Vive l’incommunication
The title is a little confusing, but the latest book by Dominique Wolton, director of research at CNRS and an expert in communications theory, nonetheless provides a highly lucid analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Union with a distant view to the success of Europe.
The starting point for the analysis is the observation that “the information and communications revolution turned the 20th and 21st centuries upside down, individually, socially, politically and culturally. Countless pieces of information are circulating more and more freely, communication is omnipresent and technology accentuates the speed and efficiency of interactions. But the same context has thrown the increasing difficulties of communication into sharp relief. People see everything, exchange on everything, but they do not necessarily understand or respect each other (…). Hatred flourishes at the end of the social networks. The triumph of information and communication is undermined by incommunication, difficulties in mutual understanding and acommunication, with risks of silence, conflict and warfare” (our translation throughout). However, “without knowing it, Europe is in the vanguard of the recognition of the positive role of incommunication in rethinking politics and peace”, the author stresses, adding: “in the vanguard of the political challenge facing democracies: to agree on nothing, to negotiate, to reach compromises. Incommunication is not the failure of democracy, because it puts negotiation at front and centre. Communicating is negotiating. There can be no democracy without negotiation”.
“Europe is not tired, worn out or irrelevant. It is simply not loved by Europeans”, argues Wolton, who goes on to say that “Europeans are making history, but they are not proud of it. In a sort of masochism disguised as lucidity, they regularly announce the failure of this immense political and democratic project (…). And yet this is the first time that such a miracle has ever happened. Six, nine, twelve, fifteen, twenty-eight, twenty-seven countries, 500 million, now 450 million inhabitants, without losing their sovereignty, speaking at least twenty-six languages, kept apart by suspicion, hatred and incomprehension, with little curiosity about each other, who disagree on almost everything, burdened by negative stereotypes, definitive disputes, who decided in less than three generations to work together politically (…). It should have been doomed to failure, given the radical differences, and yet, slowly, they have learned to live with each other. This is a great achievement of Europe and why, for the last two generations, it has held its lead over all other political cooperation projects anywhere in the world”.
In response to criticisms, sceptics and downright antis, Wolton stresses that Europe can succeed precisely because it is a master of incommunication, in other words of the art of never abandoning negotiations, whatever the nature and degree of the disagreements. But in order to succeed, it also needs to forge emotional bonds with the Europeans and, to do this, to reintroduce a degree of utopia, madness and dreams, as was the case at the start of this insane project, just after the Second World War.
What are its assets? “The inequality created by globalisation and the limits of economicism are an unprecedented opportunity to revalue politics – not just politics within European integration, but politics throughout the world – and invert the gloomy equation that sums up the last 30 years, during which finance has eaten economics, which has eaten politics”, he writes, adding that “Europe’s principal asset, which it does not do enough to showcase, is in fact having always known that economics is not enough to build a societal project”. Europe is also “the political space in which cultural diversity, internally and externally, is the most recognised, and in which political and democratic management is the most advanced”; this is a “considerable asset when the entire world is facing a rise of identities”. On top of this comes the linguistic diversity which “is part of its DNA”. With regard to this, it must confirm “as soon as possible that the linguistic diversity is indispensable and that translation is absolutely necessary”.
Obviously, there are failures, the first of which being the reunification of the two Europes, against a backdrop of incommunication, misunderstanding and mistrust. It would be unrealistic to believe that this will be naturally reabsorbed by the economy and raft of institutions and it is, on the contrary, politics that must find a new balance to reconcile the differences in culture and perception, Wolton argues. Europe’s second great failure is it “slide into liberal economicism”, as personified by the “silent but very real abandonment of all values of Europe’s political and cultural history by an elite that is in thrall to globalisation” and has led to the citizens losing confidence in European integration. He sees this as a betrayal on the part of the elite, including Eurocrats. And then there is the digital ideology: “for a generation, Europe has confused technical modernity with a political project, to the extent that most of what it says and what it does is in favour of speeding up digitalisation. Quickly roll out 3G,4G, 5G, 6G. As if technology, by a sort of ‘natural’ effect, will support European integration. As if technical interactions can generate political support. Technical bandwaging has never replaced a policy”.
“There are countless proposed reforms for Europe, which deserve better than the destiny that is usually reserved for them: indifference. They should be catalogued, analysed, compared, revalued, particularly at election time. Then they should be debated in the media to contribute to the emergence of a public space”, Wolton argues. Without going into detail on the institutions, he lists five key reform themes. First of all, reviving the political project. The author believes that this will require the restoration of the European values, starting with humanism. Politics must be re-orientated to people, an intrinsically multicultural European society, solidarity and hosting migrants. “We need to return to our European traditions, revalue the role of the State, public services, redistribution, town and country planning, the role of the unions, of associations, etc.”, he writes, also making the case for a proper European civic service.
The next aim is to “mobilise the common cultural foundation”, in other words to iron out differences from primary school (an area in which the Council of Europe has launched many projects, which have unfortunately never been received in line with their merits: Ed), multiply Erasmus by ten and reform university to “increase the time spent on knowledge and criticism rather than economy and business”. The third theme is that of information and communication and calls for the creation of truly European media and an increased role for the “intermediaries of democracy”: journalists, teachers, politicians, documentary filmmakers, archivists, and many more. The aim here is also to “offset the technological and financial imperialism of the GAFA”.
Before concluding with an appeal to “general states of identities, peoples, nations of Europe”, Wolton stresses again the dual need for a reflection on the type of society and culture that Europeans want and for “returning to History and geopolitics”. Here, finally, is an essay that gives people a taste for Europe!
Olivier Jehin
Dominique Wolton. Vive l’incommunication – La victoire de l’Europe (available in French only). Editions François Bourin. ISBN: 979-10-252-0489-4. 143 pages. €15,00
Un monde en nègre et blanc
In this “world in Negro and white”, historian Aurélia Michel retraces the history of slavery, the Atlantic slave trade, colonisation and racialisation, with their humanisation and violence. Although it was published before the recent mass outpouring of emotion and reactions caused by the murders of a number of black men by white police officers in the United States, it is a useful tool in the analysis of the phenomenon of racism, because even though there are no different races, “we have not yet finished with race” (our translation throughout).
Aurélia Michel, a lecturer in Black American History at Université Paris-Diderot, is by no means the first to write about these dark days in the past of Europeans and Americans, but her work owes a great deal to the angle she has chosen. After reminding her audience that slavery has existed since ancient times and initially involved individuals from Semitic, Arab and European populations, and that some estimates indicate that the Atlantic slave trade (12 million individuals) accounted for only a “relatively small proportion” of the 38 million Africans who were deported, she undertakes to describe what the “nigger” of her title does. This word does not indicate a black person, male or female, but refers to the slave as a dehumanised commercial product, endlessly exploitable because consumable (the strongest individuals had an average life expectancy of six years). The violence, often extreme, to which he or she was exposed is both the fruit and the consequence of this trade, the author explains, stressing that the ill-treatment inflicted served to prevent any form of socialisation. Violence produces distancing and provides its perpetrator with reassurance as to his dignity and rights. It allows him to distinguish himself from a fellow man who, by dint of what has been inflicted upon him, ceases to be part of humanity.
The author goes on to stress that the slave trade and slavery are sources of the capitalism that would go on to experience a new phase of expansion with the colonial economy. Racialisation came about at the intersection between these two phases. With increasing numbers of slave rebellions and abolitionism slowly gaining ground (readers may recall that slavery was abolished in France in 1794, re-established by Napoleon in 1802 and Victor Schoelcher and his supporters would have to fight from 1833 to 1848 to secure its definitive abolition), the image of the Negro slave grows obsolete and domination based on exploitation is replaced by domination based on race. “In his ‘Considerations on Race’, written in 1781 when he was the Governor of the State of Virginia, where he toughened the legislation against slaves, restoring punishment by dismembering and hanging, Thomas Jefferson, the man behind the Declaration of Independence in 1776, wrote that ‘the races of black and of red men (who) have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history’ are ‘inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind” [1]. He goes on to discuss the almost bestial nature of American slaves, who are inclined to sleep when they have nothing else to do, are incapable of imagination, prudence and foresight and are ignorant of the “delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation” that is love, because they experience only physical desire. He considers that blacks improve themselves when they procreate mixed-race children, but that such children contaminate the white race. This concept of the superior race would flourish throughout the 19th century, as seen in this argument advanced by Ernest Renan in his “Intellectual and Moral Reform”, published in 1871: “a nation which does not colonise is irrevocably doomed to socialism, to conflict between rich and poor. There is nothing shocking in the conquest of a country of inferior race by a superior race, which establishes itself there to govern it (…). In our society, the man of the people is almost always a nobleman who has come down in the world; his heavy hand is created to wield a sword rather than a tool of servitude. Direct this all-consuming activity to countries such as China, which are crying out for foreign conquest. Each one will be in his own station. Nature has created a race of workers; this is the Chinese race, which has marvellous manual dexterity without almost any feeling of honour… Govern it with justice, it will be satisfied; – as for a race of workers of the land, that is the Negro, be good to him and humane and all will be in order; – as for a race of masters and soldiers, that is the European race”. Scientists themselves would join in, measuring skulls to prove the superiority of one race over the other. In the early 19th century, the argument would even be exploited between the French and the German in search of an intra-European superiority, which culminated several years later in the “final solution”. However, race would survive even that. It would continue to be used in the policy of segregation in the United States (until 1965), in apartheid in South Africa (until 1990). As for the countries of Europe, when their colonial days ended (early 1960s), they would try to sweep the concept under the rug, rejecting any historical remembrance for the whole of the 20th century.
The Hydra of racism is still present, as is slavery which, according to estimates, affected between 25 and 46 million individuals in the world in 2016. These concepts must be fought incessantly in all their forms. Historical remembrance work is necessary and the teaching of this history in “Negro and White” is vital. All scientific, literary, artistic and any other kinds of contribution are welcome. The same applies to the work carried out by Christiane Taubira and the book by Aurélia Michel, although it is to be regretted that Aimé Césaire got only a very brief mention. Admittedly, negritude is not easy to include in his narrative. But as the etymology and definition of the word “Negro” or “Nigger” is placed at front and centre, it appears to me that it would have been useful to point out that they have also been used in a positive sense by Caribbean and African writers and that they continue to be used in colloquial language in the Caribbean.
As monstrous as it is, the history of the slave trade and the colonies must not obscure the other forms of racism, xenophobia and discrimination that have flourished and continue to do so. One should always be wary of conflations and generalisations, a new example of which has been provided by the recent media outcry. Europeans – particularly the French, British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese – have major historical responsibility in the slave trade and colonisation. The Belgians and, to a lesser extent, the Italians, dipped their toes in colonisation. The Germans carried racial theories to their worst extremes. Central and eastern Europe, which remained on the sidelines of the slave trade and colonisation, is by no means innocent of all racism. However, racism takes many forms. It is not the preserve of the Europeans and it differs in its manifestations and intensity from one country to the next, from one continent to the next.
Aurélia Michel’s conclusion is nothing if not bold: “to finish with race, then, could become a global political manifesto. To finish with the myth of biological descent as an organisation of social existence, building perimeters that are as unnatural as others – family or the nation – and instead submitting to the exigencies of a cycle that would make us into fraternities and sororities of parents, leaders of previous generations and engaged in the future of those to come, irrespective of the role they are willing or able to take in biological reproduction, this could inspire new rules in our relationship with the environment and support political aspirations towards freedom and equality that remain the target horizon of our democracies. Let us rid the world of what we call natural and allow it its own vitality once again”. From an anthropological point of view, it seems eccentric to wish to erase biological descent. Unless there are any exceptions of which I am unaware, all cultures honour the family. Of course, family can be a very broad term, in Africa in particular, and include strangers. Certainly, African and Caribbean cultures call even those with no blood ties brother and sister. But it presupposes that none of the brothers or sisters are not asking for otherness. Is it really possible, in our multicultural societies, that tend to favour communitarianism or clinging to cultural identity? To deny cultural differences leads inevitably to exacerbating them. They are valuable assets that should be preserved and shared, in full respect of everyone. To live together, with no distinction on the basis of colour, origin or orientation.
Olivier Jehin
Aurélia Michel. Un monde en nègre et blanc – Enquête historique sur l’ordre racial. Points Seuil. ISBN: 978-2-7578-8005-0. 391 pages. €10,00
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[1] In ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’, 1871.