Re: <nettime> notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com>]

Dear Nina, Dear Geert,


thanks for your reports and views on diem25 - an event that is
ostensibly about setting up demoradical constituent power in europe
- lead by varoufakis, the only credible opposant of ordoliberal
austerity.

i agree it wants to try to be the Great Recession version of the the
Great Depression Popular Front - although not only we are living
under informationalism and not industrialism, but the geopolitics
is very different - political marxism is becoming residual in all
forms (reformist, revolutionary, hybrid) and european fascism is
not yet a unified threat - in a way it's like europe were a big
weimar republic based on the eroding power of the black-red-gold
alliance (Zentrum/CDU, SPD, FDP) threatened on the right by lega-like
parties and pegida-style movements whose fortunes are being boosted
by salafist threats to the European citizenry. Also, let's not
forget that the 1930s, even in England and France, were not open to
immigration and political refugees. But there is no fundamental threat
to European democracy like the one posed by Hitler+Mussolini (Putin
does not want to conquer the eurozone - although his patriarch is
plotting with the pope against gay marriage in europe).

Leaving historical parallelisms aside, the initiative is very
interesting, although flawed in a few aspects, some of which have
already been highlighted by Geert (who sounds supportive but
nevertheless critical of the media-savvy, informationally poor
semi-leninist set up) and Nina (who is much more dismissive of aging
men trying to reinvent european politics). I think itis flawed in
the remedy it proposes to presently disintegrating Europe. There is
the urgency, but the course of action suggested fails to adress it.
I just wrote an article in Italian (it should be published soon by
ilmanifesto - i sent it five days ago) on the matter.

If you want to defeat Bank, Commission and Merkel-Hollande, you need
to establish another Europe. This is what Diem is saying. And given
its alliance with Blockupy, the only transeuropean movement we have
at our disposal, its words are credible in the sense they will lead
to some form of political action. But how so? I'm afraid the how is
where all the hopes will be dashed. Germans and Italians (the Romans
and Venetians were there, Geert - the spaghetti movement is presently
in a downswing) look up to Barcelona and Madrid, to En Comu and
Podemos, for a radically populist answer to the Brussels Consensus
(based on the right to city, queer rights, antiracism, mobilization of
the precariat, urban ecology etc), capable of inspiring all movement
forces across the Continent so to finally challenge and dismantle
European neoliberalism. Yet not even the Spaniards have really
resolved the issue of the kind of Europe we want and need.

The article i wrote concurs with Simms that a constituent Europe
must be decided and fought for (it's not a process like the Monnet
guys told us, it's a disruptive event) and it can only be a European
Continental Republic (Res Publica Europae Continentalis? my Latin
sucks) which federates the eurozone and who else wants to join (many
would want to get out, too - starting with Britain and possibly ending
with Poland). I disagree with Simms it should be part of NATO: rather
it should be strongly neutral - capable of defending itself but, say,
reluctant to be dragged into war with Russia over Ukraine.

So this is my constructive criticism of diem. Be transparent and
radically democratic, certainly. But discuss and construct clearly
what the ultimate aim is in concrete terms. If we want to seize
power in Brussels and Frankfurt, we need to point out what kind of
European state we are fighting for. It should protect fundamental
rights (asylum, queer, labor, cyber, eco rights) and establish a
transnational democracy that curbs the powers of the nefarious
nation-states to empower autonomous regions (Catalunya, say) and
cities (Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Athens) - its monetary and fiscal
policies should be geared toward gender equality, the elimination of
unemployment and precariousness, the valorization of youth across the
union, and other crucial priorities advanced by the post-1999 and
post-2011 movements.

All this would be revolutionary in the present historical conditions.
In fact, you would really need a revolution to dislodge the eurocracy
from power. Will diem constitute a pan-european force for radical
political change in the eurozone and the EU? I certainly hope so, for
the alternative is dissolution and war also on the European continent.

best for the shabbat,

lx



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Nina Temp <nina-temp@gmx.de> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I was also there and cannot share Geert's enthusiasm a tiny bit, as do
> many others that were there.
>
> Why?


<...>

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: