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Written by ANDREW A. MICHTA
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Sunday, 26 July 2020 10:36 |
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OF EQUALITY AND QUALITY
The Corrosive Decline of Our Elites  ANDREW A. MICHTA
From China, to COVID, and to the protests currently roiling our nation, our elites have shown themselves to be both feckless and disconnected with bedrock American values. The blame ultimately lies with our schools.
How does a great nation, having just three decades ago triumphed over communism in the seminal struggle of the Cold War, fall to its current state? How did we become a society so deeply fractured along group identities and mutual mistrust that we can no longer assume the reciprocity of obligation to each other—the very glue that makes representative democracy possible? How did our elected leaders, corporate business elite and policy and media community allow America to become deindustrialized to the degree that the middle class—once a mainstay of the country—is now a minority class, while we continue to rely on an adversary communist state to provide us with medicines and critical supplies? How did we get to the point where our media is hesitant, and at times proudly unwilling, to draw sharp lines between legitimate protests over police brutality and mobs of masked thugs robbing stores, burning cars, and defacing our most cherished national monuments with impunity?
What is unfolding before our eyes is a profound crisis of America’s leadership class, the result of elites becoming unmoored from the fundamentals of this nation’s founding and its traditional commitment to building a decent society.What is unfolding before our eyes is a profound crisis of America’s leadership class, the result of elites becoming unmoored from the fundamentals of this nation’s founding and its traditional commitment to building a decent society. For too many in a position of authority, leadership is not understood to entail the ultimate responsibility for those entrusted to one’s care, but rather as a perpetual entitlement to rule over what is left of our once self-constituting communities. The prevailing elite method of governance today rests on stoking group grievance and then appeasing the mob when group identity politics break yet another national bond that it took generations of Americans to build. The goal is increasingly to claim credit for “progress” that is inevitably merely a waystation to the next crisis after which, at some unspecified point in the future, we will build a “truly just society.” The past three decades have seen our elites beat a relentless drumbeat of this narrative, and it seems poised to reach yet another, higher, pitch.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 September 2020 06:03 |
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Written by Imad Abdullah
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Thursday, 09 January 2020 08:27 |
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JEAN QUATREMER 30 AVRIL 2020 (MISE À JOUR : 5 MAI 2020)
Il n’a fallu que quelques instants, le 16 mars, pour que le chef de l’État et son gouvernement, au nom de la lutte contre la pandémie de coronavirus, assignent à résidence les Français et les privent de la plupart de leurs libertés civiles, politiques et sociales que l’on croyait inaliénables : liberté d’aller et de venir, liberté de réunion, liberté d’entreprendre, liberté de travailler, etc. La justice a été mise quasiment à l’arrêt, les avocats confinés, les détentions provisoires automatiquement prolongées, les forces de l’ordre (entendues dans un sens très extensif puisqu’elles incluent les policiers municipaux et assimilés) investies des pleins pouvoirs appliquer ces mesures privatives de liberté.
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Last Updated on Monday, 11 May 2020 08:36 |
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Written by Saleh Darwish
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Thursday, 18 October 2018 14:01 |
ABSTRACT
The construction of Syrian society has always been from top to bottom under the sponsorship of a dominant state. Why this title and for what reason the author refers to the thought of Ibn Khaldoun especially highlighting the link that exists between religion and politics since the advent of Islam?
The entry into this article is the level of cruelty that characterizes the current repression and the passivity of part of the population that accompanies it. What instrument of analysis should be used to understand the state of destruction suffered by the people and the Syrian land?
A first interrogation is why this interference between the time of the apogee of the Moslem culture, Al-Nahda and the present time?
How was Ibn Khaldoun's concept of Al-Assabia (cohesive force) applied throughout these periods? The state in Syria has always been of voluntarist nature. What characterized his overthrow in the past and possibly in the present is the "cycle" that moved from one Assabiya to another where wars erode the central state into sub-states dominated by sectarian interests and looting of fortunes by force of arms.
How to make a projection on the current situation in Syria?
How to compare the Assabiya from the Mamelukes, to that of the current rulers? And yet during the last two decades the system has made openings to the outside world and allowed the sharing of wealth with an emerging bourgeoisie? Why this opening has been overshadowed by a popular uprising in 2011? Why did the Ba'ath Party not be able to encompass the different components of society and let itself be dominated by a clan Assabiya that of the Alawites?
The inevitable fading of this state since voluntarist, must it go through a revolution?
Postulate: The state dies when it is weakened and the disease that prevails is then a "revolution". The difference between human death and the death of a state is that the latter, according to Ibn Khaldun, generates at the moment of death through the "cycle of Assabiya" of a new state.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 November 2018 16:37 |
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Written by Dr Saleh Darwich
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Monday, 23 April 2018 14:43 |
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CARACTERISTIQUES DE L’ETAT SYRIEN ACTUEL ET LES GERMES DE SON VIEILLISSEMENT D’APRES UNE LECTURE DE ASSABIYA D’IBN KHALDOUN
La construction de la société syrienne s’est effectuée depuis toujours du sommet vers la base sous l’égide d’un état dominant. Pourquoi ce titre et pour quelle raison l’auteur se réfère à la pensée d’Ibn Khaldoun surtout en soulignant le lien qui existe entre la religion et la politique depuis l’avènement de l’Islam ?
L’entrée en matière de cet article est le niveau de cruauté qui caractérise la répression actuelle et la passivité d’une partie de la population qui l’accompagne. Quel instrument d’analyse faut-il utiliser pour comprendre l’état de destruction subit par le peuple et par la terre syrienne ?
Une première interrogation pourquoi cette interférence entre l’époque de l’apogée de la culture musulmane, Al-Nahda et l’époque actuelle ?
Comment le concept d’Al-Assabia (force de cohésion) d’Ibn Khaldoun a-t-il été appliqué tout le long de ces périodes ? L’Etat en Syrie était depuis toujours d’une nature volontariste. Ce qui caractérisait son renversement dans le passé et éventuellement au présent c’est le « cycle » qui faisait passer d’une Assabiya à une autre où les guerres effritent l’Etat central en sous-états dominés par des intérêts sectaires et le pillage des fortunes par la force des armes.
Comment effectuer une projection sur la situation actuelle en Syrie ?
Comment comparer la Assabiya depuis les Mamelouks, à celle des gouvernants actuels ? Et pourtant durant les deux dernières décennies le système a effectué des ouvertures vers le monde extérieur et a autorisé le partage des richesses avec une bourgeoisie émergente ? Pourquoi cette ouverture s’est éclipsée par une révolte populaire en 2011 ? Pourquoi le parti Baath n’a pu englober les différentes composantes de la société et s’est laissé dominer par une Assabiya clanique celle des Alaouites ?
L’évanouissement inéluctable de cet état puisque volontariste, doit-il passer par une révolution ?
Postulat : L'État meurt lorsqu'il est frappé d'incapacité et la maladie qui l’emporte est alors une «révolution». La différence entre la mort humaine et la mort d'un état est que cette dernière, d’après Ibn Khaldoun, engendre au moment de sa mort à travers le «cycle de la assabiya» d'un nouvel état.
"طبائع العمران" في الدولة السورية
إعداد
الدكتور صالح درويش
من "سوء حظ" المجتمع الأهلي في الماضي، ومن بعده المجتمع المدني في سوريا، أنهما كانا يجدان نفسيهما على الدوام، بمواجهة سلطة حاكمة متسلطة، تارة أعجمية وغريبة عن البلد (مماليك، وعثمانيين، ومستعمرين إنكليز وفرنسيين...)، وتارة فئوية محلية. في مثل هكذا إطار، يصبح، عندما نتكلم عن كيف تم تشكل المجتمع السوري المعاصر، وأسباب ما يعاني منه من محن، كمن يتكلم بالأحرى عن تاريخ نشوء، وتطور الدولة الإطار في سوريا، لأنها لعبت على الدوام دورا حاسما في صوغ الشرائح المجتمعية المختلفة، انطلاقا من "أعلى الهرم المجتمعي"، وليس بالعكس. أي، بدل ان ينطلق هذا الانبعاث من "بناء تحتي"، يفرز من لدنه نحو الأعلى، نخبا يُتوافق عليها، لترتهن بمشيئته قدر الإمكان، وليس بمشيئة فئة قليلة متسلطة، هبطت عليه من "فوق".
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Last Updated on Thursday, 03 May 2018 16:30 |
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Written by Zeina Shahla
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Sunday, 08 April 2018 09:48 |
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معارض في دمشق تضيء على «الزمن الجميل» من تاريخ سوريا
زينة شهلا
شهدت العاصمة السورية دمشق على مدار الأسبوع الفائت مجموعة من الفعاليات الثقافية التي سعت للإضاءة على حقبة من تاريخ سوريا الحديث، والتي تبدو مجهولة لكثر خاصة ممن لم يتجاوزوا الثلاثين أو الأربعين من عمرهم.
تضمنت هذه الفعاليات التي أقيمت في مقر «حركة البناء الوطني» أمسية قصصية بعنوان «حكايا الصور» هدفت إلى رواية حكايات مستوحاة من الذاكرة الفوتوغرافية للمجتمع السوري، ومعرضاً بعنوان «هنّ» لصور من الذاكرة تعكس حضور النساء السوريات في الحياة العامة خلال فترة الخمسينيات والستينيات.
إنه «الزمن الجميل في سوريا» وفق تسمية من عايشوا تلك الفترة. تسمية بدا انعكاسها واضحاً على وجوه كل من حضروا تلك الفعاليات، فبعضهم استعاد ذكريات غائبة بحنين ممزوج بألم، وآخرون تعرفوا إلى وجوه وصور وحتى مجتمع لم يعرفوه من قبل.
التاريخ بين الواقع والخيال
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 April 2018 09:47 |
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