45th Edition – Undiscovered – Pike & Hurricane

Les Gilets Jaunes: A Discovery of Revolution

Merle Emrich — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 20:16:18 +0000

Since the beginning of the gilets jaunes (‘yellow vests’) movement, a response to Macron’s planned fuel tax hike as environmental measure, it has become clear that the protests are not directed against green policies. The increasingly expensive fuel prices were merely the drop that made the barrel of social injustices overfull. In the wake of this revolt against neo-liberal policies references to the French Revolution of 1789 peak through in the discourse of newspapers and on the streets. But who – or rather why – are the gilets jaunes, and what do they have in common with 230-year old revolutionaries?

Do You Hear the People Sing?

Mass protests and revolts can be confusing, especially when they are led by a diverse, leaderless movement such as the gilets jaunes, leaving many underlying structures undiscovered until, with time, they surface. What first had been perceived as opposition to rising fuel prices, soon revealed much larger magma chambers of anger at social injustices, disillusionment with party politics, and dissatisfaction with France’s ‘arrogant’ ‘president of the rich’.

The existence of the people’s frustration and its eventual eruption should not have come as a surprise, however. The prelude to the gilets jaunes already began in 1983, when Mitterand’s government imposed austerity policies leaving the people worried about the state of their social protections. Since then the French welfare system has been increasingly dismantled by the following governments in which the Macron administration is merely the latest one.

‘The first social law is therefore the one that guarantees all members of society the means of existence’ – Maximilien de Robespierre

All the same, Macron having been elected by many as the lesser of two evils and his failure to emphasise with the regular people have not contributed to defusing concerns. During his election campaign, Macron portrayed himself as a politician different to the established career politicians of previous governments. Once elected, he – not very surprisingly – turned out to be just one more privileged mainstream politician by instantaneously amending the wealth tax (ISF) and continuing on the path of neo-liberal policies.

His unfortunate history of condescending statements towards working class people such as ‘You don’t scare me with your T-shirt. The best way of paying for a suit is to work’, or that it were easy to find a job if only one tried since ‘[e]verywhere I go people say to me that they are looking for staff’ have not helped in the least to create an image of Macron as the people’s man. In fact, especially in rural areas there is a lack of employment opportunities and Macron’s austerity project includes the cutting of 100 000 more jobs in the public sector. The people feel overlooked and ignored by Paris, and it is not only the poor who struggle with high prices of i.e. fuel but also the middle class.

We no longer want this system of exploitation.

We no longer want people having to sleep on the streets.

We can no longer count our money, be in debt by the tenth of the month.

And we are millions who are in this situation.

(Gilets Jaunes leaflet)

The Figure of he King and Rhetoric of Revolution

The gilets jaunes movement, sparked by an attempted environmental policy directed at those who already have troubles making ends meet instead of the actors mainly responsible for pollution, the big industries, is a heterogeneous mass. While uniting people with different backgrounds and expectations without a clearly defined leadership, and in part being targeted by right-wing groups seeking to use it as platform for their ideology, the protests have some clear general objectives. Their demands range from higher wages and social security payments over better (free) public services and a fairer tax system including the reintroduction of the ISF to more direct democracy and the resignation of Macron.

If you go to the city centre of any French city on a Saturday you will encounter a crowd of people with drums and flags, many of them wearing their high-visibility vests. And if you stop listening to the chants of ‘ Macron! Démission!’ (Macron! Resignation!) you might every now and then pick up a reference to the French Revolution. And indeed, since the beginning of the protest comparisons to the revolution of 1789 have multiplied. The yellow vests that the movement owes its name to involuntarily reminds of the sans-culottes: the ‘culottes’ (pantaloons) were a symbol of aristocracy in 18th century society, thus, the sans-culotte represented the anti-elitist movement of that time much like the gilets jaunes with their high-visibility vests which can be seen not only as a sign of distress (used e.g. in the event of a car accident), but also as a symbol of the working class, are the French anti-elitist movement of today.

And even though the socio-economic circumstances of today and 230 years ago are not the same, the themes are. Both the French Revolution and the current wave protests can be linked to an anger over high living costs (indirect taxes on i.e. salt then causing the price of bread to sore, Macron’s fuel tax now) and favouritism towards the wealthiest 1%, as well as dissatisfaction with a king/ president who is out of touch with the regular people. Or as a gilet jaune put it: ‘This is the beginning of the revolution. We are not in 1789, we’re not going to cut off heads but we want that Macron resigns […] In 1789, the aristocracy was about 1% of the population. That is the same percentage that the ISF applies to.’

Funnily enough, Macron is reported to have said that ‘in French politics what is absent is the figure of the king which I think basically the French people did not want dead.’ He could not have been more wrong. After all, the French Revolution, although France relapsed into authoritarianism with Napoleon, endowed the people with sovereignty. Sovereignty in so far as that they could hold their representatives accountable to guarding social justice and the equality of the people. Moreover, the constitution of 1793 degreed that a law if opposed by at least 10% in half of France would not be adopted. These principles and achievements of the French Revolution – social justice, equality, accountability and more direct democracy – are the objectives of the gilets jaunes. And more pragmatically, according to sociologist and president of the Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Michel Wievorka, the comparison with the revolution provides the protesters with a legitimating rhetoric that every French(wo)man can related to, and that thus unites an otherwise diverse movement.

by Merle Emrich

Photos Credits

Related articles:

Les Gilets Jaunes: The Uncovering of Violence

Photo Essay: A Nation Sees Yellow

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Les Gilets Jaunes: The Uncovering of Violence

Merle Emrich — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 20:00:57 +0000

It is Saturday. A man wearing a yellow high-visibility vest shouts at a group of police officers in riot gear who are speed-walking past: ‘It is us, the gilets jaunes, who are the nice guys!’ One of the officers sarcastically replies: ‘Oh, really?’. Scenes like these are not unusual these days. Since November, the gilets jaunes (‘yellow vests’) are protesting in France; the media shows images of rioting protesters, comparisons of the police nationale with the Gestapo are thrown into the room by protesters. Yet, the story of police violence and riots leaves more to uncover than might be apparent at first glance.

The Same Procedure as Last Saturday? The Same Procedure as Every Saturday!

Since a good three months, the gilets jaunes are protesting all over France leaving the occasional trail of anti-Macron graffiti, destroyed ATMs and broken windows of luxury shops. Their protests follow a similar pattern every Saturday: It starts with a happily chatting and singing crowd gathering at midday. Some bring drums, others flags and banners. As the protest continues the chants calling for Macron’s resignation begin to mix with those directed against the police. Some have brought white roses as a sign of peacefulness, others hold up pictures of bloody faces – the faces of those wounded by the police.

The clashes and destruction that occasionally follow are not the result of an irrational mob, a ‘hateful crowd‘, set out to destroy whatever stands in their way. Of course, there might be some that see vandalism as a sport. But altogether, it is the anger and frustration of those who felt unheard and forgotten for far too long and where exposed to non-physical violence in form of social injustices. It is an anger which now surfaces with the destructive force of a tsunami. The sad thing is that for some physical violence as response to this economic and psychological violence appears to be the only way to be noticed.

It is a shame that the French government did not react until after increasingly violent protests in early December. It seems to confirm that the only way to be heard by those in power is chaos and destruction. It is a shame that the images of the gilets jaunes shown on the news seem to portray little else but this chaos and destruction. And it is a sad commentary on this society which appears to be only interested in the news if it shows violence and scandal.

Scenes From a Protest

Not all of the violence, however, originates from the few gilets jaunes that are prone to destruction. According to government figures, the protests have seen at least 1700 protesters injured and ten dead in the time until early February. The far-left Parti Ouvrier Indépendant (POI, Independent Workers’ Party) speaks of more than 2000 injured protesters, 124 severely wounded gilets jaunes, 20 blinded by LBD 40 flash-balls, 4 hands torn off by GLI-F4 grenades the use of which has been defended by Interior Minister Castaner despite the known mutilating potential of these tear gas and stun grenades.

It does not come as a surprise that these incidents of police violence only spark more anger. That is, once again, not to say that all gilets jaunes are nothing but peaceful, or that those protesters who resort to violence and vandalism should not be held accountable. Neither is it to say that all measures taken by the police and the government are unreasonable. Yet, it certainly prompts questions about limits of state violence and the legitimacy of the use of force by the police.

The group of protesters stands facing the police in full riot gear. There are metres of empty space in between them and, apart from perhaps one or two bottles that shatter in front of the feet of the police, the situation is peaceful. It is impossible to say whether the trigger was a smoke bomb which someone brought, or if the police decided that the protest had gone on long enough, but suddenly more police are coming from the other end of the square and thick clouds of tear gas hang in the air. From now on the protesters are met with tear gas in almost every street, often launched at them from every direction making the air unbreathable. Shortly after sunset a group of protesters, their hands in the air as a sign of peacefulness, heads down a narrow street that is blocked by the police. All of a sudden, the group of police officers charges at them. One of them fires something, perhaps a flash-ball or a stun grenade, into the crowd that turns on their heels and takes flight.

A Stanford Prison Experiment on the Streets

Does that mean then that all cops are indeed bastards? Not quite. As Jérôme Rodrigues, one of the more prominent figures of the gilets jaunes movement said, ¨this violence is applied by the police simply because they are the shield of the powerful that tremble under the pressure of the people.¨ The Stanford prison experiment helps to better understand the link between the protests, the police and violence. While there is an abundance of criticism directed at the experiment and its findings, it nonetheless demonstrates how our environment influences our behaviour and how power can corrupt and provoke extreme actions.

The first important thing to note is that there is a clear power asymmetry between the gilets jaunes and the police. While the protesters usually don’t have anything but makeshift means to protect their mouths, noses and eyes from tear gas, as well as the occasional glass bottle, the police is equipped with professional protective gear including gas masks and shields, batons, water cannons, pepper spray, stun grenades, tear gas and flash-balls. During the experiment about a third of the participants assigned a role as guard began to abuse their power which escalated into degrading behaviour towards the ‘prisoners’. And even those who did not like their role as guard and where thus not prone to abuse their power did not step in. It implies that if there are institutions and structures creating a power imbalance, people can be corrupted by this power and behave in extreme ways which might explain incidents of extreme responses of the police to the gilets jaunes’ protests.

The second idea the Stanford prison experiment suggests, supported by Milgram’s obedience study, is that we behave as we believe we are expected to behave, especially if these expectations come from a superior authority . Thus, police officers using more force than necessary can be traced to obedience towards superior officers or institutions. In such a case it is very likely that the police officers in question do not act out of an intent to hurt anyone but believe in fact that they merely do what is necessary to control the situation.

What transpired in the analysis following the experiment was that a lack of criticism by authorities can be – consciously or subconsciously – interpreted as approval or encouragement and further increase the abuse of power. And indeed, the responses of the French government to the harm caused by flash-balls and stun grenades were either defending the use of them or an outright denying the injuries caused. On February 8 the Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative jurisdiction, furthermore allowed the police to continue launching flash-balls at protesters, despite criticism by human rights organisations such as the Ligue des droits de l’Homme. This decision legitimises the violence against protesters – and not only against those who actually attempt to start a riot but also against those who peacefully exercise their right to protest since a flash-ball launched into a crowd can hit anyone who happens to stand in its way.

While tear-gas and flash-balls are a relatively effective means to disperse protesters – at least temporarily – they don’t do much to appease the situation. Instead they foster more anger and resentment against the government and its tool of state violence, the police. As Louis Boyard, president of the union nationale lycéene (UNL) who was wounded by a flash-ball or grenade, said according to the POI’s newsletter: ‘A government that uses violence against its youth is a government that is scared, it is a government that is close to giving in. […] I will give in neither to violence nor to fear.’

Macron’s Great Mess

Violence against protesters frequently takes place on the street but also in the courts. It finds expression in preventive arrests that reportedly are at times based on nothing more but a slight suspicion, and in France’s new anti-rioting bill that according to critics does not only target rioters but can easily be abused to limit the people’s freedom to protest in general. It is a form of violence that cannot be explained with simplistic answers pointing i.e. at corrupt police. Rather it has its roots in often undiscovered or invisible institutions and power structures that are now brought to light. It is evidence of a government so out of its depth that it hides behind a shield of an instrumentalised police and judiciary apparatus, and which has lost the trust of the people. Yet, repressive responses to the frustration and despair of the gilets jaunes will not calm tempers. Neither will Macron’s grand débat which is seen by some as a PR strategy giving it the nickname grand dégat (‘great mess’). The only sensible thing Macron’s government can do is to take decisive actions that demonstrate a convincing step towards the ordinary people.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Related Articles:

Les Gilets Jaunes: A Discovery of Revolution

Photo Essay: A Nation Sees Yellow

The post Les Gilets Jaunes: The Uncovering of Violence appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

The Undiscovered Female Orgasm

Ana Carvalho — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:46:21 +0000

The title of this article suggests three things: 1. a secret will be revealed to the readers, 2. these article will involve women, 3. some may shy away, others may roll their eyes. But, in any case, we are going to talk about sex. I would like to begin by saying that I am by no means a feminist, nevertheless, for the purpose of writing this article I will use gender lenses and capture an issue that is seldom talked about: the female pleasure.

While 90% of the men said they always orgasm during heterosexual intercourse, 70% of the women said they did not orgasm during heterosexual intercourse. However, scans of the brain during sex show that both man and women have a similar sensory experience of orgasm, are able to perform it at the relative same speed and share the same response when masturbating. So, why do views on gender sexuality differ so much and why does it seem so hard for women to orgasm? And how does the female orgasm differ from the male orgasm?

Science behind orgasm

According to Medical daily, there are four types of nerves connected to the orgasm. The hypogastric nerve sends a signal from the uterus and cervix of women, and the prostate of men to the brain. The pelvic nerves transmit signals from the vagina and cervix. From the rectum for both sexes, the pudendal nerve transmits signals from the clitoris in women and from the scrotum and penis in men. Finally, the vagus nerve transmits the signal from the cervix, uterus, and vagina in women. The point that I’m trying to make here is that there should plenty to choose from when looking for stimulation!

The first stage during this stimulation is called excitement. For women this is characterized by an increase on the blood flow to the genitals, including the erection of the clitoris and the lubrication of the vagina. Produced by the Bartholin glands, located on either side of the vaginal opening. The second stage, plateau, the clitoris becomes hypersensitive and retracts under the clitoral hood. The heartbeat and breathing increase and pleasure signals are sent to the brain, releasing dopamine, producing a similar effect that heroin. During the orgasm the lateral orbitofrontal cortex shuts off, part responsible for feelings of fear and anxiety. John Bancroft, researcher at the Kinse y Institute, described orgasm as the “combination of waves of a very pleasurable sensation and mounting of tensions, culminating in a fantastic sensation and release of tension.” Finally, in the last stage, resolution, the hormone oxytocin which is responsible for feelings of bonding and sleepiness is released. Most men usually are not able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm for more than a couple of minutes, while women can experience multiple orgasms. Wouldn’t this mean that women would have more chances at having orgasms?

Issues in society

Studies refer the problem to a more general and social sphere issue. The way society constructs the idea of female and male sexuality in countries where conservative or fundamentalist values are adopted, the connection between sexuality and state matters are usually more clear. For instance, rituals such as female genital mutilation are still observed in some cultures, and a whole article could be written about what changed in India from embracing sexuality and the kama sutra, to the mystification of “women’s first sexual experience”, and sex in general. This led to the objectification of women, high rates of human trafficking and STDs. This mystification of women’s pleasure is still predominant- even in the west.

In episode three, of Vagina dispatches, Mona and Mae, journalist and film-maker of The Guardian, discuss the female orgasm. One of the most striking observations was when they compared a woman that orgasmed for the first time at 28 to a man in the same situation. For the man, something must be seriously wrong and a hundred studies would have been written about this bizarre case. Nevertheless, for the woman, it would have been unsurprising that even though she was sexually active for a long time, she might not have had an orgasm.

Passive sexual actors

Regarding male pleasure, journalist Shannon Bledsoe pointed out: “As a society, we accept this premise fairly easily when it comes to men and they learn it at a young age. (…) There are endless nicknames for male anatomy and jokes about masturbation; and TV shows, movies, advertisements and porn all cater to their fantasies. “ She goes on talking about women: “Women, on the other hand, appear mostly as the object in these fantasies rather than as subjects.” The fact is that words like man and pleasure are acceptable and sustained in our society but when we put together women and pleasure, we assume that a third party (usually male) is necessarily there. Studies find that women want to “ (…) experience orgasm in this way for the sake of their male partner.” By this I don’t mean to say that orgasm should be the ultimate goal, either for men or women, during intercourse when there is obviously more to it in the underlings of a relationship. The issue that I am presenting here is that women, themselves, prioritize their partner’s pleasure and seem to forget about their own.

Interviews to a group study by Salisbury and Fisher, also showed that women believe it to be man’s responsibility to physically stimulate the female orgasm while woman’s responsibility is to remain in the proper mindset. This would not only bring all the responsibility to the male partner but also make women passive characters in their own sexual lives. Jackson and Scott also remarked that: “male orgasm is… seen as “natural” and inevitable… that of women requires work and, in keeping with the idea of female sexual passivity and male sexual expertise, women’s bodies need to be worked on by the male virtuoso in order to produce orgasm.” This expertise is then translated from “the bed” to society affirming men as the only actor with the necessary skills to govern prosperous society. This in turn generates a male-centric community reproduced from generation to generation.

How to bring down the patriarchy?

In that case, how can women become a more active actor in their sexual lives and, in consequence, in their society? Salisbury and Fisher’s studies highlight three solutions:

Manual clitoral stimulation: Contrary to what women believe, men find manual clitoral stimulation quite encouraging (regardless of who it is performed by).
Communication with the partner: Men have also indicated that communication about lack of female orgasm to be very important. Findings show that the female orgasm is as important for men as their own orgasm and that men are willing to communicate about what arouses their female partners and happy to indulge them.
Women need to focus on their pleasure: The view that a partner has to be a skillful lover in order for the orgasm to occur has negative effects on their self-esteem. With that in mind, women fake orgasms because they are too worried about their partner’s ego. Instead they should focus their attention in the sexual moment and erotic aspects of it, producing fewer cognitive distractions and increasing the likelihood of orgasm.

Who would have thought that the solution for patriarchy would be in loving, knowing and respecting our bodies and on dis-mystifying female sexuality?

by Ana Carvalho

Photo Credits

2 Boticelli, Birth of Venus, Steel Wool, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

illustration by Lucy Han ( in TeenVogue)

artist Stephanie Sarley (taken from Huffpost)

Adam and Eve, by Tamara de Lempicka, 1932, Petit Palais Geneva, Switzerland (from JuaanCaarlos slideshare)

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The Nazi Treasure

Maya Diekmann — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:42:33 +0000

When my sister was living in Argentina a few years back, she, more than once, encountered the myth of the Nazi-Treasure. Does she know where to look? Does she know what exactly to look for? She is German, she must know something. And although South and Central America are known to be popular destinations of refuge for accused Nazi criminals, it turns out their treasure never made it over the big pond. In fact, it never even made it out of Germany.

In February 2012, German authorities made a spectacular discovery. What started out as an investigation for tax evasion against Cornelius Gurlitt, resulted in the finding of over 1,400 works of art that had disappeared over the course of the Nazi art theft. Although an official inventory was never published, the findings include pieces by renowned artists like Picasso, Monet, Liebermann, Matisse and Dürer. A minimum of 300 pieces were declared to belong to the body of Nazi “degenerated” art. The question is, how did this collection of Nazi stolen art art, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, end up in a small apartment in Munich?

An Expensive Ingenious Idea

It is commonly known that Adolf Hitler had a thing for art. Rejected as an artist by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he understood himself to be an unrecognized genius ruling both politics and culture with the power of a true artist. The notion of the genius and the Ingenious Idea, which Hitler largely adopted from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, would become a major influencing factor on the Nazi’s disdain of modern art. According to Schopenhauer, the genius perceives an idea from the phenomenal world. Through technical skill he will manifest this idea into a piece of art and thereby help the ordinary person embrace the idea that is invisible to him normally. Vice versa, in Hitler’s opinion flawed and inferior ideas could also be worked into a painting or sculpture and consequently be internalized by the observer–something that would cause great harm to his perfect Aryan population.

What started out as an ideological move against any non-Aryan artistic idea soon turned into million dollar–or rather Reichsmark–business. Overall, Nazis stole an estimate of one-fifth of all artworks within Europe. Confiscated art, both from museums and private ownership, wasn’t only pilloried but sold to foreign buyers to finance war efforts, or traded for classical artworks Hitler desired for his planned Führermuseum. The business of stolen art caused a boom in the global art market, with artworks confiscated in Germany and German occupied countries ending up in museums and private hands all over Europe and North America.

Monuments Men

The first big Nazi-Treasure was discovered right after the end of the Second World War by the Allied armies’ Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Program, better known as the Monuments Men. The Altaussee salt mine in Austria contained over 12,500 stolen artworks, including 6,577 paintings, 230 sketches and watercolors, 954 illustrations, 173 statues, 1,200 cases of books and more. The MFAA, after a laborious recovery, soon began the long process of returning the stolen pieces of art to their rightful owners. And this is where the first problem arises–figuring out the rightful owner. Whereas the only appropriate thing to do–ethically and according to the ‘Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art’–was return the art to those it had been stolen from, things rarely happened that way. Buyers of stolen art, among them Hitler’s left hand Hermann Goering’s family, successfully claimed art confiscated from the family after the end of the war. Museums are often reluctant to give up pieces which have been claimed by their rightful owners. An example is the legal battle between the family of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy–a descendant from famous classical composer Felix Mendelssohn–and the state of Bavaria. At dispute is Picasso’s ‘Madame Soler’, with an estimated worth of $100 million.

The Burden of the Gurlitt Name

The 2012 Munich discovery hasn’t only revived the legal and historical issues around looted art but also the controversy around the Gurlitt family name. Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, was one of the four art dealers in the Third Reich entrusted with the business of looted art. Being one-quarter Jewish and an aspiring young museum director with a liking for modern art, his relationship with the Nazis couldn’t be more complex. The chance to protect his family and save modern art from destruction by selling it abroad does not hide the fact that Gurlitt profited immensely from his deals, let alone that he knowingly dealt with stolen art. It’s difficult to pin him down as the good or the bad guy, and it is even more difficult to reappraise his deeds through his son, Cornelius. In an interview with him, German news magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ portray Cornelius as a man whose life “has become an infinite loop of remorse and coincidence”, a tragic figure bearing the consequences of his father’s actions. Whether Cornelius was aware of the full dimensions of his father’s business, remains questionable. What the interview does reveal is the intimate relationship of an 80-year-old man, “the heir of a collection with dubious origins”, with long-lost masterpieces of art. It is cases like these, which illustrate the difficulties that come with the restitution process, going far beyond legal issues. How can you ever truly make past injustices right and what if this involves an unjust procedure in the present?

An undeniably positive effect of the Gurlitt discovery is the attention and publicity it has drawn to the issue of stolen art. The Louvre has started to highlight works in their collection suspected of having been looted by the Nazis and then returned to France and the V&A Museum in London has invested in their provenance research. These little improvements initiated by individual museums, however, don’t release governments, above all the German, from facilitating the restitution process. Only if the government stuck to their obligations under the Washington Conference Principles and systematically identified looted art and encouraged pre-war owners to come forward and claim their property, could there be a chance of obliging museums to return objects of questionable nature to their rightful owners.

Even a domestic law in accordance to the Washington Conference Principles would not solve the problem of looted art as a whole. The Principles only apply to looted art in museums and do not concern private ownership, such as the case of Cornelius Gurlitt. So who knows how many more treasures of long-lost art are waiting to be discovered behind the plain doors of an ordinary apartment?

by Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits

IMG_0470A Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973, Jean Louis Mazieres, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Stolen Art, RV1864, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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