In India, elections are around the corner. This is when voters take stock of the things done in their names and elect a government. Modi’s performance in the last five years has been far from satisfactory. Today it would be fair to say that, with few exceptions, hardly anyone is buying what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is selling.
Imperial logic I: External crises distract from internal ones
The nature of reality in times of universal confusion
The European Union is under numerous existential threats.
France is at a crossroad. A fairly benign bread-and-butter protest has turned into a major popular dissent putting in question France’s political system. It is new, unheard of, and because we live in the digital age, with immediate communication, the world is not only watching, but there is a contagious factor to it, which in the Anglo-Saxon world is called “Yellow Vests Movement”. In what could be a healthy contagion of a social yellow fever of dissent, this polymorphic movement has already spread to 25 countries and counting.
Enslavement by the Enlightened in Revolutionary Times
In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, Saint Domingue, now Haiti, was the world’s richest colony. The source of this wealth was the exploitation of half a million black slaves who furnished the labor for the sugar, indigo, cotton, cocoa, coffee, and tobacco extracted from over 2,000 plantations.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was one of the most prescient philosophers, whose influence is felt even today. It could be said about him that he is read wherever printed literature or optical fiber has reached. But what does Marx mean to us today? How do we interpret Marx for our changed times? I remember that by 2005-2006, most people would mockingly remind me that Marx had become outdated and therefore his proper place was his London cemetery. But then, out of the blue came the 2008-2012 economic meltdown.
“Pour le peuple, il y a toujours la misère!” Anonymous Gilet Jaune
These days, even if you don’t read online journals, or thick books not asssigned by universities, Google is enough to tell you how messy the Indian economic and social situation is. Earnings are low. Unemployment has reached new heights especially among the young and, with the adoption of automation and privatization, this will only worsen.
