JAVNI POZIV MANDATARJU 2014

(V vednost stranki DESUS)

 

Spoštovani g. bodoči predsednik vlade!

 

Radi bi vas opozorili na področje kulture, ki je bilo tako kot znanost – kako simptomatično – v vseh doslejšnjih javnih razpravah in predstavitvah programov, vlade, prihodnosti, razvoja, preboja najbolj zanemarjeno. To, da kulturo obravnavajo kot domnevno najmanj pomemben in zaželen resor, ki se zlorablja v koalicijskih kravjih kupčijah z resorji, je v domači politiki stara navada. Pravkar slišimo, da se ta pogubna zgodba ponavlja, da namreč kadrujete po strankarski pripadnosti in ključu, ne pa po strokovni kompetentnosti. Prvo znamenje, da s prebojem in z drugačnim upravljanjem države mislite resno, bo, če boste to prakso radikalno prekinili. V stroki oz. na polju kulture in ustvarjalnosti imamo na voljo dovolj kompetentnih kandidatov za mesto ministra. Le upoštevati nas je treba.

Sicer prvi del našega dopisa zveni kot zbir vsega, kar politiki po navadi, zlasti ob slovesnih priložnostih, vzneseno povedo o kulturi. A vse je res in vse je znano. In vendar nikoli doslej upoštevano. Ta del torej lahko preskočite in se posvetite našim konkretnim zamislim in predlogom. Bilo bi koristno, če bi skupaj z vami organizirali resno soočenje o kulturni (šolski in znanstveni) politiki.

Kultura za demokracijo, ustvarjalnost, razvoj in prihodnost!

 

Temeljne vrednote niso nekaj za vedno vnaprej danega. Vrednote vedno znova nastajajo, se spreminjajo in obnavljajo. Enako velja za demokracijo. Kultura v celoti, in še posebej umetnost, pomeni prenovo, razvoj in ekspanzijo umetniških govoric, katerih izhodišče sta ustvarjalnost in kakovost. Kultura ni zgolj in ne predvsem tržnica razvedril za prosti čas. Kultura je proces in vrednostni sistem, brez katerega skupnost ne more obstajati. Kultura je polje in produkt najbolj ustvarjalnih sil, na katerem in s katerim se skupnost legitimira. Ne ustvarja družba kulture, ampak kultura ustvarja družbo. Uspešna družba varuje svojo kulturo in skrbi zanjo, pa naj bo elitna ali popularna, avantgardna ali tradicionalna. Kultura je v bistvenem/konstitutivnem socialnem delu elitna, zato jo je treba kot táko obravnavati. Kultura ni strošek, ampak je investicija. Investicije v kulturo se kažejo kot najbolj donosne. Statistike dokazujejo, da je neposredni in posredni bruto proizvod kulture v številnih razvitih okoljih pomembnejši od prispevka v BDP najelitnejših industrijskih panogah.

 

Z demokratizacijo se je, žal, v našo politiko vrnil ruralni, liberalno-klerikalni kulturni boj. Zato smo se znova znašli v bitki za avtonomijo posameznika, avtonomijo kulture in demokracijo. Za prevlado kulture nad mračnjaštvom. Kulturna politika v samostojni Sloveniji kaže to politično regresijo. Danes je kultura stisnjena z obeh strani, tako s klerikalne kot z liberalne. Klerikalci jo potiskajo v najbolj okorelo cerkev, današnji »liberalci« pa na t. i. svobodni trg, v komercializacijo in podreditev ideologiji potrošništva. Ne gre zgolj za neustrezno kulturno politiko, odnosi znotraj kulture same so načeti, podobno kot so načeti vsi odnosi v družbi kot celoti. Država (politika) s kulturo upravlja po načelu deli in vladaj ter zato producira in spodbuja razdrobljenost in vsakršne konflikte med posamezniki in skupinami. Razmah slovenske kulture onemogoča predvsem slovenska država (politika). Prav tako vlogo igra država v gospodarstvu. Ravnanje države s kulturo je v nasprotju s siceršnjo razvitostjo naše družbe in preprečuje nujen razvojni preboj. Dodane vrednosti ne bomo podvojili s  pozivi k varčevanju pri revnih in h garanju, trpljenju in odrekanju, ampak s sodobnim kultiviranjem dela – s podporo in promocijo ustvarjalnega dela.

 

Ker moramo kulturno politiko korenito prenoviti, predlagamo kulturno reformo, ki naj temelji na naslednjih točkah:

 

1. Zagotoviti je treba avtonomijo in dialog med kulturo in politiko, seveda tudi med znanostjo in politiko, univerzami in politiko. Odgovornost za kulturo mora prevzeti najvišje državno vodstvo.

Minister za kulturo in sekretarji zato ne smejo biti servilni birokrati, ampak samostojne politične osebnosti s primarno kompetentnostjo in lojalnostjo do kulture in za kulturo.

Pred imenovanjem ministra je treba pridobiti mnenje kvalificiranih subjektov v kulturi, pomembnejših združenj, ustanov in posameznikov. Tako bi lahko dosegli, da bi prevladale strokovne kompetence kandidatov nad strankarsko pripadnostjo. (Tokrat je že napovedano prav nasprotno.)

 

2. Ločiti je treba upravljanja kulture od politike. Ministrstvo za kulturo naj kot upravni organ (dejansko) skrbi za izvajanje kulturne politike in za nadzor nad učinkovitim in odgovornim vlaganjem ter porabo sredstev na področju kulture. Ministrstvo mora, kar zadeva število zaposlenih, postati neprimerno »vitkejše«! S presežkom zaposlenih naj se zapolni hudo pomanjkanje kadrov na delovnem področju samem.

 

3. Odločanju o sredstvih na vseh področjih kulture naj bo prepuščeno agencijam oziroma ustreznim ustanovam, katerih dolžnost je vzpostaviti strokovne organe (komisije) za oblikovanje odločitev, ki morajo biti, kar zadeva generacijsko, teritorialno, spolno in idejno oziroma estetsko zastopanost, pluralno sestavljene (zgled JAK, SFC ipd.). Pri tem je odgovornost za selekcijo vsebin nujno individualizirati in jo v celoti prepustiti stroki, najboljšim in preverjenim ustvarjalcem oz. umetnikom.

 

4. Debirokratizirati in poenostaviti je treba postopke, zlasti javne razpise, tako da bo potrebnega manj papirja in formalizma, manj zahtev po podatkih, ki jih vsi poznamo, itd. Razpisi in prijave nanje naj se v celoti izvedejo v elektronski obliki. Birokratizacija postopkov služi kot paravan za korupcijo in nestrokovne odločitve.

 

5. Okrepiti je treba funkcionalno upravljanje oz. samoupravo po področjih, torej ustrezno vlogo strokovnih združenj, zbornic in stanovskih društev, ki naj kot civilna družba nadzorujejo delo upravnih in strokovnih organov. Uveljaviti je treba tako politiko, ki bo omogočila, da bodo strokovne, razvojne, programske in organizacijske odločitve preverjene in ocenjene znotraj samoorganiziranih strok.

 

6. Zagotoviti je treba pluralnost organiziranja. Ker so dejavnosti v kulturi med seboj v vseh pogledih različne, je nujno zagotoviti avtonomnost posameznih delovnih področij.

 

7. Kulturo je treba razumeti in jo organizirati kot neločljivi podsistem celotne družbe, ki deluje v čvrsti navezi z drugimi podsistemi, tudi ali še zlasti z gospodarstvom.

 

8. Nemudoma je treba zagotoviti ustrezen položaj samozaposlenih v kulturi, ki v številnih primerih predstavljajo njen najvitalnejši del. Za enako delo morajo samozaposleni dobiti enako plačilo kot delavci v javnih zavodih in drugih ustanovah.

 

9. Kulturna politika mora spodbujati upoštevanje domačih in tujih dobrih praks.

 

10. Znova je treba doseči podporo neodvisni umetnosti v EU, saj jo načenja pod parolami o dostopnosti in enotnem trgu skrita evropska politika komercializacije. Podpirati je treba tiste države v EU, ki ščitijo kulturno izjemo.

Akcijski odbor KOKS,

zanj koordinator Igor Koršič

 

(KOKS združuje 43 društev, organizacij in ustanov s področja kulture. Seznam je na www.koks.si)

 

TUTU: My plea to the people of Israel – Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine
August 18, 2014 by Sonja Karkar
Editor’s note: Today Australians for Palestine (AFP) had a billboard erected on the Melbourne corner of City Road and Queensbridge Street just before the Kingsway overpass heading towards South Melbourne. The billboard will be in place for 28 days. We are hoping that its message will reach many people as they make their way along this busy road. It fortuitously coincided with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s article published in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper on the weekend. His plea is definitely worth reading and should give everyone else in the world a message to reflect on “Those who continue to do business with Israel, who contribute to a sense of “normalcy” in Israeli society, are doing the people of Israel and Palestine a disservice. They are contributing to the perpetuation of a profoundly unjust status quo.” We hope you too will remember the Palestinians, especially those in Gaza who are shell-shocked and desperately trying to find ways of picking up again the pieces of their shattered lives and think of ways that you can help to bring an end to their oppression and slow genocide. Sixty-six years of brutalising a people and denying them freedom and dignity in their own land is enough. – SK

TUTU: My plea to the people of Israel – Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine
AFP had a billboard erected on the Melbourne corner of City Road and Queensbridge Stree.
TUTU: My plea to the people of Israel – Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine

By Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.

The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.

If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin and Sydney, and all the other cities – this was arguably the largest active outcry by citizens around a single cause ever in the history of the world.

A quarter of a century ago, I participated in some well-attended demonstrations against apartheid. I never imagined we’d see demonstrations of that size again, but last Saturday’s turnout in Cape Town was as big if not bigger. Participants included young and old, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, blacks, whites, reds and greens … as one would expect from a vibrant, tolerant, multicultural nation.

I asked the crowd to chant with me: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”

Earlier in the week, I called for the suspension of Israel from the International Union of Architects, which was meeting in South Africa.

I appealed to Israeli sisters and brothers present at the conference to actively disassociate themselves and their profession from the design and construction of infrastructure related to perpetuating injustice, including the separation barrier, the security terminals and checkpoints, and the settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.

“I implore you to take this message home: Please turn the tide against violence and hatred by joining the nonviolent movement for justice for all people of the region,” I said.

Over the past few weeks, more than 1.6 million people across the world have signed onto this movement by joining an Avaaz campaign calling on corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation and/or implicated in the abuse and repression of Palestinians to pull out. The campaign specifically targets Dutch pension fund ABP; Barclays Bank; security systems supplier G4S; French transport company Veolia; computer company Hewlett-Packard; and bulldozer supplier Caterpillar.

Last month, 17 EU governments urged their citizens to avoid doing business in or investing in illegal Israeli settlements.

We have also recently witnessed the withdrawal by Dutch pension fund PGGM of tens of millions of euros from Israeli banks; the divestment from G4S by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and the U.S. Presbyterian Church divested an estimated $21 million from HP, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar.

It is a movement that is gathering pace.

Violence begets violence and hatred, that only begets more violence and hatred.

We South Africans know about violence and hatred. We understand the pain of being the polecat of the world; when it seems nobody understands or is even willing to listen to our perspective. It is where we come from.

We also know the benefits that dialogue between our leaders eventually brought us; when organizations labeled “terrorist” were unbanned and their leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were released from imprisonment, banishment and exile.

We know that when our leaders began to speak to each other, the rationale for the violence that had wracked our society dissipated and disappeared. Acts of terrorism perpetrated after the talks began – such as attacks on a church and a pub – were almost universally condemned, and the party held responsible snubbed at the ballot box.

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The exhilaration that followed our voting together for the first time was not the preserve of black South Africans alone. The real triumph of our peaceful settlement was that all felt included. And later, when we unveiled a constitution so tolerant, compassionate and inclusive that it would make God proud, we all felt liberated.

Of course, it helped that we had a cadre of extraordinary leaders.

But what ultimately forced these leaders together around the negotiating table was the cocktail of persuasive, nonviolent tools that had been developed to isolate South Africa, economically, academically, culturally and psychologically.

At a certain point – the tipping point – the then-government realized that the cost of attempting to preserve apartheid outweighed the benefits.

The withdrawal of trade with South Africa by multinational corporations with a conscience in the 1980s was ultimately one of the key levers that brought the apartheid state – bloodlessly – to its knees. Those corporations understood that by contributing to South Africa’s economy, they were contributing to the retention of an unjust status quo.

Those who continue to do business with Israel, who contribute to a sense of “normalcy” in Israeli society, are doing the people of Israel and Palestine a disservice. They are contributing to the perpetuation of a profoundly unjust status quo.

Those who contribute to Israel’s temporary isolation are saying that Israelis and Palestinians are equally entitled to dignity and peace.

Ultimately, events in Gaza over the past month or so are going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.

TUTU: My plea to the people of Israel – Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine

It is becoming more and more clear that politicians and diplomats are failing to come up with answers, and that responsibility for brokering a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land rests with civil society and the people of Israel and Palestine themselves.

Besides the recent devastation of Gaza, decent human beings everywhere – including many in Israel – are profoundly disturbed by the daily violations of human dignity and freedom of movement Palestinians are subjected to at checkpoints and roadblocks. And Israel’s policies of illegal occupation and the construction of buffer-zone settlements on occupied land compound the difficulty of achieving an agreementsettlement in the future that is acceptable for all.

The State of Israel is behaving as if there is no tomorrow. Its people will not live the peaceful and secure lives they crave – and are entitled to – as long as their leaders perpetuate conditions that sustain the conflict.

I have condemned those in Palestine responsible for firing missiles and rockets at Israel. They are fanning the flames of hatred. I am opposed to all manifestations of violence.

But we must be very clear that the people of Palestine have every right to struggle for their dignity and freedom. It is a struggle that has the support of many around the world.

No human-made problems are intractable when humans put their heads together with the earnest desire to overcome them. No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it.

Peace requires the people of Israel and Palestine to recognize the human being in themselves and each other; to understand their interdependence.

Missiles, bombs and crude invective are not part of the solution. There is no military solution.

The solution is more likely to come from that nonviolent toolbox we developed in South Africa in the 1980s, to persuade the government of the necessity of altering its policies.

The reason these tools – boycott, sanctions and divestment – ultimately proved effective was because they had a critical mass of support, both inside and outside the country. The kind of support we have witnessed across the world in recent weeks, in respect of Palestine.

My plea to the people of Israel is to see beyond the moment, to see beyond the anger at feeling perpetually under siege, to see a world in which Israel and Palestine can coexist – a world in which mutual dignity and respect reign.

It requires a mind-set shift. A mind-set shift that recognizes that attempting to perpetuate the current status quo is to damn future generations to violence and insecurity. A mind-set shift that stops regarding legitimate criticism of a state’s policies as an attack on Judaism. A mind-set shift that begins at home and ripples out across communities and nations and regions – to the Diaspora scattered across the world we share. The only world we share.

People united in pursuit of a righteous cause are unstoppable. God does not interfere in the affairs of people, hoping we will grow and learn through resolving our difficulties and differences ourselves. But God is not asleep. The Jewish scriptures tell us that God is biased on the side of the weak, the dispossessed, the widow, the orphan, the alien who set slaves free on an exodus to a Promised Land. It was the prophet Amos who said we should let righteousness flow like a river.

Goodness prevails in the end. The pursuit of freedom for the people of Palestine from humiliation and persecution by the policies of Israel is a righteous cause. It is a cause that the people of Israel should support.

Nelson Mandela famously said that South Africans would not feel free until Palestinians were free.

He might have added that the liberation of Palestine will liberate Israel, too

No one should be surprised that the economy of the eurozone is once more going in reverse. This is an entirely predictable outcome of the misguided policies that European leaders stubbornly insist on pursuing, despite all evidence that they are exactly the wrong medicine.

The acute phase of the financial crisis in Greece, Spain, Ireland and other European countries ended months ago. But the European Union’s insistence, led by Germany, that governments reduce their deficits by cutting spending and raising taxes has continued to impede further recovery. In addition, the European Central Bank has been slow and timid in lowering interest rates and buying bonds, both of which would help. And Europe has allowed problems in its banking sector to fester — witness the emergency bailout of one of Portugal’s biggest banks.

The numbers tell the story. In the second quarter of the year, the 18-country euro area registered no growth, down from a 0.2 percent increase in output in the first three months of the year. The economies of Germany and Italy contracted 0.2 percent, while France registered no growth for the second quarter in a row. Other data released in recent days provide little reason for hope that conditions will get better soon. The inflation rate in the eurozone fell to 0.4 percent in July, down from 1.6 percent in the same month a year earlier. Industrial production fell 0.3 percent in June.

Big changes are plainly needed. As other central banks around the world have done, the European Central Bank should be buying government and other bonds to drive down interest rates and encourage banks to lend more to businesses and consumers. The bank’s president, Mario Draghi, has argued that governments must adopt more pro-growth policies. He’s right, but he cannot ignore his own responsibility. There is little to no risk that more aggressive central bank policies would cause runaway inflation, given that prices are increasing at a far slower pace than the central bank’s target of just below 2 percent.

It’s true, of course, that monetary policy alone will not be sufficient to revive the eurozone economy. Fiscal policy must also be rethought and reworked. The E.U. (encouraged, again, by Germany) has demanded that nations like France and Italy reduce their budget deficits, while at the same time undertaking “structural reforms” that, for instance, make it easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses and for companies to fire workers.

But it is politically difficult, not to mention counterproductive, for governments to do both of those things at a time when the eurozone unemployment rate (11.5 percent in June) is so high. Governments need more flexibility. If anything, they should be taking advantage of low bond yields — Germany can borrow money for 10 years at an interest rate of about 1 percent, and France can borrow at 1.4 percent — to increase spending to kick-start their economies. Once the laggards get going again, their leaders can more easily make the case to their legislatures and citizens for tough economic reforms. But far greater patience is needed, as well as a big change in attitude in Germany and among the E.U.’s senior leadership.

The Forever Slump
AUG. 14, 2014
Paul Krugman

It’s hard to believe, but almost six years have passed since the fall of Lehman Brothers ushered in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Many people, myself included, would like to move on to other subjects. But we can’t, because the crisis is by no means over. Recovery is far from complete, and the wrong policies could still turn economic weakness into a more or less permanent depression.

In fact, that’s what seems to be happening in Europe as we speak. And the rest of us should learn from Europe’s experience.

Before I get to the latest bad news, let’s talk about the great policy argument that has raged for more than five years. It’s easy to get bogged down in the details, but basically it has been a debate between the too-muchers and the not-enoughers.

The too-muchers have warned incessantly that the things governments and central banks are doing to limit the depth of the slump are setting the stage for something even worse. Deficit spending, they suggested, could provoke a Greek-style crisis any day now — within two years, declared Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles some three and a half years ago. Asset purchases by the Federal Reserve would “risk currency debasement and inflation,” declared a who’s who of Republican economists, investors, and pundits in a 2010 open letter to Ben Bernanke.

The not-enoughers — a group that includes yours truly — have argued all along that the clear and present danger is Japanification rather than Hellenization. That is, they have warned that inadequate fiscal stimulus and a premature turn to austerity could lead to a lost decade or more of economic depression, that the Fed should be doing even more to boost the economy, that deflation, not inflation, was the great risk facing the Western world.

To say the obvious, none of the predictions and warnings of the too-muchers have come to pass. America never experienced a Greek-type crisis of soaring borrowing costs. In fact, even within Europe the debt crisis largely faded away once the European Central Bank began doing its job as lender of last resort. Meanwhile, inflation has stayed low.

However, while the not-enoughers were right to dismiss warnings about interest rates and inflation, our concerns about actual deflation haven’t yet come to pass. This has provoked a fair bit of rethinking about the inflation process (if there has been any rethinking on the other side of this argument, I haven’t seen it), but not-enoughers continue to worry about the risks of a Japan-type quasi-permanent slump.

Which brings me to Europe’s woes.

On the whole, the too-muchers have had much more influence in Europe than in the United States, while the not-enoughers have had no influence at all. European officials eagerly embraced now-discredited doctrines that allegedly justified fiscal austerity even in depressed economies (although America has de facto done a lot of austerity, too, thanks to the sequester and cuts at the state and local level). And the European Central Bank, or E.C.B., not only failed to match the Fed’s asset purchases, it actually raised interest rates back in 2011 to head off the imaginary risk of inflation.

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The E.C.B. reversed course when Europe slid back into recession, and, as I’ve already mentioned, under Mario Draghi’s leadership, it did a lot to alleviate the European debt crisis. But this wasn’t enough. The European economy did start growing again last year, but not enough to make more than a small dent in the unemployment rate.

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RECENT COMMENTS

LeschatsDeux 16 hours ago
I guarantee you, the cure for this slump is to elect a Republican president. When that dreadful event happens, the Republicans in Congress…
Doug Brockman 16 hours ago
I am not so sure inflation is that low. I have read if you measure it by 1979 metrics it is running at 9%. And the price of groceries and…
George Woolfe 16 hours ago
I am on the side of the not-enoughers. How can we prosper when so many of us are working at jobs that don’t pay enough to put us above the…
SEE ALL COMMENTS
And now growth has stalled, while inflation has fallen far below the E.C.B.’s target of 2 percent, and prices are actually falling in debtor nations. It’s really a dismal picture. Mr. Draghi & Co. need to do whatever they can to try to turn things around, but given the political and institutional constraints they face, Europe will arguably be lucky if all it experiences is one lost decade.

The good news is that things don’t look that dire in America, where job creation seems finally to have picked up and the threat of deflation has receded, at least for now. But all it would take is a few bad shocks and/or policy missteps to send us down the same path.

The good news is that Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, understands the danger; she has made it clear that she would rather take the chance of a temporary rise in the inflation rate than risk hitting the brakes too soon, the way the E.C.B. did in 2011. The bad news is that she and her colleagues are under a lot of pressure to do the wrong thing from the too-muchers, who seem to have learned nothing from being wrong year after year, and are still agitating for higher rates.

There’s an old joke about the man who decides to cheer up, because things could be worse — and sure enough, things get worse. That’s more or less what happened to Europe, and we shouldn’t let it happen here.

 

Pope Francis on Art and Creativity

I am struck by the reference the pope just made to Puccini’s “Turandot” while speaking of the mystery of hope. I would like to understand better his artistic and literary references. I remind him that in 2006 he said that great artists know how to present the tragic and painful realities of life with beauty. So I ask who are the artists and writers he prefers, and if they have something in common.

“I have really loved a diverse array of authors. I love very much Dostoevsky and Hölderlin. I remember Hölderlin for that poem written for the birthday of his grandmother that is very beautiful and was spiritually very enriching for me. The poem ends with the verse, ‘May the man hold fast to what the child has promised.’ I was also impressed because I loved my grandmother Rosa, and in that poem Hölderlin compares his grandmother to the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, the friend of the earth who did not consider anybody a foreigner.

“I have read The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, three times, and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning of The Betrothed: ‘That branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains….’ I also liked Gerard Manley Hopkins very much.

“Among the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings speak to me. But also Chagall, with his ‘White Crucifixion.’ Among musicians I love Mozart, of course. The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts you to God! I love Mozart performed by Clara Haskil. Mozart fulfills me. But I cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it. I like listening to Beethoven, but in a Promethean way, and the most Promethean interpreter for me is Furtwängler. And then Bach’s Passions. The piece by Bach that I love so much is the ‘Erbarme Dich,’ the tears of Peter in the ‘St. Matthew Passion.’ Sublime. Then, at a different level, not intimate in the same way, I love Wagner. I like to listen to him, but not all the time. The performance of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ by Furtwängler at La Scala in Milan in 1950 is for me the best. But also the ‘Parsifal’ by Knappertsbusch in 1962.

“We should also talk about the cinema. ‘La Strada,’ by Fellini, is the movie that perhaps I loved the most. I identify with this movie, in which there is an implicit reference to St. Francis. I also believe that I watched all of the Italian movies with Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi when I was between 10 and 12 years old. Another film that I loved is ‘Rome, Open City.’ I owe my film culture especially to my parents who used to take us to the movies quite often.

“Anyway, in general I love tragic artists, especially classical ones. There is a nice definition that Cervantes puts on the lips of the bachelor Carrasco to praise the story of Don Quixote: ‘Children have it in their hands, young people read it, adults understand it, the elderly praise it.’ For me this can be a good definition of the classics.”

I realize that I have become utterly engrossed in these artistic references of his. I desire to enter into his life by passing through the door of his artistic choices. I imagine it would be a long journey, but certainly a journey worth taking. It would also include cinema, from Italian neo-realism to ‘Babette’s Feast.’ Other authors and other works now come to my mind, authors and works that he has mentioned in other occasions, also minor, or less famous, or even local ones: from the epic poem ‘Martín Fierro’ by José Hernandez to the poetry of Nino Costa, to The Great Exodusby Luigi Orsenigo. I also think of Joseph Malègue and José Marìa Pemàn. Clearly I think of famous writers like Dante and Borges, but also of the Argentine writer Leopoldo Marechal, the author of the novels Adàn Buenosayres, The Banquet of Severo Arcángeloand Megafón o la guerra.

I think especially about Borges, a writer with whom Father Bergoglio had direct contact in his earlier years. Back then he was a 28-year-old teacher of literature at the Colegio de la Immaculada Concepciòn in Santa Fé, Argentina. Father Bergoglio taught students during their last two years of secondary school and encouraged his pupils to take up creative writing. When I was younger I too had an experience just like his. Then, I taught at the Istituto Massimo of Rome, where I also founded the creative cultural project known as “BombaCarta.” I tell him the story. Finally I ask the pope to tell me about his own experience with teaching.

“It was a bit risky,” he answers. “I had to make sure that my students read El Cid. But the boys did not like it. They wanted to read Garcia Lorca. Then I decided that they would study El Cid at home and that in class I would teach the authors the boys liked the most. Of course, young people wanted to read more ‘racy’ literary works, like the contemporary La Casada Infiel or classics like La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas. But by reading these things they acquired a taste in literature, poetry, and we went on to other authors. And that was for me a great experience. I completed the program, but in an unstructured way—that is, not ordered according to what we expected in the beginning, but in an order that came naturally by reading these authors. And this mode befitted me: I did not like to have a rigid schedule, but rather I liked to know where we had to go with the readings, with a rough sense of where we were headed. Then I also started to get them to write. In the end I decided to send Borges two stories written by my boys. I knew his secretary, who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.”

“Then, Holy Father, creativity is important for the life of a person?” I ask. He laughs and replies: “For a Jesuit it is extremely important! A Jesuit must be creative.”

Frontiers and Laboratories
Creativity, therefore, it is important for a Jesuit. Pope Francis, during a visit with the Jesuit priests and other staff members of La Civiltà Cattolica, had articulated a triad of important characteristics relevant to the cultural initiatives of the Jesuits. I turn my thoughts to that day, June 14, 2013. I recall that back then, in a conversation just before the meeting with the entire group, the pope had already informed me about this triad: dialogue, discernment, frontier. And he insisted particularly on the last point, quoting Pope Paul VI. In a well-known speech, Paul VI had spoken directly about the Jesuits: “Wherever in the church—even in the most difficult and extreme fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches—there has been and is now conversation between the deepest desires of human beings and the perennial message of the Gospel, Jesuits have been and are there.”

I ask Pope Francis for a further explanation: “You asked us to be careful not to fall into ‘the temptation to tame the frontiers’: one must go out to the frontiers, not bring the frontiers home in order to paint them a bit artificially and tame them.” What were you referring to? What exactly did you wish to tell us? This interview, as you know, was organized by a group of magazines directed by the Society of Jesus: what invitation do you wish to extend to them? What should their priorities be?

“The three key words that I commended to La Civiltà Cattolica can be extended to all the journals of the Society, perhaps with different emphases according to their natures and their objectives. When I insist on the frontier, I am referring in a particular way to the need for those who work in the world of culture to be inserted into the context in which they operate and on which they reflect. There is always the lurking danger of living in a laboratory. Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but a ‘journey faith,’ a historical faith. God has revealed himself as history, not as a compendium of abstract truths. I am afraid of laboratories because in the laboratory you take the problems and then you bring them home to tame them, to paint them artificially, out of their context. You cannot bring home the frontier, but you have to live on the border and be audacious.”

I ask for examples from his personal experience.

“When it comes to social issues, it is one thing to have a meeting to study the problem of drugs in a slum neighborhood and quite another thing to go there, live there and understand the problem from the inside and study it. There is a brilliant letter by Father Arrupe to the Centers for Social Research and Action on poverty, in which he says clearly that one cannot speak of poverty if one does not experience poverty, with a direct connection to the places in which there is poverty. The word insertion is dangerous because some religious have taken it as a fad, and disasters have occurred because of a lack of discernment. But it is truly important.”

“The frontiers are many. Let us think of the religious sisters living in hospitals. They live on the frontier. I am alive because of one of them. When I went through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty tripled my doses because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because she was with ill people all day. The doctor, who really was a good one, lived in his laboratory; the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it every day. Domesticating the frontier means just talking from a remote location, locking yourself up in a laboratory. Laboratories are useful, but reflection for us must always start from experience.”

Human Self-Understanding
I ask the pope if and how this is also true in the case of another important cultural frontier, the anthropological challenge. The understanding of human existence to which the church has traditionally referred, as well as the language in which the church has expressed it, remain solid points of reference and are the result of centuries-long experience and wisdom. However, the human beings to whom the church is speaking no longer seem to understand these notions, nor do they consider them sufficient. I begin to advance the idea that we now interpret ourselves in a different way than in the past, using different categories. This is also due to the great changes in society, as well as a broader conception of what it means to be human.

At this point the pope stands up and takes the breviary from his desk. It is in Latin, and is worn down by continued use. He opens it to the Office of the Readings of the Feria Sexta, that is Friday, of the 27th week. He reads a passage to me taken from the Commonitórium Primumof St. Vincent of Lerins: “ita étiam christiánae religiónis dogma sequátur has decet proféctuum leges, ut annis scílect consolidétur, dilatétur témpore, sublimétur aetáte” (“Thus even the dogma of the Christian religion must proceed from these laws. It progresses, solidifying with years, growing over time, deepening with age.”)

The pope comments: “St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature in her own judgment. Even the other sciences and their development help the church in its growth in understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning.The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong.

“After all, in every age of history, humans try to understand and express themselves better. So human beings in time change the way they perceive themselves. It’s one thing for a man who expresses himself by carving the ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace,’ yet another for Caravaggio, Chagall and yet another still for Dalí. Even the forms for expressing truth can be multiform, and this is indeed necessary for the transmission of the Gospel in its timeless meaning.

“Humans are in search of themselves, and, of course, in this search they can also make mistakes. The church has experienced times of brilliance, like that of Thomas Aquinas. But the church has lived also times of decline in its ability to think. For example, we must not confuse the genius of Thomas Aquinas with the age of decadent Thomist commentaries. Unfortunately, I studied philosophy from textbooks that came from decadent or largely bankrupt Thomism. In thinking of the human being, therefore, the church should strive for genius and not for decadence.

“When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. The deceived thought can be depicted as Ulysses encountering the song of the Siren, or as Tannhäuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and bacchantes, or as Parsifal, in the second act of Wagner’s opera, in the palace of Klingsor. The thinking of the church must recover genius and better understand how human beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen the church’s teaching.”

Pope reinstates revolutionary priest from Nicaragua’s Sandinistas.  Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann was banned from ministries in 1985 as part of crackdown on ‘Marxist thought’ in Catholic church. Pope Francis faces the wrath of rightwing conservatives by reinstating a priest who joined the revolutionary, leftwing government of Nicaragua’s Sandinistas and once served as president of the UN general assembly. Pope John Paul II suspended Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann from his ministry in 1985, as part of a broader crackdown on adherents of liberation theology – a school of thought he criticised for importing Marxist values into the church. The edict meant D’Escoto was, among other things, forbidden to say Mass. A brief statement from the Maryknoll religious order, to which the 81-year-old priest belongs, announced that Francis had lifted the suspension on 1 August. “I am happy to be able to celebrate mass again,” D’Escoto was reported as saying from the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. “I am really pleased.” A few months ago, he wrote to the pope asking to “be able to celebrate the Holy Eucharist before dying”. Bishop Enrico dal Covolo, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, told the Italian daily La Stampa that Francis’s response did not represent the adoption of a political stance and should be understood in the context of his emphasis on the importance of mercy. But the rightwing US website Truth Revolt said: “The decision will likely anger most conservative Catholics”. Indeed: a comment posted to another conservative site, Free Republic, branded it “a terrible decision and a slap in the face to all true and faithful Catholics”. After the Sandinistas overthrew the pro-American regime of Anastasio Somoza in 1979, D’Escoto agreed to become foreign minister in Daniel Ortega’s new government, a post he held until 1990. From 2008 – 2009, D’Escoto served as president of the UN general assembly. In the 1980s, the Sandinistas accused the CIA of trying to assassinate him with a bottle of poisoned Benedictine liqueur . D’Escoto once referred to President Reagan as “the butcher of my people” and only last year told Barack Obama in a letter that America was “hooked on wars of aggression” and “possessed by the demons of greed and domination”. Advertisement Francis’s relationship with the liberation theologists is complex. As head of the Jesuit order in Argentina in the 1970s, he supported John Paul’s policies and has even been accused of complicity in the kidnapping of two left-leaning priests during the country’s “dirty war”, an accusation his aides have always denied. But he has dedicated his pontificate to the cause of the poor and used it denounce free-market capitalism as an “economy of exclusion and inequality”. It is also likely that Francis’s papacy will see the beatification of archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 and was widely admired by liberation theologists. No less complex have been the relations between the Sandinistas and the Catholic church. Ortega was voted from office in 1990 but returned as president in 2006 after backing a total ban on abortion, also supported by Nicaragua’s deeply conservative Catholic hierarchy. His victory was achieved despite a long-running scandal over claims by his adopted stepdaughter – denied by Ortega – that he sexually abused her while he was leader of the Sandinista government.

 

(Guardian)

 

Na AGRFT imamo predmet naratologija  Pripovedovanje je seveda naš posel. Ko smo ta, v svetu redek predmet uvajali, se nismo zavedali, da  bo pripovedovanje, “zgodba”  postalo prav vse na tem svetu. Še zlasti politika in reklama. Ti dve dejavnosti povezujejo spindoktorji, sodobni šamanii. Vsak produkt imai svojo zgodbo. In  spindoktorja. Vsaka stranka in politik toliko bolj. Tako pogosto poslušamo Stojana Pelka ali Jeretiča in ne Bratuškove, Pahorja ali Popoviča. Perfidna personalizacija politike je obscena, saj prikriva popolno odsotnost tistega, kar naj bi ime in priimek zagotavljala, namreč odgovornosti. (V nočnih morah vidim  politike, spindoktorje, tajkune, škofe in ostale mešetarje kot ujede,  mrhovinarje, ki se pasejo na kadavru propadle države.) Izvorno se vede o pripovedništvu ne ukvarjajo z zavajanjem in manipuliranjem ljudi. Pripovedi načelno osmišljajo posameznika v soočenju z zgodovino in družbo. Od nekdaj sta dve vrsti pripovedi.  Tiste uradne , duhovnih in posvetnih oblasti in emancipacijske, za katere skrbe novinarji in umetniki. Ene pravilom zlorabljajo zgodovino in svete spise za laži in prevare. Druge skrbe za resnico. Danes tudi umetniške veščine vse češče uporabljajo za manipuliranje.  Mediji postajajo  trobila politike in kapitala.  Vladajo filistri. Kakšna je torej zgodba Slovenije po zadnjih volitvah? Kaj nas čaka z vstopom ZL v parlament? Tako ZL kot Miro Cerar sta dediča zahtev, ki so jih postavile vstaje. ZL ne pušča dvoma o tem, da želi delovati v imenu vstajništva. Za Cerarja se še ne ve.  Naloga ni lahka. Je kar veliko interesov in posameznikov v državi, ki so jih vstajniške zahteve prestrašile. Upravičeno.  Zato ne more presenetiti, če so vstaje (bile) deležne omalovaževanja, poskusov diskreditacij, (očitki o  ozadjih),  morda celo sabotaž. Članice ZLso  z načelno držo in z  združevanjem  že pokazale dobro mero zrelosti.  Delo v državnem zboru je odlična priložnost za pridobivanje izkušenj in za izpopolnjevanje političnega programa. Prav povezovanje in združevanje je znamenje sposobnosti za demokratično reševanje razlik in nasprotij in ključni kriterij za uspešno upravljanje Slovenije. Tudi načelna odločitev za delo v opoziciji obeta.  Nasprotje temu so umazani kompromisi, nenačelna politika kravjih kupčij. Kdo so kravji mešetarji? Partijski otroci so po osamosvojitvi v dobrih dveh desetletjih državo spravili na tla in jo temeljito oplenili. Parole o socializmu, s katerimi so nas politični povzpetniki morili v prejšnjem sistemu, so čez noč zamenjali s frazami o liberalizmu, svobodnem trgu, zgodbi o uspehu, Sloveniji kot Švici, NATU in podobnim.  Domnevni nekdanji revolucionarji so se začeli histerično drenjati v neki sredini. Radi bi nas prepričali, da je ta sredina nevtralna, objektivan, pravična, za vse in proti kinomur. A res!?  Oportunizem, nenačelnost, preračunljivost in pohlep  sta čez noč postali najvišji družebeni vrlini.  Blagoslovili so jih, tudi z osebnimi zgledi, tako cerkveni dostjanstveniki kot svečeniki svobodnega trga, novodbni zveličarji, neoliberalni ekonomisti.  Zaradi primitivnega nagnjenja k avtoritarnem, črnobelem razumevanju družbe, se je del partijskih otrok, potem ko so jih zavrnili evropski social demokrati, zatekel k poveličevanju kolaborantstva in surovem anti-prosvetljenstvu.  Če k temu dodamo še RKC, ki si je  prisvojila znatno državno bogastvo in svojo mrežo dala v uporabo desnim populistom, je slika slovenske katastrofe popolna.  Vse skupaj je paravan za pospešeno ropanje države in prebivalstva (preko NLB tudi tujega.) Zato vstop Združene levice v parlament za začetek pomeni nujno normalizacijo. Odslej nimamo zgolj desno-levo-histerično-sredinskih nekritičnih zagovornikov neoliberalnega kapitalizma ampak tudi prave antikapitaliste. Kar ni brez problemov. Saj  ni čisto samoumevno, kako reševati probleme, ki so posledice kapitalizma. S preprostimi formulami in političnimi floskulami gotovo ne.  Socializmi so drug za drugim propadli zaradi usodnih problemov v socialističnih in komunističnih doktrinah in  praksah samih. Zato  lahko le upamo, da bo  nastajoča “nova levica” za začetek tudi dovolj samokritična. Lagodje zaklinjanja, ponavljanja starih, zlizanih in včasih hudo kompromitiranih parol ne bo dovolj. Poleg tega težav z gospodarsko stagnacijo, razlojevanjem in hirajočo demokracijo nima samo Slovenija. Za današnjo krizo je soodgovorna tudi globalna levica (v krizi). Če smo čisto jasni, je komuniste  pokopal problem demokracije, social demokrate pa kapitulacija pred globaliziranim kapitalom. Tudi to je dediščina, ki jo mora ZL vzeti na svoja ramena. Seveda, če želi postati učinkovita pri iskanju izhoda iz globalne, gospodarske, socialne, politične in vse kaže tudi duhovne krize.

SMC brez programa je še vedno velika neznaka. Število profesorjev in doktorjev v stranki in v parlamentu ni nujno dober znak. Propad Habsburške monarhije zgodovinar A.P. Taylor pripisuje prav obilici profesorjev v dunajskih vladnih krogih. Koliko profesorjev je sodelovalo pri “reševanju” izbrisanih in varčevalcev NLB? Slovenski politiki še danes primanjkuje tako načelnosti kot pragmatizma. Načelno mora nova vlada zmagati neizprosno vojno proti sistemski korupciji (se pravi korupciji v vrstah politike), posledičnem ropanju države in državljanov,  (tudi s privatizacijami), obnoviti in utrditi razsuti demokratični sistem in demokratično kulturo in določiti in zagnati  prioritete nacionalnega razvoja. V ta namen mora opredeliti nacionalne interese in jih uveljavljati tudi v tujini. Za naše interese razen nas samih, seveda ne bo poskrbel nihče drug. Tudi EU ne.  Še več, EU niti približno ne zmore poskrbeti za svoje lastne interese (Ukrajina!). Tudi zato  se mora država  pripraviti tudi na črni scenarij: na morebitni razkroj EU in evra. Ne sme se nam ponoviti leto 1918!  Za uresničevanje naštetih ciljev je nujna dobra mera političnega pragmatizma, spretnosti, pretkanosti in odločnosti. .Ali prihajajoča vlada kaj od naštetega sploh želi? Če želi, ali tudi zmore? Čer ne, se kmalu vidimo. V novi zgodbi.  Na naslednjih volitvah.

Igor Koršič

(Večer, 4. avgust, 2014)