tá muita bom.

27 setembro 2016

Das coisas do mundo.

16 setembro 2016

Navegando por entre populismos.

by R.R. Reno

9 . 9 . 16

Immigration has emerged as a crucial political issue throughout the West. On Sunday, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party was bested by Alternative for Germany in an election in Merkel’s own district. It was the first German election in which the upstart nationalist party had won more votes than Merkel’s venerable center-right party. There’s no doubt that Merkel’s decision to open Germany to more than one million Muslim refugees affected the outcome in a decisive way.

This outcome follows a pattern. Many factors contributed to the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, but concerns about increased immigration were prominent among them. In Austria, the Freedom Party, which is also opposed to immigration, is poised to win control of the presidential palace. Hungary’s Fidesz, still another party opposed to immigration, is in firm control of the government there. Parties with similar profiles are gaining popularity in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and elsewhere.

Immigration has played a key role in Donald Trump’s rise. His promise to build “a very beautiful wall” along our border with Mexico catapulted him into the public eye at the outset of the primary season.

The fact that voters are agitated by significant influxes of newcomers ought not to surprise us. What’s striking, on the contrary, is the inability or refusal of so many politicians to address the growing concern.

Trump insists that anyone residing in the United States illegally is subject to deportation. Many commentators regard such comments as inflammatory. I am baffled by their outrage. What, exactly, is meant by “illegal” if the lawbreaker is immune from consequences? And I have another point of confusion: Why doesn’t the Clinton campaign coopt this issue by offering a clear, but less drastic, plan for enforcing existing immigration laws?

The very notion of limiting immigration—building a wall—gets Trump described as “anti-immigrant.” But isn’t job number one for our political leaders to protect the interests of Americans, which surely entails restricting the number of people who can immigrate? Again, why doesn’t Clinton box out Trump by juxtaposing his extremist rhetoric with her own proposal for immigration reform? Clinton’s proposal can be more generous, but nevertheless keyed to the interests of native-born Americans.

Something strange is going on here, something I don’t fully understand.

One factor, no doubt, involves the putative benefits of immigration. Over the last two decades, many have argued that only increased immigration will save Europe from demographic decline and economic stagnation. This way of thinking, combined with idealism about an inclusive, compassionate Germany, can convince the political leadership there that admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees is in the best interest of all Germans. Similar arguments about the contribution immigration makes to economic growth in the United States comport nicely with the mythology of our immigrant nation.

But I think the reasons go deeper. A recent essay in Foreign Affairs by Kishore Mahbubani and Lawrence Summers, “The Fusion of Civilizations: The Case for Global Optimism,” outlines a vision for a more globalized, peaceful, and prosperous future—in which nations become less significant. Today’s emphasis on multiculturalism and “diversity” participates in this vision of the future, one in which differences are overcome and borders are irrelevant. It’s species of utopianism, to be sure, but it has a powerful grip on the moral imagination of the West.

In this view, national interest is an impediment to progress. Concerns about identity are, by definition, forms of ethnocentrism bordering on xenophobia. This is why the upsurge of populist concern about immigration—which I take to be a synecdoche for wide-ranging anxieties about the long-term significance of many social changes—are so vigorously denounced by mainstream politicians, journalists, and political commentators. It’s also why Hillary Clinton doesn’t isolate Trump by employing a more moderate and sensible nationalist rhetoric. The same goes from Angela Merkel. She is almost certain to persevere, in order to remain true to what she believes will best serve the common good, not just of Germany, but of the whole world.

lobalization has a unifying dimension, which we rightly applaud. At the same time, though, globalization is associated with economic and cultural changes that are dissolving inherited forms of solidarity—the nation foremost, but local communities, as well, and even the family. This dissolution encourages an atomistic individualism, which in turn makes all of us more vulnerable to domination and control.

By my reading of the signs of the times, the dangers of dissolved solidarity in the West are far more dire than our present upsurges of ethnocentrism and nationalism. It is atomized societies that are susceptible to demagogues—not societies that enjoy strong social bonds and organic communal solidarity. Islamic extremism thrives where traditional Muslim societies are disintegrated by the pressures of globalization.

We need to renew solidarity, rather than encourage the dissolving trends of globalization. This means taking populist, anti-immigrant trends seriously, not denouncing them. It also means thinking hard about how to strengthen what Abraham Lincoln called our “mystic chords of memory.” We need a Christian nationalism, one that encourages the unity of mankind while recognizing that human beings thrive best as members of a particular people and as proud recipients of a distinctive cultural inheritance.

R. R. Reno is editor of First Things.

12 setembro 2016

É só preciso vontade.

Já que afinal se pode tudo, propunha que juntássemos à lista a conclusão do Palácio da Ajuda.

Para dar assim um ar fresco e impante aqui à barraca que isso do austoritarismo fascizante já é coisa do passado.

Para o lisboeta é só mais um estaleiro e sempre se ficava com palácio real como deve ser...

23 agosto 2016

Tell him about his father.

do Letters of Note.

To win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games is astonishing enough; however, to do so as a black person in 1936, at a tense Olympic Games hosted by Adolf Hitler, is almost beyond belief. Yet Jesse Owens did exactly that, somehow managing to ignore talk of Aryan superiority to take gold in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, and long jump, all in the space of a few days. He also made a good friend in the form of German athlete Luz Long, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, long jump rival who swapped training tips with Owens and openly congratulated him after his final jump, in full view of Hitler.

Having bonded so well at the Games, Owens and Long kept in touch by mail. Below is Long's last letter, written during WWII from North Africa where he was stationed with the German Army and later killed in action. It reached Owens a year after it was sent. Years later, as per Long's request, Owens met and became firm friends with his son, Karl. He also went on to serve as best man at his wedding.

(Source: Jesse: The Man Who Outran Hitler. Photo via EAL09)

Transcript

I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. I do not fear so much for myself, my friend Jesse, I fear for my woman who is home, and my young son Karl, who has never really known his father.

My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. If it is so, I ask you something. It is a something so very important to me. It is you go to Germany when this war done, someday find my Karl, and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth.

If you do this something for me, this thing that I need the most to know will be done, I do something for you, now. I tell you something I know you want to hear. And it is true.

That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the ground, I knew that you were in prayer.

Then I not know how I know. Now I do. I know it is never by chance that we come together. I come to you that hour in 1936 for purpose more than der Berliner Olympiade.

And you, I believe, will read this letter, while it should not be possible to reach you ever, for purpose more even than our friendship.

I believe this shall come about because I think now that God will make it come about. This is what I have to tell you, Jesse.

I think I might believe in God.

And I pray to him that, even while it should not be possible for this to reach you ever, these words I write will still be read by you.

Your brother,

Luz