of addressing politics or debates taking place in the world. As Francisco Panizza has said, the “outside” world has always embodied, for Uruguayans, an “integral image” and a “constituent regard.” The world and the region, in fact, have repeatedly represented a comparative point of reference, but have also been conceived and perceived collectively as a place from which we are “regarded” and therefore, from which we are “constituted.” As it has so often and rightly been said, Uruguay is international or it fails to be; its incorporation into the world and the region is an essential part of its national identity.11 In short, historically speaking, Uruguayans’ “inside” has been very much infiltrated by the outside, a situation in which boundaries between one dimension and the other have often been blurred. Between the last colonial period and the wars of independence, Uruguayan territory experienced a great deal of tension involving the dilemmas of autonomization or integration with regard to the region. The outcome of the revolution, whereby Uruguay became an independent state, failed to resolve this tension, a fact which was fully confirmed over subsequent decades. This conflict, which could be described as an integral part of the collective adventure of Uruguayans, has launched and continues to launch a variety of dilemmas 11 Dr. Luis Alberto de Herrera referred to this concept in the title of one of his most influential doctrinal works. Cf. Luis Alberto de Herrera, El Uruguay internacional [International Uruguay], Paris, Bernard Grasset, Éditeur, 1912.
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and discussions, which constitute the origin of a number of hypotheses that have given rise to principles regulating national foreign policy throughout the country’s history. The first of these is related to the close link between the assertion of national independence and the unrestricted defence of International Law, as a standard of coexistence between states. In 1863, Juan José de Herrera, who was at the time minister for foreign affairs in the government of Bernardo Berro, stated firmly in the instructions he gave to Octavio Lapido for his mission as minister plenipotentiary to Paraguay, on the eve of a particularly ominous occasion: International Law, under the safeguard (…) of which resides the sovereignty and independence of Paraguay and Uruguay, authorizes and legitimizes a mutually protective association between nations which makes up for the weakness of each in isolation. (…) The balance of power preserves the peace because it inspires the fear of war. Uruguay and Paraguay should seek this. (…) Peace is the lifeblood of the republic; domestic peace, external peace; but for the republic, peace is freedom, independence, the fullness of its sovereignty (…).12
Barely two years later, and with the fratricidal war already installed in the region, in his Inaugural Address to the International Law Class at the University of the Republic, Alejandro Magariños Cervantes felt able to confirm this critical definition even more forcefully: As weak as we are, we have no other stronghold than international law; might may decimate us with impunity, bombs may devastate our cities, extortion may exhaust our treasury; but if reason is on our side, 12 Quotation from Héctor Gros Espiell, Uruguay: el equilibrio en las relaciones internacionales [Uruguay: the balance in international relations], Montevideo, Instituto Manuel Oribe-Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1995, p. 56 and ff.
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if we can confront the abuse of strength with a principle of international law which has been infringed, the honour of the nation will remain intact and righteous history will take it upon itself to mark upon the forehead of the aggressor, however powerful, the enduring seal of infamy. For this reason, the weak should not prevail upon their feebleness in order to commit acts that natural law condemns, nor should the strong violate the rights of those who cannot resist them.13
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However, in its practical rendition in the direction of the country’s foreign policy, this standard, which we of necessity share, regarding the urge to seek a prudent balance and unrestricted adherence to the regulations of International Law, gave rise to heated debate between the political parties. The Colorado [Red] party in general and Batllismo (the political followers of José Batlle y Ordóñez) in particular preferred to defend (and even protagonistically promote) universal values and principles pertaining to a new cosmopolitan order, based on a firmly Western and PanAmerican conception. For its part, most of the Nacional or Blanco [White] party14 and Herrerismo (the political followers of Luis Alberto de Herrera) in particular opted instead for a more nationalistic and Latin American viewpoint, looking askance at any notion related to “supra-national” regulation and direct involvement with the struggle for leadership of the world’s most powerful countries. As a noted example of the first position, we could refer to 13 Inaugural Address by Alejandro Magariños Cervantes to his International Law Class, in 1865, Revista Nacional, n. 57, July 1938, p. 123 and ff. 14 “Independent nationalism,” strongly antagonistic to Herrera’s movement on many issues, was often closer to Batlle’s ideas in subjects related to international policy. The so-called “Rodríguez Larreta Doctrine” constitutes a paradigmatic example in this regard.
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the proposal upheld by José Batlle y Ordóñez on the occasion of the 2nd International Hague Peace Conference held in 1907, which enshrined the mandatory and unrestricted nature of arbitration for the peaceful resolution of international differences; a truly radical formula that even provided for the use of force in order to compel heedless states. With regard to the second alternative, paradigmatic examples are the militant positions adopted by Luis Alberto de Herrera and Eduardo Víctor Haedo in 1940 and in 1944, against the proposed installation of North American military bases on Uruguayan soil, as well as their repeated appeals to the unrenounceable defence of the principles of self-determination and non-intervention, in the face of the frequent abuses, interference and invasions conducted by the great powers, particularly the USA in Latin America. However, beyond the radical nature of these discrepancies in relation to foreign policy, even at times based on these very differences and on their echoing and conflictive dynamics, the country gradually began to shape the need to achieve—not always successfully—a “state policy,” or at least a “national convergence” in this decisive area. This implied negotiations for joint action, or at least coordinated action in relation to the key challenges of international inclusion, in the face of which a country such as Uruguay needed to put firm and cohesive initiatives in place. Between Herrera’s persistent conviction regarding the imperative need for Uruguay to avoid being the “Gibraltar of the Río de la Plata” and Luis Batlle’s proud claim of selling “everything except our souls” to the People’s Republic of Chi-
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na, during the Cold War’s McCarthy era of the fifties, the direction was fixed for the affirmation of this new principle of foreign policy. It was not by chance that it was possible to fully achieve the positioning of this principle at the auspicious time of democratic recovery, after the opprobrium of the civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985)—which had its own special chapter in the area of foreign policy. Enrique Iglesias, foreign minister at the time, in a speech addressing all of the ministry’s officials on 25 March 1985, said that,
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(…) we should resolve to achieve a genuine national policy as our main objective: the country should have, in its foreign relationships, a “national foreign policy.” I believe that this is important for countries of our size; small countries such as ours should seek to maintain a foreign policy which is shared as far as possible by public opinion and the political powers. (…) When we are here, we are Foreign Service officers representing the Uruguayan nation: we are neither “blancos” nor “colorados,” nor “frenteamplistas,” nor “cívicos” [political parties]. We are citizens who must defend the country’s prestige (…).15
A further key focal point in the international projection of Uruguayan identity is related to the priority destinations and trajectories of the country’s fundamental stimulus in terms of foreign inclusion. In this context, and in relation to this point, a debate has emerged more than once—often not very well presented in simplistic terms involving a dilemma—regarding the privileged association with our 15 Enrique Iglesias, “La Cancillería y el perfil internacional de la República” [The ministry of foreign affairs and the Republic’s international profile], in Política exterior del Uruguay. Marzo de 1985-abril de 1986. Discursos pronunciados por el señor Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores Dn. Enrique V. Iglesias [Uruguay’s foreign policy. March 1985 — April 1986. The speeches of Enrique V. Iglesias, Minister of Foreign Affairs], Montevideo, MRREE-IASE, 1986.
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neighbours in the region, or the preferred connection with the more developed nations of the north-western world. As Alberto Methol Ferré would say, the controversy between the “continental borders” and the “transatlantic borders.” In this respect, the concept of “entering the world by disregarding our neighbours” has been proposed (and is still proposed) more than once in the history of several of the countries in the region. The belief that it would be more expedient for our countries to have “rich and distant friends rather than poor siblings close at hand” has constituted a formula that has found a significant number of supporters in various countries and moments in regional history. The reduced and therefore insufficient domestic market reinforces a further premise with which to consider the problem of economic and commercial integration with the region and the world: Uruguay is forced to aim its economy in the primary—but not exclusive—direction of exports, depending increasingly on its competitive inclusion in regional and global markets. In economic terms, the “inside” cannot become a dominant factor in the dynamization of the economy; necessary communication with the “outside” also becomes inevitable in this area. According to the same perspective, Uruguay’s integrationist disposition cannot be harmonized with an integrationist philosophy that conceives the bloc as an isolated and “self-sufficient zone” (neither can that of Paraguay or Bolivia). In the models it uses for the commercialization of its products, Uruguay has always aimed at “open regionalism,” conceived as an instrument with which to fight as a bloc with its neighbours in search of more and better markets. This proposition, which
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at other times in history might have been brought into question from a variety of perspectives, now achieves a certain level of consensus in the most widely differing camps, which does not, however, preclude the persistence of relevant and responsible debate in this area. Nobody disputes the country’s exporting disposition; what does need to be discussed and looked at from different angles—and in this regard, there are many recent examples, such as the 2006 debate surrounding the possible signature of a Free Trade Agreement between Uruguay and the USA16 —is “how” to achieve integration within the world and the region. A consideration of Uruguay’s demographic evolution also shows a trend towards establishing permanent links between “inside” and “outside.” Uruguayan society has operated to a large extent as an alluvial society, which was formed as foreigners kept arriving. This was the primary defining factor in the country’s social evolution during the 19th century and part of the 20th. For many decades, and particularly most recently, Uruguay has become a country of emigration, with the emergence of a very significant “diaspora,” both in quantitative and in qualitative terms. One of the centres for the establishment of its emigrants is within the region, mainly in the closer provinces and states of Argentina and Brazil, respectively. This is not only demo-
16 On this subject, cf. Roberto Porzecanski, No voy en tren. Uruguay y las perspectivas de un TLC con Estados Unidos (2000-2010) [No plain sailing. Uruguay and the Outlook for a FTA with the United States (20002010)], Montevideo, Sudamericana Debate, 2010, 262 p.
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graphic fact; it has become a central reference of our national culture and identity. Notwithstanding the different models in conflict with each other, the different circumstances through which Uruguay has ventured in the last 50 years appear to strengthen the conviction that with regard to policies for integration with the region and the world, the nation’s fortunes have prospered to a far greater extent with the adoption of pluralistic programmes than with dogmatic undertakings. As a small country submitted, additionally, to the pressure of two gigantic neighbours, Uruguay experienced its best moments when it was able to project itself as a dynamic factor of balance and intermediation between Argentina and Brazil, when it attempted flexible and logical forms of entering regional and global markets and when it set in motion pragmatic development plans combining a variety of undertakings and strategies. At the same time, the country was also able, on occasion, to take advantage of certain favourable international circumstances. However, the history of this last half century is also prodigal in adverse examples and in a lack of daring and ingenuity in promoting revitalizing strategies in these areas. More than once— and this certainly constitutes a useful warning—the country “took a nap” when all was going well, in an attitude of “bovine euphoria,” as Carlos Quijano put it. Much of this became particularly clear when the world of the second post-war period became fully visible in the mid-fifties. At that time, Uruguayans as well as many other peoples of the region, suddenly noticed that the world
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had changed radically in terms of the perspective of Latin American interests and that in keeping with this, the mere repetition of the traditional old import substitution model had become untenable, particularly with regard to established forms of international inclusion. In recent decades, and together with the consolidation of many of the processes and events described above, the contexts framing debate regarding the country’s international inclusion strategies have changed dramatically. The uncontainable advance of globalization is linked to a visible shift in the balance of world power, in which the Asian Pacific area—particularly China—has become the main galvanizing factor; the developed countries face often unprecedented challenges, while the new emerging countries— including Brazil—begin to make their presence felt in the new international (dis)order. With multilateral scenarios in question, the process of bloc integration facing hazardous prospects and a new framework for the renewed discussion of regulations and standards in international trade and finance, world governance displays uncertainties that are as radical as they are demanding. Twenty-one years after the signature, on 26 March 1991, of the Treaty of Asunción, which formally launched Mercosur, the worldwide escalation of what has been called a new “archipelago world order” still persists as an inevitable reference point to explain many of the vagaries of this period of globalization. Will it be enough to “latch on to Brazil’s stirrup”—an expression Uruguayan president José Mujica recently coined—in the midst of these conditions,
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which are as uncertain as they are challenging? How can a “shared sovereignty” be implemented within Mercosur (or Unasur), and then from that position, strengthen national independence as the indispensable mainstay of development? How can a competitive and less vulnerable international inclusion best be sought in such an unpredictable and demanding world? Are there any genuinely practicable shortcuts through which to establish more direct links to the most dynamic economic global centres? In short, what kind of an international Uruguay can we imagine for the next ten and twenty years? Some of the unavoidable challenges facing Uruguayan foreign policy
Whilst acknowledging the particularly demanding conditions involved in the design and implementation of foreign policy in a country such as Uruguay, it is of the first importance to determine some of the focal points that should be carefully considered in this regard. We shall now summarize seven of these points, from an indubitably longer list, which in more than one way include aspects that are common to other countries in the continent: a) The establishment of foreign policy in a country such as Uruguay must respond comprehensively and capably to a harmonized number of variables. In this respect, whereas some of the factors described below have always been on the agenda in relation to the establishment of foreign policy, it will soon be noted that providing a broad response to them within the framework of the
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comprehensive design of public policy implies, in the present context, an unprecedented challenge. By way of providing a short review, some of these unavoidable factors are: the identification and harmonization of interests and options considered to be a priority; the selection of the most appropriate procedures with which to achieve objectives; the adoption, notwithstanding any short-term exigencies, of mid and long-term visions and strategies, on the basis, obviously, of the severe limitations the country faces when addressing action of this nature realistically; the establishment of settings favourable to reaching agreements, commitments and cooperation between stakeholders and institutions, both internally and externally; the adjustment of criteria and guidelines for the achievement of a high level of internal and external legitimacy for the policies deployed; the clear allocation of decision-making responsibilities in all matters concerning foreign policy, which implies being clear when explaining the chosen decision model, as well being firm and coherent in the implementation of a policy with a capacity for anticipation and coordination which—inasmuch as it constitutes a genuine focal point for a development model—cross-cuts other public policies. b) Upholding and preserving an essentially political dimension in the final establishment of foreign policy and the strategies for international inclusion which are a priority for the state. Beyond the fact that the state should by no means be considered the only stakeholder in the deployment of a national strategy for international re-
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installation, there is no doubt that it should have a leading role in this area—in agreement with and submitted to the pressure of other public and private stakeholders. In this respect, notwithstanding the strong influence of geographic, historical, economic and circumstantial factors, when establishing the courses, strategies and procedures involved in foreign policy decisions, the primacy of the political factor in defining these actions should never be lost sight of. A comparative understanding of how the great chancelleries of the world act today tends to confirm the supremacy of politics even more vigorously, in opposition to visions involving circumstance, economics or history. c) Owing to an infinite number of reasons arising from its history, its geography, the profiles of its society; now as much as yesterday, and certainly tomorrow, Uruguay is international or it fails to be. There is no room for a self-absorbed, inward-looking Uruguay, closed to the world and with pretensions of self-sufficiency. On the basis of this fundamental definition, the main question resides in taking note (consciously, with a great deal of expert information and making an accurate and anticipatory political assessment) of the challenges as well as of the cost of what it means today to “be in the world,” to assume a dynamic and successful profile of international inclusion. This implies adopting a “world vision” which is in keeping with current demands, an appropriate and intelligent design regarding how best to adopt an approach to the world as the foreign policy stage for a country with Uruguay’s
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characteristics (how to look at the world, from what angle, with whom to share data arising from this examination in a privileged manner, etc.). d) In terms of choosing the content of and defining foreign policy strategies, there is no doubt that the country, as has often been said, “must play well and on all fields,” which certainly does not inhibit, but rather supports its preferential choice to base the focus of its action within and from the region. The country should deploy actions and initiatives in bilateral settings (with Argentina and Brazil, but also with the USA, Russia, China, or India), in the region (with the priority of being a generator and a factor in the balance of power of Mercosur, Unasur, the forgotten Plata basin and the broader stage—notwithstanding its complexities—of Latin America), in multilateral settings (seeking to strengthen its voice, of necessity grouped in a bloc with neighbouring countries in programmatic terms, in forums such as the WTO or within the United Nations system). Making good use of opportunities, but with mid and long-term strategies in order to avoid circumstantial mirages, the country should develop strategies on all of those stages, but always—we repeat—within the region and never against it, seeking the flexibility of the concept of a genuinely “open regionalism,” favouring the regional bloc as the best tool with which to fight for an improved international inclusion in the vastness of its objectives and scope. In this respect, Uruguay has no use for just any kind of Mercosur. For example, it has no use for a Mercosur which
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restricts industrial development to Argentina and Brazil, which does not consistently address the matter of “asymmetry” between its party states, which is supposed to be only a “broadened zone for import substitution” and fails to take proactive action in the face of third countries or blocs, within the context of a common and vigorous external agenda. Neither, as we shall see, does Uruguay have any use for a Unasur which sees itself as an alternative rather than a complement to Mercosur, in a more flexible and confined integrationist format, which deprives of any meaning the historical undertaking of the Treaty of Asunción of March 1991. Even less has it any use for an unlimited openness which seeks to “do without the neighbourhood” (as if this were possible or desirable) or to adulterate to hollow extremes its membership in regional blocs, in order to link its fortunes (economic and commercial, but also political) to the dubious “benevolence” and “good neighbourliness” of the powerful nations, “wealthy and distant,” as described by a minister of finance who was essential to the evolution of economic policy during the Uruguayan dictatorship. e) Far from any dogmatic—explicit or concealed— vision or action, the definition and implementation of Uruguayan foreign policy should be able to achieve a sensible combination of pragmatism and principles, avoiding the fruitless presentation of false dichotomies between these two general approaches. Insistent rhetoric suggesting that countries only have “permanent interests”
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tends to conceal, beyond its homespun utilitarianism, that the consideration of certain interests (generally economic and commercial) preponderates in decision-making, to the detriment of other, equally significant interests, which should be addressed complementarily (involving policy or International Law). In its heyday, Uruguay was able to build a healthy international reputation on its defence of international values, its unbending espousal of principles such as the promotion of international peace, the self-determination of all peoples and non-intervention, its fulfilment of its international obligations, its upright rejection of aggressive bids for supremacy or perverse doctrines such as “preventive war,” or persistent “negationism” in the face of heinous genocide (such as the Holocaust or that perpetrated against the Armenian population by the Turkish state in the early 20th century). The “lengthiness” of history, even in a country with a brief history, such as Uruguay, is conclusive proof that the application of a healthy pragmatism does not collide with the unrenounceable defence of principles which have contributed—and continue to do so—to the country’s positive international image. This is a resource which was built up with a great deal of effort and which even today constitutes a fundamental asset for our foreign policy. f) The establishment and implementation of foreign policy must clearly express the image of a government and a state acting in a united, coherent and comprehensive manner. It should eschew rigid postures and adopt the
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flexibility imposed by the fast-moving contemporary international stage. In the present context, foreign policy actions tainted with dispersal when the time comes to implement them, both in decision-making centres and in key stakeholders, can lead to a great many risks. The existence of ministerial supremacy or controlling positions unrelated to the chancellery, which can indirectly constitute alternative generators and centres for decision-making and action in foreign policy matters is not advisable. This kind of dispersal is counterproductive, not only for the coherence of the foreign ministry’s external image, but also in achieving effective outcomes in fields such as the promotion of foreign trade, cooperation and the development of innovation in science and technology in coordination with the more developed international networks, or taking advantage of the hundreds of thousands of countrymen and women who constitute the “pilgrim homeland” of the extensive “Uruguayan diaspora” in order to use them as “proactive antennae.” This defence of unity and comprehensiveness in the definition and implementation of foreign policy strategies should not be confused with any pretensions to an equally rigid and excluding monopoly on the part of the chancellery. It does, however, involve harmonizing networkbased actions and projecting them coherently both abroad and with regard to their internal signals at the heart of government and of society itself. We should not forget—now more than ever—that the foreign policy of a country such as Uruguay constitutes a fundamental transmitter of all of its sustainable development strategies and that, therefore, its
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undertakings should be in keeping with an accumulation of focal points which are granted equal priority internally. g) In this “information society” era, an “intelligent chancellery,” endowed with a new style of diplomacy, a renovated management system and the ongoing training of personnel devoted to the foreign service is more necessary than ever. The skills and capacity demanded of diplomatic staff have changed and are changing constantly in this new context. The country lacks a critical mass and sufficient personnel specializing in many of the subjects emerging on the international scene (intellectual property, environmental standards, cooperation models, external market prospecting and penetration, new international negotiation skills, human rights, etc.). It is imperative to renovate and in some cases, to promote and establish very significant innovations in ongoing education and training systems for diplomatic personnel, with the consolidation of a Diplomatic Academy which meets the demands of the new context. In our view, in its present organizational format, the chancellery itself is in need of major structural changes, in order to achieve a more efficient internal structure that is more in keeping with the new requirements of the state reform which is under way. At the same time, it is necessary to continue along the path already initiated with regard to underpinning the professionalization and standing of the diplomatic career, with clear and universal rules which provide a guarantee for transparency and do away with, once and for all, any temptation towards cronyism and/or favouritism of any kind.
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3. Uruguay and its region: the South American perspective
Changes in the perspective of Uruguay with regard to Argentina and Brazil As we have seen, figures indicating a protracted trend revealed the consolidation of the progress of Brazil and the regression of Argentina in the dispute for the supremacy of the Río de la Plata region. Whereas Argentina defended the valid principles of multilateralism and regionalism in its handling of the basin, Brazil responded in accordance with its old developmental tradition, deploying huge efforts on construction works, without neglecting the diplomatic front. Towards the late eighties, while Brazil was able to boast of full or bilateral participation in 35 hydroelectric plants in the Plata basin area, Argentina could only lay claim to Salto Grande, shared with Uruguay. The very dissimilar evolution of their respective GDPs throughout the 20th century was an indication of, among other things, a very unequal use of the resources of the basin. Brazil’s leadership had already been acknowledged by the USA, a country with which Brazil had developed a policy of rapprochement since World War II, in strong contrast to Argentina, which under Perón promoted a position first of neutrality and then of non-alignment. Furthermore, after the dramatic events the country underwent during the 2001 and 2002 crisis, Argentina has experienced objective difficulties in consolidating a genuinely consistent foreign policy, which would make a stable course workable in its strategies for international inclusion.
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The harsh consequences of the economic and financial crisis which the country had to face, the no less traumatic legacy of a society which was severely impoverished and violated for many years, as well as the demands of redesigning the national rationale of political accumulation (within a heavily disengaged and confrontational framework) imposed for a long time on Argentina’s agenda an unmistakable predominance of local issues over the requirements of the regional and international scenes. In addition, responses and initiatives were very often the result of calculations, visions and sometimes impositions arising from internal problems, which were given clear preference over strategies designed and planned specifically for the external and, particularly, the regional area. This strong preponderance of local policy options over foreign policy, particularly in regional matters, certainly did not contribute to fully overcoming the isolation stemming from the effects of the crisis of 2001 and 2002. All of which appears to have also been a factor in the response to the demands of the new cooperative paradigm in the bilateralism with Brazil. As we have already noted, all of these processes have also led to radical changes in the traditional patterns of Uruguay’s relationship with its two big neighbours. However, the efforts deployed in that direction by the Uruguayan state have not been entirely successful in providing a firm response to the new contexts. Although it does appear to be beyond dispute that the traditional stop-and-go rationale or the country’s role as a principal element in the regional balance of power no longer provides sufficient and even pos-
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sible answers, the alternatives which have been attempted have not been clear. Whereas it has again been made apparent that a Mercosur without Uruguay is not plausible, it has also been confirmed that the country cannot afford to enter simultaneously into disputes with its two huge neighbours. The old-style “sovereignty” solutions, as well as the “temptations to escape” in the direction of privileged association fantasies with the great powers have again—as we have seen—begun to appear in recent years, with encouragement and support from unexpected quarters. As in the case of Argentina, where the weight of challenging domestic agendas restricts regional and foreign policy alternatives, similar phenomena (although perhaps not quite as “burdensome”) are observed in all of the countries of the region. In the context of impoverished and very fragmentary societies, it is increasingly difficult to achieve stable strategies with an effectively regional projection, particularly for governments hounded by local demands and whose legitimacy and “electoral value” is determined according to the wishes of national electorates. These circumstances should focus attention on the need to address and anticipate—also regionally—the effects of a possible evolution of these phenomena and the need to coordinate loosely converging policies at the level of the region’s governments. Such an undertaking could, in this respect, target objectives such as the design of networks for regional cohesion and integration for skilful and cooperative intercommunication between neighbouring societies, partic-
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ularly in frontier areas, which should become genuine laboratories for shared social development. Without by any means resorting to the mistaken course of criminalizing social protest, we should note the emergence in the countries of the region, and particularly in the border areas, of the so-called “intense groups,” which tend to summarily identify their claims (often unique and exclusive) with their own identity and are therefore not much given to negotiation. Their actions frequently tend to overrun national boundaries in order to acquire regional projection and should focus the attention of governments on the need to strengthen joint reflection on how to respond in coordination and with a rights-based approach to these new realities. To express it effectively and from an analytical perspective with genuine historical density, our “perimeter” areas should be integrated in order to achieve their full development, both economic and social. As comparative experience shows, the challenges of frontier policies often determine the future of regional integration projects. The geopolitical shift which has backed the strengthening of Brazil’s leadership in the region, added to the strong consolidation of its international role as an emerging country in the BRICS group, constitute processes which from more than one perspective set the stage for the practical complementarity of integration processes of different kinds, such as Mercosur and Unasur. From the southern limits of the border with the South American giant, the per-
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spective of a country with the characteristics of Uruguay appears to aim in that direction. Uruguay and Brazil, Mercosur and Unasur
The concept that for Uruguay, as for most South American countries, Brazil is a decisive country and partner in terms of foreign policy and strategies for international inclusion seems to be plausible. In addition, Brazil’s strategic interest in establishing a South American strategy mainly, although not exclusively, through Unasur is not new. In a recent interview in Página 12, a Buenos Aires newspaper, the current High Representative of Mercosur and a distinguished figure in the recent history of Itamaraty, Ambassador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, summarized several of the reasons for this approach very precisely: Brazil has a very strong interest in the development of the whole region, despite existing asymmetries between the different countries. Brazil is not an empire; it has no wish to become one and does not want to repeat the errors made by empires. On the contrary. It believes in association, in cooperation, in the reformation of an international system which is characterized, in my view, by the coexistence of central powers and former colonies, such as us. (…) We have many neighbours. Without counting the United States, who believe they have 191 neighbours, we come after China and Russia. They have 14. We have 10. With such a large number of neighbours, it is advisable that they be stable, in good shape and at peace. One does not want turbulent and poor neighbours. (…) We did not want ALCA, in 2005, not only for commercial reasons. ALCA was a full economic policy, covering trade, investment, business and intellectual property. (…) Unasur is (also) a way of keeping close to us countries that have opted for other policies in commercial terms. It is a good thing that we are all a part of the South American Defence Council. I become suspicious when I hear people advise us not to worry about our defence, that someone else will take care of it. We are peace-loving, but there is no rea-
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son for us to disarm when others have weapons and develop them and when we know that the military industry is a key to technological development. 17
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As Pinheiro Guimarães points out, geography, or rather, geopolitics, constitutes the first factor linking Brazil to the perspective of South American integration. Brazil has borders with ten of the twelve South American countries, all except Ecuador and Chile. This was already the guiding line for Brazil’s foreign policy from the time of the Baron of Rio Branco and even earlier. In addition, political, economic and security issues converge to reaffirm the stimulus of Brazil towards a South American bloc. Any concept involving the perspective of Brazil’s regional establishment swiftly converges towards the South American idea. Decisive issues for the South American giant, such as the security of its borders, the consolidation of its influence in strategic areas such as the Amazon and the Plata basins, the planning of infrastructure projects which have become indispensable, such as bi-oceanic corridors communicating the Atlantic and the Pacific, its energy equation and many others, are all factors which propel Brazil strongly in the same direction. On the basis of arguments such as those proposed by Pinheiro Guimarães, and together with other countries of the subcontinent, Uruguay may find many reasons to en17 Cf. Página 12, Buenos Aires, 10 May 2011. By Martín Granovsky. Samuel Pinheiro Guimaraes, número uno del Mercosur. “Brasil no quiere repetir los errores de los imperios” [Samuel Pinheiro Guimaraes, Mercosur Number One. “Brazil has no wish to repeat the errors of empires”].
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dorse this South American integration project, with its specific limitations and scope. However, there are a number of conditions, mainly aimed at Brazil, which it is important to fulfil in order to consolidate this undertaking as a vector of Uruguayan foreign policy. In the first place, South American integration in general, and the Unasur project in particular, should be complementary and not alternatives to Mercosur. Unasur may promote integration formats which are less far-reaching than those of Mercosur. It may be an area for political agreement to guarantee peace and democratic stability in the continent. It could be an ideal stage for the convergence of regional public policies on particularly strategic issues such as energy and the environment, infrastructure and physical integration, migration and others. It could also be a major political forum, in which the convergence is facilitated of common positions among South American countries in multilateral organizations, as well as to establish contingency agreements in the face of threatening international circumstances.18 What it cannot be, however, is a “customs union,” as—despite the pessimism generated by the continuing delays and rifts—Mercosur can certainly be, inasmuch as it constitutes an integrated area of development and a common external agenda bloc, capable of participating in commercial negotiations with regional countries and stakeholders outside the area. 18 Recent meetings of ministers of economics and presidents of the Central Banks of the South American countries with the purpose of coordinating basic consensus in the face of the vagaries of the international crisis are a good example.
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A widespread concern among some South American analysts is that Brazilian investment in Unasur may eventually, as we have pointed out, flexibilize Mercosur to the point of futility, as regards its more ambitious objectives, such as, particularly, the concept of a “customs union.” Pinheiro Guimarães was very clear in his vigorous rejection of this hypothesis. His position as High Representative of Mercosur constitutes a persuasive factor in this regard. Notwithstanding the strength of his convictions, however, the “customs union” project requires that Mercosur should have an external agenda with greater achievements and positive outcomes than those attained so far. If this should become a reality, the old rationale involving a “concentric circle” policy, which served Uruguay so well, could well become one of the theoretical supports of South American integration which will complement and empower Mercosur. A second condition is related to Brazil’s capacity for leadership and the specific ways in which this is exercised. Also in this regard, Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães has forestalled predictable suspicions regarding the supremacist or “imperialist” aspirations of Brazil in the region, which are always cause for concern. His emphatic rejection of any aspirations—direct or indirect—in this sense is indispensable and certainly requires the effective action of the Brazilian state regarding the realistic meaning of its necessary commitment to the comprehensive development of its South American partners. However, in relation to this, it will no doubt be necessary to surmount very specific queries and demands based not only on the region’s conflict-ridden and
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difficult history, but also on questions arising from more recent initiatives. The following opinions of Sixto Portela regarding the interpretation of certain bilateral practices essayed by Brazil with its neighbouring countries in recent years, within the framework of the application of the “Programme for the Competitive Substitution of Imports” (PSCI, for its acronym in Spanish) serve as one example among many others which we could quote. The PSCI [explains Portela] constitutes a unilateral offer made by Brazil, which although it reaches all South American countries, considers each of them individually, including their entrepreneurs very particularly, inasmuch as they participate in activities, either on their own account or through their organizations. This implies the possibility for them to reach out to the world in association with Brazilian companies, using the logistics of these companies, which are open to the Atlantic routes and with the availability, whenever necessary and whenever it is possible to obtain it, of the financial support those companies enjoy in Brazil and which multilateral organizations provide. With each South American country, Brazil generates a radial relationship, with itself in the centre, undermining the concept of regional integration, in a design which, a priori, could place under its conduction fundamental aspects of South America’s economic movements, unless these countries use similar schemes, which has not occurred, nor has Brazil suggested it.19 20 19 Cf. Sixto Portela, Acciones del Brasil II [The actions of Brazil II], Argentina, 30 April 2011. Cf. www.pcram.net. 20 Portela also states: “For the application of the PSCI, Brazil signed individual memoranda of understanding with eight South American countries: Bolivia, on 18 November 2003, in Brasilia; Chile, on 23 August 2004, in Santiago; Colombia, on 27 June 2005, in Bogota; Peru, on 17 February 2006, in Lima; Ecuador, on 10 September 2006, in Rio de Janeiro; Uruguay, on 26 February 2007, in Colonia; Paraguay, on 21 May 2007, in Asuncion; and the one mentioned above with Argentina. These memoranda are not identical; three models emerge: one, signed with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Another, signed with Chile, and finally, the one signed with Argentina, the contents of which,
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There is no doubt that even in this “softer” format, this type of “radial relationship” model—and there are other examples that could be added to this interpretation of the PSCI—gives rise to misgivings among neighbouring countries, which could bog down the way to South American integration. In order to avoid this, Brazil should act with a clear political will which confirms in practice the steering notion that Brazilian strategic interest identifies closely with the parallel development of its neighbour-partners in the South American subcontinent. To make this objective a reality, the South American giant should be willing to explicitly and operationally acknowledge its asymmetries with other South American countries and exercise an associational and genuinely integrating style of leadership. Nevertheless, in order to exercise such leadership—and currently Brazil is the only South American country capable of fulfilling this role in South American integration— it must be ready to “foot the bill,” as other countries have done in recent history when playing similar roles in comparable processes.21 for the reasons stated at the end of the second paragraph of this report, are now doubtful. In all of them, a working group is formed in order to provide follow-up. In general, they establish the promotion in Brazil of the products and services originating in the co-signing country, to be carried out through bilateral actions agreed with each.” Cf. ibid. 21 The example is often given of the role played by Germany and France in the foundation and consolidation of the European Union, as examples of countries that were able to undertake the “cost of leadership” in an integration process. More than once have we heard noted Brazilian leaders reject this comparison and warn that the asymmetries in the continent are repeated within Brazil itself, and that they should be addressed from
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Finally, a further necessary condition for countries such as Uruguay to converge more decisively and with conviction into a solid perspective of South American integration is related to the need to refrain from upholding the South Americanist vision as a practically exclusive alternative in opposition to a genuine, and not merely rhetorical Latin Americanism. Frequently, in the diplomatic and governmental discourse of the Brazilian élite, invocations to South America have clearly replaced any reference to Latin America. There is no doubt that there are several reasons for this: the struggle for leadership with Mexico, the indubitable alignment of this country and the Central American and Caribbean region with the USA, the increasing divergence of political and commercial interests, and many others. Although all of this is true and has real consequences, no less important from a strategic point of view is the need to maintain common projects and strategies with countries with which we have undeniable historical, cultural and political links. For a country such as Uruguay, the affirmation of South American integration cannot suppose abandoning Latin American links, particularly with Mexico and some of the Central American countries with which we have bonds of different kinds. In our view, on the basis of a precise definition of limitations and a perspective which is not only inter-state, but also sub-regional. Without resorting to extrapolations, rigid comparisons or formulae to be imitated, this is doubtless a key point which should be debated: the specific and concrete implications for Brazil of assuming a genuinely leading role in South American integration.
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scope and again from a strategy involving “concentric circles,” neither is this excluding polarity favourable to Brazil.22 Similarly to the Mercosur and Unasur perspectives, it is also necessary for South American integration to find the way to consolidate a rationale of complementarity with all of Latin America, in accordance with specific, concrete and viable models. These are therefore the three most significant requirements from the point of view of Uruguay—and, we believe, of the majority of the other South American countries—to converge with conviction and vigour upon the strategic horizon of South American integration: 500
i) the exercise on the part of Brazil of an integrating style of leadership which seriously undertakes to address asymmetries, far removed from the temptation of a “radial” supremacy based on bilateral formats; ii) the establishment of complementary links between different projects such as Mercosur and Unasur, taking care to harmonize prudently the different limitations and scope of each integrating bloc; iii) the realistic avoidance of supposing that South American integration implies the abdication of the Latin American convergence project, in the acknowledge22 Cf. Cassio Luiselli Fernández, “Brasil y México: el acercamiento necesario” [Brazil and Mexico: a necessary rapprochement], Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior, n. 90. In this article, Cassio Luiselli analyses the convenience of closer political and economic rapprochement between Mexico and Brazil, the two economic powers of Latin America, not only with regard to Latin American integration, but also in terms of the challenges which globalization presents to both nations.
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ment of difficulties but also of the potential of the implementation of converging strategies in this respect.23 It is difficult to overlook the specific difficulties and challenges which fulfilling these requirements would imply. However, it is also plausible to indicate that, in strategic terms, it is not only the outlook for South American integration that benefits. Brazil itself—we believe—also has many reasons to regard this undertaking as a highly positive prospective investment for its national interests. To a large extent, it all depends on the existence of a strong integrationist political will and on the accumulation of sufficient critical mass to confirm the strategic fruitfulness of an initiative endowed with all of these notable historical implications. On the basis of a careful reading of a paper as significant as Brasil 2022, published in December 2010 by the Presidency of the Republic and by Brazil’s Strategic Affairs Secretariat, there do not appear to be significant difficulties involved in endorsing a realistic undertaking of these characteristics.24 As emerges in this genuinely strategic paper, the design itself of the proposal features the South American undertaking very noticeably as a key to 23 In this respect, a renovated LAIA (Aladi) under the leadership of its brand-new Secretary General, Carlos Álvarez, who up to a year ago was president of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of Mercosur, could play a key political role in the area of coordination. 24 Cf Brasil 2022 [Brazil 2022], Brasília, Presidência de la RepúblicaSecretaria de Assuntos Estratégicos, 2010.
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Brazilian prospects in the context of its bicentennial anniversary. In this framework, countries such as Uruguay and others can play the role of facilitators in order to strengthen the rationale of a continental policy of “concentric circles,” capable of optimizing the responses of South American states and governments—both “large” and “small,” in the face of the demands of contemporary international circumstances. 4. Integration and projections from the perspective of a “small country”
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In a recent article, and as an analytical key to the current situation of the integrationist process in South America, Luis Maira attempted to indicate questions and propositions in order to address—notwithstanding the region’s circumstantial strengths—the substantial demands of a context marked by the magnitude of an international crisis whose resolution is still uncertain.25 In his paper, the title of which, in fact, posed a critical question (“How will the crisis affect regional integration?”), Maira concluded his analysis by expressing his surprise at the “insufficient evaluation” and “limited understanding” which—in his view— South American rulers and intellectual élites had shown in the face of the magnitude and consequences of the global crisis. In his analysis, the Chilean politician and intellectual particularly emphasized “the lack of repercussions 25 Luis Maira, ¿Cómo afectará la crisis la integración regional? [How will the crisis affect regional integration?], in Nueva Sociedad, n. 224, etc., op. cit., p 144-63.
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which this event has had in the examination and proposals of the region’s progressive forces.” After highlighting the major role played by the generators of neoconservative thought in the rise of the political forces of the right in recent decades, Maira warned that this cyclic change had not led to similar events in the opposing camp, which in his view appeared to be highly significant in supporting the establishment of a “post-neoconservative era in the region.” After quoting Wallerstein’s wellknown opinion that, just as Bush’s government furthered South America’s progressive political changes in the previous decade, Obama’s government could, paradoxically, be influential in a “pay-back time for the right,” Maira pointed out that a possible “stop-and-go effect” could benefit from this absence of strategic thinking on the part of the governments and parties that have led the recent political changes in the subcontinent. The question is [Maira concluded] whether we are still in time to correct weaknesses in the characterization of the crisis and recover the political initiative, with an emphasis on those core ideas that most academic or political overviews indicate. Current consensus is very unfavourable to right-wing visions and conservative thinking. It is now acknowledged that there is a greater need for policy and more opportunities to design it. In addition, increasing interest in public affairs is to be expected. The role of the state in matters involving the regulation and guidance of society is once again deemed to be irreplaceable. The urgent need for the effective control of corporate operations and (…) citizen participation in the more critical decisions of governmental policy has been made evident. What is not yet apparent is the existence of national projects and development strategies to bolster the response capacity of the progressive forces of South America.26 26 Ibid., p. 163.
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Maira’s reflections are relevant to our consideration of the real possibilities of a successful integrationist process in South America, which should, at the same time, give new meaning to democracy with social change, capable of establishing itself despite the impact of a global crisis such as the one we are experiencing at present. With merely pragmatic programmes, lacking new ideas regarding development, or without the political courage to apply them, notwithstanding their wide diversity, the new “progressive” governments, which have been—and continue to be—the principal players in ongoing regional integration projects in the continent, will not contribute consistently in this direction. Even further, they run the risk of missing out on the opportunity, or, which would be even worse, embarking on a mistaken course, contrary to the requirements of a strengthening transformation of the region. This is also an inescapable factor in the context in which the 21st anniversary of Mercosur is being marked and in which it is attempted to reaffirm the progress of South American integration: in the region, circumstances appear to make it necessary to overcome a marked deficit in strategic thinking aimed at the consolidation of democracy, conquering outrageous inequality, shaping genuinely sustainable development and strengthening regional integration. Can convincing answers to these challenges be found in “individual paths” which unravel past achievements or aim at the gradual voiding of integrationist processes? Is a strategy involving a new boost for development and national reintegration, with the prospect of the genuine strengthening of regional integration in the continent, inconsistent
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with the “concentric circle” rationale which we have mentioned? After a critical historical analysis—eschewing teleological justifications—the sensible road (which is often indispensable in order to determine the course of the “small countries”) appears to strongly support the notion that any ventures against the region or without the region are neither possible nor desirable. However, in order to be equal to the circumstances, it is imperative to establish an effective and straightforward agenda for the integrationist prospect. The establishment of an effective foreign policy, especially in countries such as those in South America, can hardly hope to avoid the need to address the dilemmas of international inclusion from the perspective of regional blocs, which reinforce genuine national sovereignty without resorting to the hackneyed old sovereignty-based or nationalistic and isolationist approaches. It appears to be imperative to promote renovated geopolitical formats that support development models as alternatives to the blindly open policies of the nineties in the region, which were, in turn, also different to the import substitution projects of the forties and fifties. Full inclusion in a “world of blocs” and the realization of long-awaited multipolar settings in an attempt to face effectively the dire temptation of unipolar supremacies, can only be achieved on the basis of a genuine and not merely rhetorical underpinning of the process of regional and supranational integration. In order to effectively defend the modern concept of sovereignty, we should incorporate the idea that any integration process implies some level of political association with partners in a bloc, who consent to joining in a shared vision of an agreed pro-
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gramme of joint initiatives in matters of development and international inclusion. However, a close look at present circumstances imposes a sensible approach to the imperative need for new lessons and requirements. With regard to Mercosur, for example, a number of radical questions emerge, which are particularly timely in view of invitations to make assessments and the prospects implied by the two decades of the regional bloc, as well as the commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of Latin American revolutions.27 A similar exercise involving a straightforward approach based on specific integrationist experiences and policies deployed by the governments of our countries emerges as the best way to strengthen and make viable an improved version of South American integration. These are some of the questions: What are the real possibilities with regard to the renewal of a consistent and operational agreement in relation to the serious redesign of Mercosur’s integrationist pact at the heart of its party states, involving not only their current governments, but all of the political systems of the region, as well as the principal social stakeholders? Is it feasible, for example, to expect an agenda of agreements on specific issues such as asymmetries, macroeconomic coordination or tariff harmonization, within the political systems of the partner states 27 A list of several of these questions has been drawn up by the author and is included in the paper with which the compilation begins: Gerardo Caetano (coord.), Mercosur 20 años [Mercosur 20 years], Montevideo, CEFIR-GIZ, 2011.
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in the bloc, or as appears more likely, must a fundamental consensus regarding Mercosur and its future be modified or even restated? Have the small countries in the bloc—Paraguay and Uruguay—processed the evident changes imposed by the historical transformations of recent decades in their forms of relationship with their two huge neighbours? In this respect, what kind of specific action could be promoted which would contribute to surmounting the conflict-ridden agenda between Uruguay and Argentina, or to building new forms of communication between Paraguay and Brazil and Argentina, with regard to subjects such as the dams of Itaipu or Yacyretá?28 What better model could be established in order to improve the relationship between Mercosur’s “large” and “small” countries? What “plan B” could be devised for the international inclusion of the “small” countries in the bloc—Paraguay and Uruguay—when faced with the persistently 28 On 26 July 2009, the presidents of Brazil (Lula da Silva) and of Paraguay (Fernando Lugo) signed a document which represents a genuinely historic change with regard to the original treaty. This 31-point agreement established that the coefficient for the compensation paid by Brazil to Paraguay should increase from 5.1 to 15.3, which implied an increase of 200 per cent, as a result of which, at present values, the actual amount increased from 120 to 360 million US dollars a year. However, according to the terms signed by the two presidents, this, as well as some of the other items agreed upon, required the approval of their respective national parliaments. In another of its clauses, the agreement stipulated the exclusive use by the partners of the energy produced by Itaipu, until 2023, which limits Paraguay’s intention of selling its energy surplus to third parties. Nonetheless, the agreement represented very significant progress with regard to the provisions of the original treaty signed in 1975. Paraguay has similar discrepancies with Argentina in relation to the dam of Yacyretá.
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privileged (and often exclusive) relationship between Argentina and Brazil? What steps would constitute an effective strategy in this regard, what justifications and estimations would lead to affording them a reasonable degree of preference? Have the different implications and consequences for both countries of leaving Mercosur been assessed at all (in the unlikely drop-out hypothesis or the more gradual perspective of a change in the quality of integration, from full to associate member)? Is the alternative, in fact, a classically worded FTA with the USA or a commercial agreement with the European Union? Is the “Chilean way,” for example, feasible or desirable for Uruguay? To what extent can serious negotiations as a bloc be carried out with the countries of Asia Pacific, and particularly with China? If the present conditions of the integration process are maintained without substantial changes for countries such as Uruguay and Paraguay, what are the limitations and the scope of the tactic of combining, as far as possible and in the most rigorous terms, the double strategy of open regionalism and multiple bilateralism? Has the present status quo a future in this respect? In a framework combining internal insecurity with emerging conflicts of different kinds, South America and Mercosur itself perceive that the signs of their relative marginality in certain international contexts are multiplying. In this respect, we only need to observe indicators showing the weight of the region in percentages depicting world
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trade, GDP, financial flow, patents approved over the last thirty years, scientific and technological research, investment and other similar figures in order to grasp the situation clearly, despite the fact that in several of these areas— such as, for example, direct foreign investment—there has been encouraging progress in recent years. However, in terms of capacity and efficiency in the production of agri-food, the possession of strategic natural resources (particularly minerals, water and energy) and biodiversity, the situation is quite different. In these areas, South America’s wealth and potential are far removed from the marginalization we mentioned and have already attracted a variety of covetous foreign glances. Courageous ventures with a strategic projection are what are really needed in this matter, and therefore, straightforward exchanges, although risky, are inevitable and also, perhaps should not be postponed. One specific role which “smaller” countries such as Uruguay might play is precisely that of taking advantage of their scale and serving as efficient catalysts to promote the straightforward exchanges and strategic vision which are so necessary in the countries of South America, both “small” and “large.”
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Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective Yang Guorong
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Similar to arete in Aristotle, de (德), the Chinese term for virtue, has such a semantic association with “de” (得), which means “to obtain” or “to acquire,” that Guanzi 管子even directly claims: “de (德) implies ‘de’ (得).” In Daoism, virtue is the special feature obtained from Dao and consequently provide real foundation for the development of things: “Something that causes things to grow is called virtue” (Chapter 12, Zhuangzi). As far as Confucianism is concerned, Zhang Zai claims, de (德) implies “de” (得) and virtue is a quality that could be possessed”; “Virtue means to obtain principles under Heaven.”1 Similarly says Wang Fuzhi 王夫之, 1 Zhang Zai, Collected works of Zhang Zai《张载集》, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局, 1978, p. 32-3. 511
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“Everything obtained in activity can be called as 德 (de), virtue.”2 Virtue discussed here is not limited to ethics although it is related to human being. However, virtue does mainly mean moral virtue in many cases: the idea of “the respect for virtue” in the Book of history《尚书》, the doctrine that “faithfulness is a justified virtue” in Zuo’s commentary on records of spring and autumn《左传》, Confucius’ appeal to “political performance based on virtue” in Analects《论 语》，to name a few. In Ancient Greece or in the Pre-Qin period in China, virtue, that is, arete or de (德), originally has both ontological and ethical significance, which reflects the relevance of virtue to existence of human beings. In modern times, however, the implication of virtue, as well as its relationship to the existence, has changed. Virtue, no matter in the context of English or of Chinese, is more similar to moral character or moral disposition. When talking about virtue nowadays, people think of diverse special categories of virtue such as kindness, kind-heartedness, justice, righteousness, honesty, self-control and tolerance. The specialty of categories of virtue embodies certain characteristics of human beings while its diversity various dimension of human existence. As virtue splits into categories of virtue, the integration of human existence becomes a crucial issue. The multiple attributes of a human being as a moral subject are by no means separated but always constitute a unified structure. In spite of the diversity of its manifesta2 Wang Fuzhi, Collected works of Chuanshan《船山全书》, Changsha, Yuelu Shush岳麓书社, 1991, Book 6, p. 439.
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
tions, virtue, as a specific form of existence, demonstrates the unity of a same moral subject. Such a unity appears as personality. As for an individual, whether its personality is good or bad serves as a synthetic standard to judge its moral realm. Personality is different from special moral character since it embodies the spirit of human existence as a whole. Virtue, in the form of personality, units and restricts the daily life of a human being. Further, the integrity of virtue is ontologically founded upon the integrity of human life. The integrity of virtue and the integrity of human life are complementary and interactive in the historical practice in the life world. The unity with the entire existence of a human being provides stability for virtue. Although it is not innate but acquired from experience, virtue functions as stable disposition, or even invariable “second nature.” Virtue does not change with changeable situations. The invariance of virtue in variable situations just shows the stable tendency in virtue. As a specific individual, a human being always evolves in a process. However, the subject is always the same “self” as a real life as well as an internal personality. Just as a life continues to exist in metabolism, so does an intrinsic personality in efflux, which shows the relative permanence of virtue. Virtue will lose its ethical significance if separated from the existence of a human being. We can ask such a question: Why is virtue always good, or positively valuated? It cannot be answered from virtue itself. The foundation of virtue has to resort to the existence of human beings. The question
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why virtue is good logically relates to another one, which involves more directly the existence and development of a human being: Why is virtue necessary? Human beings are always pursuing perfection in multiple dimensions. On the one hand, virtue does not only reflect the state of human nature but also restrict its development; it does not only determine the direction of the spirit but also affect conduct choices. In short, virtue, as internal personality controlling the entire existence of a human being, makes up of a condition, for the multiple development of a human being. It is thanks to the connection between virtue and existence that virtue is always good, or positively valuated. From the ontological and axiological perspectives, the existence of a human being possesses originality and priority. The relationship between self and others is a background for the accomplishment or development of a human being. Ethics has to face the self-others asymmetry, which is essential to the well-accepted doctrine that morality is for others. Stressing the priority of others over oneself or even the self-sacrifice for the interests of the others, the asymmetry constrains or even denies self, which has some tension between the accomplishment or development of a human being. Consequentialism attempts to release this tension in its seeking interests as great as possible, that is, the pursuit of self-interests is right if such interests will bring goodness to greater extent.3 However, this approach is open to discus3 See Virtue ethics: a critical reader, Daniel Statman ed., Edinburgh University Press, 1997, p. 130-1.
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sion. if greater interests could be taken as the criterion, then one’s conduct, if it would result in greater interests, could legitimately damage others. Another possible approach to overcome the self-others asymmetry is to affirm the significance of virtue. Perfect virtue, according to Zhong Yong, is the realization of selfvalue on the one hand and the affirmation of value of others. As an index of the whole existence of a human being, virtue is not only the unity of all attributes of a person but also the unity of self-achieving and the achieving of others. Both the internal integration of self and the mutual achievement of self and others demonstrate the unity of virtue and existence. Virtue, as an unity of human existence, has its own structure. In moral practice, virtue presents good intentions in a form of stable disposition rather than accident or reluctant wills. A person with real virtue will pursue his or her moral target; choose goodness over wickedness in any situation. He or she will not commit wickedness when he or she is alone and free from external regulations.4 His or her conducts are characterized by “for oneself” rather than “for others”. In other words, what he or she conducts is not for the sake of admiration of his or her external “moral image” from others but to achieve self-realization of virtue based on sincerity. 4 The Great Learning (《大学》) does emphasize the significance of virtue to being alone when it, in explaining the idea of “making the will sincere,” advocates that the superior man will always be watchful over himself when alone.
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As good disposition, virtue has an orienting quality. Moral practice not only requires the use of goodness for direction, but is also involved with issues such as “What are good conducts?” and “How can one conduct in a good way?” To practice moral consciously, one has to know moral norms, which can provide general criterion for the choice and valuation of conducts. However, conducts always take place in concrete situations, which are beyond the control of general moral norms. Without a correct understanding of the situation, a person, who even has a good intension and knows norms well, fails to conduct in a good way. Furthermore, what is also necessary is to know how to do, that is, to know the conditions and procedures of good conducts. Hereby, real virtue, which has overcome the form of abstract “ought,” always implies the ability to know what good is and how one conducts in a good way. It happens quite often in real life: A good person sometimes makes bad choices due to faulty knowledge. We shall discuss this moral phenomenon called “good people do wrong things,” which nowadays has been taken by ethicists as an example to question virtue ethics.5 First of all, we must make a distinction between “a good person” in an ordinary sense and “a virtuous person” in a strict sense. A good person is a person with a good intension. On the contrary, a virtuous person, as discussed above, must have not only a good intension but also enough knowledge such 5 See Robert B. Louden, “On some vices of virtue Ethics,” in Virtue ethics: a critical reader, p. 184-5.
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as moral rules and concrete moral situations. It is because of the combination of good intension and good knowledge that virtue is excellent. In this regard, to be a good person is insufficient to be a virtuous person. Besides the intention to be good and the ability to know what good is and how one conducts in a good way, virtue also has its emotional dimension. In real life, a person who has virtue will have different emotional reflections to and emotional experiences of different motivations and consequences. If he or she is not motivated by virtue, a virtuous person will regret and have a guilty conscience after rethinking their actions. If the action or conduct causes a bad consequence, he or she will feel deep regret. After accomplishing a good conduct, he or she will often feel self content and pleased. he or she will naturally agree with other people’s good conducts but reject their bad conducts. Self consolation, self reprise, self guilt, self content and other emotions constitute also some stable disposition in virtue. Emotions by themselves seem to be neutral. For example, love and hate are neither virtuous nor evil in an abstract sense. However, concrete emotional experiences can be judged as right or wrong. The sympathy for the misfortune of others is a healthy emotional response while taking pleasure in others’ misfortune is unhealthy. The emotional elements in virtue should always be healthy so that his stability and righteousness of emotions are fused in virtue. To sum up: as a mental form of human existence, virtue has an interrelated structure made up of a stable disposition of intentions and emotions on the one hand and the
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ability to make rational analysis and obtain moral knowledge on the other hand. All these elements of knowing, feeling and willing in the structure of virtue cannot be fully understood merely from the perspective of psychology. Emotion, will and rationality in virtue always have certain moral content. For example, a good intention, the ability to know what good is and how one conducts in a good way, and emotional acceptance demonstrate a mental tendency to pursue goodness. Virtue, as a structure with good disposition, constitutes a spiritual subject and consequently an intrinsic foundation for moral practice. Of course, virtue, as the foundation of moral practice, is not a priori and permanent. Virtue is historical in accordance with the historically of an individual in a society. II
Moral conducts are based on virtue, but they must simultaneously obey common norms. Virtue, taking a moral subject as its bearer, is directly involved with human existence. On the contrary, norms are not restricted within but go beyond a moral subject. However, virtue and norms are not totally separated from each other in spite of their different relationships with a moral subject. Virtue is in most cases integrated in personality. Each cultural tradition has its own ideal examples of personality. For example, Yao ĺ°§, Shun čˆœ, Yu 猚 and other sages in ancient China. Despite of some mythological elements in them, these ideal personalities do embody virtue and reflect historical needs at any given period of time. Yao de-
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
mises his position to wise and virtuous Shun rather than to his own son. It shows a doctrine that one should concern tian xia (the world), the whole cultural world, much more than a family, which is necessary for social order and stability. In the story of combat with a flood, Yu demonstrates a great spirit of perseverance, which is indispensable to struggle with nature. Similarly, the bravery and fearlessness of the heroes in Greek epics are important mental factors for survival at the time of frequent war among tribes. Looking through the mythological veil, we can see the connection between ideal personalities and historical needs. Virtue in ideal personality is chosen in history. In other words, characters in accordance with historical needs have been so repeatedly affirmed and confirmed that they cohere ideal personalities in history. The specification of virtue in ideal personalities provides a premise for the formation of norms. Moral norms reflect historical social needs and also show common moral ideals, which are based on social reality and take their specific forms in ideal personalities such as sages. Compared with norms in a concept system, ideal personalities, united with concrete human existence, have some ontological priority: Ideal personalities exist before the appearance of abstract moral norms; norms system originates to some extent from ideal personalities in history. In fact, norms in a concept system can in some sense be understood as the abstract and advance of ideal personalities as ideal models of existence, which can guide and direct society members. However, the originality of virtue in real personality cannot be overstressed. From the priority of human exis-
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tence, personality as a unified form of virtue is more original, but this does not mean that virtue is completely beyond moral norms. There are always norms of conduct that reflect the social conditions of a particular historical period. In the beginning, these norms do not take a form of a conscious system. They are embodies in customs, habits, etiquette and taboo, etc. Ideal personalities in early civilizations do provide a basis for moral norms, but on the other hand they are affected by values and social trends. The fearlessness of heroes in ancient Greece reflects the social value of martial culture. The character of self-sacrifice in Yu’s combat with a flood reflects the priority of a collective and its strength in a period when people possess limited capacity to conquer nature. Furthermore, ideal personalities in history are a result of re-creation: People always confirm or give prominence to some virtue of ideal personalities according to their value principles and corresponding norms. In both original and re-created ideal personalities we can see their close connection with norms. To sum up: Virtue and norms are prerequisite for each other in a historical process. On the one hand, virtue, in the coherence of personality, constitutes a real base for norms; on the other hand, norms influence the formation of ideal personalities from the perspective of social values. We have just discussed the relationship between virtue and norms from the historical point of view. Logically, moral norms, as a general rules of conduct, are always beyond any particular individual. Moral conducts, however, are carried out by individuals. How can general moral
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
norms transfer to concrete conducts of individuals? This is involved with more intrinsic relationship between virtue and norms. The differentiation of goodness and wickedness is a logical premise for moral practice. The differentiation forms in a process of moral knowing, which aims to know what is, that is, to distinguish goodness and evilness, to grasp ethical relationship and to understand norms. Knowledge of what is does not logically imply what one ought to do, just as David Hume has mentioned that we cannot infer Ought from Is. The dichotomy between factual knowing and evaluation is open to discussion, since the affirmation of goodness implies factual knowing. However, Hume has an insight into the logical distance between to conduct in a good way and to know what is good: knowing what is good does not promise doing in a good way. Norms imply oughtness and thereby the differentiation between goodness and evilness: In affirming what ought to do and what not, norms affirm what is good and what is evil. However, general norms are always beyond and external to any individuals so that they, in spite of their sublimity, may not be accepted voluntarily by individuals. In addition, norms, as general laws, are always heteronymous to individuals. How can we infer to conduct in a good way from to know what is good? In other words: How can we assure the validity of general norms in moral practice? Here we must give prominence to virtue. The socialization of an individual is to some extent a transformation from nature to vir-
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tue. In other words, virtue helps a person become a social being from his or her natural state and consequently advance to be a moral subject. Contrary to general norms, virtue embodies intrinsic features of an individual. However, virtue in some sense results from the transformation of external norms: By influences of environment, education, rational cognition, emotional and voluntary acceptance, external norms gradually merges with internal moral consciousness, which becomes stable virtue in moral practice. While norms represent external social demands to individuals, virtue issues from moral consciousness internal callings of conducts. The relationship between individual existence and virtue is more intimate than between individual existence and norms: Virtue constitutes self personality unifying knowledge, emotion and will; virtue essentially is an intrinsic form of individual existence. If conducts come from virtue, an individual demonstrates his or her own existence rather than obeys external social demands passively. It is virtue than unifies to know what to do and to do what ought to do. From the relationship between norms and conductors, norms take a form of social restriction as “you ought to do,” virtue “I ought to do.” For conductors, “you ought to do” tells some external commands while “I ought to do” self demands, which can be regarded as the result of synthetic functions of intrinsic virtue structure based on mental disposition consisting of good intentions, the differentiation between goodness and evilness, emotional acceptance of goodness and emotional rejection of evilness.
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
In the form of “you ought to do,” conductors are subjected to requirements while in the form of “I ought to do,” conductors are subjects. Without the transformation from “you ought to do” to “I ought to do,” it is impossible to achieve autonomy by overcoming heteronomy. Logically, a conductor’s following moral norms requires a basic premise that he or she is willing to be a moral person. This tendency towards goodness constitutes such an internal commitment of a conductor that moral norms boast sanction for him or her. Without, For a person who has no good intentions and consequently no commitment to conduct in a good way, moral norms make no sense. He will by no mean have a guilty conscience or condemn themselves. In this sense, we may say, since the tendency towards goodness is a premise for obeying norms, a moral system is suppositional by characteristic: If you choose or promise to be a moral person, then you should obey norms. Because the tendency towards goodness results from internal mental disposition of virtue, virtue serves as a premise for norms. Of course, to affirm that virtue provides real assurance for norms does not mean to negate the restriction function of norms themselves. Norms, as a unified mental structure, contains general regulations, for which willingly acceptance of norms is indispensable. In fact, the formation of virtue is simultaneously a process of self-building in accordance with norms. Norms dominant at certain time not only restrict human conducts but also influence the feature of personality. Li Gou (李觏) says, “If we guide peo-
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ple by learning and restrict people by proprieties, their virtue will be accomplished.”6 Similarly, Zhang Zai (张载) emphasizes the unification of grasping a system of norms with transforming nature to virtue: “It is necessary to be held by proprieties when virtue has not been achieved”;7 “Dao and righteousness result from knowing proprieties and accomplishing virtue.”8 The acceptance of norms will help to avoid an egoist possibility of virtue. For Aristotle, the link between “justice” and “lawfulness” means the link between virtue and law since justice is “a complete virtue.” Therefore, the connection of justice with lawful implies the connection between virtue and laws.9 As compulsory norms, laws share some similarity with moral norms. In this sense, the connection between virtue and laws affirms that between virtue and norms. Such understanding of Aristotle, who is considered as one of the most important thinkers of virtue ethics in history, shows that virtue and norms are not absolutely exclusive. Generally speaking, common norms are required to maintain social order and cohesion, and to achieve necessary justice of conducts. Common norms are significant operative instruments, which provide basic guidelines for 6 Li Gou, Collected works of Li Gou, Zhonghua Shuju, 1984, p. 66. 7 Zhang Zai, Collected works of Zhang Zai, Zhonghua Shuju, 1978, p. 264 8 Ibid., p. 37. 9 Wang Fuzhi, Discussions after reading the great collection of commentaries on the four books (Du Sishu Daquan Shuo 《读四书大全说》）, v. 1, Collect works of Chuanshan《船山全书》, Book 6, Chansha: Yuelu Shushe 岳麓书社, 1991, p. 439.
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not only conducts but the evaluation of conducts as well. The formation of virtue is a long-term process. Becoming a virtuous being is a higher and more difficult achievement than simply understanding moral norms. Hereby, following norms is just a primary demand so that just following external norms as a baseline is not enough for both individuals and the whole society: It is impossible to reach perfect morality and the function of external norms in reality lacks internal assurance. In short, common norms are indispensable to the guide and evaluation of conducts whereas virtue is indispensable to real validity of common norms. The unity of virtue and norms also can be seen in the unity of norms and diverse special categories of virtue. In Confucianism, its core moral ideas are “benevolence” (ren, 仁), “righteousness” (yi, 义), “propriety” (li, 礼), “wisdom” (zhi, 智) and “truthfulness” (xin, 信). These are norms when regarded as requirements of conducts and criteria for evaluation of conducts. For example, Confucianism advocates “to practice benevolence” (wei ren, 为仁) and “to practice righteousness” (xing yi, 行义). In addition, Confucianism also interprets these ideas as intrinsic virtue and character: So-called “a man of benevolence” (ren zhe, 仁者) refers to a subject who has the virtue of benevolence. On the one hand, a person forms its intrinsic “benevolence” in “practicing benevolence” under the guide of the norm of “benevolence”; on the other hand, basing on virtue, he or she carries out moral practice of doing goodness and rejecting evilness. In practice “benevolence” as a norm and “benevolence” as a special category of virtue are united together. Similarly, justice, as a key concept in the west-
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ern tradition of ethics, is both a norm and a special kind of virtue of a subject. Virtue, including specific categories of virtue, always has a tendency toward goodness, which is naturally positive in value. Take benevolence as an example. It implies always taking others as purpose and being good-willed to others. However, a tendency toward goodness means just a possibility rather than a reality. In some cases, virtue could lead to a negative outcome. For example, benevolence, in spite of its orientation toward goodness, would not be good if one deals benevolently with those who are harmful to society (or enemies of society). In order to avoid the negative alienation of virtue and help virtue transform from possibility to reality, we need not only take hold of all aspects of virtue, that is, the unity of the tendency to do good deeds and knowing what is good (including distinguishing goodness from evilness, analyzing concrete situations of conducts) but also emphasize the significance of norms in guiding virtue, which also shows the relevance between norms and virtue. III
Virtue is involved with both norms and conducts. At the first glance, virtue seems to be more relative to “what we should be” while norms have a closer relationship with conducts since norms prescribe “what we should do” and how we can make evaluation. However, this does not imply that conducts and virtue are disconnected. Just as virtue and norms are integrated, so are “what we should do” and “what we should be.”
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
Virtue, which is real in itself, can be seen as an intrinsic authentic self. However, “intrinsic” does not mean that self is constrained in the self. Although a self is an intrinsic personality, it demonstrates itself in external aspects. Similarly virtue exists both in an intrinsic mental structure and in real conducts. Just as external norms should be transformed into intrinsic virtue, so should virtue be transformed into virtuous conducts. As a matter of fact, the achievement of virtue and performance of virtuous conducts are united in the existence of a same self in the world. As far as its origin is concerned, virtue cannot be accomplished without virtuous conducts. Wang Fuzhi，a Chinese philosopher in 17th century，says, “By virtue we mean what is acquired in mind in the process of conducts.”10 Virtue, as an intrinsic personality, always has the problem of how to confirm itself. While the formation of virtue (“what is acquired in mind”) is based on “virtuous conducts,” the selfconfirmation must go beyond spiritual enjoyment so as to confirm itself in virtuous conducts. The external confirmation of virtue is also a process of externalizing virtue. Authentic virtue is always both intrinsic and externally-demonstrating. The externalizing and objectifying of virtue is in daily life besides great conducts. Morality always extends to all aspects of social activity while any moral subject lives within some determi10 Wang Fuzhi, Commentary on Zhang Zai’s Correction of Youthful Folly (Zhangzi Zheng Meng Zhu《张子正蒙注》), Collect works of Chuanshan《船山全书》, Book 12, Chansha, Yuelu, Shushe 岳麓书社, 1992, p. 72.
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nate social environment, which the subject has no power to choose. Therefore, moral practice is always involved with both the determination of environment and the indetermination of conducts as well. The power of virtue lies in the fact that virtue is able to in determinate environment affect daily life, influence the life world, and give it new meaning so as to arrive in the realm that daily life embodies Dao. As a form of existence, virtue firstly is mental disposition, or even good mental disposition to some extent. However, the value of mental disposition is still potential since it merely means a possibility to conduct in a good way. The fullfillness of virtue lies in conducts: The transformation from virtue to virtuous conducts means virtue becomes reality in practice. Virtuous conducts, as the realization of virtue, can take quite a few forms while virtue also embodies in all aspects of human existence such communication in daily life and material production. The transformation from virtue to virtuous conducts means the confirmation of virtue in reality by overcoming virtue in potentiality. Certainly this is not the whole story: Virtuous conducts must take virtue as its internal foundation. The world is so complicated and the situations are so changeable that it would be difficult to keep consistency in conducts if following changing situations in the world. Only if we always guide ourselves with virtue can we maintain goodness in various circumstances. As a sincere personality, virtue presents an intrinsic unity of self. In this sense, virtue is one. On the contrary, virtuous conducts are “many� because they manifests in multiple forms
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
in various social situations. The control of virtue over virtuous conducts can be understood as one-over-many. It is intrinsic virtue of self that assures a good tendency in various conducts of a subject. Virtue, as a mental structure, contains not only a good disposition but also an ability of knowing goodness, which refers to grasping moral norms, analyzing concrete situations, combining norms and situation, solving moral problems, and so on. In other words, virtue, which includes conduct mechanism and evaluation system, can not be simply understood as good intentions. Moral norms mainly prescribe what should do in most cases, but they do not tell us how to apply norms in a particular situation. The analyses of situation, the application of norms in situations, rational deliberation and volitional decision—all of these depends on the moral subject and thereby his or her virtue. If virtue is understood as an entire mental structure rather than some attribute, the abstract of the relationship between virtue and conducts can be overcome. The entirety of virtue is not only a unity of practical spirit but also a unity of virtue and entire human existence. Because of these two kinds of unity, virtue has an ontological significance in moral practice: Virtue provides guides for conducts and controls conducts by permeating all aspects of activities of a subject. This doesn’t mean to deny the function of norms in concrete moral issues. However, concrete moral issues usually often relate to the flexibility of moral norms, which has been discussed in the debate over jing (universal princi-
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ples), principles and quan (adjustment of principle), expedience in Chinese philosophy. Mencius is again the shortage of expedience while he advocates returning to principles. Furthermore, Wang Fuzhi discusses the interaction between principles and expedience in a context of subject as well as his or her consciousness: Only if we know general principles so as to keep them in mind, then we can conduct in this situation without disturbing other situations. Generality must be held in variability while variability must be held in generality. It is called mystery if the great function of the practice is in accordance with what is held in mind.”11
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By General principles Wang means in some sense common norms. To know general principles so as to keep them in mind is to transform common norms into conceptual structure. The unity of generality and variability in the interactivity of principles and expedience, which, according to Wang, is based on what is held in mind, that is, internal conceptual structure. In this way Wang emphasizes the significance of intrinsic mental structure in the process of knowing goodness. The connection of virtue and conducts is also reflected in solving concrete moral issues. As far as Confucianism is concerned, the important debate over knowing and acting relates also to the relationship between virtue and conducts. For Confucianism, Knowing is mainly knowing of virtue and the interaction between knowing and acting means 11 Wang Fuzhi, Commentary on Zhang Zai’s correction of youthful folly (Zhangzi Zheng Meng Zhu 《张子正蒙注》), Collect works of Chuanshan《船山全书》, Book 12, Chansha: Yuelu Shushe 岳麓书社, 1992, p. 72.
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
the cultivation of virtue in practice on the one hand and the transformation of virtue into virtuous conducts. Wang Yangming claims, “The task is to successfully perform virtuous conducts.” He also advocates to “extend good conscience in my mind to all things; Good conscience in my mind implies heavenly principles. If good conscience in my mind is extended to all things, then all things acquire their principles.”12 By all things Wang Yangmming means various moral issues such as ethic relationship. Good conscience can be regarded as intrinsic virtue because it is individual moral consciousness, whose contents are heavenly principles, that is, general norms. To extend good conscience in my mind to all things is to apply moral consciousness in moral practice, a perspective of transforming virtue into virtuous conducts. The fact that all things acquire their principles is the manifestation of intrinsic virtue in an ethic world. As far as mind and principles are concerned, such a process is the establishment of moral order in the externalization of mind. As far as virtue and virtuous conducts are concerned, such a process is the objectification of virtue in ethical relationships through virtuous conducts. Traditional Chinese ethics has emphasized the practice character of intrinsic virtue and the control of personality over virtuous conducts. Virtue restricts conducts not only in its good disposition but also in its endowment of particular moral significance to conducts. If a moral conduct is merely in accordance 12 Wang Yangming, Collected works of Wang Yangming, Shanghai, Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1992, p. 45.
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with moral norms, then we may say it is “not wrong” since such a conduct is characterized by spontaneity. If a moral conduct results from understanding and autonomously following of moral norms, then it can be called “right.” To a considerable extent, to do “right” thing is the baseline of ethics because it is the primary obligation for any society member to obey moral norms. Besides “not wrong” and “right,” another word we can used to evaluate a moral conduct is “admirable.” An admirable conduct derives from intrinsic virtue of the subject, which makes it different from a conduct just according with or following norms.13 Negatively speaking, a conduct which is “right” or “not wrong” can avoid condemnation or accusation while positively speaking it is “granted.” On the contrary, it is not enough to say that an “admirable” conduct avoids condemnation or accusation is “granted” because it manifests the innate power of virtue and embodies the truthful personality of a moral subject. A moral conduct consists of its motivations and consequences and both of them are open to moral evaluation in the external society or in the self-reflection of the subject. If he or she is aware of good motivations or positive consequences of his or her conduct, the subject possesses a moral judgment as well as a moral experience based on self-af13 In discussing the relationship between virtue and obligation in The methods of ethics, Henry Sidgwick claims that some virtuous conducts perform more things than obligation, which makes them admirable. However, we don’t think everyone that has corresponding capacity is obligatory to perform them.
Virtue in human practice: a comparative perspective
firmation and self-realization. The subject then feels selfconfident and self-sufficient, which will become enthusiastic forces further in moral practice. On the other hand, bad motivations and passive consequences usually result in such negative emotions or condemnations of conscience as self-accusation, regret and guilt, which function as a particular moral sanction. This sanction, realized in self-evaluation, is a very important internal mechanism for moral practice in restraining the realization of bad motivations and avoiding the recurrence of a subjective fault with negative results. Logically, moral self-evaluation as well as moral incentives and sanctions requires intrinsic virtue in a subject. In fact, the evaluation of motivations and corresponding results is always intertwined with good intentions, the judgment of goodness and evilness and emotional acceptance of goodness and emotional rejection of evilness. It is because of good disposition that good motivations and results produce self-sufficiency while immoral motivations and results produce self-accusation, regret and guilt. Resulting from virtue, a moral conduct is not only conscious but natural, especially in the formation of a specific motivation. Mencius tells us a story: If seeing a child falling into a well, anyone who has any moral consciousness will spontaneously run to save it the child without deliberation. In this case, the motivation is a natural response as an inevitable outcome of good disposition in virtue. A perfect moral conduct is characterized by consciousness, that is, to obey rational norms consciously, willingness, that is,
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originating from internal will, and naturalness. It is in the unity of these three qualities that a conduct is autonomous and consequently achieving a higher-level realm, which are ontologically based on virtue. Just as the Doctrine of the mean (Zhong Yong 中庸) says: “A person with authentic virtue is in accordance with norms without efforts and without deliberation. He walks in the way of Mean at leisure.” Efforts and deliberation are unnecessary since general norms has been deeply rooted in consciousness and consequently transformed into the second nature of a subject. Because of authentic virtue, the subject goes beyond the rational compulsion and intended efforts into a realm of nature. In this way, realm of conducts (virtuous conducts) and that of personality (virtue) are fused with each other.
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Candido Mendes — President of Candido Mendes University, President of the Rio de Janeiro Forum of Rectors, member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Secretary-General of the Academy of Latinity, member of the Economic and Social Development Council to the Presidency of Brazil, President of the Senior Board of the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and Alliance of Civilizations Ambassador. He was also Secretary-General of the Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission and President of the International Political Science Association (IPSA). Among his most recent books are A presidência afortunada (1999), Lula: a opção mais que o voto (2002), Lula depois de Lula (2005), Lula apesar de Lula (2006), Dr. Alceu, da ‘persona’ à pessoa (2009), and Subcultura e mudança: por que me envergonho do meu país (2010). Daniel Innerarity is a Professor of Political and Social Philosophy and Ikerbasque researcher at the University of the Basque Country. Visiting Professor at the European University Institute (Florence). His latest books include The ethics of hospitality, the transformation of politics (3rd Miguel de Unamuno Essay Prize and 2003 National Literature Prize in the Essay category), The invisible society (21st Espasa Essay Prize), The new public realm, the future and its enemies, and Knowledge’s democracy. François L’Yvonnet — Professor of Philosophy and publisher in Paris. His most recent works include: Michel
Participants
Serres (2010); Louis Massignon, Écrits mémorables (with Ch. Jambet, Fr. Angelier and S. Ayadâ), 2 volumes, coll. Bouquins (2009); Le Défi de la différence (with Candido Mendes) (2006); Simone Weil, le grand passage (2006); Baudrillard (2005). Gerardo Caetano — Historian and political scientist. Academic Director of the Regional Integration Training Centre (CEFIR, for its acronym in Spanish). Coordinator of the Political Observatory, Political Science Institute, University of the Republic (Uruguay). Level III Researcher in Uruguay’s National System of Researchers. He has published approximately over 230 publications. Her books include: El Parlamento y la agenda del desarrollo. Estrategias para el Uruguay 2015 (2008), Aportes de la cooperación descentralizada Unión Europea – América Latina a la cooperación territorial en América Latina. Elementos para el debate (2007), and Democracia y gerencia política. Innovación en valores, instrumentos y prácticas (2006). Gianni Vattimo — Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turin and former member of the European Parliament. He has been a Visiting Professor at a number of universities in the United States (Yale, Los Angeles, New York University, and State University of New York) and has been awarded the distinction of Doctor Honoris Causa on several occasions. Among his recent publications are Credere di credere (1996), Dopo la cristianità. Per un cristianísimo non religioso
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(2002), Il socialismo ossia l’Europa (2004), Il futuro della religione. Carità, ironia, solidarietà (with R. Rorty, 2005), Ecce Comu. Come si ri-diventa ciò che si era (2007), and Addio alla verità (2009). He is VicePresident of the Academy of Latinity.
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Gilbert Hottois teaches contemporary Philosophy at the University of Brussels (Belgium). Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and the International Institute of Philosophy. From The inflation of language in contemporary philosophy (1979) to Philosophies of sciencephilosophies of technology (2004) or Science between modern values and postmodernity (2005) and Dignity and diversity of men (2009). Member of several ethics committees, such as the European Group for Ethics in Science and New Technologies and the Advisory Committee on Bioethics of Belgium, he published also the New encyclopedia of bioethics (medicine-environmentbiotechnology) (main editor, 2001), and What is bioethics? (2004). In a field concerning both philosophy and science fiction, he edited two collective volumes (Science-fiction-speculative, 1985, and Philosophy and SF, 2000) and one novel followed by a philosophical dialogue: Species technica (1981; 2001). He Xirong — She got her bachelor degree from Fudan University in 1982. Since then she started her career as a philosophy researcher at SASS. Now she is Research Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Philosophy (SASS). Her main research field is Chinese
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philosophy, Comparative philosophy between Chinese and the Western, Women Studies. She published books such as Research on female ethics, structure each other between Buddhism and Chinese traditional philosophy; co-edited Search for the root of philosophy—essays of a new round comparative study on the Chinese and Western philosophy etc. and some papers on comparison. Javier SanjinÊs C. is Professor of Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and completed post-doctoral work at the University of Chicago with a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. He has published extensively on Andean literature and culture. His last two books are Mestizaje upside-down (2004) and Embers of the past. Cultural conflict in postcolonial societies (forthcoming in Duke University Press). Lydia H. Liu is a theorist of translation and new media. She teaches at Columbia University and is the Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities. She has published extensively on comparative literature, translation theory, and modern Chinese literature and history. Her books include The Freudian robot (2010), The clash of empires (2004), and Translingual practice (1995). Maria Isabel Mendes de Almeida teaches at the Graduate Program in Social Sciences of the Department of
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Sociology and Political Science of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Holding a Master’s and a Doctorate degree in Social Sciences from the IUPERJ (University Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro), she took her post-doctoral studies at the Université de Paris – Descartes (CNPQ fellowship). She is the Pro-Rector for Graduate Studies and Research at Candido Mendes University and research-coordinator at its Center for Applied Social Studies. Her books include: with Katia
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Tracy, Noites nômades. espaço e subjetividade nas culturas jovens contemporâneas (2003), and with José Machado Pais (orgs.), Criatividade e profissionalização: jovens, subjetividades e horizontes profissionais (forthcoming). Mario Lucio Sousa — Degree in Law from the University of Havana, Cuba. Member of the Cape Verdean Parliament (1991-1996). Minister of Culture. Musician and composer. Author of the following books: Sob os signos da luz (1994), Para nunca mais falarmos de amor (1999), Os trinta dias do homem mais pobre do mundo (2000), Vidas paralelas (2004), Nascimento de um mundo (2010, Carlos de Oliveira Award for Portuguese Speaking Writers), Saloon (2004), and Theatre collection (five pieces, 2008). Renato Janine Ribeiro is Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the University of São Paulo since 1993 and wrote several books in political philosophy. Some of them concentrated on Thomas Hobbes, but later he
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showed a growing concern for the problems that arise when one tries to build a democracy in a dissident Western society, as he characterizes Brazil and some other countries in Latin America and elsewhere. He writes an op-ed column at Valor Econômico (www.valoronline.com.br) on Brazilian and international politics every Monday. He taught at Columbia University in 2003-4, and has been Evaluation Director of Brazilian Graduate Studies (a post in the Ministry of Education) from 2004 to 2008. His website is www.renatojanine. pro.br, and his blog is renatojanine.blogspot.com. Santiago Zabala — He is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona and author of The Remains of Being (2009), The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy (2008), co-author, with Gianni Vattimo, of Hermeneutic communism (2011), editor of Weakening philosophy (2007), The future of religion (2005), Nihilism and emancipation (2004), Art’s claim to truth (2009), and co-editor with Jeff Malpas of Consequences of hermeneutics (2010). He also writes opinion articles and reviews for El Pais, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and other international journals. Susan Buck-Morss is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at CUNY Graduate Center, and core faculty member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. Her books include Hegel, Haiti, and universal history (2009), Thinking past terror: Islamism and critical theory on the left (2003), Dreamworld and ca-
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tastrophe: the passing of mass utopia in East and West (2000); The dialectics of seeing: Walter Benjamin and the arcades project (1989); and The origin of negative dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School (Free Press, 1977; 2nd ed., 2002).
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Walter D. Mignolo is William H. Wannamaker Professor and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University. He is Visiting Fellow at the Advanced Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Studies, at the City University of Hong Kong (JanuaryJune 2012). Some of his work: the darker side of the Renaissance: literacy, territoriality and colonization (1995) and Local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledge and border thinking (2000). The idea of Latin America (2005) received the Frantz Fanon Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2006. The darker side of Western modernity: global futures, decolonial options was just released in December of 2011. Wang Ning is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Tsinghua University, and Zhiyuan Chair Professor of Humanities at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Apart from his numerous books and articles in Chinese, he has authored two books in English: Globalization and cultural translation (2004), and Translated modernities: literary and cultural per-
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spectives on globalization and China (2010). He was elected Member of the Academy of Latinity in 2010. Yang Guorong, Zhijiang Professor, East China Normal University, Shanghai; Chang Jiang Scholar, Ministry of Education, China; Dean of School of Advanced Study for Humanities, ECNU; Vice President, National Society of History of Chinese Philosophy in China; Vice president, Society of Confucianism in China; Senior Visiting Scholar, Wolfson College, University of Oxford (1994-1995); Senior Visiting Professor, Harvard University (2002); Fulbright Scholar, Stanford University(2006-2007); Member of the Editorial Board of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy (USA). Zhang Longxi has a Ph.D. from Harvard University and is currently a Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation at the City University of Hong Kong and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. He has numerous publications in both English and Chinese in East-West cross-cultural studies and serves on many editorial boards, including New Literary History as an Advisory Editor.
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