*** FREDERIC WORMS: Les maladies chroniques de la démocratie. Editions Desclée de Brouwer (Groupe Elidia, 10 rue Mercœur, F-75011 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40465400 – Internet: http://www.editionsddb.fr ). 2017, 253 pp. €18.90. ISBN 978-2-220-08513-5.
Democracy is not finished yet and it never will be because it is always required to reinvent itself in order to overcome the chronic problems it nurtures on a systematic basis from within. In reality, democracy is indeed a mortal entity because, “it is also the antidote to the poisons it secretes”. It is in this way that the philosopher, Frédéric Worms, describes democracy and the dangers permanently surrounding it. His goal is to demonstrate that despite its apparent fragility in face of the hard blows that are again being delivered against it, it is also, “an arm (and perhaps the only one to fight against… the chronic diseases created by humanity".
In the first part of the book, this lecturer at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris defines what democracy is not. He also argues that this proceeds towards a “moral and intrinsically linked social aspiration”, which underpins its strength and confers it with a permanent “guiding power”. He also explains that this also stems from “a rejection of internal violence between human beings” and the violence that emanates from within societies even when they have been construed to tackle external violence. This effectively enables it to deal with possible dangerous shifts within it by erecting, “not the absolute power of the people but, on the contrary, the absolute self limitation of the power people on itself”. The author then seeks to demonstrate how, “democracy is not just another regime that has existed since antiquity but rather, the sign of an historic break with the past and future, ancient and modern" because, he argues, “the sign of democratic progress resides in the unveiling of injustices and scandals in areas where, in the past, it was not possible to see anything”. By way of figures such as La Boétie, Montaigne, Rousseau and Kant, he also highlights “the horizon of freedom” and “the dawning of equality” as well as a “human evil” insofar as democracy is nothing other than the history of modernity and that it can be interpreted “as a way of living (well)”.
Although this first part of the book will undoubtedly be more easily accessible to his students at the Ecole normale supérieure than to certain readers who are less used to philosophical highfaluted jargon, the clarity of his ideas become much more obvious in the second part of the book in which he launches a philosophical attack on the exacerbated crises currently occurring. The first of these crises is the cynicism which, in combination with wide-scale suspicion and fear of conspiracy, “is based on the denial of democracy itself, its effectiveness, its reality and the trust we should give it”. This "democratic suspicion” is now the most serious threat to democracy and in this connection, the author quotes from Alexandre Koyré who, in his, “Introduction to reading Plato” written in… 1945, made the following judgement, “there is therefore a problem that can drag down the democratic city, not just towards a relative degradation but towards a fatal downward slide encapsulated in demagogy, not of the installation of error or lies but of ‘discord, fear and hatred’”. This is because it is indeed these demagogues and “cynics” that we have to deal with today, such as the “comical louts of the 5-star movement in Italy” President Bush “attempting to fan the flames and often succeeding in fanning the flames of the consistently latent in demagogy and the internal risk to democracy”. On top of all this, there are also the perverse opportunities provided on the Internet, which, altogether, provides a potentially explosive cocktail to democracy!
The two other crises diagnosed by Frédéric Worms are racism (which he explains is based on the denial of “internal division and internal violence" contained within each human group) and ultra-liberalism which he perceives as, “a denial of human interdependence and the relations without which, no human can exist”. Some of the clues the author provides in an effort to avoid falling over the edge into the precipice below, include the hopes he places in “citizens' participation”, which are expressed in opposition to the abuses of globalisation and “express the feeling of violation within humanity in general”. He also advocates a democratisation that leads the states forward and goes beyond them. Nonetheless, it can also not be ignored that he also draws a much more painful conclusion that," the enemies of democracy are now not trying to replace it with totalitarianism but by transforming it from within into tyranny".
Michel Theys
*** YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Undefeated Losers. Pour un printemps grec après l’hiver sans fin des mémorandums. Editions Patakis (38 Panayi Tsaldari, GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 – fax: 3811940 – Email: bookstore@patakis.gr – Internet: http://www.patakis.gr ). “Sciences sociales et politiques” series. 2017, 832 pp. €23.30. ISBN 978-960-16-7453-7.
What happens when a small country decided to escape permanent bankruptcy imposed on it by those who were supposed to “save” it? The “Undefeated Losers” are all those who, in 2015, overcame their fear to say “No" to the endless winter of memoranda. In this new book, the former Greek finance minister explains the method applied to defeat the “Greek spring", which he sees as one of the collateral consequences of the blow delivered to it and the progressively worse image of the European Union, as spectacularly testified by Brexit. The author is also a professor in economic theory and political economy at the University of Athens. In this book he is particularly eager to demonstrate how much the losers from this springtime were in fact involved in developing a "European spring", which could have led to the dawning of a viable Greece in a democratic Europe and which deserved the support of everyone. He is therefore dedicating this book to all those who have fought to obtain an honest and reasonable compromise and who ultimately preferred falling under the wheels of the steam roller rather than give in in to any old compromise. There are three different ways of reading this book: the first is a chronicle of the events in 2015, when the lenders quite simply risked Europe's integrity to satisfy their interests and which meant that they effectively and perpetually prolonged the widespread failure affecting Greek society; a reminder of another "Episode" in Greek history where the country’s division lead to its defeat; the passionate ideas held by certain figures such as Wolfgang Schaüble, Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi, Emmanuel Macron and Barack Obama and who effectively defined the future of the Greek and European people. The most interesting aspect in the entire book reminds of an ancient or Shakespearean tragedy where the tragedy endured by the people gets progressively worse until the moment when their jailers themselves become the impotent prisoners of the trap that their institutional power has created... (AKa)
*** Fedechoses… pour le fédéralisme. Presse fédéraliste (Maison de l'Europe et des Européens, 242 rue Duguesclin, F-69003 Lyon. Internet: http://www.pressefederaliste.eu ). December 2017, No. 177, 64 pp. €6. Annual subscription: €30.
This French federalist review has recently become a four-monthly publication. It is now, very cautiously, opening it itself up to publication in the English-language, characterised by a number of pages that are quite clearly more numerous and the consequent increase in the number of articles to read. They are all obviously related to federalism and mainly focus on what is happening at the European Union level and within it. Therefore, on this occasion, several contributions focus on Catalonia. Professor Michel Herland interprets the Commission attitude adopted with regard to this region of Spain as proof of its submission to the states. The majority of the other contributors assess the future of the Union. This is the case with Paolo Ponzano, who assesses how they could possibly relaunch the Union in the context of Brexit. This former senior Commission official asserts that they should not rush things and advocates, “the adoption of concrete measures in the social domain" before submitting a reform of the treaties to the European citizens who, for the majority, feel that they are getting their fingers burnt by “a European project that is deemed to be too based on austerity policy”. The author is a major specialist in institutional European architecture and he also says that they should attempt to avoid any exaggerated hopes regarding the enhanced cooperation mechanism because this cannot be used to promote social and fiscal policy without “running a major risk of social or fiscal dumping between the different groups of countries" and that its used should be limited to specific measures. This point of view is not shared by Dusan Sidjanski who considers that this mechanism could be used to “provide the Eurozone with a social dimension”. The contribution by the honorary chairman of the European Culture Centre in Geneva, however, focuses on the need to provide the Union with a real "political core", namely, a “political authority" in effect, failing which, “the sustainability of the euro" cannot be assured and European defence will continue to be a wild fancy. This former close associate of Denis de Rougemont reminds France that the rejection by Général de Gaulle of a European army led to… "the renaissance of an autonomous German army”. Finally, we also like to highlight the homage paid to Tzvetan Todorov by Professor Giampiero Bordino – the ideas put forward by Pierre Jouvenat to “democratise Europe". One of these ideas is to create a Senate instead of a Council which “consists of elected delegates with a representative mandate" and which is able to “exercise its responsibilities in the general European interest”. He also calls for action to “create the conditions of a genuine founding act and 'Hamiltonian moment’” and citizens' conventions that he believes are imperative if they are to “develop a constitutive process”. (MT)
*** YANNIS VARVITSIOTIS: Comment je les ai vécues : 1981-1993. Editions Patakis (38 Panayi Tsaldari, GR-10437 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3650000 – fax: 3811940 – Email: bookstore@patakis.gr – Internet: http://www.patakis.gr ). « Sciences sociales et politiques » series. 2017, 454 pp. €18.80. ISBN 978-960-16-7190-1.
In the second part of this autobiography of a long-standing Greek politician (a parliamentarian since 1960, a minister on several occasions, MEP and vice president of the European People's Party), several events are commented on that occurred between two key elections in Greece. In New Democracy Framework, Yannis Varvitsiotis tells how he experienced the defeat of his party and the increasing power until now of Pasok during the 1980s. This decade was also characterised by significant political turbulence and scandals at a domestic level, the fall of the Communist regimes and the consequences of this in the region neighbouring Greece, particularly “Macedonia". The author also returns to the three and a half years when he was defence minister and at the head of a department that was very exposed, "At the beginning of the 1990s”. He does this in a very sober, lucid and honest way and he points out that this was a period that significantly influenced the country's subsequent direction. A vast index of Greek and foreign protagonists is included in this book, which is undoubtedly very useful for understanding the relatively recent past. (AKa)
*** GIORGOS VASSILIOU: Présidence : construire l'avenir. Autobiographie. Editions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 – fax: 3809020 – email: papazisi@otenet.gr – Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2017, 788 pp. €31.80. ISBN 978-960-02-3350-6.
Giorgos Vassiliou was the president of the Republic of Cyprus between 1988 and 1993. He was also a political figure who, as from 1998, headed the negotiations that saw his country join the European Union on 1 May 2004. In this autobiography he seeks to demonstrate, in a documented way, the trajectory followed by Cyprus to overcome the problems resulting from the partition of the island. He also highlight the efforts accomplished for significantly uphauling state structures and even Greek society, in view of adapting them to the reality of the modern world. As an “inexperienced” politician for a long time, Giorgos Vassiliou explains how he responded to correctly interpret the political situation and reap the best rewards from the convergence of interests that would create a solution. This would involve creative cooperation with the secretary-general of the UN and his representatives in the talks with the Turkish Cypriots and, ultimately, making a positive contribution to the final formulation of the Boutros-Boutros Ghali document, which still remains a reference point for moving forward towards a solution of the Cyprus problem. He explains that in this context created by the institutions such as the University of Cyprus, the Commissioner for the Administration and Environment Service, they developed the parameters of the fight against nepotism, favouritism and oppression, particularly by getting rid of the dossiers relating to the political opinions of citizens. In this publication he also makes numerous references to the major figures in the world at the time, the negotiations and talks behind closed doors, as well as the compromises that were more or less imposed and the geopolitical situation in Europe at the time. An enormous bibliography and index make a valuable contribution to this very useful reference book. (AKa)