by\u00a0Ana Bazac<\/p>\n
Yes, when we are tempted to chitchatting about how clumsy are some people who cry \u201cwe can no longer stand all of that\u201d, we should think of our \u201chumanism\u201d cherishing the Man. But if we chatter \u201cin a humanistic mood\u201d, it means that we are comfortable doing this and, in our blindness framed by the nest of our speculative armchair, we imagine that \u201cwe<\/em> are the world\/the human beings\u201d in the name of whose we would be entitled to speak. Magnanimously, we would even concede that \u201ca man = a man\u201d, but we proudly expect that the other<\/em> man we \u201crepresent\u201d to gladly accepts this representation, namely absolutely annulling its uniqueness that requires direct expression, and to being happy to being a \u201cwithout face\u201d illustration of the countless number of humans aligning behind \u201cthe man we<\/em> are\u201d.<\/p>\n More dryly, the fact that we cannot put ourselves in the situation of the other man but that, at the same time and with the recklessness given by conscience of our \u201csuperior\u201d place, we expect it does \u201cput itself in our situation\u201d and accept that this \u201cequivalence\u201d is normal and entitles us to being the only \u201crepresentatives\u201d of the humans, worth to be heard, shows the emptiness and vanity of the \u201chumanism\u201d we profess.<\/p>\n \n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n \n Who are the \u201cyellow vests\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n So, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d are mostly petty wage earners, including part-time<\/em> \u2013 workers <\/em>and office workers<\/em> from the under middle classes, including those impoverished, paid with the minima\/social allocations \u2013 and very vulnerable independents\/subcontractors<\/em> (as shopkeepers, artisans, farmers<\/em>, little employers, and free lance contract technicians and artists)[1]<\/a>, all of them not succeeding<\/em>, having or not families, to make both ends meet<\/em>, not having the safety of life that would allow the founding of a family and raising children<\/em>; and they began to protest less than three months ago. This majority was called \u2013 somehow after the model of international centre-periphery relations \u2013 \u201cthe peripheral France\u201d\/country, i.e. the poor urban and rural alike, now socially<\/em> united, while before they were opposed, in front of the \u201ccentre\u201d of cities inhabited by the well-offs[2]<\/a>. But now, both the rural and urban poor \u2013 the so-called \u201cpopular neighbourhoods\u201d in the big cities \u2013 are more and more politically<\/em> united in their protest[3]<\/a>: though there is still much to be done in this respect.<\/p>\n Obviously, for the economic and political ruling \u201celites\u201d the mass and repeated manifestations of au fond \u201cintegrated\u201d ruled within the neo-liberal policies for more than three decades now were unexpected and considered to be dangerous. And because all the polls have showed that the majority of the French agreed with the \u201cyellow vests\u201d, the government has used the card of<\/p>\n The \u201cyellow vests\u201d manifest only on Saturdays, since they work hard all the week, and some of them have \u201coccupied\u201d traffic roundabouts in order to remember us that they do not quit (but since mid-December 2018, they were evacuated from there). \u00a0Since many of these petty wage earners are on the minimum and on part-time it\u2019s plausible that some ones of them may be violent, throwing stones or even Molotov cocktails at the police, and even wanting to break the signs of opulence, but though in principle<\/em> they never harmed people\/policemen without being attacked<\/em>[7]<\/a> (on 9 February, the police officers being attacked first\u00a0 time since the beginning of the movement<\/em>[8]<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, in fact small groups<\/em> between them have produced harms[9]<\/a> and useless vandalism (as the overturning the bins, and the destruction of cars) which it\u2019s doubtful they will produce much empathy and from now on. Because though the burning of some cars is nothing in front of the ravages made by the 30 years of neo-liberalism[10]<\/a>, in fact the destruction of personal goods and also of public ones (as the bins) is irrational and harmful even for the \u201cyellow vests\u201d. \u00a0As it is well-known, the establishment covers with the violent facts \u2013 which obviously do not characterise the movement \u2013 its logic and reasons<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 And it is important that, though there are no proofs <\/em>of the provocations \u2013 including of vandalism \u2013 made by police personnel, at the same time the involvement of this personnel in popular demonstrations in order to divert them is well-known[11]<\/a>. Anyway, and as a manner to show the gradual organization of the \u201cyellow vests\u201d, see the constitution of their own ordination service during manifestations[12]<\/a>, but also the fact that the casseurs<\/em> were never halted by demonstrators. And the own ordination service is not permanent, thus efficient: there was the overturning of bins and other street violence even on February 9th<\/sup> and 16th<\/sup>. And even though it\u2019s plausible that the government as such would have had an interest in showing the ugly face of the \u201cyellow vests\u201d movement in its already 13th<\/sup> act, in fact all the serious injures suffered by the demonstrators<\/em>[13]<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, as well as the attacks to police officers, and the vandalism, do not serve the interests of the yellow vests<\/em> \u2013 on the very contrary \u2013 and show only their fatigue, somehow exasperation (they were much lesser demonstrators on 9 February 9th<\/sup>) to manifest without any positive concrete end<\/em>. Does this fact urge them to pass to a new level of their attitude?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As active labour force \u2013 but also as unemployed\/never forgetting the spectre of unemployment \u2013 and pensioners of these humble social layers, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d are what were called the \u201cpopular classes\u201d, various groups marked by the service jobs they occupy in very fragmented work places, with corresponding levels of education and technical means. At first glance, we could call the popular classes as proletarians<\/em>, i.e. those who have no\/no enough means of production in order to survive and thus are obliged to sell their capacity to work (so, the proletarians are not only the classical workers in factories, but also \u2013 and the more so nowadays \u2013 those from the service sectors<\/em>, \u201cthe McDonalds workers becoming the steel workers of the twenty-first century\u201d[14]<\/a>). But because their appearance is not homogenous since they have different work and living places etc., and thus because their social fragmentation has led until now to political separation an vulnerability \u2013 they being not able to understand their proletarian nature \u2013 neither they have assumed this identity and nor the sociologists have described them as proletarians[15]<\/a>. However, the \u201csubaltern\u201d position in economy and work place is not enough to explain their dominated position: au fond, the violinists too, in an orchestra, do obey to the bandmaster, do they? Taking over this comparison from a famous one (in Marx), and thus making a difference between the \u201ctechnical\u201d submission and the social (as economic and political) one, we ought to assert that our first sight, that the popular classes are proletarians<\/em>, is fully rightful. The problem is not the technical subaltern position, but the class relations<\/em>.<\/p>\n It was said that the \u201cyellow vests\u201d would represent rather the French white wage-earners and petty-bourgeois who denounce the infringement of their social contract as citizens with and in the state \u2013 and this national aspect might be used by the extreme-right forces to confiscate the movement \u2013[16]<\/a>: and since they were not yet massively joined by the mass of immigrant origin French[17]<\/a>, and that in fact the proportion of \u201cyellow vests\u201d who voted the extreme-right is significant[18]<\/a>, as well as of the supporters[19]<\/a>, would it not be absurd to deny the sundry character of the yellow vests and not only the danger<\/em> to being confiscated by the extreme-right, but also the imperative to ask for forgiveness from all the immigrant origin co-nationals towards whose fight they did not show solidarity<\/strong>? As well as the imperative to<\/strong> ask for forgiveness from all the peoples from the \u201cSouth\u201d\/ countries imperialistically dominated though explicit colonial relations and different new neo-colonial ones?<\/strong><\/p>\n The \u201cyellow vests\u201d\u2019 open discussion of all of these aspects is absolutely necessary: only through this discussion they may strengthen their unity, and not by ignoring them<\/strong>. In this discussion, they may emphasise that the different particularistic cultural standpoints \u2013 glorifying the national origin, the uncritically seen traditions, the original or different religions, or even other types of identities as the sexual ones \u2013 assumed by the immigrant origin French, but not only by them<\/em>, have as root the weak consideration of the universal social criteria by the capitalist state and system<\/em><\/strong>. And just the capitalist state and system have induced the particularistic standpoints<\/em>: in order to make the bulk of common people<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 of French or immigrant origin alike \u2013 to forget the necessity and their propensity toward universal values<\/em><\/strong>. There is not about a simple substitution of universal values with those of particular ones, and in no way are the cultures of differences the response to the \u201crevolutionary despotism\u201d of the French Revolution and its follow-ups \u2013 as Alain Finkielkraut stated[20]<\/a> \u2013 but about the transformation of the dominant ideologies (yes, ideology<\/em>[21]<\/a>, and not only \u201cculture\u201d) according to the conditions and interests of the dominant layers, whose spokespersons were the intellectuals, and certainly about the from up to down transmission of the convenient dominant ideologies<\/em>. The fact that nowadays both some French and immigrant origin French \u2013 but certainly, here France is only a model corresponding to all the countries \u2013 have different xenophobic attitudes is caused just by the above explained phenomena. And since no xenophobic attitude is better than other one<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 see Alain Finkielkraut\u2019s attitude[22]<\/a> and his disclosing by Alain Badiou who has showed not only the opposition between humanistic universal values and the Alain Finkielkraut\u2019s particularistic national and ethnical identity, but also the evilness of the opposition of Finkielkraut\u2019s particularistic national and ethnical identity to the \u201cabstract and abject universality of the capitalist world market\u201d[23]<\/a> \u2013 the \u201cyellow vests\u201d must openly declare that, though there are between them some ones who express their social angry though xenophobic phrases, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d\u2019 ideology is directed toward the causes<\/em> of these outcomes which they resolutely reject \u2013 as they already said \u2013<\/strong>, and thus those outcomes as such will disappear in the struggle against their causes<\/strong>. Only if the movement will be defeated, the ire at its basis<\/strong> \u2013 as at the basis of the general, even though vague, rejection of the system \u2013 might manifest through the form of particularistic hate<\/strong>: in no way is the movement as such a nursery of this hate, as the right-wing dominant media assert<\/em><\/strong>[24]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yes, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d have considered with reserve the precise and inherently left-wing slogans which obviously exceed<\/em><\/strong> the first demands related to taxes<\/em> (only to a more equitable distribution \u2013 but we know already from Marx that the separation of distribution from production\/from the property relations is absurd[25]<\/a> \u2013): but while the first demands were similar to all the fiscal revolts as <\/em>Jacqueries<\/em>, the present conditions are different, so it was possible to change\/enlarge the demands<\/em><\/strong>. But the reserve of \u201cyellow vests\u201d towards precise left-wing slogans was the result that they knew their amalgamate structure and feared to alienate a part without which their power would have been lesser<\/em>[26]<\/a>. But since the social-economic condition of all lays under the same spectre of impoverishment, is it not the sign that they must surpass and abhor their old prejudices received from above<\/strong>? Indeed, the simple suspension of identities\/peculiarity of discourses does not give per se a \u201cyellow vest\u201d identity, but it is only its limit[27]<\/a>.<\/p>\n And, just in order to attain their concrete economic demands of decent wages and pensions, does it not seem clear to them that they must outstrip them by addressing just the general features of the dominant policies, as social inequality, and the structural causes of these features<\/strong>? If some demands may be transformed and reduced by the government in order to integrate them within the capitalist logic<\/em>[28]<\/a>, at least for a while, is it not imperative to address the structural causes of their situation and of the never ending play with the late adjustment of wages to inflation<\/strong>?<\/p>\n Is it not imperative to know that no deferment of the other neo-liberal reforms necessary to the present capitalism is sufficient neither to alleviate the situation of the many \u2013 and even letting aside the lack of future for them and their children \u2013 and nor to solve the huge global problems<\/strong>?<\/p>\n \n The extremely difficult road of coagulation<\/strong><\/p>\n \n Until February 5th<\/sup>, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d have manifested alone<\/em>: because no \u201cleft-wing\u201d party and union has expressed the solidarity with them<\/em>.<\/p>\n This situation has double causes: one<\/em> <\/strong>is that nowadays the prevalent, very skilled, type of labour in the enterprises and the enterprises as such based on the competition of employees for less and less jobs do no longer favour the unity of employees; rather this unity is forged along the information channels (social media networks) and in the larger and common habitat (towns, villages\u2026), beyond the specific professional identities they have; and the other<\/em><\/strong> is, obviously, the bureaucratic<\/em> character of all the \u201cleft-wing\u201d\/social-democratic type parties and unions, or rather of their leadership<\/em> \u2013 the official<\/em> \u201cleft-wing\u201d unmistakably representing<\/em> the interests of the employers\/dominant layers of society and seeking only to adapt<\/em> the working classes to these interests, thus to forge a \u201cmanageable consensus\u201d, if not even to reject class antagonism<\/strong>; while the unofficial left-wing not being able to offer solutions, including because of the permanent quarrel and splitting of its branches \u2013.<\/p>\n Only late, (January 25th<\/sup>) the CGT (Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration G\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Travailleurs), but only pushed by the rank and file<\/em><\/strong>, has called for common manifestations, including for the general strike initiated by the \u201cyellow vests\u201d for February 5th<\/sup>, certainly with precise goals. In this call, the CGT would have succeeded to unite also the other unions[29]<\/a>. However, as the February 5th<\/sup> demonstrations show, though there were delegates from different \u201cleft-wing parties\u201d which wanted a \u201cconvergence\u201d with the \u201cyellow vests\u201d, the simple \u2013 and late, do not forget \u2013 desire to manifest near the vests, i.e. to signal that these parties would already have a mass support, just something which they lacked for decades, does offer nothing concrete to the \u201cyellow vests\u201d<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0The duplicitous position of the unions \u2013 and parties \u2013 eventually pushed only by the simple members \u2013 is illustrated by both their positions towards internal and external situations[30]<\/a>. Even after the February 5th<\/sup> event, the leadership of CGT has distorted the real facts, showing not only its will to maintain the exclusive focus on material demands<\/em>, but also its \u201cleadership of the \u201cyellow vests\u201d[31]<\/a>. It\u2019s thus no wonder that, at least until now, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d have directly expressed a deep rejection of (all) the parties, including the \u201cleft-wing\u201d ones, and unions, which all of them have these last decades only supported, even by mimicking opposition, the neo-liberal policies of the explicit right-wing.<\/p>\n \u00a0Instead of being confident in the \u201cleft-wing\u201d party and unions bureaucracies, some <\/em>of the \u201cyellow vests\u201d have gradually organized themselves by themselves: in local and departmental assemblies<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 which have met in an \u201cassembly of assemblies\u201d at the end of January and decided to organize new such assemblies of assemblies \u2013 and around Houses of the People<\/em><\/strong>[32]<\/a>, calling also to a new national constituent assembly[33]<\/a>. This coagulation is similar to the tableau sketched by Sartre in his Critique de la raison dialectique <\/em>where, working on Marx\u2019s model of class in itself<\/em> and class for itself<\/em>, he shows the transition of the humans from their existence in series<\/em> (isolated, not recognising each other, not communicating each other) to that in groups<\/em> (already communicating but only temporarily recognising each other) and in organisations<\/em> (demonstrating their class conscience, but jeopardised by the \u2013 Sartre thought then that it\u2019s inherent \u2013 bureaucratisation<\/em> of all type of organisations, namely the distancing of their leadership from the slogans of consistent social transformation, and their explicit assumption of class consensus<\/em>).<\/p>\n However, we must to worry: only few \u201cyellow vests\u201d have showed the above coagulation. Most of them seem to floating in the track dug by the wheels of the dominant ideology: \u201cwe are neither left nor right, we are the people\u201d, as if<\/em> \u201cthe people\u201d would surpass class oppositions.\u00a0 But just this position \u2013 in fact, one of both extreme-right and self-destructive \u2013 of \u201cavoiding the left-wing goals and not competing the good reforms prepared by the government, because the movement of the vests is only a citizen one\u201d[34]<\/a> is giving them the final shot.<\/p>\n At the same time, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d diverge concerning their future behaviour:<\/p>\n this divergence being not only a normal moment of their internal debate, but also the sign of divergence related to the choice of a revolutionary way<\/em> and thus, the sign of the immense difficulty of surpassing the habitual fear of independent way in order to dislocating the existing rules<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n And if the \u201cyellow vests\u201d continue only to manifest (by showing all the above mentioned shortcomings, including because of the na\u00efve hope but also counterproductive blindness of some \u201cleft-wing\u201d intellectuals who do not mention them), the present \u201corganic crisis<\/em>\u201d of the hegemony of the dominant class \u2013 with the disarticulation of the ways and institutions assuring the relative social cohesion of society, and with the loss of authority of all the institutions (showing their arbitrary behaviour, including their reinforcement, towards the legal one, and the increasing role of repression, including the imposition of the state of exception[39]<\/a>) \u2013 does not transform into a \u201crevolutionary crisis<\/em>\u201d that supposes just the efficient level of organisation of the ruled[40]<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n Once more, from a descriptive sociological standpoint, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d represent the lower strata of the middle class, those which bear the casualization <\/em>and impoverishment<\/em> generated by the reduction of the post-war welfare state, the difference between these lower middle strata and the classical working class submitted to the same rules and policies being already ungraspable<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n From an activist sociological viewpoint, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d emphasize that, when the different class organizations<\/em> \u2013 in parties and unions \u2013 do no longer work<\/em>, i.e. when the bureaucracies from the leadership of these organizations have deceived their members, the need of independent<\/em> (from these bureaucracies) organisation<\/strong> is essential and hence the need of radical change <\/em>of society<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Indeed and inherently \u2013 and letting here aside the political common hate towards Macron, a political symbol<\/em> of both the upper strata and the \u201cneutral\u201d technocracy that implements their goals[41]<\/a> \u2013 the \u201cyellow vests\u201d began<\/em> their revolt in the name of some demands related to internal tax economic policies[42]<\/a>. But some of them<\/em><\/strong> quickly enlarged their pattern \u2013 from demands to clear objectives<\/em>: though these ones refer to internal policies, they are intertwined with the international <\/em>politics (as in the document manifesto for a constituent assembly)[43]<\/a>. In this manifesto, an interesting theorization explains that since the global capitalism has unified the entire world<\/em>, the class struggles too are related and continue each other<\/em><\/strong>. Consequently, the \u201cyellow vests\u201d movement is not \u201canti-globalization\u201d \u2013 as some right-wing analyses said \u2013 and is conscious about and open to the complex character and multi-valence of globalization<\/em>. At the same time, the manifesto declared that \u201cit is not the institutional reforms like the popular initiative referendum which will change the economic order that gives shape to this policy in the service of the predators and exploiters\u201d and, as in the very important document announcing radical<\/em><\/strong> goals[44]<\/a>, the exit from NATO, European Union and euro was underlined, as necessary condition for a new type of politics. In other words, even though these aspects concern only partially the international relations, they already question not only the national but also the international militarist policy, the arm race, the wars<\/em><\/strong>[45]<\/a>, thus how is a restructuring of production toward use values<\/em><\/strong> possible, stating that it is possible only<\/em> outside and opposed to this capitalist politics<\/em><\/strong>. And finally, that only the above strategic transformation will<\/em><\/strong> annul the distinctions of origin and colour which make absurd and harmful divisions between people<\/em><\/strong>[46]<\/a>.<\/p>\n The internationalist <\/em><\/strong>tendency is not \u201cone between many\u201d in the popular movements, only showing the \u201cnormal diversity of points of view\u201d, but the only that emphasises the core<\/em><\/strong>[47]<\/a> of capitalist logic and thus the direction<\/em><\/strong> of the popular attacks against it, in this way substantiating the large solidarity every local anti-capitalist movement needs<\/em>. Indeed, and as long ago the Marxian writings have demonstrated, capitalism is a world<\/em> system[48]<\/a> and its component structural<\/em> <\/strong>relations \u2013 exploitation<\/em><\/strong> of the labour force and competition<\/em><\/strong> between both capital owners and members of the working classes \u2013 take place including on world scale, so another structural relation<\/em> is the one of (as later on they were called) centre<\/em> <\/strong>capitalist countries\/dominant layers and peripheral<\/em> <\/strong>or dependent countries and their labour forces. Accordingly, capitalism is inherently imperialist<\/em><\/strong>, namely capitalism seeks for larger and larger \u201cLebensraum<\/em>\u201d, different colony \n
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