[Reader-list] Rising wave of politics of exclusion

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

Enclosed are two reports. One is about Le Pen in France sensing and nearing 
into seats that matter. The other is a report about a public lecture by 
Castell about contemporary political climate. Together they make interesting 
reading. I would think that lot of what these two report gesture towards are 
here to stay with us and it may not be such a bad idea to be able to think 
about the link between media images, narratives of victimhood, demonisation 
of others, legitimation crisis, `they deserve it` violence and anxiety a 
survival. 

best
Jeebesh
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http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/04/23/story/0000132988

PARIS

French voters, shocked by the triumph of extreme-right politician Jean-Marie 
Le Pen in the first round of two-stage presidential elections, united in a 
backlash against him yesterday to halt his advance.

Polls show Le Pen has no chance of unseating incumbent center-right President 
Jacques Chirac in the run-off poll on May 5.

The surveys credit Le Pen, a 73-year-old ex-paratrooper who runs on an 
anti-immigration, anti-EU ticket, with no more than 20 percent of the vote.

But his stunning second place behind Chirac, 69, in Sunday's first round 
profoundly disoriented France and alarmed its EU neighbors, including Germany 
and the Netherlands, which are also heading into elections.

Protests erupted around the country overnight after the results became clear, 
and more took place yesterday, threatening to grow into an anti-Le Pen 
groundswell that could carry through to the May election.

Politicians from the left and the right urged the French to massively rally 
behind Chirac, if not to give him a second mandate, then at least to stall Le 
Pen's disconcerting rise and salvage France's international standing.

Chirac and others also went into emergency meetings to come up with 
strategies to stop Le Pen's National Front party from capitalizing on the 
upset in legislative elections that follow straight afterwards in June.

The governing Socialists, meanwhile, were in turmoil, searching for a new 
leader after their defeated presidential candidate, Prime Minister Lionel 
Jospin, announced late Sunday he was resigning from political life after May 
5.

Jospin came third with 16 percent, behind Le Pen with 17 percent and Chirac 
with 19.4 percent. His score confounded pollsters who had predicted a 
Chirac-Jospin run-off.

The polls now say Chirac will easily win the May second round with 80 percent 
of the vote.

The French press described the first-round results as a political crisis, an 
"earthquake" that would undermine a new, five-year mandate for Chirac.

They blamed Jospin's rout on a protest vote against him and Chirac which saw 
most of the ballots spread thin over other candidates, as well as a record 
low turnout.

Le Pen's tough law-and-order promises to tackle a growing crime wave he 
blames on immigrants were also seen as having wide appeal among voters.

"It wasn't a first round, it was a cataclysm," Liberation wrote in an 
editorial. "Today's hangover is horrible ... France is being pointed at, with 
a jabbing finger, as a source of shame among democracies."

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Le Pen's showing was "alarming," 
while Israel's government, remembering that Le Pen once infamously called the 
Holocaust "a detail of history," exhorted France's Jews to pack up and leave.

Anti-Le Pen protests, meanwhile, were taking place in the French cities of 
Lyon, Strasbourg, Reims, Rouen and Besancon, with more planned later in the 
day.

Large demonstrations occurred overnight after Sunday's election.

In Paris, around 15,000 marched along streets before being blocked by police 
barricades at the central Place de la Concorde, next to the presidential 
palace and the French parliament building.

Riot squads fired tear gas to disperse the protesters early yesterday after a 
small group of youths tried to breach the barriers and scuffled with officers.

May 1 is likely to bring the street uproar to a head, when nationwide 
protests are expected to clash with a pro-Le Pen rally in central Paris just 
four days before the final presidential election round.
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Subject: <nettime> Castells in Amsterdam/short report
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 15:48:02 +0200
From: "David Garcia" <davidg at xs4all.nl>

A key factor in the perception of national politics as ineffectual is the
progressive erosion of national sovereignty leading to skepticism about the
power of national politicians. He outlined a number of standard strategies 
being used for dealing with this   erosion. There was xenophobic populism in 
all its varieties. There were the attempts to regain some power by becoming 
part of supranational entities EU, NATO, World Bank, WTO ( a new state, the 
state of the information age  [Empire?]). National governments believe that 
by ceding some degree of sovereignty  in some areas, they would accrue more 
national influence in overall terms. It goes without saying that this 
strategy compounds the problem of legitimacy as people feel even less 
represented by these institutions.
Finally he seemed to suggest the most positive approach was one of
coordinated decentralization Some administrations (Spain with Catatonia, and 
the Blair administration in the UK devolving power to regional assemblies) 
are learning to be more responsive to regional struggles for identity, 
administrations have to be prepared to decentralize or devolve in other ways. 
Interestingly he characterized the 40.000 existing NGOs as a decentralized 
extension of government rather than a reconstitution of civil society. But in 
the end these forms of decentralized coordination do not address the problem 
of the erosion of the nation state.

His description of the structural causes in the breakdown of trust between
citizens and the political class were made up of the following primary
elements.

* Erosion of the sovereignty of the state:
this creates a reality and a perception of elected national politicians with
less and less room to materially affect the life chances of their citizens.
The erosion of apparent power of the political class in the face of
globalization processes over which they have limited control means that it
is inevitable that voting (let alone any deeper involvement in mainstream
political life) is seen as unlikely to make any real difference.

Fight for the Middle Ground
Although parties may represent very different values the critical ten
percent who decide elections lie in the center. this leads to political
parties to devise programs that have progressively less differentiation.
Again sustaining the view that whatever I vote it makes no difference.

Cost of mediatized campaigns cause corruption
* Values and meanings are transmited and constructed through the media.
Which are (contrary to the belief of many intellectuals, trusted by most
people, who do not see them as a means of manipulation but of
representation. And television is the most trusted of all. Seeing, it
appears, is still believing)
The need to create effective media campaigns has made party politics a
hugely expensive business. Without individuals being necessarily "on the
take", there is widespread (he implied almost universal) illegal financing
of party politics. Those responsible for arranging party finances know that
to be able to compete, a political party cannot rely on its own membership
for funds. Political parties can only find the resources to mount an
effective campaign with the support of powerful (i.e. wealthy) interest
groups. And this fact alone creates inevitable spaces for both real and
inferred corruption.

* The politics of scandal as a weapon
Across the globe scandal is a determining factor in the destinies of many
administrations. To take just one example 12 scandals have occurred in
Germany since the storm that broke around Kohl's retirement.  If people are
more likely to vote reactively on the basis of aversion rather than positive
conviction it follows that the most devastating ammunition in this process
is the scandal. In all modern (therefor mediatized) democracies
institutionalized corruption is inevitable, frequently identifiable and
amplified by a scandal hungry commercial media facilitated by "scandal
brokers" (although he did not use this term he described a new class of
traders in damaging information). It is above all the  politics of scandal
that feeds the crisis of political legitimacy.

In summary there is a general perception of party political democracies as
self reproducing systems. With political parties as little more than
electoral machines: empty shells in terms of real potential for social
organization  This is not about the end of ideology but a crisis in trust.
Although cynical about politicians Castells rejected the view that people
were cynical in general. Indeed there was ample evidence that people are
willing to be mobilized for a variety of issues beyond self interest. An
important factor are the new social movements which propel their values into
society. It is these movements which  he saw as the source of innovation
rather than the established political parties.