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For those of you across the pond bemoaning the lack of choice in 2024, nota bene: for one seat in the upcoming assembly election, my local suburban Paris district (pop. 112,000) has 12 candidates, a list that includes 3 fascists, 2 Trotskyists, 2 Frexitists and 1 animalist.
The array of left to right offers a candidate in every shade of radical, with versions of solutions from ‘tax the rich’ to ‘stop the taxes’. As the political groups change their names every election, they are color-coded: red (hammer and sickle, ‘Urgent Revolution!’), blue (Reconquest, Re-Standing, Re-Assemble, all aim to close the borders to immigration), and green (defend the planet and respect the animals). There are three candidates who did not submit their program to the official list and have no online presence.
In the center, with intelligence and integrity, is a candidate who notes: People, we have to learn to compromise. Natalia Pouzyreff has served in the National Assembly since 2017, she understands that governing works only when different interests are brought together for the greater good.
But can France master the skill? The center is in the position of the Feuillants, the moderates of the 1790s (several of their leaders were veterans of the American Revolution, including the Marquis de Lafayette). Their consideration of new ideas did not go far enough for the radical Jacobins; their conservative affection for the existing order was not strong enough for the Girondins. They were trampled in the rush to embrace exciting new ideas, and cut off the heads of the old ones.
France is on its Fifth Republic, installed in 1958, a boomer republic, perhaps in need of renewal and restructuring. But what seems eternal in France is the fracturing of political opinion into nuances. In the first round we will vote for the candidate closest to our beliefs; in the second round we will vote against the candidate we most despise.
Reasonable compromise used to be a sign of maturity and respect. Could we see a revival of it on both sides of the Atlantic?
Post-election update: my little district voted 44% for Natalia Pouzyreff in the first round (among 12 candidates) and 54% in the second and final round (among 3 candidates). She was re-elected to the assembly in the overall precinct with 48% of the vote, a large majority. So here, at least, the center held. Now it has the hard work of coalition-building ahead of it.
The 150th anniversary of the publication of Little Women got a bit of attention this year, and I could not remember having read it. The book, by Louisa May Alcott, is considered a classic in the canon of books that young women must read, so I picked up a copy I have had on my shelf for many years. It is a 1912 edition, given to my mother by her mother, and possibly by her mother before that. The women in my family tend to be bookish.
Read MoreTime has a way of collapsing into itself on Malta. The country is a group of four islands – Malta, the largest; Gozo, also inhabited; and then the tiny, uninhabited Comino and Filfia – that remain of an ancient land bridge between the Italian boot and the Carthaginian peninsula of Tunisia.
Read MoreIf ever there was a Western for our times, it is Godless. As a genre, a Western allows any story to be told, as long as there is a struggle between at least two forces set on an open horizon, because the cowboy will be moving on at the end. Western films are Frederick Jackson Turner’s theory of American identity turned into a fictional narrative. Mobility is the master key.
Read MoreFeeling dystopic ? It’s a great word, comes from the opposite of utopia, or the imaginary ideal place. Dystopia thus is the imaginary worst place. The after-the-event place. If you’re feeling dystopic these days, you have lots of company. I know some people who think everything will be fine, but I know more people who are preparing for catastrophe. (Note the poetry, dystopic, catastrophic, philosophic. The Greeks met the Romans, and then…)
Read MoreAgain, yesterday, the question. This time from a Belgian, but it has also come from French, Italians, Spaniards. How can someone like Donald Trump possibly have a chance at being president of the United States? There is, of course, no easy answer. Here are some of the reasons I offer, and maybe you have some more to lend me. An American living abroad during election season is always in need of explanatory material.
Read MoreI arrived home to the latest episode of tragedy in Israel, of two sides so entrenched in their prejudice that they prefer murder to negotiation. The comparison arises naturally, as the language from Israel is exactly that of Mississippi 50 years ago. “They” can’t be trusted, “they” are out to get us, “they” will destroy “our” culture.
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