*** TZVETAN TODOROV: Les ennemis intimes de la démocratie. Robert Laffont / Versilio (24 av. Marceau, F-75381 Paris cedex 8. Tel: (33-1) 53671400. Internet: http://www.laffont.fr ). 2012, 259 pp, €20-30. ISBN 978-2-221-12952-4.
Author and philosopher Tzvetan Todorov writes in this book that democracy is also characterised by the way power is exercised. The key word here is pluralism and the ideas inherent in the very idea of democracy arise from the isolation and favouring of just one of its ingredients. Todorov says that the grand democratic principles are the power of the people, faith in progress, civil liberties, the market economy, natural rights and regarding the human being as sacred. In his view, the democracy's main enemy is simplification, which reduces pluralism to a single unit, thus paving the way for excess. In this book, he shows that the great dangers to democracy today do not come from rivals like fascism, communism or terrorism, but rather from more mundane enemies secreted by democracy itself, which gnaw away at its organs like cancerous growths. Democracy is not free from the toxins so active in other political regimes which, encouraged by a messianic feeling, feed several negative 'isms.' The messianic feeling rots contemporary societies from within and can been seen in the debate in the media about Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the rising power of populism, the effects of neoliberalism, multiculturalism and so on. To illustrate the dangers and contemporary expressions of this danger, the author takes us back to the recurrent resurgence of the debate between Pelagio and Saint Augustine about original sin in the fourth and fifth centuries AD.
The author compares communism and neoliberalism in an interesting manner. He grew up in Bulgaria, and explains that the secret common parenthood of communism and neoliberalism is why the second ideology was imposed so easily in Eastern Europe upon the collapse of the Iron Curtain, pointing out that ultraliberalism is not only an enemy of totalitarianism, but is in fact, in some ways at least, the brother of totalitarianism; a reverse, yet symmetrical, mirror image of it. It goes from one extreme to the other, from nothing but a totalitarian state to nothing but ultraliberal individualism, from a regime that kills freedom to another that kills society. They are both voluntarist systems, one being collectively voluntarist and the other individually voluntarist.
Todorov explains that he wants to help readers gain a better understanding of modern times and fights against a dehumanisation that he sees sliding insidiously into modern habitats. This is felt in his criticisms of demagogy and the role played by the modern media. The author writes that the press barons are not trying to persuade people these days, but rather to manipulate them. At the end of the day, power is in the hands of money, rather than the people of democracy. Other poignant pages look at what he calls 'Toyotaism,' and a bitter commentary on the practice of governance, which he describes as a way of standardising behaviour not with fixed rules, but by conditioning that will lead to the same results. In another troubled epoch, the 1930s, Swiss author Denis de Rougemont wrote that any renaissance seems to take wing from noticing something wrong, but the wrong could only be revealed by knowledge of a new good, a good which does not cause problems, but does give orders, power and the joy of accomplishment. Observant and pessimistic critics of the decline of modern society and culture only precipitate the path of evil, seeming to have no other role than making us feel guilty. Is Todorov one of these? It is regrettable that he does not give more details about how what he desires could come about, spending most of his time analysing the things that do not work. One cannot fail to praise his expression of faith in European countries' power of resistance and the chances of 'tortoise Europe' winning the race against the new hare countries…
Lieven Taillie
*** JOHAN VAN MERRIËNBOER: Mansholt. A biography. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Memories of an Evolving Europe / Mémoires de l'Europe en devenir' series, No. 2. 2011, 642 pp, €40. ISBN 978-90-5201-757-0.
Lawyer and historian Johan van Merriënboer has written a lengthy political biography, in the form of a doctoral thesis, of one of the most emblematic Dutch politicians of the past century. Already the author of the biographies of Dutch prime ministers De Jong and Van Agt, he looks in this book at the totally fascinating life of the man who will always be known at the father of the Common Agricultural Policy, no matter what the current princes in charge of Europe decide to do with the fate of European farming. Sicco Leendert Mansholt died in 1995 at the age of 86, and was far more than the designer of the CAP. When this socialist farmer (an 'unusual combination,' comments his biographer) became Agriculture Commissioner in the European Commission headed by Hallstein of Germany in 1958, he had already been Minister of Agriculture, Fishery and Food Distribution in six governments in a row between June 1945 and December 1957. And that's just his political life. Before then, in 1934, the young Mansholt became a tea-planter in the Dutch Indies, which he did for two years before he became 'disillusioned with colonial capitalism.' This did not prevent the emeritus Resistance fighter of World War Two from accepting, as minister in the late 1940s, his share of the 'collective responsibility for his country's repressive colonial war against Indonesia.' In the autumn of his life, this 'strong proponent of socialist planning' turned into an uncompromising proponent of environmental protection, and even a 'prophet of zero growth.' The biography helps readers discover this man of true flesh and blood, strong convictions and doubts, a life of constants and forks in the road. Johan van Merriënboer examines his ideals, his ambitions and dreams, along with his political style and charisma. How did he interact with his family, friends and colleagues, his political allies and opponents? These questions run throughout this fine biography, based on first-hand sources, such as the personal archives of the man who was President of the European Commission from March to December 1972, along with the personal archives of his private secretary in Brussels, Alfred Mozer. The book will be an inspiration for the current generation at the helm of Europe and for young people not yet familiar with the name Mansholt. The book also paints a picture, by means of the portrait of this great Dutch European, of a European Union 'with a human face, that will speak volumes to the heart and intelligence of European citizens today.
(MT)
*** STAN DE JONG, KOEN VOSKUIL: Neelie Kroes. Hoe een Rotterdams meisje de machtigste vrouw van Europa werd. Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers (16 Jan Luijkenstraat, Postbus 15511, 1001 NA Amsterdam. Tel: (31-20) 5706100 - email: info@nieuwamsterdam.nl - Internet: http://www.nieuwamsterdam.nl ). 2011, 416 pp, €19-95. ISBN 978-90-468-1094-1.
Scoring goals. Stop talking and take action. Ruud Lubbers, former Dutch prime minister, is one of the many eye-witnesses interviewed for this biography of the Dutch Iron Lady and her incredible, enterprising, pragmatism. Also nicknamed 'Teflon Neelie' because of the way she managed to get out of various problems at different times in her career, as is outlined in this book, the European Commission deputy-president seems to have the ability to take on the aura of a celebrity, when it suits her. This impressive woman was the first to be elected to become one of the managers of the prestigious Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce. As a young woman, she became a parliamentarian and a secretary of state and minister on more than one occasion, then the first woman CEO of a company quoted on the stock exchange, along with positions like Enterprise Commissioner, before becoming the first Dutch woman to become a European Commissioner. Neelie Kroes' CV certainly stands out from the crowd. Fans and critics alike agree that she is hard as steel, a characteristic that she seems to have got from her father, a self-made international shipping entrepreneur from a petit bourgeois background. Describing entrepreneurs as heroes and praising the merits of Dutch people who work hard for a living, the authors see Kroes as the leader of a movement that led to people like Pim Fortuyn, Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders…They describe her as a Rotterdam girl, quite unlike the eloquent Amsterdamers and people from The Hague. Is this enough to justify writing a four hundred page biography? Yes, because of the beauty of the descriptions in it of other politicians, officials, captains of industry and businessmen, providing a behind-the-scenes portrait of the Dutch business world, along with descriptions of what goes on behind the scenes in the European Union's corridors of power. The authors paint the portrait of a generation of politicians either in power right now or who have only recently relinquished the reins. The book shows how they are in the habit of applying a mix-and-match in the business world, playing off the media and networking in the global village. As head of the student club in her university days, Neelie Kroes enjoyed the company of men like Ruud Lubbers, Onno Ruding or Jan Pronk, all of whom were to become political bigwigs. The description of her jet setting life with her second husband, Rotterdam Mayor Bram Peper, and the serious nature of transport questions, also make this biography worthy of attention beyond the Dutch-speaking world …
(LT)
*** BERNARD LUDWIG, ANDREAS LINSENMANN (Eds.): Frontières et réconciliation / Grenzen und Aussöhnung. L'Allemagne et ses voisins depuis 1945 / Deutschland und seine Nachbarn seit 1945. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see above). "L'Allemagne dans les relations internationales / Deutschland in den internationalen Beziehungen" series, No. 1. 2011, 275 pp, €29-50. ISBN 978-90-5201-719-8.
Emerging from a young researchers' workshop in Paris in 2010, organised by Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, this book provides case studies providing multidisciplinary perspectives ranging from the history of anthropology to linguistics, examining the role that borders and borderline areas have played (and still play) in the reconciliation of Germany and its neighbours since 1945. The editors explain that they carried out comparative and combined research into how former enemies manage and managed the war leftover that is the border and, more generally, memories of the past in border areas. The authors talk about Germany's borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Denmark and even Austria. Several examine the creation of re-emergence of genuine cross-brooder regions, such as Alsace (a newly reconstituted cross-border region), while other border regions have seen minority issues settled in terms of a specific identity, but then became border regions, such as Belgium and southern Denmark. Bernard Ludwig and Andreas Linsenmann comment that when national memory allows it to happen, the national is perfectly capable of getting out of the dead-end of national history and its schemas.
(MT)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 13 rue de l'Arbre sec, F-69001 Lyons. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). March 2012, No. 155, 36 pp, €8. Annual subscription: €30.
Some of this issue's editorial examines the 'sad (and very often sickening, particularly vis-a-vis the current president) campaign for the French elections.' The authors explain that 'as far as we are concerned and as far as citizens are concerned, we could never vote for a candidate who, over and above his posturing and disgusting flirting with the far right in order to win votes, never ceases to promote intergovernmentalism in the European Union… while at the same time adorning himself with the costume of federalism without worrying about appearing ridiculous'! This issue includes a rich dossier on the subject of globalisation, anti-globalisation and another world is possible globalisation.
(MT)
*** Causeur. Causeur.fr (10 rue Michel-Chasles, F-75012 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53677082 - email: causeur2@causeur.fr - Internet: http://www.causeur.fr ). March 2012, No. 45, 64 pp, €6-50. Annual subscription: €55 (e-zine: €34-90).
This issue includes a very comprehensive dossier on the French presidential election, where Elisabeth Lévy explains that Nicolas Sarkozy, victim of media consensus against his person, is treading a thin line between populism and the politically correct, as shown by his promise to take the crisis to Brussels if France's partner countries refuse to change the Schengen Agreement. The editor-in-chief points out, however, that both sides agree on the most important matter, Europe, because the two main contenders have the same policy for getting out of the crisis, namely saving the euro and entering a long period of austerity. There are two very interesting articles on the Greek crisis, with Gil Mihaely calling for people to leave mythology behind and raise the only real question, which is what safety net the Greeks are to be provided with, because it is 'simply unthinkable that millions of Europeans could end up not having enough to eat and not being afford to see a doctor.'
(MT)