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Srebrenica 2015 : la marche de la paix, « c'est la solidarité »
Bosnie-Herzégovine : face à la crise, une solution, la Yougonostalgie
La Constitution de 1974 a-t-elle précipité l'éclatement de la Yougoslavie ?
Bosnie : les antifascistes commémorent les 70 ans de la bataille de la Neretva

/ Bosnie-Herzégovine, Courrier des Balkans, Société, Srebrenica

Srebrenica 2015 : la marche de la paix, « c'est la solidarité »
Bosnie-Herzégovine : face à la crise, une solution, la Yougonostalgie
La Constitution de 1974 a-t-elle précipité l'éclatement de la Yougoslavie ?
Bosnie : les antifascistes commémorent les 70 ans de la bataille de la Neretva

/ Bosnie-Herzégovine, Courrier des Balkans, Société, Srebrenica

Dans son discours aux Nations Unies le 7 décembre 1988, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev exprimait le souhait que “[les] efforts conjoints [des Nations Unies] visant à mettre fin à l'ère des guerres, des confrontations et des conflits régionaux, des actes d'agression contre la nature, de la terreur de la faim et de la pauvreté et du terrorisme politique, soient à la hauteur de nos espérances”. Voilà une phrase emblématique de la “Nouvelle Pensée Politique”, qui donna le ton de la politique étrangère de M. Gorbatchev. On a souvent rejeté sur cette base théorique la responsabilité de la chute de l'URSS, à tel point qu'A. Tsygankov qualifie la “Nouvelle Pensée” de “naive et déconnectée des considérations de puissance.” Elle a pourtant été conçue comme un projet ambitieux pour l'URSS et pour le monde : comment évaluer la part de pragmatisme et la part d'idéalisme dans la “Nouvelle Pensée Politique” de Gorbachev ? Afin de répondre à cette question nous détaillerons tout d'abord rapidement le contenu de cette pensée politique, puis nous analyserons sa dimension pragmatique. Enfin nous verrons comment, en pratique, sa dimension idéaliste a pris le dessus.

L'ancien ministre d'Etat du Général Mathieu Kérékou et candidat à la présidentielle du 28 février prochain était vendredi dernier au domicile de son ami de vieille date et ancien président de la République Nicéphore Soglo. Les deux personnalités ont fait un tour d'horizon de la situation sociopolitique dans le pays. Ce qui a permis au Dr Zul Kifl Salami d'exposer au leader charismatique de la Renaissance du Bénin sa vision pour sortir le pays des sentiers battus à partir du 06 avril 2016.
Quand (...)

- Politique

L' appel et la pétition lancés lundi pour organiser une «primaire des gauches et des écologistes» en vue de la présidentielle de 2017 ont été accueillis fraîchement par le PS et l'hypothèse a été refusée...

Több mint kétszázan voltak ma azon a tüntetésen Belgrádban, melyen a Vajdaság pénzeléséről szóló törvény meghozatalát követelték a Vajdasági Szociáldemokrata Liga (LSV) tagjai és a hozzájuk csatlakozott polgárok.

Az újságírók nem térdelnek le elnevezéssel harmadszor rendeztek tiltakozó megmozdulást a szerbiai újságírók Bratislav Gašić védelmi miniszter menesztését követelve.

By Magdi El Gizouli

Following established tradition, a reporter from the Khartoum daily al-Jareeda sought Communist commentary on the sixtieth anniversary of Sudan's independence. The event, declared a non-event by a host of opinion makers who have made it habit to decry the loss of British tutelage on each independence anniversary, was missed by the Communist Party this year, busy with another round of undeclared factional dispute. Sideeg Yusif, a party veteran, told the reporter that the Communist Party refuses to celebrate the independence anniversary because Sudan continues to suffer under totalitarian rule. “The slogans of independence cannot be achieved until the overthrow of the regime in Khartoum; what has been attained is only political independence,” Sideeg told the reporter.

Yusif Hussein, the spokesman of the Communist Party, foddered up Sideeg's argument stating that the occasion of the sixtieth independence anniversary should “push the regime to rethink and consider the situation of the country and what it has come to.” Interestingly, Yusif, who has experienced most of the post-independence history first hand, identified achievement in the past of the post-independence glorifying the same institutions and political instruments once battered by qualified Communist criticism.
The pioneers of independence started to construct the right structures and institutions of independence, he said, naming the 1956 constitution, which he further described as “democratic” despite attempts by reactionary forces to impose an Islamic constitution. The pioneers “built a bureaucracy on a democratic basis. There was no arbitrary dismissal or favouritism and appointment was on the basis of merit.” They also “established the first elements of a national economy,” added Yusif Hussein. Of course, Yusif did not miss to mention that projects left behind by colonial rule such the Gezira scheme and the railways have been completely destroyed. The Communist Party's al-Midan which published Yusif Hussein's comments titled its report: “ True celebration of the sixtieth independence anniversary after the overthrow of the regime.” “We will celebrate when the country is free and democratic, and we can build the country we dream of,” Siddig Yusif declared in another notable statement to the press.

The statements of the two leaders are both disheartening and revealing in their dismissal of Sudan's independence, following the lead of recent ‘educated' opinion, championed by the likes of the al-Tayar's editor Osman Merghani who ritually decry independence as a fall from a perceived colonial heaven of bureaucratic efficiency and fair government. Indifferent to the very notion of nationalist struggle once championed by the Communist Party, Sideeg and Yusif approximate Merghani's position in all but phrasing. Their agony is that of a defeated elite, sorry for the loss of the colonial-made state rather than that of bearers of emancipatory politics who seek to flesh liberation from the direct colonial yoke, distant and paradoxically idealised as it seems today, with empowerment of the masses. In a stroke of amnesic argumentation, the two dropped the Communist Party's most pointed and accurate criticisms of the colonial state and its heritage in favour of the abortive politics of frustration with the ‘satanical' National Congress Party (NCP).

A single Communist politician in the 1956 parliament that declared Sudan independent, Hassan al-Tahir Zaroug, stood out of the crowd to point out the discrepancies between the letter of the 1956 constitution, hastily adopted by the house, and the actual practice of the state. Zaroug highlighted the lower wages paid to southerners compared to northerners, and to the poor pay of female teachers compared to males, considering the promise of the constitution not to discriminate between Sudanese citizens in employment and public office by their race, sex, religion or place of birth. Rather than submit to the ‘pledged' democracy of the 1956 constitution, Zaroug wanted it entrenched and expanded in the lives of the common women and men of Sudan, and not subsumed in the rotation of governments and cabinet posts.

What Yusif Hussein today perceives as a bureaucracy built on a “democratic basis” and the yardstick of “merit” was criticised by the early Communists who fought for independence as an institution composed predominantly of northern Sudanese males, discredited by class bias and racial and sexual privilege, that caters for the interests of a narrow power base around the patricians and their business associates. In 1965, when the Communist Party declared the necessity to reform if not “destroy” the organs of the state inherited from Sudan the colony, Yusif was an active member of the party and probably cheered. The associations between these inherited myopias of the state and its continuous practice and current configuration have escaped his attention it seems. Yusif speaks of the elements of a ‘national economy' where his peers diagnosed a dependent mono-product economy designed to serve the guardians of a gatekeeper state, direly in need of diversification and expansion and development of the local market. The Gezira scheme was judged as the embodiment of this single crop economy.

Sideeg and Yusif are again mistaken in drawing no distincti on at all between the record of the independent Sudanese and the record of their successive governments. The resourcefulness of the Sudanese in resisting, sabotaging and also taming ill-devised and disastrous statist projects is remarkable but goes unmentioned since the two veterans are haunted by government rather than inspired by popular struggles. The reactionary politics of the patricians, Nimayri's economy of modernisation by immiseration and the NCP's ‘civilisation project' all ended in defeat and mockery, and a living counter-narrative to each inhabits popular consciousness. The notion of ‘no sanctity in politics' raised against the two sayeds, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi and Ali al-Mirghani and their families, survives today albeit in entangled terms and forces Sadiq al-Mahdi to seek alliances where the Umma Party (renamed National Umma Party [NUP] for the 1986 elections) once reigned supreme with guaranteed votes to absent candidates in Darfur and Kordofan. The Nationalist Unionist Party of the Khatmiyya (renamed the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] after a tumultuous split in 1956 and a sorry reunification in 1966) vegetates today as a beneficiary of the NCP.

Nimayri's decade and a half of inspired dictatorship ended with a heavily indebted government and a country at war with itself but the Sudanese who took him down scrapped his sharia and dismantled his state security. Even the bigots of al-Ingaz under President Bashir could not find it in themselves to reinstate the punishments of limb severance and stoning in practice, but picked from the sharia disciplinary lashing, a favourite of the colonial state before it was a sharia-informed article of law. State security is yet to rid itself from the disrepute of ‘fascism' meted out against it by generations of Sudanese since the era of the colonial ‘intelligence department'. Today, Bashir's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) sponsors arts and sports to carve a human face into its fascist corpus. The NISS engendered armed battalions that march on a celebrated day every year in a show of force from Qitena to Khartoum to prove their worth in fear of the day when popular agitation and political convenience might dictate its dissolution similar to its predecessor, Nimayri's State Security Bureau. The ‘civilisation project' of the Islamic Movement was effectively extinguished the moment it became a name for flamboyant ‘tobs'. The division between state and religion on the other hand was elevated to an item of intimate and sharp consciousness when it was declared the name of revealing low cut blouses marketed at discount prices.

Sideeg Yusif speaks of a dream, but by all means, the material of that dream seems to be the very same state vilified by the Communist Party that spoke ‘Marx in the vernacular' (to quote Rogaia Abu Sharaf's reading of Abd al-Khalig Mahjoub). No wonder then that Yusif and Sideeg were in no mood to mark the 60th anniversary of Sudan's independence, the beginning of the end of the effendi's paradise, let alone draw lessons from a history of struggle against the lost colony and its heirs for a future they fail even to imagine.

The author is a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. He publishes regular opinion articles and analyses at his blog Still Sudan. He can be reached at m.elgizouli@gmail.com

Longtemps agité comme candidat sur la liste de départ dans le cadre des élections présidentielles, Emmanuel Golou vient de jeter l'éponge. Il abandonne le navire de la candidature mais pour quelle destination ?
C'est la question que beaucoup se posent depuis que la nouvelle fait le tour des réseaux sociaux. Mais très tôt, les observateurs de l'actualité politique, devinent déjà la prochaine destination du président d'Emmanuel Golou, actuel président du Parti Social Démocrate (PSD). En effet, membre de (...)

- Actualité

Dans ses vœux à la jeunesse, le chef de l’Etat a promis des moyens supplémentaires d’ici 2018 pour le dispositif du service civique avec un budget de « plus d’un milliard d’euros », contre 300 millions à ce jour.

Trump’s “Making America Great Again” echoes Reagan’s “Let’s Make America Great Again” (Photo credits below)

Part 1 of 2: Can Trump win?

The United States is preparing to introduce a critically important new variable to its foreign policy: a new President. Despite continuing predictions of his campaign fading, Donald Trump remains a viable candidate and therefore important to the global community. President Ronald Reagan’s path to victory in 1980 might serve as a model for Trump’s eventual election. But if elected, will Trump’s foreign policy also echo Reagan’s?

Reagan was elected by reaching voters outside the Republican Party—”Reagan Democrats.” Like Trump, Reagan was already widely known before he ran in 1980. He was a film actor beginning in the late 1930s into the 1950s. He served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild during the Congressional inquiries in Communists in Hollywood. A former radio sportscaster, he bolstered his all-American image as a spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he became a Republican, and gave a popular speech for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Reagan himself ran successfully for California governor in 1966 and 1970, and unsuccessfully for president in 1968 and 1976.

Trump’s large personality, eponymous hotels, 1987 New York Times bestselling book, and popular television program, The Apprentice, have made him widely known. But in 2011, he also had the highest rates of unfavorability of any potential candidates. Trump lacks political experience, compared to Reagan and to most of his current rivals. But the other Republican frontrunners in the race so far have been a neurosurgeon with no political experience and a first-term Senator, while nine sitting or former governors from states like New York, Florida, Texas, and Ohio have been essentially non-factors.

The context in which Reagan ran in 1980 was also central to the election, though. The United States was at the end of two decades of upheaval: the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, President Nixon’s resignation, and economic “stagflation.” The taking of American hostages by Iranian revolutionaries, two oil-price crises, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made the Middle East a complicated and controversial political, economic, and security issue.

In 2016, the United States enters its 16th year of fighting in Afghanistan, and nearly as long in Iraq, while Taliban, ISIS, and other difficulties persist. The long, slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis is threatened by the global stock market plunges of early January 2016. Police shootings, immigration, and health insurance are politically divisive social issues. The rise of China, Russia, and Iran increasingly erodes the hegemony the United States held for the decade after the Cold War ended.

Will the personality of Trump and the context of American and global politics create a dynamic like the one that elected Reagan?

The first step is within his own Republican Party. (Candidates of each party compete during this winter and spring for their party’s nomination, beginning in the rural state of Iowa on February 1. Parties could essentially make their choices by March 1, “Super Tuesday,” when 12 states hold their contests, or continue as late as June.) Trump leads a party that is older, whiter, more Christian, more Southern, and more male than the Democratic Party. His nationalism and brashness—he has made insulting comments recently about women, immigrants, Muslims, his own national party organization, and even American prisoners of war—appeal at least in tone to a plurality of Republicans. Each insult generates punditry on his imminent decline. But unlike the 2012 campaign where several Republicans cycled through the top spot and out of the race, Trump has so far held his lead over several months.

The next step would be in the general election, presumably against Hillary Clinton. She has a strong resume: active First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, in the national spotlight for more than 20 years. She is potentially the first female president, following the first African-American president. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was and remains very popular among Democrats, but the effect of his history with women is a wild card. Like Trump, though, she has high unfavorables, along with an open investigation into her handling of State Department email, and lingering questions about what happened during the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

What does Trump needs to defeat her? Reagan received 26% of the Democratic vote in 1980, compared to 10 and 7% for the Republican candidates in 2008 and 2012. Reagan got 54% of independents, 48% of moderates, and 36% of Hispanics—all much higher than the Republicans in 2008 and 2012. Trump doesn’t just need Republican turnout; Trump needs Democrats.

Turnout numbers are always difficult to predict. Presidential elections get higher relative turnouts among Democrats than during off-years: President Obama’s elections were followed by historic Republican Congressional gains in 2010 and 2014. Will Hillary Clinton be able to get Obama’s supporters to come out a third time?

It is the race to 270 electoral votes, not a popular majority, that ultimately matters. Democrats are seen as holding a big advantage in “safe states” months before any votes are cast. A December 2015 poll by CNN put Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in the South and the Midwest, and behind in the Northeast and West. It put him ahead in rural areas, behind in urban areas, and tied in suburbia. The key “swing states” of Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Colorado are divided among these categories, not persuasively favoring either candidate. Can Trump win enough of these swing states with the help of Democratic voters? One recent poll offers that Trump could get 20% of the Democratic vote.

U.S. elections are typically close: The last seven presidential elections have been won by an average of 5% of the vote (49-44); the last three by 3.5% (50.6-47.1). Only once since World War II have Americans elected the same political party three times consecutively: Reagan-Reagan-George H.W. Bush, 1980-1988.

History suggests much stands between today and the November 2016 election. In January 2008, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gave Hillary Clinton a 15-point lead (47–32) over Senator Obama. Throughout 2007 New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani led the Republicans, until Mike Huckabee and then John McCain took leads in early 2008. For the moment, it looks like Clinton vs. Trump—very different candidates, each with high negative ratings, and in a pattern in American presidential elections where the final popular vote is close. If Trump were to win the nomination, he has a chance at the presidency.

Part 2 will consider what a Trump foreign policy might look like.

Photo credits: Reagan poster , 1980 Republican Convention, Trump in cap.

La généralisation du service civique, c'est maintenant. François Hollande a annoncé lundi que le budget du service civique passerait de «300 millions d'euros aujourd'hui» à «plus d'un milliard d'euros...

The former footballer reflects on the night his heart stopped for 78 minutes and reveals who he owes his life to.

Lancée le 5 décembre 2013 par le président de la République, l’opération SANGARIS vise à rétablir un niveau de sécurité minimale

Du 5 au 7 janvier 2016, le capitaine Jean-Guillaume Martinez, alias Marty, futur présentateur Rafale, a démarré sa préparation en vol sur Extra 330 à Salon

Le Premier ministre indien, Narendra Modi, s’est rendu ce samedi 9 janvier au soir sur la base aérienne de Pathankot, au Pendjab. Un lieu stratégique qui a ét

En 2011, Julien Leroux, un militaire isérois de 32 ans, est devenu tétraplégique, après un accident lors d’un entrainement dans les Ardennes. Aujourd&#821

Un colonel de la police et un conscrit ont été tués, samedi, au Caire, lors d’une attaque aussitôt revendiquée par l’organisation État isl

Le président est soumis à la pression grandissante d'une partie de la gauche, très critique sur sa politique.