*** GIULIO DE LIGIO (Editor): Raymond Aron, penseur de l'Europe et de la nation. 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 ). « Euroclio » series, No. 66. 2012, 160 pp. €32.10. ISBN 978-90-5201-826-3.
There are books that those responsible for chronicling them do so out of duty more than out of desire. This is one of them. This is because the only memory of Raymond Aron is for his contribution to the European construction begun by Schuman and Monnet. He was the total opposite of them, contradictory and opinionated and Giulio De Ligio immediately points out that he remained averse to what he called in a passage in his book Paix et guerre entre les nations (published in 1962) on the European federation, “the great illusion of our time, the hope that social inter-dependence can reduce national autonomy”, namely, the power of the nation state. De Ligio, an historian of political thought subsequently explains that, “Aron assumes that it is the nation that is the inevitable starting point or natural yardstick underpinning his thoughts on Europe at the dawning of universal history”, which did not exactly make him more enthusiastic about the idea of Europe and yet…
And yet… this book brings together the acts of a formal study day organising in June 2011 at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris - and was greedily devoured. Each chapter and each page has been meticulously thought out and the margins annotated and subsequently provide additional information for greater discussion and comment based on the reading itself. Should we be surprised by all this? Perhaps but not really because a great intellectual always deserves to be re-read even though he was, “an inveterate critic of the European adventure” (Joël Mouric) and an austere thinker in favour of “fair and cautious action”. If they guard a minimum of good faith, even those affected by the momentous events of May 1968 cannot be totally impervious to the insightful contributions scattered through the three different parts of the book, which certainly indicate that Raymond Aron possessed both intellectual power and rigour. This is so much the case that it is even necessary to go beyond the simple truth of the matter and ask ultimately whether this rather irritating killjoy was in a few instances right about the European project.
Was Aron the Cassandra of Greek myth, the daughter of the King who saw the future so clearly but was not sufficiently believed, following the wrath of a fallen god? This is the burning question at the end of the book, which demonstrates that certain analyses made by this philosopher and political scientist who died in 1983, curiously and unfortunately meld with the current European atmosphere and environment. The coolness demonstrated by Aron with regard to European construction can be explained by the primacy he gave to politics and therefore, as explained by Agnès Bayrou, by the fact that Europe as conceived by Jean Monnet, “was not (or not openly so) a political project insofar as” it was not, “the subject of a clear and honest political dispute either”. In her view it was not possible to know whether a “European people” would be able to emerge from an economic and technocratic approach because as Aron pointed out in 1964, “the old nations were still alive in the hearts of men and the love of the European nation was not yet born or even supposed that it could exist”. Since 2008, the oppressive rise in recriminations against Europe, accompanied by the rise in nationalist feeling may indicate that he was, to a certain extent, right on this point? Do not current events confirm that Europe remains afloat, “thanks to the will of governments”, who use it for national aims irrespective of the indifference and legitimate lack of understanding of their respective people? As Aron predicted in the 1950s, has not this system whereby the economic aspect would lead to the political, failed?
Perhaps the current situation shows that Raymond Aron was partly right but the end of history has not yet been written. He was unable to know the European Union, the euro or the current crisis. Perhaps he would have judged that this would create, similarly to the aftermath of the Second World War, “an exceptional situation propitious to as revolutionary an enterprise as the creation of federal ties between states and which, over the centuries have been sovereign and often pitted against each other” but which now share the same currency. This French thinker believed that only a political Europe was viable if it had sufficient will. Given that some states are now on the edge of a precipice, this is certainly beginning to be demonstrated by some of them. Rightly, they see Europe as, “the third continent of the 21st-century”. Nicolas Baverez explains that European decline does not just threaten the continent's development but could also in the future compromise its freedom. This economist and historian angrily and bitterly points out that, “the crisis is economic and financial but it is above all political and due to the inability of states to deal with risk management and build a European project in a globalised world. Not since the 1930s has a political project been as necessary as it is now for tackling changes to the global system and federalism is necessary if the euro is to survive. This political project, however, has rarely been as unconvincing and stuttering in face of the return to recipes of the past and taking politics back to the national arena instead of reinventing the future”. Nicolas Baverez calls for a revolt of sorts and explains that, “Europe can no longer be the scapegoat of national governments' impotence. It has to be rethought out and it needs to be in the consciousness of citizens who take ownership of it and it has to be responsible for tackling systemic risk”. Given that he was such a realist, would Aron have concurred with this ode to a genuinely political Europe?
Michel Theys
*** Elan. Cahiers du FEC. FEC (17 place Saint-Etienne, F-67081 Strasbourg. Tel: (33-3) 88353620 - fax: 88379983 - e-mail: fec.strasbourg@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.fec-strasbourg.org ). June 2012, 32 p. €7.50. Annual subscription: €29.
Europe is the central theme of this issue of the Catholic student Foyer publication founded by Brother Ménard, who can still be remembered in Strasbourg. In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of l'Elysée, the former journalist (then senior European official), Paul Collowald, provide a contribution to the publication by setting the right time: no, it's not 22 January 1963 when this treaty signed by Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer began the reconciliation process and it's not with the treaties of Rome that dug the foundations for European construction. Collowald was one of the first convinced Europeans to unhesitatingly point out that everything began with the Schuman Declaration on 9 May 1950! This, however, is not exactly music to everybody's ears. He pulls another rabbit out of his hat in the form of an idea expressed by the French president during his visit to Metz, reported in an article in the newspaper the Figaro on 3 July 1961, “the head of state, and this received much comment, paid particular homage Mr Robert Schuman whom he said, with regard to European unity, 'it began with you'. And we continued your work”. Going beyond this little history lesson, Etienne Troestler, points out in the editorial that only European unity, “complete and genuine”, based on the concept of going beyond the nation state, can prevent Europe becoming enslaved, either by China (on which a long article focuses) or, “by some oil-rich and rather undemocratic country”. The head of this publication concludes with an invitation to citizens to no longer accept the Commission being too bureaucratic or that our economic policy is “naively neoliberal” and our citizenship, together with an “inexistent social Europe”, is “not yet real enough.
(MT)
*** SYLVAIN SCHIRMANN, SARAH MOHAMED-GAILLARD (Editors): Georges Pompidou et l'Allemagne. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see address attached). « Georges Pompidou - Archives » series, No. 6. 2012, 408 pp.€44.80. ISBN 978-90-5201-058-8.
By way of a large selection of documents and copies from the archives of the presidency of the French Republic, Professor Schirmann (director of the Political Studies Institute at the University of Strasbourg and a recognised specialist in Franco German relations) and historian Sarah Mohamed-Gaillard provide clarification of the relations that were developed by president Pompidou and German political leaders at the time, particularly Chancellors Brandt and Kohl. They also review bilateral affairs, such as industrial and economic co-operation (Airbus, European Space Agency, nuclear etc.), the attitude of France under Pompidou with regard to Ostpolitik and the international and strategic issues of the time, as well as and above all, the approaches of the two countries to the question of Europe and how they saw its construction in this era. Professor Schirmann confirms and provides proof that Georges Pompidou was a worthy immediate successor to General de Gaulle and remained fundamentally, “attached to the confederal logic of a Europe of nation states, whereas Brandt was more in favour of a supranational approach”, which bears out his wish to strengthen European Parliament by its election through universal suffrage, even though this would not be seen until the next tenant at the Elysée, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, took office. The book also illustrates that Pompidou had many misgivings about strengthening the powers of the Commission. His long-term vision of a government of Europe simply consisted of a meeting of the heads of state of member countries. This case and the blockages suffered at the time obviously have some relevance to what is happening in contemporary Europe …
(MT)
*** Futuribles. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 - fax: 42226554 - Email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). November 2012, No. 390, 100 pp. €14. Annual subscription: €115 (France), €120 (abroad). ISBN 978-2-84387-403-1.
This issue of the monthly review set up in 1974 by Hugues de Jouvenel opens with an editorial entitled, “Le pari européen”, in reference to the title of a book published in… 1968 by Louis Armand and Michel Drancourt. Louis Armand was president of the European Atomic Energy Community in 1958 and 1959. Together with his colleague, he uses this book to urge the six member states at the time to accept that, “Europe clearly takes note of the great challenges currently facing it and it accepts new innovation in its organisation”. He adds that, “Europe can no longer ask itself whether its role is part of its traditions or whether it must define a new framework. It must seek to build this new framework… and establish federal ties”. Nothing new, then, under the European sky. Hughes de Jouvenel stays the course and calls on France to seize hold of the proposal for greater political integration launched by Chancellor Merkel. Nonetheless, our author believes that it is unrealistic for the EU 27 to be able to give their total support to this and he formulates a concrete proposal in the form of a question, “does president François Hollande currently not have extraordinary opportunities for asserting himself as one of the main founders of a political Europe if by chance, he has the audacity to take our German friends at their word and create the basis for a federal Europe? This may just include perhaps five or six members but would it not be sufficiently powerful to pull in the other member states in its wake? The others? Just a few would be a good start…
(MT)
*** JOACHIM GAUCK: Freiheit. Ein Plädoyer. Kösel Verlag (2 Flüggenstrasse, D-80639 Munich. Tel: (49-89) 17801-0 - fax: 17801-111 - Email: kundenservice@randomhouse.de - Internet: http://www.koesel.de ). 2012, 64 pp. €10.30. ISBN 978-3-466-37032-0.
The speech included in this book was made by Joachim Gauck during the New Year reception at the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing in January 2011 before he was elected president of the German Republic. He had previously been a Protestant pastor in the former East Germany and played a not insignificant role in the fall of the Iron Curtain. In the speech he provides a number of his intimate ideas regarding freedom. He believes it is the alpha and omega of living in a community, which gives substance, culture and content to existence. He distinguishes between two sorts of freedom: firstly, the libertarian, anarchist and pubescent kind of freedom, free from any restrictions; the second is more complex and underpinned by philosophy and education. It only becomes effective when people are really engaged and assume their responsibilities. Commitment is the best medicine against unhappiness linked to consumerism and the best way of discovering the richness of daily life, explains the author, who also points out his personal journey as an inhabitant of East Germany and citizen of the Federal Republic. Obviously, some people will see this as preaching. It is, in any case, a reminder that we should not exclusively focus on the problems and shortcomings of Western freedom but also look at the advantages and other positive aspects demonstrated by the oppressed people of the world. There is also a question contained in his speech, should not the political leaders of central and eastern Europe, who experienced the negation of freedoms under the Communist regime, be the first to sing the praises of our current Europe, which has been an unprecedented haven of peace and democracy?
(LT)
*** Causeur. Causeur.fr (10 rue Michel-Chasles, F-75012 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 47207430 - Email: causeur2@causeur.fr - Internet: http://www.causeur.fr ). October 2012, No. 52, 64 pp. €6.50. Subscription: €66 digital: €34.90).
This issue of the review that likes to provide an intellectual bite and surprise contains a main feature on whether one has or whether one still has the right to criticise Islam and therefore, enters into the territory of what constitutes blasphemy. In the article there are many opposing points of view but they are all based on serious arguments and require serious reading. There is, for example, the rapprochement between the scientist Ghaleb Bencheikh and the ideas expressed by Gramsci, according to which, “when the past dies and the future has still not yet arrived, it is from the twilight from whence the monsters emerge”. In our present time, “great vigilance is required to prevent us being devoured by the ideological monsters and fanatical salafists”. The philosopher, Pascal Bruckner, believes that it is not actually be strength of Islam that is worrying, but “our own weakness with regard to religion, which mirrors the image of Catholicism under the Ancien Régime, its intransigence and claims to rule over all human conscience”. Undoubtedly, he will not be alone in thinking that the only genuine “Islamophobes” who seriously damage the image of Islam are the Islamic fundamentalists themselves …
(MT)