boundary 2

Category: News and politics

  • Stathis Gourgouris: Left Governmentality in Reality

    boundary 2 contributor Stathis Gourgouris has written about SYRIZA and the upcoming election in Greece. You can read it here.

  • The Mouse That Roared: The Democratic Movement in Hong Kong

    656px-Victims_of_Communism_Memorial_-_Washington,_D.C.

    an essay by Arif Dirlik
    ~
    In 1997, the British government handed Hong Kong over to the People’s Republic of China(PRC) after 150 years of colonial rule. Some observers at the time could not but wonder if Hong Kong would be absorbed and remade by the behemoth to the north, or transform with its proverbial dynamism “the motherland” that already was undergoing radical change. The popular uprising under way in Hong Kong is the most recent indication that the question was not an idle one. The answer is yet to come.

    Hong Kong investments and technology played an important part in the 1980s in laying the ground for the PRC’s economic take-off. The “special economic zones” that were set up in Guangdong province at the beginning of “reform and opening” as gateways to global capitalism (while keeping the rest of the country immune to its effects) were intended to take advantage of the dynamic capitalism of neighboring Hong Kong. And they did. To this day, Guangdong leads the rest of the country in industrial production and wealth. It also heavily resembles Hong Kong with which it shares a common language and, despite three decades of separation after 1949, common cultural characteristics. Hong Kong has continued to play a crucial part in the country’s development.

    It has been a different matter politically. Since the take-over in 1997 the leadership in Beijing has left no doubt of its enthusiasm for the oligarchic political structure that was already in place before the end of colonial rule. The many freedoms and rule of law Hong Kong people enjoyed were less appealing to a regime that preferred a population obedient to its strictures and a legal system more pliable at the service of Communist Party power. Already in the 1980s, Hong Kong people’s doubts about unification with the “motherland” were obvious in the exodus of those who could afford to leave to places like the United States, Canada and Australia. The exodus speeded up following the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989 which put to rest any hopes that reforms might open up a greater space for political freedoms. The colony practically disqualified itself as any kind of political inspiration for the Mainland with the enthusiastic participation of Hong Kongers in the Tiananmen movement leading up to the June Fourth massacre, and annual commemorations thereafter of the suppression of the student movement. In the early 1990s the Party under Deng Xiaoping settled on the example of Singapore as a model more attuned to its own authoritarian practices.

    The same reasons that made the regime suspicious of Hong Kong people for their “lack of patriotism” due to the legacies of colonialism have made Hong Kong into an inspiration as well as a base for radical critics of the regime struggling for greater freedom and democracy on the Mainland. The take-over of 1997 was under the shadow of Tinanmen, but even so few would have imagined at the time that within two decades of the celebrations of the end of colonialism and “return” to the motherland, protestors against Beijing “despotism” would be waving British flags. Once the initial enthusiasm for “liberation” was over, Hong Kongers rediscovered as the source of their “difference” the colonial history which in nationalist historiography appeared as a lapse in the nation’s historical, a period of humiliation remembered most importantly to foster nationalist sentiment. PRC democracy activists such as the jailed Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo have drawn the ire of the regime for suggesting that Hong Kong’s freedoms and democratic sentiments were legacies of colonial acculturation that Mainlanders had missed out on.

    Current protests have their origins in a consciousness born of the anxieties provoked by the prospect of unification in the 1980s and 1990s, and even though both the Mainland and Hong Kong have changed radically in the intervening period, the Hong Kong identity that assumed recognizable contours at the time is a fundamental driving force of the protests. The immediate issue that has provoked the protests—call for universal suffrage in the selection of the chief executive and legislative council of the Special Administrative Region—harks back to the Basic Law of 1984 agreed upon by the British and the PRC as a condition of unification. The Basic Law stipulated that Hong Kong would be subject internally to its own laws for fifty years after the take-over under a system of “one country, two systems,” with its own chief executive and a legislature elected by an election committee representing various functional constituencies in a corporatist arrangement. The arrangement openly favored the corporate and financial ruling class in Hong Kong which in turn was prepared to align its interests with those of the Communist regime in a mutually beneficial relationship. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) was something of a political counterpart to the “special economic zones”—an exception that was granted not to compromise national sovereignty but as an act of sovereign power. In all matters pertaining to governance and the law, the SAR would be accountable to the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing. Hong Kong was granted representation in the NPC which, like all representation in that body, has served more to consolidate central control than to allow for the democratic airing of public opinion and grievances.

    “One country, two systems” was an unstable structure. It was important to the PRC for patriotic reasons to put an end to the colonialism at its doorstep and retrieve territory lost a century and a half ago. But some compromise with the departing British was unavoidable given the strategic importance to the new project of development of the global corporate and financial hub that was Hong Kong. The autonomy granted to Hong Kong was subject to the good faith of the Beijing government. What might happen if the PRC no longer needed this hub seemed like a remote contingency in the 1980s, but already by the 1990s there was talk of the rise of Shanghai as a competitor. It is not out of the question that the present unrest which may undermine faith in Hong Kong as a corporate and financial center is not entirely undesirable to the regime now that preparations have been completed to launch a new financial center in Shanghai.

    A similar uncertainty attended the issue of governance under the system. The Basic Law held out the possibility of democratic government and universal suffrage in Hong Kong subject to circumstances to be determined by the NPC. It nourished hopes in democracy, but reserved for Beijing final say on when and how democracy was to be exercised. There were no guarantees that full democracy would be granted if Hong Kongers invited the displeasure of the government in Beijing—or circumstances within the country made it undesirable. This is the immediate issue in the current protests (along with public dissatisfaction with the current chief executive, Leung Chun Ying who, like his two predecessors since 1997, is widely viewed as a Beijing puppet). To Hong Kong democracy advocates, the offer of universal suffrage is a mockery of the promise of full democracy when the choices are limited to candidates carefully selected by an electoral commission packed with Beijing loyalists.

    The take-over in 1997, and the circumstances of its negotiation, had one very significant consequence that in likelihood was unanticipated: the politicization of Hong Kong society. Hong Kong long had a reputation as a cultural and political “desert.” The British colonial regime was successful in diverting popular energies to the struggle for everyday existence, and for those who could, the pursuit of wealth. At the height of the Cultural Revolution on the Mainland in 1967, labor disputes erupted into riots against the colonial government led by pro-Beijing leftists. But sustained political activity dates back to the negotiations surrounding the take-over, especially the mobilization instigated by the Tiananmen movement in Beijing. Politics over the last twenty-five years has revolved around the assertion of a Hong Kong identity against dissolution into the PRC. As a new political consciousness has found expression in the efflorescence of a Hong Kong culture in film and literature, the latter has played no little part in stimulating political activity. Ironically, while the goal of “one country, two systems” was to ease Hong Kong into the PRC, the very recognition of the differences of Hong Kong from the rest of the country would seem to have underlined the existence of a Hong Kong identity that differentiated the former colony from the rest of PRC society.

    Current protests have focused attention on issues of governance. Far more important are the social tensions and the economic transformations that lend urgency to protestors’ demand for political recognition and rights. One important indication is the part young people—teenagers—have played in the protests. Joshua Wong, who has emerged as a leader, is seventeen years old, which means that he was born in 1997, the year of the take-over.

    The generation Wong represents has come of age in a society subject to deepening social and economic problems. The wealth gap in Hong Kong is nothing new, but as elsewhere in the world, inequality has assumed critical proportions with increased concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite allied with Beijing. Since 1997, the experience of marginalization has been intensified with the inundation of the city by Mainlanders with their newfound wealth which has increased prices of commodities, put pressures on public services––including housing, health and education––and introduced new cultural fissures. Some Hong Kong businesses prefer Mainland customers on whose business they have come to be dependent. In the 1990s, Mainlanders living in Hong Kong used to complain about the prejudice they suffered from Hong Kongers with their pretensions to superior cultural sophistication. That has been reversed. Even the most uncouth Mainlanders are likely to look down on Hong Kongers for not being authentically Chinese, which typifies PRC attitudes toward Chinese populations elsewhere. While Hong Kongers complain about “locusts” from the North, a very-unConfucian Beijing University professor descended from Confucius refers to Hong Kongers as “bastards” contaminated by their colonial past. The central government in Beijing, sharing the suspicious of southerners of its imperial predecessors, is engaged in efforts to discourage the use of Cantonese while instilling in the local population its version of what it means to be “Chinese.” We may recall that the present protests were preceded two years ago by successful protests against Beijing-backed efforts to introduce “patriotic” education to Hong Kong schools. It is not that Hong Kong people are not patriotic. They are very patriotic indeed. But their patriotism is mediated by their Hong Kong identity, a very product of the take-over that Beijing would like to erase.

    The upheaval in Hong bears similarities to “Occupy” movements elsewhere in the economic issues that inform it. It also has its roots in the special circumstances of Hong Kong society, and its relationship to Beijing. The movement may be viewed as the latest chapter in a narrative that goes back to the 1980s, the emergence of a neoliberal global capitalism of which the PRC has been an integral component, and the Tiananmen movement which was one of the earliest expressions of the social and political strains created by shifts in the global economy. The demands for democracy in the protests are clearly not merely “political.” Democracy is important to the protestors not only as a means to retrieving some control over their lives, but also to overcome inequality. The authorities in Beijing are quite aware of this link. A Law professor from Tsinghua University in Beijing who also serves as an advisor on Hong Kong affairs just recently announced that democracy would jeopardize the wealthy who are crucial to the welfare of Hong Kong’s capitalist economy. It may seem ironic that a Communist Party should be devoted to the protection of wealthy capitalists, but that is the reality of contemporary PRC society that the protestors are struggling against.

    The protests are also the latest chapter in the formation of a Hong Kong identity which assumed urgency with the prospect of return to the “motherland” in the 1980s. This, too, is a threat to a regime in flux that finds itself threatened by identity claims among the populations it rules over. It seems superfluous to say that allowing the people of Hong Kong the self-rule they demand would have adverse consequences in encouraging separatism among the various ethnic groups already in rebellion against the regime, and further stimulate democracy activists among the Han population. Hitherto pro-Beijing Guomindang leader in Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, has recently voiced his opposition to unification under the “one country, two-systems” formula.

    It would probably take something of a miracle for the protest movement in Hong Kong to achieve its stated goals. Rather than risk a Tiananmen style confrontation, the authorities have taken a wait-and-see attitude, waiting for the movement to spend its force, or opponents to force it to retreat. There are signs already that the movement has run its course in clashes between the protestors and members of the general public weary of the disruption of life and business. It is suspected that the attackers included members of Triad gangs. Whom they might be serving is, for the moment, anybody’s guess.

    What the next chapter might bring is uncertain, to say the least. It is unlikely that a movement that has been in the making for two decades will simply fade away into oblivion. The problems it set out to resolve are very real, and offer little sign of resolution, and the movement has proven its resilience through the years. The distinguished scholar of Hong Kong-Mainland relations at the City University of Hong Kong, Joseph Cheng Yu-shek,who is also an advocate of democracy, stated in a recent interview that, “All the protesters here and Hong Kong people know it is extremely unlikely the Chinese leaders will respond to our demands…. We are here to say we are not going to give up, we will continue to fight on. We are here because as long as we fight on, at least we haven’t lost.”

  • "Malaysia's Dog Issue" by b2 writer Masturah Alatas

    B0TXIUlCcAI4ddQ.jpg-large

    Masturah Alatas, a boundary 2 contributor, has written about the ‘I want to touch a dog’ event in Malaysia for CounterPunch. You can read “Malaysia’s Dog Issue” here.

  • Drones

    Drones

    8746586571_471353116d_bDavid Golumbia and David Simpson begin a conversation, inviting comment below or via email to boundary 2:

    What are we talking about when we talk about drones? Is it that they carry weapons (true of only a small fraction of UAVs), that they have remote, mobile surveillance capabilities (true of most UAVs, but also of many devices not currently thought of as drones), or that they have or may someday have forms of operational autonomy (a goal of many forms of robotics research)? Is it the technology itself, or the fact that it is currently being deployed largely by the world’s dominant powers, or the way it is being deployed? Is it the use of drones in specific military contexts, or the existence of those military conflicts per se (that is, if we endorsed a particular conflict, would the use of drones in that scenario be acceptable)? Is it that military use of drones leads to civilian casualties, despite the fact that other military tactics almost certainly lead to many more casualties (the total number of all persons, combatant and non-combatant, killed by drones to date by US operations worldwide is estimated at under 4000; the number of civilian casualties in the Iraq conflict alone even by conservative estimates exceeds 100,000 and may be as many as 500,000 or even more), a reduction in total casualties that forms part of the arguments used by some military and international law analysts to suggest that drone use is not merely acceptable but actually required under international law, which mandates that militaries use the least amount of lethal force available to them that will effectively achieve their goals? If we object to drones based on their use in targeted killings, do we accept their use for surveillance? If we object only to their use in targeted killing, does that objection proceed from the fact that drones fly, or do we actually object to all forms of automated or partly-automated lethal force, along the lines of the Stop Killer Robots campaign, whose scope goes well beyond drones, and yet does not include non-lethal drones? How do we define drones so as to capture what is objectionable about them on humanitarian and civil society grounds, given how rapidly the technology is advancing and how difficult it already is to distinguish some drones from other forms of technology, especially for surveillance? What do we do about the proliferating “positive” use cases for drones (journalism, remote information about forest fires and other environmental problems, for example), which are clearly being developed in part so as to sell drone technology in general to the public, but at least in some cases appear to describe vital functions that other technology cannot fulfill?

    David Golumbia

    _____

    What resources can we call upon, invent or reinvent in order to bring effective critical attention to the phenomenon of drone warfare? Can we revivify the functions of witness and testimony to protest or to curtail the spread of robotic lethal violence? What alliances can be pursued with the radical journalism sector (Medea Benjamin, Jeremy Scahill)? Is drone warfare inevitably implicated in a seamlessly continuous surveillance culture wherein all information is or can be weaponized? A predictable development in the command-control-communication-intelligence syndrome articulated some time ago by Donna Haraway? Can we hope to devise any enforceable boundaries between positive and destructive uses of the technology? Does it bring with it a specific aesthetics, whether for those piloting the drones or those on the receiving end? What is the profile of psychological effects (disorders?) among those observing and then killing at a distance? And what are the political obligations of a Congress and a Presidency able to turn to drone technology as arguably the most efficient form yet devised for deploying state terrorism? What are the ethical obligations of a superpower (or indeed a local power) that can now wage war with absolutely no risk to its own combatants?

    David Simpson

  • Three Models of Emergency Politics

    Three Models of Emergency Politics

    Tahir Square during protests

    by Bonnie Honig
    ~

    This article presents three models of emergency politics—deliberative (Elaine Scarry), promiscuous (Douglas Crimp), and legalist (Louis Freeland Post)—and assesses their promise and limits for democratic theory and practice. Emergency politics names not the friend/enemy decisionism of Carl Schmitt but rather the idea that emergency may be taken to promote a focus not just on survival but also on sur-vivance—a future-oriented practice of countersovereignty. One model of this alternative form of emergency politics can be found in the Slow Food movement, which incorporates elements from all three models and embraces the paradox of politics that underwrites democratic politics in general.

    Read the full essay here.

    Summer 2014

    Summer 2014


    Feature Image: Tahir Square during protests in February 2011.

  • Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists

    Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists

    A film by Bruce Robbins, Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists, featured here in continuation of b2‘s Legacies of the Future: On the Life and Work of Edward Said.

  • on the ASA Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

    on the ASA Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

    Palestinian House

    Colin Dayan (Vanderbilt University) discusses the scope of responsibility institutionalized academia must embrace, and what “academic freedom” means to freedom itself, in light of the American Studies Association’s recent stance on the systematic silencing of Palestinian academia, and the polemics that have followed: “Must the actual separation wall in Israel become a reality in our institutions, blocking our view, disappearing Palestinians and burying the realities of the occupation?”

    Read her full opinion piece here.

    __

    cover photo: A sign on the front door of a Palestinian house which reads: “I have a clear conscience, do you? This home is free of products produced in [Israeli] Settlements.”

  • Mohamed-Salah Omri Traces the History and Influence of Unionization in Tunisia

    Mohamed-Salah Omri Traces the History and Influence of Unionization in Tunisia

    Lac de Bizerte, Tunisia

    Tunisia is gripped by the most serious political crisis since 2011, a crisis in trust between the government and its opponents compounded by rise in violent terrorism and a collapsing economy. Yet, one local trade union may save the day. If it did, it would not be doing so for the first time. For this is no ordinary union. The Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT) has affected the character of Tunisia as a whole since the late 1940s. It impacted significantly the 2011 revolution and the transition period, and is likely to impact the future. In this, it is unparalleled elsewhere in the Arab world. And it is largely because of it that one may confidently say that Tunisia is not Egypt, or Syria or Yemen. Indeed, to understand Tunisia, one must get to grips with its labour movement.

    Trade unions and the construction of a specifically Tunisian configuration of protest

    by Mohamed-Salah Omri
    St John’s College, University of Oxford

    Incubator of protest and refuge

    Trade unionism in Tunisia goes back to the early twentieth century and has had both local and international features since its inception by Mohamed Ali al Hammi (1890-1928), founder of the General Federation of Tunisian Workers in 1924. But it was with the charismatic and visionary Farhat Hached (1914-1952) that a home grown strong organization would emerge. Hached learned union activism and organizing within the French CGT for 15 years before splitting from it to start UGTT in 1946. His union quickly gained support, clout and international ties, which it used to pressure the French for more social and political rights for Tunisia and to consolidate the union’s position as a key component of the national liberation movement. Because of that birth in the midst of the struggle against French colonialism, the union had political involvement from the start, a line it has maintained and guarded vigorously since.

    UGTT has enjoyed continuity in history and presence across the country, which parallel only the ruling party at its height under Bourguiba and Ben Ali. With 150 offices across the country, an office in every governorate and district, and over 680 000 current members, it constituted a credible alternative to this party’s power and a locus of resistance to it, so much so that to be a unionist became a euphemism for being an opponent or an activist against the ruling party. UGTT has been the outcome of Tunisian resistance and its incubator at the same time. For example, in 1984 it aligned itself with the rioting people during the bread revolt; in 2008, it was the main catalyst of the disobedience movement in the Mining Basin of Gafsa; and, come December 2010, UGTT, particularly its teachers’ unions and local offices, became the headquarters of revolt against Ben Ali. The fit between the revolution and UGTT was almost natural since the main demands of the rising masses, namely jobs, national dignity and freedom have been on the agenda of the union all along. The union was also very well represented in the remote hinterland where the revolution started.

    For these reasons, successive governments tried to compromise with, co-opt, repress or change the union, depending on the situation and the balance of power at hand.
    In 1978, UGTT went on general strike to protest what amounted to a coup perpetrated by the Bourguiba government to change a union leadership judged to be too oppositional and too powerful. The cost was the worst setback in the union’s history since the assassination of its founder in 1952. The entire leadership of the union was put on trial and replaced by regime loyalists. Ensuing popular riots were repressed by the army, resulting in tens of deaths. In 2012, UGTT sensed a repeat of 1978 and an attempt against its very existence. On December the 4th, 2012 as the union was gearing up to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the assassination of its founder, its iconic headquarters, Place Mohamed Ali, were attacked by groups known as Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution. The incident was ugly, public and of immediate impact. These leagues, which originated in community organisation in cities across the country designed to keep order and security immediately after January 14, but were later disbanded, and become dominated by Islamists of various orientations. On August 26, 2013, a group of trade unionists founded the Tunisian Labour Organization, which aims according to its leaders at correcting the direction of UGTT. To the first attack, UGTT responded by boycotting the government, organizing regional strikes and marches, and eventually calling for a general strike on Thursday the 13th of December, the first such action since 1978. To the founding of a parallel union, Sami Tahri, the UGTT spokesman responded, not only dismissively but with some arrogance, that this is no more than the reaction of losers who could not win elected offices in UGTT and failed to drag the union into the “house of obedience”, referring to the new organization’s ties to Al Nahdah party. Tahri’s confident tone and political statement are backed up by history, which demonstrates that UGTT has warded off not one but several attempts of takeover, division or weakening over the past sixty years or so.

    Qualified powerbroker

    Despite antagonistic relations with governments before and after the revolution, UGTT remains perhaps the only body in the country qualified to resolve disputes peacefully but also offers mediation with a view to present its own positions. After January 2011, it emerged as the key mediator and power broker at the initial phase of the revolution, when all political players trusted and needed it. And it was within the union that the committee which regulated the transition to the elections of 23 October 20111 was formed. At the same time, UGTT used its leverage to secure historic victories for its members and for workers in general, including permanent contracts for over 350,000 temporary workers and pay rises for several sectors, including teachers.

    Tunisian Flag

    As Tunisia moved from the period of revolutionary harmony in which UGTT played host and facilitator to a political, and even ideological phase, characterised by multiplicity of parties and polarisation of public opinion, UGTT was challenged to keep its engagement in politics without falling under the control of a particular party or indeed turning into one. But, due to historical reasons, which saw leftists channel their energy into trade unionism when their political activities were curtailed, UGTT remained on the left side of politics and, in the face of rising Islamist power, became a place where the left, despite its many newly-formed parties, kept its ties and even strengthened them. For these reasons, UGTT remained strong and decidedly outside the control of Islamists. But they, in turn, could not ignore its role its status, nor could other parties.

    It is remarkable, but not surprising, that the current balance of power and much of the rational management of the deep political crisis is run by UGTT and its partners, the Tunisian Association of Human Rights, the Lawyers’ Association and the UTICA (the Tunisian Union of Industry and Commerce). Today all parties speak through UGTT and on the basis of its initiative, which consists in dissolving the current government, the appointment of a non-political government, curtailing the work of the ANC (National Constituent Assembly), reviewing top government appointments and dissolving the UGTT’s arch enemy, the Leagues for the Defence of the Revolution. Union leaders are known to be experienced negotiators and patient and tireless activists. They honed their skills over decades of settling disputes and negotiating deals. For this reasons, they have been able to conduct marathon negotiations with the opposing parties and remain above accusations of outright bias.

    The construction of a specifically Tunisian configuration of protest

    With a labour movement engrained in the political culture of the country, and at all levels, a culture of trade unionism has become a component of Tunisian society. There has not been a proper sociology of this. But the implications are important. I enumerate some of them here in the form of observations.

    • Protest culture in Tunisia has been deeply affected by labour unionism. It has been tenacious, issue-oriented, uneven and limited in terms of popular reach. The unevenness runs along the degree of unionisation and militancy. For example, the education sector tended to be the most vocal and better organised. The rural areas as well as a large portion of the middle class have been left out of this movement because it had no or less union affiliation. Even intellectuals had to work within the confines or in synch with unions.

    • One challenge to the Leftist parties after 2011 has been how to move away from being trade unionist and become politicians, in other words, how to think beyond small issues and using unionist means in order to tackle wider issues and adopt their attendant methods. This has been expressed by prominent Leftists, such as the late Chokri Belaid, who challenged his heavily unitized party to think like a party, not like a union. This meant finding different, broader bases for political alliances and laying out projects for the society at large.

    • Post 2011 alliances, particularly the current ones, have largely kept the patterns of alliance within UGTT. The Popular Front and its closest allies have been collaborating within UGTT for years. Their interlocutors in Nida’ Tunis are also trade unionists, most prominently Tayeb Baccouche, a former Secretary General of UGTT from 1981 to 1984. Furthermore, the Popular Front parties have been unable to recruit members from outside the union bases. Nida Tunis and Al Nahdha are different in this respect. Nida’ caters to a base along socioeconomic means and tends to attract the middle class and even wealthy, liberal members. Al Nahdha caters to religious or political affiliation which cross the class divide.

    Trade union leaders at the May 1st 2012 protest in Tunis, Tunisia
    Trade union leaders at the May 1st 2012 protest in Tunis, Tunisia

    • There have been close relations between student unionism (UGET) and the wider labour movement both in activism and in membership, as the university tended to be a training ground, which prepared leaders to be active in UGTT once they leave education. UGET, founded in 1952 worked closely with UGTT since then; and both would gradually move away from the ruling party, albeit at different pace. The radicalisation of UGTT in fact finds its roots in this flow as the university in Tunisia, particularly in the 1970s and 80s was a space of radical activism and left wing politics.

    • A key paradox of UGTT has been its support of women causes but scarcely promoting women to its leadership. The widespread practice of limiting women’s access to the glass ceiling does not truly apply to other aspects of Tunisian civil society institutions. The President of business association is a woman, so are the leaders of the Journalists Association and the Council of Judges. While the absence of women in leadership could be explained by the very nature of trade union work, which requires time and presence in public places which are not very friendly to women a such as cafes, but this remains a serious lacuna of UGTT, UGTT is challenged to be in line in this area. In Tunisia, this is particularly important as the role of women has been a marking feature of the society at large and of its protest culture in particular, throughout the post independent period, within and outside the labor movement.

    • The union has also been accused of bureaucracy and corruption at the top level, which triggered several attempts at internal reform and even rebellion over the years. There is in fact a lot of power and money associated with being a top union official in Tunisia, which, in a climate of rampant corruption has led many leaders to cozy up with businesses and government officials, the discredited former Secretary General Sahbbani is an example of this. But this did not affect grass root support and local chapters of the union who did not enjoy the benefits of high union office. Post 2011, UGTT seems to have regained a cohesion it lacked during the ben Ali period when the gap between the leadership and the grassroots were wide.

    • The practice of democracy and plurality in Tunisia over the past half century was almost the exclusive domain of the university and the trade unions. Both had electoral campaigns for office, sometimes outside the control of the state, as was the case in the university during the 1970s and 80s. In fact, the state stepped in specifically to quell such practice when the outcome was not in its favour. Two memorable incidents testify to this. The first one was in 1972 when the majority of students defeated the ruling party lists and secured the independence of UGET. The second was is in 1978 when the ruling party was overruled by UGTT leadership. In both cases, the government proceeded to take over or ban the unions. The type of democratic practice in these two institutions was also in place in the lawyers association and some other minor civil society associations which were all severely repressed, notably, the Judges Association, the Tunisian League of Human Rights and the Journalist Association. It is no surprise that two of these are now leading the reconciliation effort and that all four are working in concert and at the forefront of preserving the aims of the revolution, particularly freedom, dignity and the right to work. The coming together of these associations has, I argue, mutually affected all of them, not only in terms of widening the field of protest, but also in terms of brining to the fore the wider issues of human rights and freedoms, which were not at the forefront of UGTT’s preoccupations, notably at the level of the leadership. .Democratic practice was therefore linked not to normal running of society, i.e., as a practice of citizenship, but as an opposition or resistance activity. This gave democracy a militant edge, which it did not lose but also affected its character.

    • A combination of symbolic capital of resistance accumulated over decades, a record of results for its members and a well-oiled machine at the level of organisation across the country and every sector of the economy, made UGTT unassailable and unavoidable at the same time. UGTT has been key feature of Tunisian political and social life and a defining element of what may be called the Tunisian exception in the MENA region. For this reason, in times of national discord, UGTT is still capable of credible mediation or power breaking. It also remains a key guarantor that social justice, a main aim of the revolution, can remain on the agenda. Its own challenges are to remain the strongest union at a time when three other split unions are in place and to maintain a political role now that politics has been largely turned over to political parties.

    • This gradual coming together of these strong civil society institutions has given shape to a critical mass whose weight is impossible to ignore. I would even argue that whoever manages to dominate this coalition is likely to shape the future of the country and its revolution. Al Nahdha ignores this coalition at its own peril. If Al Nahdha does not accept the solution the UGTT and its partners have negotiated, they will be forced to form an open alliance with the opposition in a coalition, which will become hard to beat. Together, they are capable of ushering the fall of Al Nahdha’s government in stage a repeat of the January 14 mass protests and strikes.• The confluence between a largely secular and humanist education and an engrained labour activism have been, I claim, the main bases of a Tunisian formation, which allowed it to develop a culture of resistance to authoritarianism with a specific humanist and social justice content. An alignment of these two elements against Islamists is now taking place, which, unlike matters in Egypt, leaves the army well out of the game and may bring back hope in the success of the transition period.

  • Barack Obama Vs. the Tea Party — "States of Fantasy," by Don Pease

    Boston_Tea_Party_Currier

    From the 2012 Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies, Don Pease’s new provocative essay analyzes the recent populist conservatism in terms of the disparate fantasies convoking its disparate constituencies.

  • b2 mourns the death of the great critic and musician, Charles Rosen

    The winner of the National Humanities Medal, a remarkable performer and scholar of European music, an expert in Modernism, and the author of two important essays on Walter Benjamin, Rosen died December 9, 2012.

    See the New York Times obituary here.