A desventura e a opção pelos pobres. Simone Weil e a Teologia da Libertação latino-americana

Sob muitos aspectos, a vida de Simone Weil e seu pensamento precederam a Teologia da Libertação. Dez anos antes de os padres operários descerem ao submundo da fábrica moderna para proclamar o evangelho da justiça, e trinta anos antes da TdL proclamar que o mais profundo encontro com Deus devia dar-se no rosto do pobre, SW voltou sua atenção para os oprimidos, caminhou com eles nas fábricas, educou-os, trabalhou nos campos, e falou contra a injustiça. Viveu e fez tudo isso sobre a base de uma filosofia que vê a justiça como existente simultaneamente nas esferas política e religiosa, resultando em pontes de diálogo e demandas radicais. A intersecção entre compromisso político e experiência mística constitui a primeira originalidade de SW assim como seu legado para as gerações que a seguiram. Este artigo pretende refletir comparativamente sobre as convergências entre a vida e o pensamento de SW e as propostas da TdL latino-americana, que ganharam o espaço público nos anos 70 e mudaram a face da Igreja e da sociedade latino-americanas. No século XXI, quando o desencantamento com a política ameaça alienar os seres humanos, transformando-os de seres pensantes em sujeitos consumidores, parece-nos que o legado de SW pode ajudar a reviver e reeditar a inevitável e fecunda tensão entre fé e vida, mística e prática, que sempre acompanhou a civilização judeu-cristã em seu itinerário e sua configuração.Abstract: In many aspects the life and thought of Simone Weil preceded the Theology of Liberation. Ten years before the priest-workers went down to the underworld of the modern factory to proclaim the Gospel of justice and thirty years before the Theology of Liberation proclaimed that the encounter with God should happen in the poor’s face, SW turned her attention to the oppressed, walked with them in the factories, instructed them, worked in the fields and spoke against injustice. She experienced and carried out all this on the basis of a philosophy that sees justice as existing simultaneously in the political and religious spheres leading to bridges of dialogue and radical demands. The intersection between political commitment and mystical experience is the most important original trait in SW’s work and her legacy for the generations that followed. This article intends to reflect comparatively about the convergence between SW’s life and thought and the proposals of the Latin American Theology of Liberation. In the 21st century, when the disenchantment with politics threatens to alienate the human beings, turning them from thinking beings to consumerist subjects, we feel that SW’s legacy can help to revive and to restore the inevitable and fecund tension between faith and life, mysticism and practice that always accompanied the Jewish-Christian civilization in its itinerary and in its configuration.

The “Establishment”, the “Élites”, and the “People”

In this paper, I discuss the attempt by all right-wing populist parties to create, on the one hand, the ‘real’ and ‘true’ people; and on the other, the ‘élites’ or ‘the establishment’ who are excluded from the true demos. Such divisions, as will be elaborated in detail, have emerged in many societies over centuries and decades. A brief example of the arbitrary construction of opposing groups illustrates the intricacies of such populist reasoning. Furthermore, I pose the question why such divisions resonate so well in many countries? I argue that – apart from a politics of fear (Wodak 2015) – much resentment is evoked which could be viewed as both accompanying as well as a reaction to the disenchantment with politics and the growing inequalities in globalized capitalist societies.

Coleridge as Editor: The Watchman and the Friend

This article examines the career of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as editor of The Watchman and The Friend. It suggests that although these journals were produced in very different political circumstances by a man whose own political views had also changed profoundly, they both arose out of, and sought to address, the feeling of disenchantment with politics by appealing to fixed principles. These journals injected high moral purpose, historical perspective, and philosophical reflection into political debate in order to give strength to those whose millenarian hopes had not been realized.

The religious factor in the reification of “neo-ethnic” identities in Kyrgyzstan

This paper studies how religions, Islam in particular, play a part in the attempted reifications of “neo-ethnic” identities in Kyrgyzstan, a Turkic-speaking republic with a nomadic tradition and a Muslim majority (Hanafî Sunni Islam). In a context characterized by brutal transformations (decline in living standards, widening social inequalities, etc.) and by an increasingly failing central state whose autocratic rule appears ineffective, Islam intervenes as a paradoxical resource that is subjected to contrary uses. The traditional social link between collective identity and Islam is in fact reinvested ideologically within the framework of the new state construction. As a result a key question is what function the re-emergence of religion on the Kyrgyz political scene fulfils, especially considering broad disenchantment with politics. Islam is first re-emphasized as a national element by the authorities and, in the process, it becomes the subject of a drive towards territorialization that aims at erasing any transnational and/or pan-Islamist dimension from this universalist religion. Yet Islam and ethnicity are reinvested again in a new mode, the mode of subjectivization of religious belief, which gives rise, outside state control, to overlapping and often contradicting Islamic identities.

Tomorrow’s Leaders?

Using a mass survey of young members of 15 parties in six European democracies, this article explores their motivations, perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. In a context of general disenchantment with politics and febrile participation, particularly among young citizens, this article explains why a large number of youngsters still decide to get involved in one of the most traditional forms of activism: party membership. The study uses a comparative survey of 2,919 young party members ages 18 to 25 and shows that they fit into three categories: moral-, social-, and professional-minded. Young party members significantly differ in terms of their perceptions, preferences, behavior, and desired future involvement. The findings shed unprecedented light on the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s political leaders, a subgroup of professional-minded young party members who distinguish themselves from the majority of ideologically driven, moral-minded activists and some less motivated, disciplined, and reliable social-minded members.