The world as it is
By Bahjat Rizk
While the brother – elected president there less than two weeks hoarse Tahrir Square , crowded with rebels and believers , reassuring the West over its future plans and trying to stand while staying true to its principles base of the most progressive and open as possible the most modern way to win political space and prevent the army to confiscate new power, gay pride parades mass almost the same day Place de la Bastille to celebrate the announcement in advance fanfare by the Minister for the Family and the Prime Minister himself institutionalization before the end of gay marriage and the possibility of adoption, according to one of the key promises of the newly elected socialist president and application of the triptych structuring revolutionary sacrosanct : liberty, equality , fraternity .
At the same time , England went on to great fanfare the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of his sovereign , until the next opening of the Olympic Games in London, and Italy and Spain are battling for the final of the Euro football and body together to make the backup of the failed euro money under the eyes of the old – new Franco-German couple, who endlessly debate and loop growth , rigor and the priority of economic or political Europe Europe. Parallel and daily , civilians continue to die in Syria facing an implacable dictatorship internationally supported by Russia and China, and internally by an EU army, with regional support for Iran and the threat of neighboring Turkey but with the disavowal of the Gulf countries, headed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon, as usual, serves as a sounding board for all regional problems and battleground and arduous negotiations, given its multicultural and multi-community structure , and wants to live and prime example of a country dialog cultures or, now classic reference and continuing the dismal failure and blatant that same dialogue. Probable papal visit in September aims to renew the vocation of Lebanon Country message consecrated by his predecessor, Blessed John Paul II.
Two weeks ago , the reception of Academician Amin Maalouf , succeeding seat Claude Lévi- Strauss, reaffirmed this same conviction. Yet the same day, Nadine Morano policy , trapped by comedian Gérard Dahan, said that she believed to be a leader of the National Front she did not want ” a second Lebanon” home.
Like it or not , whether we recognize it or not, all these conflicting or consensual situations are the cultural base.
We see more and more that it is the cultural basis that the political and economic , and that the identification process is a dynamic process of constant negotiation between structuring or destructuring identity constant , as this process results or fails.
Thus , keeping in perspective the universalist ideal of humanism and human rights , realistic practice compels us to keep in sight the segregationist survival instinct and discrimination. In this dialectical relationship with the world , we can not ignore the vital trend or transcendence or the drive just as vital conservation of conquest and domination. The topic of cultural differences should necessarily be addressed in a more comprehensive approach in its double aspect of complementarity and opposition , assimilation and rejection. Thus, according to the case, the election of a religious (or from a brotherhood) at the head of a State may be supportive and beneficial, or sectarian and suicidal. It may usher in an era of compromise, openness, recognition and dialogue, as also be the prelude to an era of obscurantism and regression archaic . However, it seems to me essential to streamline the identity debate to accept the reality of parametric constants identity ( Herodotus parameters: language , religion, race and manners ) in order to compensate better.
And the idealistic optimism Amin Maalouf goes with realistic pessimism of Claude Lévi- Strauss. First we need to continue to believe and hope , and second for awareness and prevention .
Claude Lévi- Strauss in Race and History (1952 ) advocates the equality of cultures , and Race and Culture (1971) advance the idea of ” biological threshold ” of cultures to be able to preserve . Amin Maalouf door to the West version of the Crusades Through Arab Eyes , denounced the murderous identities and Dysregulation of the world.
Both were elected to the same seat symbolically the most prestigious French language for instance , created by Cardinal Richelieu , prince of the Church and political and military man par excellence, which greatly helped by the policy and weapons, the weakening of Protestantism in France and the strengthening of the language through the establishment of the Academy. The ritual of receiving future Immortal has , as it was reported to us , contemplate behind a screen , head to head if you speak, the death mask of Richelieu , the founder of this institution father.
This universalism and humanism belong to us all as a human race, but the specificity of our cultures requires us to negotiate our spaces and to protect , through engagements, alliances and even confrontations.
There, in lies our dilemma between our every human relativity and our quest for immortality and eternity.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Google translate