2023-09-16 17:00:00
TRIBUNE/OPINION – These returns which follow one another, and which no longer bring anything positive, no longer anything new either. An endless merry-go-round. This month of September 2023, begun by anxiety-provoking announcements from the last week of August, with the recycling of Covid, then global warming amalgamated with the recent week of “heatwave”, with the same reels of these people who chat in the media, where we no longer know the interviewee or the interviewer who pretends to believe what is said; that speech is only spoken noise.
The five stages of grief
Even beyond the lies, the contradictions, there is this incessant flow of nothing. Which induces this fatigue in the face of these voids of meaning which nevertheless encumber us, steal our lives by breaking our momentum; We are so dragged down, into the mediocrity of these people who should run the country. This is another stage of mourning that is being crossed, one of these five phases, theorized by Élisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969 (1). This process that would take any grieving person through denial, anger, bargaining, depression to arrive at acceptance. Which initially only concerned the loss of a loved one, to be extended to any loss, any separation. Like any theory, it is not a question of applying it as a diktat, but as a possible insight into accepting our vulnerabilities, in order to support ourselves through this ordeal. These five stages of mourning which can also allow us to emerge from illusions, to face with complete lucidity what is. Everyone reacts in their own way.
And within a country, the entire population does not go through the stages in the same way. How many believe that an elected president would wish well for all citizens, given that the majority of them voted for him. At least that this president is necessarily legitimate, therefore competent, therefore fulfills his mission to lead the country and allow its enrichment, both material and cultural. Remember that Hitler took advantage of the weaknesses of democracy to gain power. This name of Hitler, which brings to mind these terrible images brought back from the concentration camps, which acts as an absolute repellent. Which remains engraved in our collective memory, when those who really lived through this period are fewer and fewer. Without forgetting the horrors, this should not prevent us from becoming aware in the present that the democratic process of elections does not guarantee the sound governance of a country. Isn’t that a truism? However, how many have long believed that these rulers know what they are doing; Of course they make mistakes – who doesn’t? – but they do what they can, some believe.
Sacrifice(s)
How many today have come out of denial, from this first stage of mourning, in the face of all this chaos of the Covid crisis? Many quickly moved to the stage of anger when they faced this daily life which ruined their lives, their projects, their dreams, to suffer the bankruptcy of their businesses, and the death of their loved ones, while understanding that all this was largely avoidable. . Certainly, bargaining and depression are still very present among many French people. Are those who put the mask back on in this bargaining phase? And those who convince themselves that it is necessary to make sacrifices, to tighten their belts, to follow the recommendations of limiting electricity this winter, water this summer, soon to limit their movements in the name of the quality of the air, will make everything return to normal, return to the way it was before.
As these leaders promise, even say, that there is no rise in prices, no unemployment, and all the assorted tragedies, that the seeds of growth are there. However, this is not what the majority of people experience. And the facts are there, which show the true face of political decisions and the consequences on private life, even the intimate life of everyone. We can see that the control we had over our private lives is gradually being withdrawn. In particular, it is increasingly restrictive to own a home of your own. Isn’t private property called into question when the property tax is increased by more than 50%, and expensive work is required to bring it up to new “ecological” standards – these properties now declared “thermal sieves” – in order to have the right to rent, which many owners will no longer be able to do. Less housing available, rising rents in this logic of scarcity, which is partly justified with these new costs to be borne by all owners.
Promises
How will people find housing if there is no more housing? When before these new bans on renting, the rents already too high in relation to people’s resources, and even these staggering guarantee requirements by owners to agree to rent, when there is no shortage of candidates, gave pride of place to these merchants of sleep, who will benefit even more from their unsanitary housing. This encourages the resurgence of even more substandard housing. When it’s that or being on the street… That governing the country already means ensuring this minimum of having enough housing. Isn’t this one of Macron’s promises, who ultimately predicted the opposite, namely that more and more French people would find themselves without housing? To the point that many students find themselves giving up their studies because they cannot find accommodation. What does it predict when this president declares that from now on the school is his “reserved domain” (2) ?
What will happen to schoolchildren? What will we teach them at school? And how and by whom will it be taught when the number of teachers is insufficient. What new government measures have been announced for this school year? From now on Gabriel Attal philistine in public school is appointed minister of national education, which started with the ban on the abaya, to continue in the same clothing problem on “do we need uniforms” and impose a “unique outfit” students (3), and finds itself silent in the face of the real problem of the lack of teachers for this new school year… As for the question of knowing what place is given to instruction, to knowledge, even what school is for, will answers be given ? Isn’t that a bad start?
Accentuation of the housing crisis, then the education crisis, which go hand in hand with the rise in energy bills and food prices. There, for many, all illusion ends. It is the stage of acceptance in mourning, which brings to an end this belief of an elected president who will lead his country in the interest of all citizens. It is realizing that our Institutions not only no longer protect us, but no longer lead us to wealth, and even impoverish us. The end of this false belief in presidential benevolence by more and more French people was revealed during President Macron’s speech on September 9, formalizing in person the launch of the Rugby World Cup, which was widely hissed by the 80,000 spectators present at the Stade de France.
Democratic legitimacy
And also by the reactions of those who relayed this never before happened on video and in writing. It is openly contesting the legitimacy of this head of state who has failed in the mission entrusted to him, to preside over the destiny of a country to make it more powerful and rich. But what can citizens do when they no longer recognize the legitimacy of the president who is democratically elected and even re-elected? What else can those who booed Macron do? If it is above all a question of not getting used to, therefore of trivializing, even finding normal, these seizures of power over our private and intimate lives, namely considering our material losses which range from our Industries to our agricultural territories in passing by our own goods, it also means taking a step back so as not to exhaust ourselves fighting against it, so as not to persist in what is perhaps only the tree that hides the forest.
If some still believe that there are still opposition parties that could temper too much presidential power, the invitation this August 30, 2023 to Saint-Denis (4) of the leaders of the opposition parties in Parliament recalled that the symbolic only takes precedence, whether in the chosen location, “in the education house of the Legion of Honor, in Saint-Denis. A prestigious and full of history” (5)or in this new concept called “preferendum”, “which would be a consultation intended to test several subjects at once.” It’s a fail. However, it is not me who says it, but Macron himself who recognizes that the discussion of August 30 in Saint-Denis “did not bring about a consensus” on the central question of the referendum, but, on this subject and others, he meets with the political parties “in autumn” is it written in The world (6).
Who in any case could not fool those already burned who only believe in concrete things, only in actions on the ground. Looking for an opposition, a counter-power, or just this feeling of being able to act, some join political movements, such as these people I was able to see in Arras during the Congress of Patriots on September 2, 2023. People without political labels, who seek answers when before they had given up; they no longer want to suffer, they want to take part. When finally and more and more, citizens are opposed to a head of state claiming, and indeed being able to do so, to decide on their private, even intimate, lives.
Because such decisions cannot be considered the responsibility of government policy, but of the will to decide in place of the citizen. We are no longer even on a question of democracy which would be lost, even more on the sovereignty of the country, but on our own sovereignty in our lives at every moment. Like the comedian Naïm who announces in his “Back to School News” on YouTube that he has decided to make fewer videos on Macron (7), when taking a step back in this way, is a good way to maintain one’s lucidity, one’s clairvoyance; to preserve this availability to oneself. As the system in place with Macron is, where all the tools of counter-power have been gagged, one could wonder what alternative could be taken, between being the pot of earth against the pot of iron, or acting in robot without consciousness.
The end of mourning, this acceptance of each and everyone, which allows us to put an end to our false beliefs about governance, which allows us to see the current political situation with clarity, suggests a possible third way.
Give Aphorisms and othersLaurence Waki - 09/12/2023.
*Laurence Waki is a writer and philosopher. Find his texts on his site internet.
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