NEJ’ets enigma – Europols nederen i det ulydige Danmark

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af Vladan Cukvas

Vi har lige overstået en folkeafstemning om hvorvidt Danmark skal med i Europol. Eller handlede den om hvorvidt retsforbeholdene skulle afskaffes, eller måske noget imellem de to muligheder. Det viste sig faktisk at ikke alle, inklusiv politikeren selv, var rigtig klar over hvad der helt præcis blev stemt om. Alligevel, blev resultatet et klart og entydigt NEJ på trods af politikernes anbefalinger (63% af folketinget, inklusiv de største og regerende partier) til at afkrydse et JA.

Selvom det nu ikke var helt klart hvad vi skulle sige ja eller nej tak til, er det alligevel meget interessent at undersøge bevægegrunde for Nej stemmerne. Jeg gætter på, at der er mange forskellige og til tider modstridende motiver der har spillet ind. Mange vil dog, ligesom det blev gjort op til og under selve kampagnen, fremlægge grunde hvorfor de stemte nej eller ja, men eksperternes analyser vil typisk se bort fra disse grunde og fokusere på årsagerne. Jeg vil ikke forsøge sådan en analyse her, men vil blot komme kort omkring nogle af de nævnte motiver og forklaringer der gjorde sig gældende både før og efter afstemningen. Continue reading →

Syriens gordiske knude

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by Vladan Cukvas

“Vi er ikke terrorens uskyldige ofre” lyder overskriften og budskabet i en artikel som Carsten Jensen, den mest berømte danske dissident, har skrevet i Information. Det som CJ siger, er desværre kun en del af historien og det undrer mig, at han stopper dér. Rigtigt nok, er der tale om en folkelig opstand og modstand mod de fremmede magter anført af USA, som er opstået i de forskellige krigsberørte (læs besatte) lande, ligesom det er rigtigt, at både Saddams og Assads regimer med deres repressive politik overfor politiske modstandere var med til at skabe et miljø hvor ekstremisme trives. Men der er nogle ekstra detaljer som gør, at hele billedet ændrer sig markant når man spotter dem.

Amerikanerne og deres allierede (først og fremmest UK og Danmark) er mildt sagt blevet upopulære i de krigshærgede lande og af mange af deres borgere, som selv har grebet til våben, anses som et legitimt mål. Når man rejser 5-6 tusinder kilometer væk fra sit eget land med våben i hænderne og begynder at skyde på folk, det mindste man kan forvente er, at de skyder tilbage. Det burde stå klart til enhver som kan tænke. Continue reading →

When evil is matter of nuances

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by Vladan Cukvas

France has a dark spot at the place where it used to have the city of light. But why does it look darker than other such spots? Once I saw video material (courtesy of J. Assange and bravery of C. Manning) showing how the crew of a military helicopter executed a bunch of people on the street for no obvious reason to the viewer. Even cheering could be heard in the background. I heard of men who slaughter other men and women at the wedding parties and funerals by dropping huge bombs from a drone. Not so long ago I saw video images of a crashed passenger plane, which was brought down because someone planted a bomb on it. A few days ago I heard about a bunch of people killing another bunch of people on a rock concert, on another street. What is the difference between these cases? Perhaps, we should ask whether there is a difference. The standard answer is: None to the dead and everything to their families and loved ones. But that is not the difference I’m aiming at. Continue reading →

Political dissidence in the who gives a damn times – The story of Niels Harrit

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by Vladan Cukvas

Slavoj Žižek once wrote a book titled “Living in the end times”. Although the title of this essay echoes some of the things Žižek identified as end times the essay is not about Žižek or about any of his books. I want to write about political dissidence and about the case of Niels Harrit, which serves illustrative purpose in this regard. The “who gives a damn” times is the setting in which the case of his political dissidence is placed. This setting may be said to be a part of our coming to an end and a few words ought to be said about it.

 Political Dissidence

Despite standard definition of the term, the lists of dissidents provided by various sources suggest that the term is elastic enough to embrace different forms of dissent and different fates many dissidents had suffered throughout the history. One thing all these dissent forms and actual dissidents have in common is that the views they defend are not only in opposition to those held by the authorities, but their views, which are typically political ideas, were perceived by those in power as dangerous and potentially disruptive. However, for the past three decades or so, in the time described by many as post-ideological and perhaps even post-political, typical dissidents became the insiders who simply talk openly about government’s secrets. They became known as whistleblowers. A typical whistleblower is a former government employee, with access to classified documents, who at one moment in her life decided to quit doing the job which she no longer believes could be defended on moral grounds and is not afraid to disclose the government’s dirty little secrets. Edward Snowden is perhaps the most famous whistleblower today and the one whose defection wasn’t a matter of espionage, but a matter of personal and moral convictions. Continue reading →

Is Yanis Eurofuckis?

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 by Vladan Cukvas

 

Well, the time will tell, but before that time I have a word to say about the fear of the Greek tragedy contagion in Europe

For more than a century ago L. Frank Baum wrote the famous novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, which most people are familiar with through the 1939 film adaptation “The Wizard of OZ”. At the first glance the novel appears to be a children novel, but some readers, like Henry Littlefield, offered a political reading of the story, where the characters portrayed stand symbolically for genuine people and the political ideas and economic models which they promoted at the time. Quite understandingly for a writer, Baum never left reading instructions so the novel perhaps unintentionally got to live two lives – the childishly naïve one, and the political life stern and annoying in its insistence to wake us up to the true reality. The novel was perhaps destined to suffer from the split personality disorder.

Anyways, I don’t wish to revive the long ago buried discussion about the plausibility of the political interpretation of the novel, but the fact remains that the great Wizard of Oz in the contemporary political discourse on the left (the left ought to be taken in a very broad sense) is a very real figure. Continue reading →