NOTICIAS AL 8/09/07

Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?

Switzerland is known as a haven of peace and neutrality. But today it is home to a new extremism that has alarmed the United Nations. Proposals for draconian new laws that target the country's immigrants have been condemned as unjust and racist. A poster campaign, the work of its leading political party, is decried as xenophobic. Has Switzerland become Europe's heart of darkness? By Paul Vallely

Published: 07 September 2007

At first sight, the poster looks like an innocent children's cartoon. Three white sheep stand beside a black sheep. The drawing makes it looks as though the animals are smiling. But then you notice that the three white beasts are standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep is kicking the black one off the flag, with a crafty flick of its back legs.

The poster is, according to the United Nations, the sinister symbol of the rise of a new racism and xenophobia in the heart of one of the world's oldest independent democracies.

A worrying new extremism is on the rise. For the poster – which bears the slogan "For More Security" – is not the work of a fringe neo-Nazi group. It has been conceived – and plastered on to billboards, into newspapers and posted to every home in a direct mailshot – by the Swiss People's Party (the Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP) which has the largest number of seats in the Swiss parliament and is a member of the country's coalition government.

With a general election due next month, it has launched a twofold campaign which has caused the UN's special rapporteur on racism to ask for an official explanation from the government. The party has launched a campaign to raise the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to reintroduce into the penal code a measure to allow judges to deport foreigners who commit serious crimes once they have served their jail sentence.

But far more dramatically, it has announced its intention to lay before parliament a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 to be deported as soon as sentence is passed.

It will be the first such law in Europe since the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft – kin liability – whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their crimes and punished equally.

The proposal will be a test case not just for Switzerland but for the whole of Europe, where a division between liberal multiculturalism and a conservative isolationism is opening up in political discourse in many countries, the UK included.

SWISS TRAINS being the acme of punctuality, the appointment was very precise. I was to meet Dr Ulrich Schlüer – one of the men behind the draconian proposal – in the restaurant at the main railway station in Zürich at 7.10pm. As I made my way through the concourse, I wondered what Dr Schlüer made of this station of hyper-efficiency and cleanliness that has a smiling Somali girl selling pickled herring sandwiches, a north African man sweeping the floor, and a black nanny speaking in broken English to her young Swiss charge. The Swiss People's Party's attitude to foreigners is, shall we say, ambivalent.

A quarter of Switzerland's workers – one in four, like the black sheep in the poster – are now foreign immigrants to this peaceful, prosperous and stable economy with low unemployment and a per capita GDP larger than that of other Western economies. Zürich has, for the past two years, been named as the city with the best quality of life in the world.

What did the nanny think of the sheep poster, I asked her. "I'm a guest in this country," she replied. "It's best I don't say."

Dr Schlüer is a small affable man. But if he speaks softly he wields a big stick. The statistics are clear, he said, foreigners are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. "In a suburb of Zürich, a group of youths between 14 and 18 recently raped a 13-year-old girl," he said. "It turned out that all of them were already under investigation for some previous offence. They were all foreigners from the Balkans or Turkey. Their parents said these boys are out of control. We say: 'That's not acceptable. It's your job to control them and if you can't do that you'll have to leave'. It's a punishment everyone understands."

It is far from the party's only controversial idea. Dr Schlüer has launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the building of Muslim minarets. In 2004, the party successfully campaigned for tighter immigration laws using the image of black hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports. And its leading figure, the Justice Minister, Christoph Blocher, has said he wants to soften anti-racism laws because they prevent freedom of speech.

Political opponents say it is all posturing ahead of next month's general election. Though deportation has been dropped from the penal code, it is still in force in administrative law, says Daniel Jositsch, professor of penal law at Zurich University. "At the end of the day, nothing has changed, the criminal is still at the airport and on the plane."

With astute tactics, the SVP referendum restricts itself to symbolic restitution. Its plan to deport entire families has been put forward in parliament where it has little chance of being passed. Still the publicity dividend is the same. And it is all so worrying to human rights campaigners that the UN special rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diène, warned earlier this year that a "racist and xenophobic dynamic" which used to be the province of the far right is now becoming a regular part of the democratic system in Switzerland.

Dr Schlüer shrugged. "He's from Senegal where they have a lot of problems of their own which need to be solved. I don't know why he comes here instead of getting on with that."

Such remarks only confirm the opinions of his opponents. Mario Fehr is a Social Democrat MP for the Zürich area. He says: "Deporting people who have committed no crime is not just unjust and inhumane, it's stupid. Three quarters of the Swiss people think that foreigners who work here are helping the economy. We have a lot of qualified workers – IT specialists, doctors, dentists." To get rid of foreigners, which opponents suspect is the SVP's real agenda, "would be an economic disaster".

Dr Schlüer insists the SVP is not against all foreigners. "Until war broke out in the Balkans, we had some good workers who came from Yugoslavia. But after the fighting there was huge influx of people we had a lot of problems with. The abuse of social security is a key problem. It's estimated to cost £750m a year. More than 50 per cent of it is by foreigners."

There is no disguising his suspicion of Islam. He has alarmed many of Switzerland's Muslims (some 4.3 per cent of the 7.5 million population) with his campaign to ban the minaret. "We're not against mosques but the minaret is not mentioned in the Koran or other important Islamic texts. It just symbolises a place where Islamic law is established." And Islamic law, he says, is incompatible with Switzerland's legal system.

To date there are only two mosques in the country with minarets but planners are turning down applications for more, after opinion polls showed almost half the population favours a ban. What is at stake here in Switzerland is not merely a dislike of foreigners or a distrust of Islam but something far more fundamental. It is a clash that goes to the heart of an identity crisis which is there throughout Europe and the US. It is about how we live in a world that has changed radically since the end of the Cold War with the growth of a globalised economy, increased immigration flows, the rise of Islam as an international force and the terrorism of 9/11. Switzerland only illustrates it more graphically than elsewhere.

Switzerland is so stark an example because of the complex web of influences that find their expression in Ulrich Schlüer and his party colleagues.

He is fiercely proud of his nation's independence, which can be traced back to a defensive alliance of cantons in 1291. He is a staunch defender of its policy of armed neutrality, under which Switzerland has no standing army but all young men are trained and on standby; they call it the porcupine approach – with millions of individuals ready to stiffen like spines if the nation is threatened.

Linked to that is its system of direct democracy where many key decisions on tax, education, health and other key areas are taken at local level.

"How direct democracy functions is a very sensitive issue in Switzerland," he says, explaining why he has long opposed joining the EU. "To the average German, the transfer of power from Berlin to Brussels didn't really affect their daily lives. The transfer of power from the commune to Brussels would seriously change things for the ordinary Swiss citizen."

Switzerland has the toughest naturalisation rules in Europe. To apply, you must live in the country legally for at least 12 years, pay taxes, and have no criminal record. The application can still be turned down by your local commune which meets to ask "Can you speak German? Do you work? Are you integrated with Swiss people?"

It can also ask, as one commune did of 23-year-old Fatma Karademir – who was born in Switzerland but who under Swiss law is Turkish like her parents – if she knew the words of the Swiss national anthem, if she could imagine marrying a Swiss boy and who she would support if the Swiss football team played Turkey. "Those kinds of questions are outside the law," says Mario Fehr. "But in some more remote villages you have a problem if you're from ex-Yugoslavia."

The federal government in Berne wants to take the decision out of the hands of local communities, one of which only gave the vote to women as recently as 1990. But the government's proposals have twice been defeated in referendums.

The big unspoken fact here is how a citizen is to be defined. "When a Swiss woman who has emigrated to Canada has a baby, that child automatically gets citizenship," Dr Schlüer says. But in what sense is a boy born in Canada, who may be brought up with an entirely different world view and set of values, more Swiss than someone like Fatma Karademir who has never lived anywhere but Switzerland?

The truth is that at the heart of the Swiss People's Party's vision is a visceral notion of kinship, breeding and blood that liberals would like to think sits very much at odds with the received wisdom of most of the Western world. It is what lies behind the SVP's fear of even moderate Islam. It has warned that because of their higher birth rates Muslims would eventually become a majority in Switzerland if the citizenship rules were eased. It is what lies behind his fierce support for the militia system.

To those who say that Germany, France, Italy and Austria are nowadays unlikely to invade, he invokes again the shadow of militant Islam. "The character of war is changing. There could be riots or eruptions in a town anywhere in Switzerland. There could be terrorism in a financial centre."

The race issue goes wider than politics in a tiny nation. "I'm broadly optimistic that the tide is moving in our direction both here and in other countries across Europe, said Dr Schlüer. "I feel more supported than criticised from outside."

The drama which is being played out in such direct politically incorrect language in Switzerland is one which has repercussions all across Europe, and wider.

Neutrality and nationality

* Switzerland has four national languages – German, Italian, French and Romansh. Most Swiss residents speak German as their first language.

* Switzerland's population has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 7.5 million in 2006. The population has risen by 750,000 since 1990.

* Swiss nationality law demands that candidates for Swiss naturalisation spend a minimum of years of permanent, legal residence in Switzerland, and gain fluency in one of the national languages.

* More than 20 per cent of the Swiss population, and 25 per cent of its workforce, is non-naturalised.

* At the end of 2006, 5,888 people were interned in Swiss prisons. 31 per cent were Swiss citizens – 69 per cent were foreigners or asylum-seekers.

* The number of unauthorised migrant workers currently employed is estimated at 100,000.

Thirty years: difference in life expectancy between the world's rich and poor peoples

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

Published: 07 September 2007

Life expectancy in the richest countries of the world now exceeds the poorest by more than 30 years, figures show. The gap is widening across the world, with Western countries and the growing economies of Latin America and the Far East advancing more rapidly than Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Average life expectancy in Britain and similar countries of the OECD was 78.8 in 2000-05, an increase of more than seven years since 1970-75 and almost 30 years over the past century. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy has increased by just four months since 1970, to 46.1 years.

Narrowing this "health gap" will involve going beyond the immediate causes of disease – poverty, poor sanitation and infection – to tackle the "causes of the causes" – the social hierarchies in which people live, the Global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health says in a report.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, chairman of the commission established by the World Health Organisation in 2005, who first coined the term "status syndrome", said social status was the key to tackling health inequalities worldwide.

In the 1980s, in a series of ground-breaking studies among Whitehall civil servants, Professor Marmot showed that the risk of death among those on the lower rungs of the career ladder was four times higher than those at the top, and that the difference was linked with the degree of control the individuals had over their lives.

He said yesterday that the same rule applied in poorer countries. If people increased their status and gained more control over their lives they improved their health because they were less vulnerable to the economic and environmental threats.

"When people think about those in poor countries they tend to think about poverty, lack of housing, sanitation and exposure to infectious disease. But there is another issue, the social gradient in health which I called status syndrome. It is not just those at the bottom of the hierarchy who have worse health; it is all the way along the scale. Those second from the bottom have worse health than those above them but better health than those below."

The interim report of the commission, in the online edition of The Lancet, says the effects of status syndrome extend from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy, with Swedish adults holding a PhD having a lower death rate than those with a master's degree. The study says: "The gradient is a worldwide occurrence, seen in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. It means we are all implicated."

The result is that even within rich countries such as Britain there are striking inequalities in life expectancy. The poorest men in Glasgow have a life expectancy of 54, lower than the average in India. The answer, the report says, is empowerment, of individuals, communities and whole countries. "Technical and medical solutions such as medical care are without doubt necessary. But they are insufficient."

Professor Marmot said: "We talk about three kinds of empowerment. If people don't have the material necessities – food to eat, clothes for their children – they cannot be empowered. The second kind is psycho-social empowerment: more control over their lives. The third is political empowerment: having a voice."

The commission's final report, to be published next May, will identify the ill effects of low status and make recommendations for how they can be tackled.

In Britain a century ago, infant mortality among the rich was about 100 per 1,000 live births compared with 250 per 1,000 among the poor, a rate similar to that in Sierra Leone

Infant mortality is still twice as high among the poor in Britain, but the rates have come down dramatically to 7 per 1,000 among the poor and 3.5 among the rich. Professor Marmot said: "We have made dramatic progress, but this is not about abolishing the rankings – there will always be hierarchies – but by identifying the ill effects of hierarchies we can make huge improvements."

A ray of hope from the street vendors of Ahmedabad

The women street vendors of Ahmedabad, India, have peddled their wares for generations, rising at dawn to buy flowers, fruit and vegetables from wholesalers in the markets before fanning out across the city. They frequently needed to borrow money, faced punitive rates of interest and were routinely harassed and evicted from their vending sites by local authorities.

They were a typical example of disempowered women, prey to the evils of debt, loss of livelihood and ill health, until they campaigned to improve their status.

With help from the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (Sewa), the vegetable sellers and growers set up their own wholesale vegetable shop, cutting out the middlemen who had exploited them. They also organised childcare, set up a bank for credit and petitioned for slum upgrading.

To overcome possible health crises, when poor women frequently had to sell their possessions to raise money for treatment, Sewa set up a health insurance scheme for them.

Emboldened by their links with Sewa, the vegetable sellers campaigned for the local authority to recognise them formally and strengthen their status by issuing street vending licences and identity cards, giving them security of employment. The campaign started in Gujarat and went all the way to the Supreme Court, attracting international attention.

The Big Question: Will APEC's climate-change deal amount to anything more than hot air?

By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent

Published: 07 September 2007

Why are we asking this now?

The 21 members of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) are holding their annual summit in Sydney this week. With the world's top three greenhouse gas polluters (China, the US and Russia) present, climate change is high on the agenda. The subject has been discussed at bilateral talks between the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, and President George Bush, and at a meeting yesterday between Mr Bush and the Chinese President, Hu Jintao. On Sunday, when the forum wraps up, leaders will issue a "Sydney Declaration" on combating climate change.

Isn't APEC supposed to focus on trade?

Yes, and there have been plenty of ministerial-level discussions about tariffs, trade barriers and unfair subsidies. But other regional topics, including security and military cooperation, always come up at APEC gatherings, while trickier issues – allegations that the Chinese military has hacked into the Pentagon's computer network, for instance – hover in the background. Mr Howard wants APEC 2007 to be remembered as the summit that agreed a new global strategy for tackling climate change.

But isn't Howard a climate-change sceptic?

He was, for more than a decade. Australia is one of only two industrialised nations – the other being the US – that has declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Mr Howard pooh-poohed last year's landmark report on global warming by the British economist Sir Nicholas Stern and he refused to meet Al Gore when the latter visited Australia to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

But with his country now in the grip of the worst drought on record, Mr Howard has belatedly woken up to the reality of climate change on his doorstep. There is also an election pending, and the Prime Minister, who is languishing in the polls, has realised that many Australians care deeply about this issue. The APEC summit, as well as raising Mr Howard's international profile, is an opportunity for him to convince voters that he really cares, too, and wants to act.

How can a Kyoto refusenik provide leadership?

Mr Howard considers Kyoto a flawed and outdated tool for addressing climate change, since it does not require India and China, two of the world's biggest polluters, to cut emissions. He has called the treaty "top-down, prescriptive, legalistic and Eurocentric", and said it "simply won't fly in a rising Asia-Pacific region".

Instead, Mr Howard wants a new global framework that embraces China, India and the US, to take effect when the first phase of Kyoto expires in 2012. Australia was the driving force behind the establishment of a regional group, the Asia-Pacifc Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which focuses on the development and transfer of clean energy technology, but sets no caps on carbon emissions. Australians remain the biggest per capita energy consumers on the planet.

Are other APEC members willing to play ball?

The main obstacle is China, which is opposed to a declaration committing its signatories to setting energy efficiency targets. President Hu yesterday reiterated his view that the United Nations is the best forum to tackle climate change, and that wealthy nations should bear a greater share of the responsibility for cutting global emissions.

China's perspective is shared by other developing APEC member nations, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which place a priority on domestic economic growth. The Malaysian Trade Minister, Rafidah Aziz, said yesterday that APEC "is not the place to discuss the whys and wherefores of climate change', while the Philippines President, Gloria Arroyo, declared that APEC should not be usurping the UN's key role. As for Mr Bush, he has sung the praises of nuclear power, and also of Mr Howard, praising him for his "leadership on climate change".

So what is the Sydney Declaration going to say?

With the split between rich and developing nations as entrenched as ever, the wording of the final statement is still being hammered out by officials. But Australia, which has most to gain from a declaration of substance, only wants member countries to agree to commit themselves to "aspirational" targets. Those targets would be aimed at improving energy efficiency, increasing forest cover in the region and accelerating the exchange of clean energy technologies.

The declaration is not expected to include any long-term goals for reducing carbon emissions, nor will it be in any way binding. That falls far short of Mr Howard's goal, pre-APEC, of setting out a new vision for a post-Kyoto framework. It also makes his prediction that the summit would be "one of the most important international gatherings of leaders to discuss climate since the 1992 Rio Conference" sound decidedly hollow.

What does Sydney think of the Declaration?

Sydneysiders are unimpressed with all things APEC, since their laid-back harbourside city has been transformed into a fortress, thanks to a 9ft high fence that effectively cuts the city centre in two. Businesses located inside the three mile-long barrier – dubbed the Great Wall of Sydney, or the Rabble-Proof Fence – are suffering losses; tourist landmarks including the Opera House have been temporarily off-limits, helicopters whir constantly overhead, and the traffic is a nightmare.

Where does this leave prospects post-APEC?

On 24 September the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, will host a conference of a hundred heads of government in New York. Three days later, a gathering in Washington, organised by Mr Bush, will bring together the leaders of the world's 15 biggest economies, along with UN and European Union representatives. Both will feed into a meeting in December on the Indonesian island of Bali of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the key UN negotiating body, which agreed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998.

All of these talkfests have the same aim: to thrash out a framework to replace Kyoto. But the same north-south split witnessed in Sydney will have to be overcome. As one Philippines delegate at APEC said yesterday: "We sleep on the same bed, but we have different dreams."

So are those hoping for decisive action going to be disappointed?

Yes...

* 'Aspirational' targets don't mean anything. Only unequivocal commitment counts

* In spite of all the rhetoric, the gulf between the developed and developing world remains

* APEC countries remain more concerned about economic growth than about climate change

No...

* Australia needs to associate itself with real progress on climate change, if only for domestic political reasons

* China, which recently overtook the US as the world's biggest polluter, is at least willing to talk

* Even an agreement on energy efficiency targets is a step in the right direction

Two oil executives in shares investigation

By Karen Attwood

Published: 07 September 2007

Shares in the oil and gas exploration company Max Petroleum were suspended yesterday after the company announced that two key executives were under investigation in relation to their share option dealings.

Chief executive Steve Kappelle and chief operating officer Ole Udsen have both been suspended "pending an investigation onto potential breaches of their employment contracts involving the undisclosed receipt of share options".

"The scope of the investigation, however, will not be limited to these matters," the company said. Executive chairman Jim Jeffs and other board members have taken on extra duties for the duration of the inquiry.

The AIM-listed company's share price has been volatile in recent weeks and has fallen from 190p to around 100p in August. It is thought a number of hedge fund investors pulled out in the midst of the credit crisis. Yesterday, its shares closed at 110p, giving Max Petroleum a market capitalisation of £357m.

Although the company could not give further detail on the investigation, the market speculated that the options related to Roxi Petroleum, a group backed by many of the same investors as Max Petroleum, and is Kazakh-focused. The executives were promoted to their current positions in March last year. Mr Kappelle is London-based, while Mr Udsen works at the company's Kazakhstan offices in Almaty.

A spokesman said the inquiry should not impact exploration licences or usual activities.

Max Petroleum was founded in April 2005 with the target of growing into an independent oil and gas exploration and production company, initially focused on Kazakhstan. As of last month, the company was producing 1,800 barrels of oil a day.

Its Almaty office employs 170 staff. The company has been the subject of several bid rumours, and earlier this year it was thought the Russian gas giant Gazprom was running the slide rule over the company.

«Ma la verità cristiana non si impone come un potere esterno»

Papa: «Scienza atea minaccia per l'umanità»

«Se si perde riferimento a Dio le conoscenze della scienza possono diventare terribile minaccia e portare a distruzione del mondo»

STRUMENTI

VERSIONE STAMPABILE

I PIU' LETTI

INVIA QUESTO ARTICOLO

VIENNA (AUSTRIA) - Un duro attacco, inusitato nei toni. Se si perde il riferimento a Dio, «le grandi e meravigliose conoscenze della scienza diventano ambigue: possono aprire prospettive importanti per il bene, per la salvezza dell'uomo, ma anche - lo vediamo - diventare una terribile minaccia, la distruzione dell'uomo e del mondo». Lo ha detto il Papa nell'omelia della messa al Santuario di Mariazell in Austria.

«In passato c'è stata qualche resistenza e ci siamo sentiti soli»

Futuro Ue: «A volte l'Italia si è sentita sola»

Videoconferenza di Napolitano a Cernobbio: l'Unione Europea è viva e vegeta, ma serve maggior coraggio

Con lui sul palco della serata conclusiva ci sarà Stefania Sandrelli

L'omaggio di Venezia a Bernardo Bertolucci

Il regista, che sarà premiato con il "Leone d'oro del 75°", accolto da una standing ovation in Sala Grande

La coppia è seguita dagli studi legali che si occuparono di Carlo e Diana

Henry «gira» 15 milioni alla moglie Claire

Il divorzio più caro della storia del football

L'attaccante del Barcellona innamorato di un'attrice spagnola. L'annuncio della separazione dopo il trasferimento dall'Arsenal

Desfiladero

Jaime Avilés
jamastu@gmail.com

La semana entrante

Desde hoy, todos a la feria del Zócalo

El martes, con AMLO en San Lázaro

La noche del viernes, lunada histórica

Los de Abajo

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez
losylasdeabajo@yahoo.com.mx

Zona de tolerancia

Un movimiento de trabajadoras sexuales organizadas se opone a la construcción de una zona de tolerancia promovida en Apizaco, Tlaxcala, por el presidente municipal Reyes Ruiz Peña. Este proyecto, indican, “es violatorio de todo los derechos de los trabajadores y trabajadoras sexuales”, pues “disfraza” la explotación sexual encabezada por supuestos empresarios y profundiza el tráfico de todo tipo en un espacio propicio para la delincuencia.

Immanuel Wallerstein

La analogía de Vietnam

George W. Bush está mostrando tanto desesperación como mala fe al invocar la analogía con Vietnam para justificar la presencia continuada de Estados Unidos en Irak. Durante mucho tiempo, el gobierno de Bush negó la analogía. Hizo esto por obvias razones. Lo que la mayoría de la gente recuerda de Vietnam es que Estados Unidos fue derrotado, y esta derrota resultó en el debilitamiento del poderío estadunidense en el mundo.

Editorial

Golpismo televisivo

Ante las propuestas legislativas para eliminar la propaganda política pagada en los medios electrónicos, el poder de facto de la televisión y la radio comerciales ha respondido con una campaña de hostigamientos, presiones, amenazas y chantajes contra legisladores federales, y ha emprendido una cruzada de desinformación y envenenamiento de la opinión pública. En un esfuerzo por torpedear los cambios previstos a la legislación electoral, la Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Radio y Televisión (CIRT), encabezada por el duopolio televisivo y hablando en nombre de “los mexicanos”, se ha pronunciado contra la necesaria moralización de la autoridad electoral y contra la remoción de los consejeros del IFE que, con su actuación turbia y parcial, llevaron a ese organismo a una sima de desprestigio.

En vivo y con orquesta

Si bien el concierto de Carlos Santana en Montreux ocurrió el 15 de julio de 2004, apenas llega a México y algo similar ocurre con otro devedé de valía inconmensurable: Queen. Live in Japan. 1985, un concierto impresionante realizado en el Estadio Nacional Yoyogi de aquel país y que presenta a ese grupo inglés, que es una impronta, en toda su plenitud.

Juan Gabriel lo inmortalizó al componerle el tema homónimo en 1980

Derriban el mítico bar Noa Noa; construirán ahí un estacionamiento

Dañado por un incendio, el famoso salón permaneció abandonado desde 1994

Rubén Villalpando (Corresponsal)

Ilán Semo

Baudrillard y lo político

“En todas partes –escribe Jean Baudrillard en La seducción, o los abismos superficiales– se intenta producir sentido, hacer significar el mundo, hacerlo visible. Sin embargo, el peligro que corremos no es su carencia: al contrario, el sentido nos desborda y perecemos en él. Cada vez caen más cosas al abismo del sentido, y cada vez hay menos que mantengan el encanto de la apariencia.” ¿No es acaso paradójico que Baudrillard haya terminado sus días con una visión casi opuesta a la que en los años 60 lo alentó a emprender una crítica a la sociedad de consumo como un “espectáculo interminable de las apariencias”? ¿No era la crítica a la sociedad moderna como un “fatigoso intercambio de apariencias” lo que derrotaba cualquier intento de producir sentido?