by Alain Maskens We all want to come out of isolation, and thus to part, we feel members of diverse groups. "Birds of a feather flock together" is true of all kinds of similarities in common. This will belonging to one family, a religious community, a sports club, a cultural circle, party, trade union, the association of former college or regiment. As for the memberships of the linguistic communities, maternal or cultural, these memberships will be sailing on the wave of new possibilities of communication. Both mass media (television) that the custom networks (internet).
I want in this brief note to highlight two major features of this development.
The "atopic networks "
By this neologism, I wish to express their independence more and more pronounced network of belonging vis-à-vis a particular place. This independence had already been induced by the greater mobility of populations and the increasing intermarriage [i] [ii]. It will be over-multiplied by the Internet. Chess clubs, collectors, experts in Sanskrit or decoding the genome, or millenarian cults old Berkeley, the Internet can offer everyone the necessary links, even if a handful of individuals spread on several continents.
Thus, the village "physical" and the village "relational" differ more. I quote Yves Andre and Brunsvick Danzin: "There has ironically a return of the territory according to Max Weber: Social and mental space in which all members share the rules, rituals, values and projects. The physical boundaries are erased, the territory is defined by the values and cultural codes ... The mutation is particularly noticeable in Europe, where nation-states had tried to provide a framework for moral behavior and cultural identity, while the we are witnessing to specialized groups that match fragments whose roots feed off the country . "[iii]
This development holds tremendous potential in terms of culture. Indeed, it should allow surviving customs, languages, traditions, ideas and inventions that would have probably died in the great world of nationalism, mass media, or the "global market" of the twentieth century. In just a few committed individuals. Computers and the Internet will provide them with more opportunities for communication and archiving than is the Middle Ages had the set of all the Benedictine abbeys met.
At the same time, there for the first time in the history of mankind, to almost total decoupling between political power and the flow of information and ideas. I would not hesitate to speak of a revolution "Copernican". Do not forget: since the discovery of farming and agriculture, the majority of individuals were nearly "screwed" on their territory. In addition, it had little opportunities to communicate with the outside. It is on the basis of the territories have always been lawful and exercised political power. Individuals will therefore remain under the total dependence local authorities, the "masters of the place." Not only to management issues or politics, but for all choices related to personal life: that we speak of religious, linguistic, cultural or otherwise. Where reigned the allies of the Catholic Church, there existed the Inquisition. Some plans still trying to create around their territories of barriers to the movement of ideas, cultures or languages. Think of the ban on satellite dishes in Iran, the total seclusion of women in Afghanistan, control of Internet access in China to distribute ban certain cable television speaking on the outskirts of Brussels.
The rediscovery of community outreach [iv]
Paradoxically, this separation more clearly between the LAN network and virtual reality could reclaim the true nature the local network, the very man who is the more obvious affiliations, membership in the space of our physical existence: a place of residence, village, district, city, nomadic tribe. Because that is where the individual lives his life, and partakes of the basic group life. It is there that play the strongest solidarity. Occurs when the tornado, frost, disease, power outage or earthquake, that we speak Greek or Turkish, Flemish or French, whether you are Polish or Moroccan, the same links, fundamental, vital, will play. When it comes to implementing an airport, an incinerator or landfill, everyone is concerned. And when comes the big party, carnival, while the other identities are shelved with discretion under the colorful masks, the place, street, neighborhood, city to become the first new membership.
In parallel with the explosion of global virtual, so this is the resurgence of the real, living space, place, region. The neighborhood coffee shop, the parish, the cultural center, the small school, so many purely local rallying points [v].
In the entertainment field and music, we find the same need for inclusion in a human community outreach. Thus, one can access the world of entertainment television before his or her computer, and yet the cinemas are full. Similarly, the theater remains popular, he who can maintain a close work between human actors, and viewers [id]. Yet another example, the ever present enthusiasm for participation in amateur choirs. The outstanding choirs formed in Brussels by European Commission officials are particularly striking symbol here.
The economic domain part of the same paradox: globalization reinforces the importance of local factors [vii]. At local level that can decide the best policy for suitable job. It is organized locally and the best solidarity with the excluded and poor, closer solidarity and thus more humane. As written by Martine Théveniaut-Muller, " The territory is a social work produced over time." [viii]
The place, region: "here"
A affiliations of the most salient leave in our adult identity deep scars, is that which binds us to places and people that surrounded our young children. They correspond to the first color, the first odor, raw music, the first words, first the friendships we have discovered. They are inextricably linked to the image of mother, father, or failing those who replaced them. At this age, we thought that even our parents could keep around us, forever, this world caring and reassuring. It was "home." Places that have the memory! Engraving knife in the desk school, planted the chestnut tree and become a giant cemetery ...
Our complete insertion into a real living space, and in the community that lives and runs with us, represents a membership of specific and essential. Except, this community "local" does not coincide more prior with cultural, religious, linguistic, scientific, professional, recreational or other which we decide to also belong. Individuals who will rub shoulders and increasingly wealthy membership varied and multiple.
places elsewhere have always welcomed people with more diverse, the most varied cultural expressions. In this too, they have preserved the memory. On the scale of a lifetime, we have the illusion of permanence. The history of a place testifies to the contrary: they are only mixing, populations or cultures. Enter a church home, witness-old lives and beliefs of men and women who lived under his protection. Architectural structures reminiscent of their European heritage and sometimes Greek, Roman times, sometimes Italian, sometimes German. The windows depict prelates in Byzantine costume, knights in armor, Roman soldiers. The statues evoke the legends here or elsewhere (Saint-Nicolas, Bishop of Myra, near Saint-Antoine, a monk of Padua). Everywhere, inscriptions in Latin, Hebrew. In air, the smell of incense from India or Smyrna. And music, probably Bach or Palestrina. In some churches in our villages, you will not even mention this so ancient belief in a paradise where we ate rice cream with gold spoons. Thus, our membership deepest places of our childhood, we Have taught early this rich diversity of customs, languages and cultures.
The delimitation of territorial policy areas, as implied by the process of regionalization even split of Belgium, will be first and foremost focused on the preservation of these spaces proximity harmonious cohabitation, effective solidarity. Split such regional communities in terms of other affiliations, religious, linguistic, ethnic or cultural, is always the bearer of pain and instability, a source of endless conflict.
From: "Monoflamands and monowallons: wanderings and dangers of mono-identity ideologies" - published in 2000.
[i] M. Waters, 1990. Quoted by Mr. Martiniello: Ethnicity in contemporary social sciences . Collection "Que sais-je?". PUF, Paris, 1995 67
[ii] In the past already, migrations, wars, travel and intermarriage had created a remarkable and complex diversity in the identity and affiliations of individuals and families. See in this regard, for example, the study by Marie-Carmen Smyrnelis "identity Games Smyrna in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . In Herve Le Bras (Ed.): The Invention populations. Biology, ideology and politics. 1 volume, 264 pages. Odile Jacob, Paris, 2000.
[iii] Yves Andre and Brunsvick Danzin: Birth of a civilization. Unesco, Paris, 1998 84
[iv] The overriding importance of local solidarity over all other allegiances was already highlighted in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Gospel according to St. Luke, 10, 29).
[v] Although the university is becoming more a role of regional actor. Speaking of the criteria by which the student of today will choose a university, Marcel Crochet, Rector of UCL, said very precisely " Proximity is taking precedence over allegiances ." (Statement presented at the general meeting of the association of internal medicine at UCL, March 18, 2000).
[vi] This is Roger Planchon, who made that comment. Quoted by Daniel Cohen . World's wealth and poverty of nations. Flammarion, 1999 98.
[vii], Michel et Pierre Veltz Savy (eds): Global Economy reinvention et du local. Editions de l'Aube, Paris, 1995.
[viii] Martine Theveniaut-Muller. le développement local. Une réponse politique à la mondialisation. Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1999, p.26.
0 comments:
Post a Comment