Turmoil at French universities could leave students facing missed year by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

French universities, paralysed by three months of student blockades and staff strikes, were warned by the government to resume teaching yesterday or risk damaging France's image on the world stage.

Since February, various universities have been thrown into chaos by the biggest higher education revolt in modern French history, surpassing the protests of May 1968 in terms of the numbers of academic staff who have gone on strike.

This year students have barricaded colleges with desks and chairs, and briefly held two university rectors hostage, while swaths of researchers and lecturers have walked out on strike in protest at what the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had promised would be his most bold and daring reform: overhauling the crumbling French higher education system.

The crisis is now so acute that ministers have warned that if lectures do not resume before May, students across France who have had no syllabus teaching for months could be forced to miss exams and forfeit an entire undergraduate year. The prime minister, François Fillon, said yesterday: "The government will never accept exams being sacrificed. That would be a catastrophe for France's image in the world."

After decades of under-funding, French universities are overcrowded, have high dropout rates, fail to make international league tables and have been called a national disgrace by business leaders. The handful of well-funded, tiny, elitist graduate schools continue to thrive while the majority of universities struggle.

University reform in France has always been an explosive issue, often the touch-paper for wider protests. When Sarkozy came to power in 2007, he promised to radically revamp universities, giving their heads more autonomy to run faculties more along the lines of successful commercial businesses.

Yet his government's handling of the reform and his insults of university researchers have resulted in chaos instead. In general, academics agree that wide-reaching reform is needed. But they have now joined protest movements radically opposing Sarkozy's approach, which they see as an attempt to run higher education along "capitalist lines". The president's leadership has been accused of displaying "contempt" for intellectuals.

The government has agreed to temporarily freeze its planned university job cuts and tweak its proposals. Academics, however, are still protesting plans that would change the status of academic researchers and allow university presidents to decide how such staff spend their time.

"I couldn't have foreseen how radical a stance I've ended up taking, but the whole fabric of higher education is at stake," said Valérie Robert, a lecturer in German history at a Paris university, who has been on strike since January. "You can't measure universities like a factory in terms of economic success, we feel our freedom as academics researchers is being totally curbed."

Yesterday the government estimated that 20 to 25 universities out of out of 83 were still affected by the protests. Strikers warned that others could rejoin the movement after the holidays next week.

Source: Guardian

Protest Police Tactics - G20 Meltdown - City Police HQ, Wood St - 18th April 2009

Ian Tomlinson did not die of natural causes

A new post mortem says Ian Tomlinson died from an abdominal haemorrhage not a heart attack after contact with police during the G20 protests. He was hit and pushed over by a police officer on 1 April, when he was just trying to get home from work. The statement from the City of London Coroners Court overturns the initial assessment that the newspaper seller died of natural causes. Another lie exposed.

EMERGENCY PROTEST: Outside City of London Police HQ, 37 Wood Street EC211am to 2pm, called by G20 Meltdown

ACT-UAW Statement Regarding the April 10, 2009 Student Occupation of the New School

April 13, 2009

The part-time faculty union, ACT-UAW Local 7902 of the New School and NYU, is gravely concerned with the Kerrey administration’s harsh response to the New School students who recently occupied 65 Fifth Avenue, including a massive show of police force.

President Kerrey’s statement about the protest focused only on allegations of student misconduct, ignoring the serious issues raised by the protesters. We call on the administration to immediately revoke the suspensions of students pending a full investigation of all allegations. The question should be asked why student dissatisfaction with the administration needs to be expressed in the occupation of a university building. In our view, this protest is symptomatic of the administration’s failure to foster a healthy and democratic educational community at the New School

Alain Badiou and the Idea of Communism in the Context of Maobadi Revolution

By Stephen David Mauldin

I will begin with a few words about half my topic, Alain Badiou and the idea of communism in his philosophy. We may safely begin by saying the idea of communism has an axiomatic notion of human freedom radically opposed to that of any and all forms of class based governance inasmuch as it posits an egalitarian maxim – that individuals in social relations are essentially equals despite differences in abilities and needs. This axiom, this communist hypothesis, apparently has two aspects. One pertains to the subjective conditions of individuals while the other aspect is the objective conditions of the whole of society – a contrast of subjectivity and science so to speak. To the extent that exploiter classes hold dictatorship over oppressed classes, to that extent exists the impetus for communist revolution.

The assertion is that the egalitarian maxim is true and the violation of that truth is grounds for militancy. The unique character of Alain Badiou’s communist philosophy is that what is actually true would be determined both subjectively and scientifically true. First are the subjects who decide that the communist hypothesis is true and engage in militancy against exploiter classes. However, this allegiance or fidelity must be sustained for a period by subjects fighting for the oppressed masses. That the communist hypothesis is objectively true, is scientific truth, would verify the subjective truth only in the future anterior when classless society (communism) actually exists. This is at once a call for a subjective belief in the communist hypothesis and a rejection of dogmatic insistence on the scientific authority of the notion.

Revolution is a process of struggle for state power and is characterized by the objective conditions of the situation in which it occurs. The other half of my topic is Maobadi revolution, the struggle of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as the vanguard of proletarian revolution in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions in Nepal. This struggle was discussed in more detail in my previous article. At present I only want to point to the relationship of the Maobadi revolution to Badiou’s conception of communism.

The Maobadi are participating in multi-party politics, holding by popular vote a majority leadership in that coalition; but they are not in possession of actual state power inasmuch as the reactionary oppressor classes still have the support of a standing army, the former Royal Army of the now dissolved constitutional monarchy. The reactionaries also have demonstrated, if not control, at least neutralizing influence over the judiciary. The Maobadi are trying to lead a constituent assembly in the writing of a new constitution under such conditions at the moment.

My thesis is that the Maobadi are enacting a subjective fidelity to the communist hypothesis in the manner of their revolution while simultaneously avoiding the dogmatic-revisionism that mitigated the success of prior events of proletarian dictatorship over exploiter classes. The creation of a new constitution with their leadership and embodying their vision of a centralist democratic state will be contingent on neutralizing the standing army while negating the influence of reactionary parties. The seeming contradiction is the constitution envisioned by the Maobadi would indeed function in tandem with a dictatorship of the proletariat over minority exploiter classes while nonetheless being a functioning democratic centralist state. It would be a joint democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the proletariat composed of different oppressed classes, nationalities, regions, gender and communities.

What is more significant, such a state would prevent the Party itself impeding in any way the efficient withering away of the state. By design this interim state would dictatorially repress emergence of any dogmato-revisionist tendencies that have resulted prior proletariat dictatorships over oppressor classes degenerating into capitalist bureaucracies. In this way, the Maobadi would be a living example of Badiou’s communist philosophy in action. Rather than engendering a dogmatic insistence on the scientific authority of their vanguard leadership, they will practice revolution in fidelity to the communist hypothesis while fostering a true dictatorship of Nepal’s proletariat composed of different oppressed classes, nationalities, regions, gender and communities in the interim existence of a democratic centralist state. This state will whither away as any and all exploitation is destroyed in this process. Communism will then actually be existing true communism, providing objective evidence in a future anterior verification that the subjective allegiance had indeed been based in truth.

It’s not hard to understand why the means of revolution being employed by the Maobadi or the exposition of communism by Badiou have aroused controversy about whether they actually follow the line of certain Marxist, Leninist or Maoist theories of communism as understood by certain organizations and individuals. What is important to understand is the novel nature of Badiou thought and Maobadi practice in that they are not engaged in defending an objective conclusion. If truth is produced beginning with a specific event, or as is germane to this discussion, a particular revolution, it is simply upheld against reactions of denial. Being the new 21st century communism, what the Maobadi intend is bound to be disruptive because it is indifferent to specific differences that have structured prior conceptions of revolutionary practice. In bringing back the philosophical language of Badiou: the fidelity spoken of in the process of verifying a truth is in fact a fidelity to something that is inconsistent with prior practice. Would this not in some way exemplify the dialectic of theory and practice?

Source:
http://stefandav.blogspot.com/

Maobadi: The State of Things Today

By Stephen Maudlin

The Maobadi struggle for state power is against the dictatorship of minority exploiter classes. The reactionary leadership has deep connections with Indian hegemonic forces and a standing army comprised of the former Royal Army. It also has powerful political sway over the judiciary. This is how it maintains dictatorship of the oppressed proletariat. The Maobadi aim to smash this state entirely and establish a new type of proletarian dictatorship over the minority exploiter classes while constructing an economic base to replace the existing semi-feudal and semi-colonial context.

Furthermore, most importantly, the Maobadi intend ensuring continuous and active participation of the masses in state affairs and thereby avoid degeneration into a totalitarian bureaucratic capitalism, as was the fate of past proletarian states. This application of democracy involving various masses of the proletariat is novel inasmuch as this proletariat simultaneously maintains dictatorship over the minority exploiter classes. The truth of the communist hypothesis will be actualized, will be seen to have been true, the moment this revolution is completed and the state no longer exists, having withered away in the revolutionary process.

The Maobadi are employing a new kind of process, the result of which is to be an actualization of communism that will also be novel inasmuch as its hypothesis has not hitherto reached such a level of development – this is 21st Century Communism. There are historical roots of this development, beginnings to be carried to completion in the withering away of the state. are the proletarian dictatorship in the Paris Commune (only lasting 72 days), Lenin’s developing the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviet system for seven years following the October Socialist Revolution, and the GPCR carried out from 1966 to 1976 under the leadership of Mao. There are key elements from these three the Maobadi aim to repeat and carry forward in their development. Each was the embodiment of a transitional state following the smashing of a bourgeois dictatorship and an uncompleted process based on a key axiomatic.

The Maobadi are taking forward the axiomatic: a period needed for continuous social revolution and the whole mode of production, at the end of which the proletarian dictatorship, enforced in maintaining a transitional state lead by a vanguard Party, will no longer be needed. Of course this is in direct contradiction of anarchism at the outset, and in the withering away of the transitional state is also the direct contradiction of the dogmato-revisionism leading to the totalitarian bureaucratic capitalism that occurred in Russia and China. It is in its unique application of “democratic centralism” in the latter contradiction that the Maobadi envision 21st Century Communism. At the present time, the Maobadi have not smashed the state and the transitional dictatorship over exploiter classes is far from installed. What can be seen of the democratic centralism to work in tandem with dictatorship of the proletariat to prevent dogmato-revisionism is evident in their current actions and plan.

The Maobadi are operating in a new age and in the concrete conditions of Nepal. Their plan is to have a first phase of bourgeois democratic revolution, joint democratic dictatorship of different oppressed classes, nationalities, regions, gender and communities under the leadership of the proletariat. An early manifestation has been the ‘United Revolutionary People’s Council’ (URPC), an embryonic form central state power to coordinate and guide the local people’s power, which is a broad revolutionary united front of different classes, nationalities, regions, women and others under the leadership of the CPN (Maoist). Every day in the news we hear nothing but the cries of the reactionaries that the Maobadi are about to establish a dictatorship, by which they mean to create fear of this as being dogmato-revisionist communism of the past. As if they were not capitalist parliamentarian dictators themselves. The democratic centralism of the Maobadi is a direct contradiction of this propaganda. This is what they want to install in the formation of the new constitution.

The reactionary cry of “dictatorship!” may be silly, but equally stupid is to think that the Maobadi are revisionists of some type who are communists playing the role of one of a number of competing parties in what is to be an ongoing pluralistic democracy inclusive of the current classes that have been in power for past generations. Their goal is for all this to end, including any state power of which they may be the vanguard party. Democratic centralism is a means to this end and by no means involves the participation of what they identify as exploiter classes. The transitional state envisioned is in fact a dictatorship over exploiting classes that will at the same time involve a process of control, supervision and intervention of the masses over the state according to the principle of continuous revolution. The Maobadi Communist Party is to have dialectical relations of democratic political competition in the service of the people. Anybody this process who transgresses the limits legally set by the democratic state would be subjected to democratic dictatorship including Mr. Prachanda or Dr. Bhattarai.

Before any of this can come to pass however is the smashing of the reactionary state with the neutralizing of its leaders, its standing army and its judiciary. How has the reactionary state maintained its dictatorship over the proletariat, and how again will the proletariat enforce it dictatorship over the exploiter classes? Dictatorship in any event is the means of eliminating the enemy classes through use of force and suppression, which is carried out primarily through armed force, incarceration and other imposed authority. It is axiomatic in revolution that there is the elimination of the reactionary standing army and in its stead establishment of the armed people. The Maobadi are explicit in following the dictum of Mao in planning the formation of a 21st century people’s army by developing conscious armed masses so that they may learn to use their right to rebel. We are right now at the juncture of the Maobadi neutralizing the Nepal National Army. With this would come the end of reactionary power over the people and its influence over the judiciary.

If the Maobadi smash the state, the writing of the new constitution with the leadership of the Maobadi will be about organizing political competition within the constitutional limits of an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist democratic state. It will be the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat over the oppressor classes and a dictatorship over any dogmato-revisionist tendency in the Party itself. It will be the constitution of a state that is to wither away. And this too will be the end of the Maobadi. With such a regulating constitution in place and the proletariat in power there can be the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society. The business of land reform, economic development for the people and a thousand other goals of emancipatory politics may hope to continue. We may hope to see actual existing true communism in our time.

Marx:

“Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Engels:

“The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society- this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state.”

Lenin:

“In Russia … the bureaucratic machine has been completely smashed, razed to the ground; the old judges have all been sent packing, the bourgeois parliament has been dispersed-and far more accessible representation has been given to the workers and peasants; their Soviets have replaced the bureaucrats, and their Soviets have been authorized to elect the judges. This fact alone is enough for all the oppressed classes to recognize that Soviet power, i.e., the present form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.”

Mao:

“Dictatorship does not apply within the ranks of the people. The people cannot exercise dictatorship over themselves, nor must one section of the people oppress another. Law-breakers among the people will be punished according to law, but this is different in principle from the exercise of dictatorship to suppress enemies of the people. What applies among the people is democratic centralism.”

Source :
http://stefandav.blogspot.com/