divendres, de setembre 29, 2006

Bollywood Extraordinaire!

Per començar, la molt coneguda Lara Datta, interpretant "Aisa jadoo", de la pel.lícula Khakee. Una súper producció. Hindudance del tipus més fabulós...



En segon lloc, una fantasia molt més d'avantguarda que el Cirque du Soleil. "Dil na diya". Dance dance dance!!! De la pel.lícula Krrsh, amb les súper estrelles Hrithik Roshan (el noi que balla) i la diva Priyanka Chopra



I en darrer lloc, el meu vídeo favorit, "Mahi Mahi" de la pel.lícula Kismat, amb la fabulosa Priyanka Chopra, acompanyada d'en Bobby Deol. Gaudeix!!! Potser es tracta d'un tipus de Turbo Folk, à la manière inde?



dissabte, de setembre 23, 2006

Is Your Love Style Passionate or Compassionate?

You Are 41% Passionate, 59% Compassionate
You possess an ideal balance of passion and compassion.You definitely can get swept away and lose your head a little.But you're rarely a fool for love!

divendres, de setembre 22, 2006

The KLF!!!

Una de les meves bandes favorites, la qual malauradamente ens va deixar relativament poc material. Els KLF es composaven bàsicament de dos creatius i altres múltiples col.laboradors. La seva música és una gran avantguarda: música electrònica, per ballar, però d'una gran producció i encara més interessat, pensada per posar-se en grans llocs, sota un gran paroxisme, Stadium House. El que feia a aquesta gent encara més interessant era l'ús i aplicació a sí mateixos d'un món mític, ple de coses estranyes i de fantasies. Quins bons records, els dels KLF. Ells mateixos van decidir deixar el negoci musical, fins i tot van arribar a destruir els màsters dels seus propis enregistraments!!! El primer vídeo, "Last Train to Trancentral". En directe a Top of the Pops, un clàssic!!!




El segon vídeo, un altre clàssic. "Justified and Ancient"... featuring the First Lady of Country Miss Tammy Wynette (q.d.e.p)

dilluns, de setembre 18, 2006

Com tornar-se políglota amb només "un sistema lingüístic"

Doncs bé, fins ben el començament del segle XXI, els llibres estadístics o d'història publicats a Mèxic, que mai han estat particularment bons pel que fa al tema d'Europa de l'est, ens ensenyaven als mexicans que a Iugoslàvia, o a allò que en quedava es parlava la llengua "serbocroata", como a llengua majoritària, i d'altres com a minoritàries. Ja al 2000, potser un any més tard, els llibres mexicans ja proposaven l'actual separació política entre aquella antiga i abandonada llengua, per reflectir la situació de les llengües als Balcans. Aleshores, bosni, croat, serbi, eslovè i macedoni van fer el seu debut als sabers en mexicà, per dir-ho d'alguna manera. Fins ara, perfecte. És curiós, tanmateix, que en preguntar als especialistes mexicans sobre filologia eslava, no acaben d'assebentar-se sobre la "partició" política de la llengua en quatre petites. En saber-ne es mostren atabalats i nerviosos. Com pot ser? Pregunten alguns. No m'ho puc creure, diuen d'altres. En fi, sigui com sigui, també, i calladament, els interessats d'avui a la ex Iugoslàvia saben molt bé que per aprofundir en el tema, cal al menys conèixer alguna de les versions de l'ex serbocroat. I com dirien els anglo-saxons, cau com una mena de benedicció desfressada el fet que si aprens bé el croat o el serbi pots posar al CV, de cop i volta, que ets políglota, ni més ni menys que parlant de quatre llengües oficials i reconegudes! O sigui, si abans paties perquè només podies dir que parlaves una mica d'anglès, aleshores acabes sent, amb el bosni, croat, serbi, i ara, senyores i senyors, el montenegrí, un veritable crack de les llengües estrangeres! K tal, eh?!? A vera, la meva experiència és que hi ha molt poca gent que sap que els quatre parlars esmentats pertenyen a un mateix sistema lingüístic, o sigui, ben podries impressionar algú amb la teva saviesa i talent per les llengües. Hi hi hi. Tot a aprendre bosni, croat... etc. Que ja en sabeu quins beneficis porta :-)
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dijous, de setembre 14, 2006

What Do Your Bathroom Habits Say About You?

What Your Bathroom Habits Say About You
You are very independent and self-centered. You don't solve other people's problems - and you don't expect them to solve yours.
You spend a lot on clothes, and you tend to be a very dresser. However, it's hard for you to throw away trendy clothes when they go out of style.
You are a little shy and easily embarrassed. You often wonder if you are normal.
In relationships, you are practical and realistic. You have a romantic side, but you only let it out when it's appropriate.

dimecres, de setembre 13, 2006

Petites però grandioses victòries

Tot i que des del juliol trobo la vida a Mèxic més aviat intoxicant, hi ha hagut cosetes molt boniques i que m'omplen d'un callat però decisiu orgull. Fa unes setmanes la coral on canto, va cantar per primera vegada, i devant d'un públic nombrós el "Gloria" d'en Vivaldi. Ha costat més o menys un any, molts mals de cap, i coses diverses, però en arribar a l'objectiu, ho vam fer molt bé i la peça ens va sortir satisfactòriament bé. Sense dir-ne gaire, em trobo molt content pel fet d'haver pogut cantar fort i bonic l'esmentada obra. Gloria és alhora colpidora, grandiosa i espiritual. Fa mesos, quan vam començar a assajar-la, me'n sentia més aviat incapaç, no apte per poder d'interpretar-la amb èxit. Però, entestat amb el repte, i compromès amb la coral, doncs vaig haver de dur a terme la faena. Al moment de la presentació vam haver d'emperscar-nos-hi, en no veure'ns tan nerviosos com en realitat hi érem, ans mitja hora després ja celebràvem el nostre èxit. Un petit gran èxit. Tot i els mal rotllos i la mala llet dels passats mesos, vaig poder somriure, i dir-me a mi mateix, molt bé, Marc, molt bé, i per molts anys!

The infinite pleasures of Serbia's Turbo Folk...

Enjoy, Geniss, Gaudeix, Disfrutad... Jelena Karleuša!!!!

dimarts, de setembre 12, 2006

Articles per posar-se a pensar.....

Dismantling Yugoslavia; Colonizing Bosnia

By Prof. Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, Covert Action, No. 56, Spring 1996

Michel Chossudovsky is professor of economics, University of Ottawa. An earlier version of this paper was presented at 'The Other Face of the European Project, Alternative Forum to the European Summit, Madrid, 1995.

While Western soldiers make headlines as peace enforcers, an army of international bankers, lawyers, and creditors continues its economic conquest of the Balkans. --

As heavily-armed US and NATO troops enforce the peace in Bosnia, the press and politicians alike portray Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia as a noble, if agonizingly belated, response to an outbreak of ethnic massacres and human rights violations.

In the wake of the November 1995 Dayton peace accords, the West is eager to touch up its self-portrait as savior of the Southern Slavs and get on with "the work of rebuilding" the newly sovereign states.

But following a pattern set early on, Western public opinion has been misled. The conventional wisdom holds that the plight of the Balkans is the outcome of an "aggressive nationalism," the inevitable result of deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions rooted in history (1). Likewise, commentators cite "Balkans power-plays" and the clash of political personalities to explain the conflicts.(2)

Lost in the barrage of images and self-serving analyses are the economic and social causes of the conflict. The deep- seated economic crisis which preceded the civil war is long forgotten. The strategic interests of Germany and the US in laying the groundwork for the disintegration of Yugoslavia go unmentioned, as does the role of external creditors and international financial institutions. In the eyes of the global media, Western powers bear no responsibility for the impoverishment and destruction of a nation of 24 million people.

But through their domination of the global financial system, the Western powers, in pursuit of national and collective strategic interests, helped bring the Yugoslav economy to its knees and stirred its simmering ethnic and social conflicts. Now it is the turn of Yugoslavia's war-ravaged successor states to feel the tender mercies of the international financial community.

As the world focuses on troop movements and cease-fires, the international financial institutions are busily collecting former Yugoslavia's external debt from its remnant states, while transforming the Balkans into a safehaven for free enterprise. With a Bosnian peace settlement holding under NATO guns, the West has unveiled a "reconstruction" program that strips that brutalized country of sovereignty to a degree not seen in Europe since the end of World War II. It consists largely of making Bosnia a divided territory under NATO military occupation and Western administration.

Neocolonial Bosnia

Resting on the Dayton accords, which created a Bosnian "constitution," the US and the European Union have installed a full-fledged colonial administration in Bosnia. At its head is their appointed High Representative, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and European Union representative in Bosnian peace negotiations (3). Bildt has full executive powers in all civilian matters, with the right to overrule the governments of both the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska (Serbian Bosnia). It make the point crystal clear, the accords spell out that "The High Representative is the final authority in theater regarding interpretation of the agreements."(4) He will work with the multinational military implementation force (IFOR) Military High Command as well as creditors and donors.

The UN Security Council has also appointed a "commissioner" under the High Representative to run an international civilian police force. Irish police official Peter Fitzgerald, with UN policing experience in Namibia, El Salvador, and Cambodia (5), presides over some 1,700 police from 15 countries. The police will be dispatched to Bosnia after a five-day training program in Zagreb (6).

The new constitution hands the reins of economic policy over to the Bretton Woods institutions and the London based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The IMF is empowered to appoint the first governor of the Bosnian Central Bank, who, like the High Representative, "shall not be a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina or a neighboring State."(7)

Under the IMF regency, the Central Bank will not be allowed to function as a Central Bank: "For the first six years ... it may not extend credit by creating money, operating in this respect as a currency board." Neither will Bosnia be allowed to have its own currency (issuing paper money only when there is full foreign exchange backing), nor permitted to mobilize its internal resources (8). Its ability to self-finance its reconstruction through an independent monetary policy is blunted from the outset.

While the Central Bank is in IMF custody, the EBRD heads the Commission on Public Corporations, which supervises operations of all public sector enterprises, including energy, water, postal services, telecommunications, and transportation. The EBRD president appoints the commission chair and will direct public sector restructuring, i.e., the sell-off of state- and socially-owned assets and the procurement of long-term investment funds (9). Western creditors explicitly created the EBRD "to give a distinctively political dimension to lending (10).

As the West trumpets its support for democracy, actual political power rests in the hands of a parallel Bosnian "state" whose executive positions are held by non-citizens. Western creditors have embedded their interests in a constitution hastily written on their behalf. They have done so without a constitutional assembly and without consultations with Bosnian citizens' organizations. Their plans to rebuild Bosnia appear more suited to sating creditors than satisfying even the elementary needs of Bosnians.

And why not? The neocolonization of Bosnia is the logical culmination of long Western efforts to undo Yugoslavia's experiment in market socialism and workers' self-management and to impose the dictate of a the free market.

The Shape of Things to Come

Multiethnic, socialist Yugoslavia was once a regional industrial power and economic success. In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years (11). But after a decade of Western economic ministrations and five years of disintegration, war, boycott, and embargo, the economies of the former Yugoslavia are prostrate, their industrial sectors dismantled.

Yugoslavia's implosion was partially due to US machinations. Despite Belgrade's non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with the European Community and the US, the Reagan administration targeted the Yugoslav economy in a "Secret Sensitive" 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133), "Us Policy towards Yugoslavia." A censored version declassified in 1990 elaborated on NSDD 64 on Eastern Europe, issued in 1982. The latter advocated "expanded efforts to promote a 'quiet revolution' to overthrow Communist governments and parties," while reintegrating the countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented economy (12).

The US had earlier joined Belgrade's other international creditors in imposing a first round of macroeconomics reform in 1980, shortly before the death of Marshall Tito. That initial round of restructuring set the pattern. Throughout the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank periodically prescribed further doses of their bitter economic medicine as the Yugoslav economy slowly lapsed into a coma.

From the beginning, successive IMF sponsored programs hastened the disintegration of the Yugoslav industrial sector industrial production declined to a negative 10 percent growth rate by 1990 (13) and the piecemeal dismantling of its welfare state, with all the predictable social consequences. Debt restructuring agreements, meanwhile, increased foreign debt, and a mandated currency devaluation also hit hard at Yugoslavs' standard of living.

Mr. Markovic goes to Washington

In autumn 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Yugoslav federal Premier Ante Markovic met in Washington with President George Bush to cap negotiations for a new financial aid package. In return for assistance, Yugoslavia agreed to even more sweeping economic reforms, including a new devalued currency, another wage freeze, sharp cuts in government spending, and the elimination of socially owned, worker- managed companies (14). The Belgrade nomenclature, with the assistance of Western advisers, had laid the groundwork for Markovic's mission by implementing beforehand many of the required reforms, including a major liberalization of foreign investment legislation.

"Shock therapy" began in January 1990. Although inflation had eaten away at earnings, the IMF ordered that wages be frozen at their mid November 1989 levels. Prices continued to rise unabated, and real wages collapsed by 41 percent in the first six months of 1990 (15).

The IMF also effectively controlled the Yugoslav central bank. Its tight money , policy further crippled the country's ability to finance its economic and social programs. State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics and provinces went instead to service Belgrade's debt with the Paris and London clubs. The republics were largely left to their own devices.

In one fell swoop, the reformers engineered the final collapse of Yiugoslavia's federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics.

The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia's and Slovenia's formal secession in June 1991.

Crashed by the Invisible Hand

The reforms demanded by Belgrade's creditors also struck at the heart of Yugoslavia's system of socially-owned and worker-managed enterprises. As one observer noted, The objective was to subject the Yugoslav economy to massive privatization and the dismantling of the public sector. The Communist Party bureaucracy, most notably its military and intelligence sector, was canvassed specifically and offered political and economic backing on the condition that wholesale scuttling of social protections for Yugoslavia's workforce was imposed." (16)

It was an offer that a desperate Yugoslavia could not refuse. Advised by Western lawyers and consultants, Markovic's government passed financial legislation that forced "insolvent" businesses into bankruptcy or liquidation. Under the new law, if a business was unable to pay its bills for 30 days running, or for 30 days within a 45-day period, the government would launch bankruptcy proceedings within the next 15 days.

The assault on the socialist economy also included a new banking law designed to trigger the liquidation of the socially-owned "Associated Banks." Within two years, more than half the country's banks had vanished, to be replaced by newly-formed "independent profit-oriented institutions."

These changes in the legal framework, combined with the IMF's tight money policy toward industry and the opening of the economy to foreign competition, accelerated industrial decline.

From 1989 through September 1990, more than a thousand companies went into bankruptcy. By 1990, the annual GDP growth rate had collapsed to a negative 7.5 percent. In 1991, GDP declined by a further 15 percent, while industrial output shrank by 21 percent (l7)

The IMF package unquestionably precipitated the collapse of much of Yugoslavia's well-developed heavy industry. Other socially-owned enterprises survived only by not paying workers. More than half a million workers still on company payrolls did not get regular paychecks in late 1990. They were the lucky ones. Some 600,000 Yugoslavs had already lost their jobs by September 1990, and that was only the beginning. According to the World Bank, another 2,435 industrial enterprises, including some of the country's largest, were slated for liquidation. Their 1.3 million workers half the remaining industrial workforce were "redundant."(18)

As 1991 dawned, real wages were in free fall, social programs had collapsed, and unemployment ran rampant. The dismantling of the industrial economy was breathtaking in its magnitude and brutality. Its social and political impact, while not as easily quantified, was tremendous. "The pips are squeaking," as London's Financial Times put it.(19)

Less archly, Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic warned that the reforms were "having a markedly unfavorable impact on the overall situation in society.... Citizens have lost faith in the state and its institutions.... The further deepening of the economic crisis and the growth of social tensions has had a vital impact on the deterioration of the political-security situation."(20)
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The Political Economy of Disintegration
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Some Yugoslavs joined together in a doomed battle to prevent the destruction of their economy and polity. As one observer found, "worker resistance crossed ethnic lines, as Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians mobilized ... shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers."(21) But the economic struggle also heightened already tense relations among the republics and between the republics and Belgrade.
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Serbia rejected the austerity plan outright, and some 650,000 Serbian workers struck against the federal government to force wage hikes.(22) The other republics followed different and sometimes self-contradictory paths.

In relatively wealthy Slovenia, for instance, secessionist leaders such as Social Democratie party chair Joze Pucnik supported the reforms: "From an economic standpoint, I can only agree with socially harmful measures in our society, such as rising unemployment or cutting workers' rights, because they are necessary to advance the economic reform process."(23)

But at the same time, Slovenia joined other republics in challenging the federal government's efforts to restrict their economic autonomy. Both Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic joined Slovene leaders in railing against Yugoslavia's attempts to impose harsh reforms.(24)

In the multiparty elections in 1990, economic policy was at the center of the political debate as separatist coalitions ousted the Communists in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Just as economic collapse spurred the drift toward separation, separation in turn exacerbated the economic crisis. Cooperation among the republics virtually ceased. And with the republics at one anothers' throats, both the economy and the nation itself embarked on a vicious downward spiral.

The process sped along as the republican leadership, deliberately fostered social and economic divisions to strengthen their own hands: "The republican oligarchies, who all had visions of a 'national renaissance' of their own, instead of choosing between a genuine Yugoslav market and hyperinflation, opted for war which would disguise the real causes of the economic catastrophe ."(25)

The simultaneous appearance of militias loyal to secessionist leaders only hastened the descent into chaos. These militias, with their escalating atrocities, not only split the population along ethnic lines, they also fragmented the workers' movement.(26)

Western Help

The austerity measures had laid the basis for the recolonization of the Balkans. Whether that required the breakup of Yugoslavia was subject to debate among the Western powers, with Germany leading the push for secession and the US, fearful of opening a nationalist Pandora's box, originally arguing for Yugoslavia's preservation.

Following Franjo Tudjman's and the rightist Democratic Union's decisive victory in Croatia in May 1990, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in almost daily contact with his counterpart in Zagreb, gave his goahead for Croatian secession.(27) Germany did not passively support secession; it "forced the pace of international diplomacy" and pressured its Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. Germany sought a free hand among its allies "to pursue economic dominance in the whole of Mittel Europa."(28)

Washington, on the other hand, favored 3a loose unity while encouraging democratic development ... [Secretary of State] Baker told Tudjman and [Slovenia's President] Milan Kucan that the United States would not encourage or support unilateral secession ... but if they had to leave, he urged them to leave by a negotiated agreement. (29)

Instead, Slovenia, Croatia, and finally, Bosnia fought bloody civil wars against "rump" Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or Serbian nationalists or both. But now, the US has belatedly taken an active diplomatic role in Bosnia, strengthened its relations with Croatia and Macedonia, and positioned itself to play a leading role in the region's economic and political future.

The Post-War Regime

Western creditors have now turned their attention to Yugoslavia's successor states. As with the demise of Yugoslavia, the economic aspects of post-war reconstruction remain largely unheralded, but the prospects for rebuilding the newly independent republics appear bleak. Yugoslavia's foreign debt has been carefully divided and allocated to the successor republics,(30) which are now strangled in separate debt rescheduling and structural adjustment agreements.

The consensus among donors and international agencies is that past macroeconomics reforms adopted under IMF advice had not quite met their goal and further shock therapy is required to restore "economic health" to Yugoslavia's successor states. Croatia and Macedonia have followed the IMF's direction: Both have agreed to loan packages to pay off their shares of the Yugoslav debt that require a consolidation of the process begun wit Ante Markovic's bankruptcy program. The all too familiar pattern of plant closings, induced bank failures, and impoverishment continues apace.

And global capital applauds. Despite an emerging crisis in social welfare and the decimation of his economy, Macedonian Finance Minister Ljube Trpevski proudly informed the press that "the World Bank and the IMF place Macedonia among the most successful countries in regard to current transition reforms. (31)

The head of the IMF mission to Macedonia, Paul Thomsen, agreed. He avowed that "the results of the stabilization program were impressive" and gave particular credit to "the efficient wages policy" adopted by the Skopje government. Still, his negotiators added, even more budget cutting will be necessary. (32)

But Western intervention is making its most serious inroads on national sovereignty in Bosnia. The neocolonial administration imposed by the Dayton accords and supported by NATO9s firepower ensures that Bosnia's future will be determined in Washington, Bonn, and Brussels not Sarajevo.

Reconstruction Colonial Style

If Bosnia is ever to emerge from the ravages of war and neocolonialism, massive reconstruction will be essential. But judging by recent Balkan history, Western assistance is more likely to drag Bosnia into the Third World than to lift it to parity with its European neighbors.

The Bosnian government estimates that reconstruction costs will reach $47 billion. Western donors have pledged $3 billion in reconstruction loans, yet only $518 million dollars have so far been given. Part of this money is tagged to finance some of the local civilian costs of IFOR's military deployment and part to repay international creditors. (33)

Fresh loans will pay back old debt. The Central Bank of the Netherlands has generously provided "bridge financing' of $37 million to allow Bosnia to pay its arrears with the IMF, without which the IMF will not lend it fresh money. But in a cruel and absurd paradox, the sought-after loans from the IMF's newly created "Emergency Window" for "post-conflict countries" will not be used for post-war reconstruction. Instead, they will repay the Dutch Central Bank, which had coughed up the money to settle IMF arrears in the first place. (34)

Debt piles up, and little new money goes for rebuilding Bosnia's war torn economy.

While rebuilding is sacrificed on the altar of debt repayment, Western governments and corporations show greater interest in gaining access to strategic natural resources. With the discovery of energy reserves in the region, the partition of Bosnia between the Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina and the Bosnian-Serb Republika Srpska under the Dayton accords has taken on new strategic importance. Documents in the hands of Croatia and the Bosnian Serbs indicate that coal and oil deposits have been identified on the eastern slope of the Dinarides Thrust, retaken from rebel Krajina Serbs by the US-backed Croatian army in the final offensives before the Dayton accords. Bosnian officials report that Chicago-based Amoco was among several foreign firms that subsequently initiated exploratory surveys in Bosnia.(35)

"Substantial" petroleum fields also lie in the Serb-held part of Croatia just across the Sava River from Tuzla, the headquarters for the US military zone.(36) Exploration operations went on during the war, but the World Bank and the multinationals that conducted the operations kept local governments in the dark, presumably to prevent them from acting to grab potentially valuable areas. (37)

With their attention devoted to debt repayment and potential energy bonanzas, the Western powers have shown little interest in rectifying the crimes committed under the rubric of ethnic cleansing. The 70,000 NATo troops on hand to "enforce the peace" will accordingly devote their efforts to administering the partition of Bosnia in accordance with Western economic interests rather than restoring the status quo ante.

While local leaders and Western interests share the spoils of the former Yugoslav economy, they have entrenched socio ethnic divisions in the very structure of partition. This permanent fragmentation of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines thwarts a united resistance of Yugoslavs of all ethnic origins against the recolonization of their homeland.

But what's new? As one observer caustically noted, all of the leaders of Yugoslavia's successor states have worked closely with the West: "All the current leaders of the former Yugoslav republics were Communist Party functionaries and each in turn vied to meet the demands of the World Bank and the IMF, the better to qualify for investment loans and substantial perks for the leadership." (38)

The Only Possible World?

Western-backed neoliberal macroeconomic restructuring helped destroy Yugoslavia. Yet, since the onset of war in 1991, the global media have carefully overlooked or denied their central role. Instead, they have joined the chorus singing praises of the free market as the basis for rebuilding a war shattered economy. The social and political impact of economic restructuring in Yugoslavia has been carefully erased from our collective understanding. Opinion-makers instead dogmatically present cultural, ethnic, and religious divisions as the sole cause of the crisis. In reality, they are the consequence of a much deeper process of economic and political fracturing.

Such false consciousness not only masks the truth, it also prevents us from acknowledging precise his torical occurrences. Ultimately, it distorts the true sources of social conflict. When applied to the former Yugoslavia, it obscures the historical foundations of South Slavic unity, solidarity and identity. But this false consciousness lives across the globe, where shuttered factories, jobless workers, and gutted social programs are the only possible world, and "bitter economic medicine" is the only prescription.

At stake in the Balkans are the lives of millions of people. Macroeconomic reform there has destroyed livelihoods and made a joke of the right to work. It has put basic needs such as food and shelter beyond the reach of many. It has degraded culture and national identity. In the name of global capital, borders have been redrawn, legal codes rewritten, industries destroyed, financial and banking systems dismantled, social programs eliminated. No alternative to global capital, be it market socialism or "national" capitalism, will be allowed to exist.

But what happened to Yugoslavia and now continues in its weak successor states should resonate beyond the Balkans. Yugoslavia is a mirror for similar economic restructuring programs in not only the developing world, but also in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. The - Yugoslav reforms are the cruel reflection of a destructive economic model pushed to the extreme.

-- (1) See, e.g., former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Robert Zimmerman, 'The Last Ambassador, A Memoir of the Collapse of Yugoslavia,'Foreign Affairs,v. 74,n.2,1995.
-- (2) For a critique, see Milos Vasic, et al., War Against Bosnia,9 Vreme News Digest Agency, Apr. 13, 1992.
-- (3) Testimony of Richard C. Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs, before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Dec 19, 1995.
-- (4) Dayton Peace Accords, 'Agreement on High Representative, Articles I and II, Dec 16, 1995.
-- (5) United Nation General Secretariat, Curriculum Vitae of Thomas Peter Fitzgerald, n.d. (1995).
-- (6) Dayton Peace Accords, Agreement on Police Task Force,2 Article II.
-- (7) Ibid., Agreement on General Framework, Article VII
-- (8) Ibid.
-- (9) Ibid, Agreement Public Corporations, Article I.10 ---
-- (10) Stabilizing Europe, The Times (London), Nov 22, 1990.
-- (11) World Bank, World Development Report 1991, Statistical Annex, Tables 1 and 2, 1991.
-- (12) Sean Gervasi, 'Germany, the US, and the Yugorlav Crisis,' Covert Action, n. 43, Winter 1992-93, p 42
-- (13) World Bank, Industrial Restructuring Study: Overview, Issues, and Strategy for Restructuring, Washington, D C, June 1991, pp. 10,14.
-- (14) Gervasi, op. cit., p. 44
-- (15) World Bank, Restructuring, op. cit., p. viii
-- (16) Ralph Schoenman, 'Divide and Rule Schemes in the Balkans,9 The Organizer (San Francisco), Sept. 11,1995
-- (17) Judit Kiss, 3Debt Management in Eastern Europe, Eastern European Economics, May June 1894, p 59
-- (18) Already laid off and 'redundant workers constituted fully two thirds of the industrial work force. World Bank, Restructuring, op. cit., Annex I
-- (19) Jurek Martin, 'The road to be trodden to Kosovo," Financial Times, Mar 13, 1991.
-- (20) British Broadcasting Service, 3Borisav Jovic Tells SFRY Assembly Situation Has 'Dramatically Deteriorated,'3 Apr 27, 1991.
-- (21) Schoenman, op. cit.
-- (22) Gervasi ep cit p 44
-- (23) Federico Nier Fischer, 3Eastern Europe: Social Crisis,2 Inter Press Service, Sept 5, 1890
-- (24) Klas Bergman, 'Markovic Seeks to Keep Yugoslavia One Nation, Christian Science Monitor, July 11,1990, p.6.
-- (25) Dimitrue Boarov, 3A Brief Review of Anti-Inflation Programs: the Curse of the Dead Programs, Vreme News Digest Agency, Apr. 13, 1992.
-- (27) Gervasi, op cit,p 65
-- (28) Ibid, p 45
-- (29) Zimmerman,op cit
-- (30) In June 1995, the IMF, acting on behalf of creditor banks and Western governments, proposed to redistribute that debt as follows: Serbia and Montenegro, 36%, Croatia 28%, Slovenia 16%, Bosnia&Herzegovina, 16% and Macedonia 5%
More references available...

Self-Deceptions On Being Tolerant and Smug by Slavoj Žižek

Die Gazette
Israel, 27 August 2001

Self-Deceptions
On Being Tolerant and Smug
By Slavoj Zizek

When you are bombarded by claims that in our post-ideological cynical era nobody believes any more in the proclaimed ideals, when you encounter a person who claims he is cured of any beliefs, accepting social reality the way it really is, you should always counter such claims with a simple, yet intricate question: What is your gadget, your favorite illusionary escape-hatch?

Is the Balkan really an island of primitivism, exempted from this modernization? The case of Muslims as an ethnic, not merely religious, group in Bosnia is exemplary: during the entire history of Yugoslavia, Bosnia was the place of potential tension and dispute, the locale in which the struggle between Serbs and Croats for the dominant role was fought. The problem was that the largest group in Bosnia were neither the Orthodox Serbs nor the Catholic Croats, but Muslims whose ethnic origins were always disputed - are they Serbs or Croats. (This role of Bosnia even left a trace in idiom: in all ex-Yugoslav nations, the expression "So Bosnia is quiet!" was used in order to signal that any threat of a conflict was successfully defused.) In order to forestall this focus of potential (and actual) conflicts, the ruling Communist imposed in the 60s a miraculously simple invention: they proclaimed Muslims an autochthonous ETHNIC community, not just a religious group, so that Muslims were able to avoid the pressure to identify themselves either as Serbs or as Croats. What was so in the beginning a pragmatic political artifice, gradually caught on, Muslims effectively started to perceive themselves as a nation, systematically manufacturing their tradition, etc. However, even today, there remains an element of a reflected choice in their identity: during the post-Yugoslav war in Bosnia, one was ultimately forced to CHOOSE his/her ethnic identity - when a militia stopped a person, asking him/her threateningly "Are you a Serb or a Muslim?", the question did not refer to the inherited ethnic belonging, i.e. there was always in it an echo of "Which side did you choose?" (say, the movie director Emir Kusturica, coming from an ethnically mixed Muslim-Serb family, has chosen the Serb identity).

The more general point to be made here is that the global reflexivization/mediatization generates its own brutal immediacy whose figure was best captured by Etienne Balibar's notion of excessive, non-functional cruelty as a feature of contemporary life: a cruelty whose figures range from "fundamentalist" racist and/or religious slaughter to the "senseless" outbursts of violence performed by adolescents and the homeless in our megalopolises, a violence one is tempted to call Id-Evil, a violence grounded in no utilitarian or ideological reasons. All the talk about foreigners stealing work from us or about the threat they represent to our Western values should not deceive us: under closer examination, it soon becomes clear that this talk provides a rather superficial secondary rationalization. The answer we ultimately obtain from a skinhead is that it makes him feel good to beat foreigners, that their presence disturbs him... What we encounter here is indeed Id-Evil, i.e., the Evil structured and motivated by the most elementary imbalance in the relationship between the Ego and jouissance, by the tension between pleasure and the foreign body of jouissance in the very heart of it. Id-Evil thus stages the most elementary "short-circuit" in the relationship of the subject to the primordially missing object-cause of his desire: what "bothers" us in the "other" (Jew, Japanese, African, Turk) is that he appears to entertain a privileged relationship to the object - the other either possesses the object-treasure, having snatched it away from us (which is why we don't have it), or he poses a threat to our possession of the object. What one should propose here is the ultimate identity of these "useless" and "excessive" outbursts of violent immediacy, which display nothing but a pure and naked ("non-sublimated") hatred of the Otherness, with the global reflexivization of society; perhaps, the ultimate example of this coincidence is the fate of psychoanalytic interpretation. Today, the formations of the Unconscious (from dreams to hysterical symptoms) have definitely lost their innocence and are thoroughly reflexivized: the "free associations" of a typical educated analysand consist for the most part of attempts to provide a psychoanalytic explanation of their disturbances, so that one is quite justified in saying that we have not only Jungian, Kleinian, Lacanian... interpretations of the symptoms, but symptoms themselves which are Jungian, Kleinian, Lacanian..., i.e. whose reality involves implicit reference to some psychoanalytic theory. The unfortunate result of this global reflexivization of the interpretation (everything becomes interpretation, the Unconscious interprets itself) is that the analyst's interpretation itself loses its performative "symbolic efficiency" and leaves the symptom intact in the immediacy of its idiotic jouissance.

What happens in psychoanalytic treatment is strictly homologous to the response of neo-Nazi skinhead who, when really pressed for the reasons for his violence, suddenly starts to talk like social workers, sociologists and social psychologists, quoting diminished social mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal authority, the lack of maternal love in his early childhood - the unity of practice and its inherent ideological legitimization disintegrates into raw violence and its impotent, inefficient interpretation. This impotence of interpretation is also one of the necessary obverses of the universalized reflexivity hailed by the risk-society-theorists: it is as if our reflexive power can flourish only insofar as it draws its strength and relies on some minimal "pre-reflexive" substantial support which eludes its grasp, so that its universalization comes at the price of its inefficiency, i.e., by the paradoxical reemergence of the brute Real of "irrational" violence, impermeable and insensitive to reflexive interpretation. So the more today's social theory proclaims the end of Nature and/or Tradition and the rise of the "risk society," the more the implicit reference to "nature" pervades our daily discourse: even when we do not speak of the "end of history," do we not put forward the same message when we claim that we are entering a "post-ideological" pragmatic era, which is another way of claiming that we are entering a post-political order in which the only legitimate conflicts are ethnic/cultural conflicts? Typically, in today's critical and political discourse, the term "worker" disappeared from the vocabulary, substituted and/or obliterated by "immigrants /immigrant workers: Algerians in France, Turks in Germany, Mexicans in the USA/" - in this way, the class problematic of workers' exploitation is transformed into the multiculturalist problematic of the "intolerance of the Otherness," etc., and the excessive investment of the multiculturalist liberals in protecting immigrants's ethnic rights clearly draws its energy from the "repressed" class dimension. Although Francis Fukuyama's thesis on the "end of history" quickly fell into disrepute, we still silently presume that the liberal-democratic capitalist global order is somehow the finally-found "natural" social regime, we still implicitly conceive conflicts in the Third World countries as a subspecies of natural catastrophies, as outbursts of quasi-natural violent passions, or as conflicts based on the fanatic identification to one's ethnic roots (and what is "the ethnic" here if not again a codeword for nature?). And, again, the key point is that this all-pervasive renaturalization is strictly correlative to the global reflexivization of our daily lives.

Does, then, this mean that, today, "nobody believes"? One of the postmodern ironies is the strange exchange between Europe and Asia: at the very moment when, at the level of the "economic infrastructure," the European technology and capitalism are triumphing worldwide, at the level of "ideological superstructure," the Judeo-Christian legacy is threatened in the European space itself by the onslaught of the New Age "Asiatic" thought, which, in its different guises, from the "Western Buddhism" (today's counterpoint to Western Marxism, as opposed to the "Asiatic" Marxism-Leninism) to different "Taos," is establishing itself as the hegemonic ideology of the global capitalism. Although "Western Buddhism" presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of the capitalist dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain the inner peace and Gelassenheit, it actually functions as its perfect ideological supplement. One should mention here the well-known topic of the "future schock," i.e. of how, today, people are no longer psychologically able to cope with the dazzling rhythm of the technological development and the social changes that accompany it - things simply move too fast, before one can accustom oneself to an invention, this invention is already supplanted by a new one, so that one more and more lacks the most elementary "cognitive mapping." The recourse to Taoism or Buddhism offers a way out of this predicament which definitely work better than the desperate escape into old traditions: instead of trying to cope with the accelerating rhythm of the technological progress and social changes, one should rather renounce the very endeavor to retain control over what goes on, rejecting it as the expression of the modern logic of domination - one should, instead, "let oneself go," drift along, while retaining an inner distance and indifference towards the mad dance of the accelerated process, a distance based on the insight that all this social and technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of semblances which do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being... One is almost tempted to resuscitate here the old infamous Marxist cliche of religion as the "opium of the people," as the imaginary supplement of the terrestrial misery: the "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity. If Max Weber were to live today, he would definitely wrote a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic, entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of the Global Capitalism.

And, instead of playing the old game of the aggressive Islamic monotheism against the "gentle" Buddhism, one should rather use the bombing of the Bamiyan status to reflect on a more fundamental deadlock. It is not only that Western Buddhism, this pop-cultural phenomenon preaching inner distance and indifference towards the frantic pace of the market competition, is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity - in short, the paradigmatic ideology of late capitalism. One should add that it is no longer possible to oppose this Western Buddhism to its "authentic" Oriental version; the case of Japan delivers here the conclusive evidence. Not only do we have today, among the Japanese top managers, the wide-spread "corporate Zen" phenomenon; in the whole of the last 150 years, Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization, with its ethics of discipline and sacrifice, was sustained by the large majority of Zen thinkers - who, today, knows that D.T.Suzuki himself, the high guru of Zen in the America of the 60s, supported in his youth, in Japan of the 30s, the spirit of utter discipline and militaristic expansion. There is no contradiction here, no manipulative perversion of the authentic compassionate insight: the attitude of total immersion into the self-less "now" of the instant Enlightenment, in which all reflexive distance is lost and "I am what I do," as C.S.Lewis put it, in short: in which absolute discipline coincides with total spontaneity, perfectly legitimizes one subordination to the militaristic social machine. Or, to put it in somewhat simplified terms (which, however, just repeat the central ethical lesson of Bhagavadgita): if the external reality is ultimately just an ephemeral appearance, even the most horrifying crimes eventually DO NOT MATTER.

"Western Buddhism" thus perfectly fits the fetishist mode of ideology in our allegedly "post-ideological" era, as opposed to its traditional symptomal mode, in which the ideological lie which structures our perception of reality is threatened by symptoms qua "returns of the repressed," cracks in the fabric of the ideological lie. Fetish is effectively a kind of envers of the symptom. That is to say, symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface of the false appearance, the point at which the repressed truth erupts, while fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables us to sustain the unbearable truth. Let us take the case of the death of a beloved person: when I "repress" this death, I try not to think about it, but the repressed trauma persists and returns in the symptoms. Say, after my beloved wife dies of the breast cancer, I try to repress this fact by throwing myself into hard work or vivacious social life, but then there is always something which reminds me of her, I cannot escape her ghost haunting me. In the case of a fetish, on the contrary, I "rationally" fully accept this death, I am able to talk about her most painful moments in a cold and clear way, because I cling to the fetish, to some feature that embodies for me the disavowal of this death. In this sense, a fetish can play a very constructive role of allowing us to cope with the harsh reality: fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds, they are thoroughly "realists," able to accept the way things effectively are - since they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the full impact of reality.

So, when we are bombarded by claims that in our post-ideological cynical era nobody believes in the proclaimed ideals, when we encounter a person who claims he is cured of any beliefs, accepting social reality the way it really is, one should always counter such claims with the question: OK, but where is the fetish which enables you to (pretend to) accept reality "the way it is"? "Western Buddhism" is such a fetish: it enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game, while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well aware how worthless this spectacle is - what really matters to you is the peace of the inner Self to which you know you can always withdraw.

dilluns, de setembre 11, 2006

Coses de mexicans

Quin dia més lleig. Avui no tinc gaires ganes de parlar, treballar, fer coses. Per una banda, els Illuminati de Mèxic, o sigui, tot l’establishment justificat per la sacrosancta legalitat declararà que les calúmnies, la campanya bruta, la por, la intimidació, l’odi racial i social i el conservadorisme extrem són, sens dubte, prou motius per declarar com vàlida i bona una elecció que ha estat més que irregular. Quina burla! D’altra banda, ara sembla què per la publicitat penjada per tot arreu, ara sí que som tots mexicans, ara sí que volem tots viure en pau i no sé què, ara sí que som tots gent súper maca. A la merda. No hi cosa més ridícula que el nacionalisme mexicà, no hi ha cosa més esquizofrènica que la manera en la qual s’expressen els habitants d’aquest país sobre sí mateixos. Els mexicans, ja sigui els d’ultradreta, o sigui, els que tenen els diners, els seus seguidors wannabes, que tot i què pel que fa als diners, no en tenen gaires, però pensen que seran com els seus amos per ser-hi al seu costat, al setembre són mexicaníssims, criden fort i amb ànim, ¡Viva México, cabrones!, però tot allò més aviat matisat per una situació, llur Mèxic no és pas el Mèxic en qual tots vivim. Es tracta del país on ells viuen, un lloc de gent “bé”, cool, i sobretot, bonica, és la zona on tots creuen que mereixen més i són superiors només perquè són “rics” o per tenir la pell blanca o alguna cosa així. S’ho passen d’alló més bé, i mira, o sea, Viva Meeeéxico, nooo?

º
També estic empipat perquè l’idiota d’ahir em va fer mullar-me de cap a peus només pel seu egoisme i per no voler fer l’esforç de sí mateix d’anar-hi, on havia d’anar. Les cames, els cabells, tot, i no només una, sinó quatre vegades! De debò que hi ha gent increïblement insensible, no t’ho pots creure. Gent, la visió de la qual no arriba més enllà dels seus propis interessos. Amb tantes coses negatives, he començat a desfasar-me del poc patriotisme que encara tenia. Els estrangers de Mèxic, que no fan més que queixar-se’n, sí que hi tenen raó: Mèxic és una merda (Esclar, els tindrien l’oportunitat de tornar a llurs països d’origen, però molts són més aviat masoquistes i no ho fan). En fin. Mèxic, emocionalment, me n’acomiado.

diumenge, de setembre 10, 2006

How Pure Are You?

You Are 44% Pure
You're usually the typical girl or guy next door...But you also have a secret naughty side!

dissabte, de setembre 09, 2006

Ängste

Tinc por. Potser he destruït el meu cos beyond repair.
Tinc por. En tinc molta. La meva neboda, la petiteta. Podrà tirar endavant? No ho sé. He de ser optimista, tot i que mentrestant ho passo molt malament.
Quina por que tinc. El temps passa massa ràpidament. The fleetingness of time, m'ingombra di terror.
Poruc que sóc. Tindré diners per les meves vacances a Europa?
I encara més que por. D'aquí a un mes comença el meu curset d'ordenació a Anglaterra.
El meu altre nebot. És un noi, bonic com l'estrella... però els pares, ai mare meva, millor ni parlar-ne.
Ho sé. Ho sé ben bé. Pateixo de depressió clínica. Hauria d'anar al metge. Però costa...

dimecres, de setembre 06, 2006

Today, I have officially stopped caring about Mexico



And I won't back off. Viva López Obrador. Viva la Izquierda. Viva la tribu progre.

diumenge, de setembre 03, 2006

Which Blog Component Are You?

Blog Component Quiz

If I Were a Blog Component,I would be the MAIN BODY ENTRY.
I love living life - and blogging - to the fullest!Which Blog Component Are You?
Take This Blog Quiz at About Web Logs!


Saldos de la (no) batalla

Astillero

Julio Hernández López

Saldos de la (no) batalla

La primera batalla poselectoral abierta fue ganada de manera tajante por Andrés Manuel López Obrador: llevó a Vicente Fuchs (ver parte final de Astillas) a una pinochetista militarización de San Lázaro, donde las armas nazionales se quedaron en espera de los actos de provocación que dieran paso a desalojos y represión "legitimados" y, luego, usando solamente una parte de sus fuerzas (las de una bancada legislativa que sus adversarios aseguraban que estaba dividida y desanimada), dejó al jefe de la campaña del odio y la división sociales convertido en un presidente DHL (entregas y te vas), que al ser incapaz de cumplir con un ritual legislativo está informando a Felipe Calderón que los planes conjuntos están sujetos a fuerte revisión.

Ironías históricas: a fin de cuentas, el cerco y la exclusión sólo dejaron fuera a su promotor, Vicente el (informativamente) Breve. Y, en el Zócalo judoka, la fuerza del adversario fue usada para derribarlo, apareciendo entonces los "violentos" como prudentes y los "pacíficos" como organizadores de trampas envenenadas. Las profecías apocalípticas se convirtieron en un reacomodo de fuerzas que adelantó el adiós político de lo que queda del presidente Fox (el 1º de septiembre ha sido su 30 de noviembre, aunque el emperador despechado aún puede usar los tres meses de amargo saldo para buscar inmolaciones colectivas). Y los diarios amagos de represión contra el plantón del Zócalo y Reforma han de esperar mejores tiempos porque con el gesto de prudencia tomado la tarde del viernes en la Plaza de la Constitución se ha quitado fuerza a las pretensiones de violencia institucional contra un movimiento que no ha roto un vidrio ni pintado una pared durante semanas de resistencia masiva, mientras sus adversarios en el poder han debido instalar tanquetas, soldados y artificios de guerra civil para contener un desbordamiento ciudadano que acabó conduciéndose con más madurez y responsabilidad que el poder desquiciado.

El más dañado resulta ser, desde luego, Felipe Calderón. Sigue estando fuera del escenario político, convertido en un objeto que debe acomodarse a las decisiones del jefe Vicente que a noventa días de entregar el cargo se niega a reconocerle personalidad suficiente a su presunto heredero. Si Fox no ha sido capaz de garantizarse un Informe presidencial de despedida, mucho menos podrá organizar una toma de posesión repudiada. Con los movimientos estratégicos de la tarde del pasado viernes, Calderón queda más expuesto a una posible anulación de los comicios (es decir, que se declaren no válidos) o a una ruta de descarrilamiento rumbo al 1º de diciembre.

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... Y, mientras esta columna da a sus abonados un adelanto de que el apellido original del actual presidente de la República era "Fuchs", según el censo de 1860 de Cincinnati, Ohio, donde el bisabuelo, Louis, escribía su apellido con la ortografía original de Alemania (Fuchs, zorro: Fox), país de donde llegaron antepasados del fallido Heil Vicente a Estados Unidos, ¡hasta mañana, en esta columna a la que llegan comunicados de empresas de mensajería advirtiendo que no es cierto que tengan un repartidor alto, de bigotito, especializado en entregas rápidas a San Lázaro!

divendres, de setembre 01, 2006

Apuntes para compartir: los nazarenos

En 1809, un grupo de jóvenes artistas vieneses decidieron dar un giro importante a su arte y convocaron un regreso al espíritu medieval, o más bien, lo que ellos creían era tal espíritu. La explicación de tal hecho se ramifica en varias cosas. En primer lugar, durante la época cundía el ideario romántico, que en los países germanoparlantes era especialmente fuerte. Entre las propuestas de aquel momento estaba la de regresar a la autenticidad religiosa y sensibilidad visual de la Edad Media, periodo histórico idolatrado e idealizado por muchas mentes dieciochescas y decimonónicas. En segundo lugar, los muchachos reaccionaron agresivamente en contra de la cultura visual neoclásica, lo que llegó a ser un efectivo movimiento anti-clásico. Se propagó con éxito la postura del retorno a los valores primigenios del arte, o sea, que la creación artística debía tener un fin u objetivo moral y/o religioso, por encima del virtuosismo, nombradia y egoísmo que según algunos transmitían las academias estatales. Los mencionados artistas también rechazaron el modelo educativo de las instituciones, y para sustentar su crítica promovían un regreso a la supuesta intimidad y personalizada formación del modelo gremial de siglos atrás.
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Para lograr sus fines, los seis artistas que al principio se adscribieron a los citados repertorios ideológicos, se dieron cuenta que debían asumir una estilo de vida más bien radical y que fuese el reflejo de sus valores, lo cual dio como resultado la creación de una hermandad de carácter semi monástico, la Congregación de San Lucas. Los miembros originales de la cofradía fueron Friedrich Johann Overbeck, líder del grupo, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel, Johan Honrad Hottinger, todos de Viena, a los que después se unieron los alemanes Peter von Cornelius y Wilhelm von Schadow.
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Los congregados emigraron a roma en 1810 para establecerse en el abandonado edificio del convento de San Isidro, en el Monte Pincino. El lugar era el idóneo para sus llevar a cabo sus normas de inspiración monacal y a la práctica un arte ligado a su trasfondo ideológico. Después de echar a andar su proyecto, los artistas se hicieron llamar "hermanos de San Isidro". Los romanos, sin embargo, popularizaron el epíteto de nazarenos, en virtud de que los cofrades portaban el cabello largo y peinado de raya en medio, además de túnica, como en las procesiones. Fue bajo el antedicho apelativo que trascendieron en la historia del arte.
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El arte de los nazarenos se caracteriza por enfatizar los motivos religiosos. Se observa una exaltación de la espiritualidad y la indagación en los modelos medievales. Hay autores que observan una impronta de carácter nacionalista germánico en sus obras, ya que los artistas encomiaban la factura pictórica de los tiempos en los que se consolidó en Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico.
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Por medio de la citada temática de sus cuadros, la Congregación de San Lucas pretendía revitalizar el arte cristiano, que a pesar de la propagación del laicismo de la Ilustración, aún tenía aceptación en la tradición popular alemana. Formalmente, la producción de los nazarenos es de talante naturalista, preciosista (gusto por el detalle) y cromáticamente anacrónica, o sea, trata de imitar la paleta de los siglos XIV y XV. A pesar de su apego a los citados siglos, los nazarenos también manifestaron admiración por la obra de Alberto Durero, el Perugino y la obra de juventud de Rafael.
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Los miembros del grupo, más que tener una unidad estilística, compartieron las mismas inquietudes en tanto el contenido de sus pinturas. Es claro que admiraban artistas selectos del Renacimiento, y gustaban particularmente de la piezas realizadas por los frailes-artistas de aquella época.
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La razón por la que se dieron a conocer internacionalmente, fue que recibieron la comisión de realizar frescos en dos locaciones especiales: la Casa Bartholdy (1819-17) y el Cassino Massimo (1817-29), ambas en Roma. El grupo se disolvió al terminar las pinturas de la segunda comisión. Overbeck fue el único que no regresó a su país.
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Si bien en el siglo XX la estética de los nazarenos cesó de ser encomiada, como lo fue en el siglo anterior, tanto la producción artística como el estilo de vida nazarenos han sido objeto de múltiples estudios, básicamente por representar una postura anacronizante en el arte del siglo XIX, al mismo tiempo, la congregación arriba comentada tuvo un efecto ideológico importante e influencia en otro movimiento romántico de hace dos siglos: los prerrafaelistas.
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Friedrich Overbeck, La Adoración de los Magos, 1813, óleo sobre tela.


Friedrich Overbeck, Italia y Germania, 1815-28, óleo sobre tela.

Exotic little pleasures

Molta gent troba terrible la música anomenada "chalga", de Bulgària, però tot i això, jo em diverteixo molt amb ella. És una distracció alhora que un entreteniment curiós. No puc tenir-ne prejudicis perquè no sóc d'allà, i és igual. Aleshores dos dels meus interprets favorits del chalga són Azis i la Malina. Gaudeix els videos!


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