The Parallel Universe
Ali Ammar, one of 17 deputes of the Commission on Foreign Affairs of the National Assembly of Lebanon, from the Hezbollah political party, spoke to the foreign dignataries and press in Arabic. His remarks were translated into French, once for the French political delegation, and once for the French press. Several phrases caught the attention of Ségolène Royal, the candidate of the Socialist Party for President in the '07 cycle. I'm using the second translation.
"Le nazisme qui a versé notre sang et qui a usurpé notre indépendance et notre souveraineté n'est pas moins mauvais que le nazisme qui a occupé la France".
He also use the term "entité sioniste".
Respectively, these are "the nazism which as spilled our blood and usurped our independence and our soveriegnty is no less worse than the nazism which occupied France", and "zionist entity".
Ségolène Royal issed a statement later to the effect that no such language had been heard, by she or by the French Ambassador, but if she had heard such language she would have walked out of the room.
So if Lebanese, or Palestinians, or Iraqis or ... use a historical reference to express their impression of the conditions under which they exist, by force, and by force paid for in part by France, and in whole by the allies of France, the France of President Ségolène Royal will turn a deaf ear. Good to know in advance.
What this means is that the political party dominated by teachers and intellectuals of the left won't be able to use the word "colonialism" or any of its cognates while Mme. Royal is the leader of their party. The political party dominated by workers -- les bleus et les metallos -- the PCF, may continue to be able to articulate a critique of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism, and the smaller political parties that are doctrinally anti-neo-liberal but non-communist, or differently communist, from les Verts to the MRG, the LRC, ... will also be able to articulate a critique of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism, should they choose too. Note that the 1 vote margin for Dominique Voynet over Yves Cochet has made it less likely that the leadership of les Verts will position themselves as having a critique of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism. Pity that.
Sarko and Royal are running neck and neck in yesterday's IFOP-Journal du Dimanche poll. They've been within the MOE for sometime, for the hypothetical second round of the election. In the first round the IFOP-JDD numbers are as follows:
Mme Royal (31%, +2 from two weeks ago) PS
M. Sarkozy (30%, +1) UMP
Jean-Marie Le Pen (12%, +1) Front national
François Bayrou (9%, -2) UDF
Philippe de Villiers (4% +2) Mouvement pour la France
Olivier Besancenot (4% -1) Ligue communiste révolutionnaire
Marie-George Buffet (3%, -1) PCF
Dominique Voynet (2%, =) Verts
Arlette Laguiller (2%, -1) Lutte ouvrière
Corinne Lepage (1% =) Cap 21
Jean-Pierre Chevènement (1% -1) MRC
Frèdéric Nihous (1% =) Jean Saint-Josse
This is a follow-up to Meanwhile ... in France ...
And in case its too subtle, the center-left of France in the '07 presidentials, dominated by Mme. Ségolène Royal, a person with little program or policy, and less accomplishments, other than beating a bunch of men in the PS pre-primary positioning this year and the primary a few weeks ago, and taking the PS into the political and rhetorical landscape of the UMP via "triagulation", and the Democratic Party of the US in the '08 pre-primary positioning, dominated by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, are the two parallel universes.
Comments
More or less if Ali Ammar is referring to Nazism in Lebanon he might remember Phalangism or he might remember the Fascist Mufta or he might remember Lechi or he might remember the Castle Schonau but there is little chance that as a member of Hezbollah he will be doing anything but adding to the notion that all crimes are of equal greatness and that the unjust war equals the Tatar Katyn. There is no place on earth more upset about religion than Lebanon. Nobody has any opinion that the people behind the abolishment of the wall between Russia and Belarus and who see Russia as the Israel and Belarus as Lebanon cannot commit acts of invasion. The existence of Jews in Lebanon is called intolerable. Even by the Israeli Sadrite it was considered not. When he got into office yelling at the dead to stand up and drown themselves because his Musab had asphyxiated themself he did not have any interest in Jews per se. He had an interest in French Jewry not at all and the French antisemite explotied this weakness well. He will definitely lose. Whoever the Israeli Sadrite is to condemn the existence of the Palestinian Authority as a blot on the holy sadamite he does not have a chance to create a country where if you do not join the local scout you are considered a read, write thus executable.
Posted by: Jhon | December 3, 2006 05:28 AM
Your earlier comment on the decision of the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association to decline the CITGO grant for heating oil of about $100,000, was about as insane a comment as I've gotten in four years. Here you appear to miss the possibility that Deputy Ammar (Hiz) used a experience with universal (French) negative meaning to convey meaning about a Lebanese meaning, when addressing a French diplomatic party, some of whom are known to be not very intellectually gifted. The rest of your comment is ... opaque.
Posted by: ebw | December 3, 2006 08:55 AM