Segundo Eric Hobsbawm, isso não existe. E, de quebra, ele comenta os tumultos em Londres no ano passado e o movimento Occupy:

• A voz do som • Campus Party quer ser espaço de inovação • Incompatibilidade total • A erosão da privacidade • Facebook impõe Timeline para todo mundo • De que lado está a oposição à Sopa? • Imagine um filme-show em um cinema-pista-de-dança • Só para fotografar • Tatiana de Mello Dias: Se todo mundo é pirata, pagar pode ser obrigação • A briga do Megabox, Wikileaks na televisão, Napster é relançado na Europa, etc. • Vida Digital: Tom Rachman •

Mais um texto do Žižek sobre o movimento Occupy, desta vez caracterizando-o como parte de um movimento que deve erodir, por vez, o conceito tradicional de burguesia. Um trecho:

Está claro, obviamente, que o enorme renascimento dos protestos no último ano, da Primavera Árabe ao Leste Europeu, do Occupy Wall Street à China, da Espanha à Grécia, não devem definitivamente ser desconsiderados como uma revolta da burguesia assalariada – eles guardam potenciais muito mais radicais, de forma que devemos nos engajar numa análise concreta caso a caso. Os protestos estudantis contra a reforma universitária em curso no Reino Unido são claramente opostos às barricadas do Reino Unido em agosto de 2011, este carnaval consumista de destruição, a verdadeira explosão dos excluídos. Em relação aos levantes do Egito, pode-se argumentar que, no começo, houve um momento de revolta da burguesia assalariada (jovens bem educados protestando contra a falta de perspectiva), mas isto foi parte de um amplo protesto contra um regime opressivo. Entretanto, até que ponto o protesto conseguiu mobilizar trabalhadores e camponeses pobres? Não seria a vitória eleitoral dos islâmicos também uma indicação da base social estreita do protesto secular original? A Grécia é um caso especial: nas últimas décadas surgiu uma nova “burguesia assalariada” (especialmente na administração estatal superdimensionada) graças à ajuda financeira e empréstimos da União Europeia, e muitos dos protestos atuais, mais uma vez, reagem à ameaça de perda destes privilégios.

A íntegra pode ser lida abaixo ou no blog da Boitempo.

E é bom o Barack exercitar seu carisma, porque olha o jeito que o Ron Paul, um de seus prováveis adversários, está se vendendo:

Tá certo que o cara não parece muito diferente do republicano médio tradicional, mas…

TENSO.

Mas se houve a preocupação do estado norte-coreano de não divulgar a presença de fotógrafos e cineastas no funeral de Kin Jong-Il, imagine o quanto um vídeo desses não pode ter sido encenado…

Todos para download aqui.

Morreu hoje, em sua cidade-natal, Vlčice.

The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet, I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of a departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world.

Taí um cara que desequilibrou pacas. E sua morte com certeza vai servir de inspiração aos movimentos populares pelo planeta. Depois eu escrevo mais sobre o cara.

O presidente da Tunísa Ben Ali demorou duas semanas para visitar Bouazizi no hospital. Quatro dias depois, ele morreu

Da Wikipedia:

According to friends and family, local police officers had allegedly targeted and mistreated Bouazizi for years, including during his childhood, regularly confiscating his small wheelbarrow of produce; but Bouazizi had no other way to make a living, so he continued to work as a street vendor. Around 10 p.m. on 16 December 2010, he had contracted approximately US$200 in debt to buy the produce he was to sell the following day.

On the morning of 17 December, he started his workday at 8 a.m. Just after 10:30 a.m., the police began harassing him again, ostensibly because he did not have a vendor’s permit. However, while some sources state that street vending is illegal in Tunisia, and others that Bouazizi lacked a required permit to sell his wares, according to the head of Sidi Bouzid’s state office for employment and independent work, no permit is needed to sell from a cart.

Bouazizi did not have the funds to bribe police officials to allow his street vending to continue. Similarly, two of Bouazizi’s siblings accused authorities of attempting to extort money from their brother, and during an interview with Reuters, one of his sisters stated, “What kind of repression do you imagine it takes for a young man to do this? A man who has to feed his family by buying goods on credit when they fine him … and take his goods. In Sidi Bouzid, those with no connections and no money for bribes are humiliated and insulted and not allowed to live.”

Regardless, Bouazizi’s family claims he was publicly humiliated when a 45-year-old female municipal official, Faida Hamdi, slapped him in the face, spat at him, confiscated his electronic weighing scales, and tossed aside his produce cart. It was also stated that she made a slur against his deceased father. Bouazizi’s family says her gender made his humiliation worse. His mother also claimed Hamdi’s aides beat and swore at her son. Countering these claims, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, a brother of Hamdi claimed neither his sister nor her aides slapped or otherwise mistreated Bouazizi. He said they only confiscated Bouazizi’s wares. However, an eyewitness told Asharq Al-Awsat that he did not see Hamdi slap Bouazizi, but that her aides did beat him.

Bouazizi, angered by the confrontation, ran to the governor’s office to complain and to ask for his scales back. Following the governor’s refusal to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was quoted as saying:

“‘If you don’t see me, I’ll burn myself’”

, he acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to the governor’s office. While standing in the middle of traffic, he shouted “how do you expect me to make a living?” He then doused and set himself alight with a match at 11:30 a.m. local time, less than an hour after the altercation.

According to Bouazizi’s sister, whose information was based on details relayed from her uncle who was present at the scene, people immediately panicked when he caught fire, and one of them tried to douse the flames with water, which only worsened his condition. Bouazizi barely survived, and suffered severe burns over 90% of his body before locals managed to douse the flames. He was taken by ambulance to a medical facility in Sidi Bouzid. When they were unable to treat Bouazizi’s severe burns, he was taken to a larger hospital in Sfax, more than 70 miles (110 km) away. Later, as the government’s interest in his case grew, he was transferred to a Burn and Trauma Centre in Ben Arous, where he was placed in an intensive care unit. On 31 December 2010, doctors at the Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre reported that Bouazizi was in stable condition, and that he was showing positive prognostic factors. However, he remained in a coma throughout the remainder of his life.

Bouazizi was visited in hospital by then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. According to Bouazizi’s mother, Ben Ali promised to send him to France for medical treatment, but no such transfer was ever arranged. Bouazizi died at the Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre 18 days after the immolation, on 4 January 2011, at 5:30 p.m. local time.

It is estimated that more than 5,000 people participated in the funeral procession that began in Sidi Bouzid and continued through to Bouazizi’s native village, though police did not allow the procession to pass near the spot at which Bouazizi had burned himself. From the crowd, many were heard chanting

“Farewell, Mohammed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep.”

He was buried at Garaat Bennour cemetery, 10 miles (16 km) from Sidi Bouzid. His grave was described by Al-Jazeera as “simple” and surrounded by cactuses, olive and almond trees. In addition, a Tunisian flag flies next to it.

Many Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa regard Bouazizi as a hero and inspiration. He is credited with galvanising the frustrations of the region’s youth against their governments into mass demonstrations, revolts, and revolutions. Bouazizi is considered a martyr by the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) of Tunisia. Tunisian film director, Mohamed Zran, plans on making a feature film about Bouazizi, describing him as “a symbol for eternity.”

Tarak Ben Ammar, also a Tunisian film director, intends to make a film on Bouazizi as well, stating he is “a hero for us as Tunisians and the Arab world as a whole.” Since suicide is forbidden in Islam, Bouazizi’s self-immolation created controversy among scholarly Muslim circles. While al-Azhar, the most prestigious religious institution in the Sunni Muslim world, issued a fatwa (“directive”) stating “suicide violates Islam even when it is carried out as a social or political protest,” influential Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke sympathetically of Bouazizi.

On 4 February 2011, Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, announced that, as a tribute to honour Bouazizi, a square in Paris will be named after him; the Place Mohamed Bouazizi was unveiled four days later. On 17 February, the main square in Tunis that was previously called “November 7″, after the date of Ben Ali’s take-over in 1987, was renamed after Bouazizi.

Bouazizi was posthumously awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize as one of “five representatives of the Arab people, in recognition and support of their drive for freedom and human rights”.

2011 foi mais importante pros árabes do que 1968 pros europeus.

E, mais uma vez, se alguém traduzir do inglês, eu publico e dou os créditos.

O manifestante!

Um filme de Iggy Romero.

Finalmente Moore nos deu seu parecer sobre o movimento identificado por um ícone que ajudou a resgatar. Primeiro em entrevista ao Guardian:

“I suppose when I was writing V for Vendetta I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: wouldn’t it be great if these ideas actually made an impact? So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world… It’s peculiar. It feels like a character I created 30 years ago has somehow escaped the realm of fiction.”

(…)

“That smile is so haunting. I tried to use the cryptic nature of it to dramatic effect. We could show a picture of the character just standing there, silently, with an expression that could have been pleasant, breezy or more sinister. (…) And when you’ve got a sea of V masks, I suppose it makes the protesters appear to be almost a single organism – this “99%” we hear so much about. That in itself is formidable. I can see why the protesters have taken to it.”

(…)

“I think it’s appropriate that this generation of protesters have made their rebellion into something the public at large can engage with more readily than with half-hearted chants, with that traditional, downtrodden sort of British protest. These people look like they’re having a good time. And that sends out a tremendous message.”

Na mesma entrevista, ele riu do fato da Time Warner – que é dona da DC Comics que é dona dos direitos de V de Vingança, o quadrinho que deu origem à máscara – faturar dinheiro com royalties nas vendas do ícone dos Occupy:

“I find it comical, watching Time Warner try to walk this precarious tightrope. It’s a bit embarrassing to be a corporation that seems to be profiting from an anti-corporate protest. It’s not really anything that they want to be associated with. And yet they really don’t like turning down money – it goes against all of their instincts. I find it more funny than irksome.”

Em outra entrevista, à revista Honest, ele diz o ele acha que deva mudar em nosso sistema político:

“Everything. I believe that what’s needed is a radical solution, by which I mean from the roots upwards. Our entire political thinking seems to me to be based upon medieval precepts. These things, they didn’t work particularly well five or six hundred years ago. Their slightly modified forms are not adequate at all for the rapidly changing territory of the 21st Century.

“We need to overhaul the way that we think about money, we need to overhaul the way that we think about who’s running the show. As an anarchist, I believe that power should be given to the people, to the people whose lives this is actually affecting. It’s no longer good enough to have a group of people who are controlling our destinies. The only reason they have the power is because they control the currency. They have no moral authority and, indeed, they show the opposite of moral authority.”

As coisas tão, aos poucos, mudando na Globo. É o que escreve o Rodrigo Vianna:

Primeiro ponto: a Patrícia Poeta é mulher de Amauri Soares. Nem todo mundo sabe, mas Amauri foi diretor da Globo/São Paulo nos anos 90. Em parceria com Evandro Carlos de Andrade (então diretor geral de jornalismo), comandou a tentativa de renovação do jornalismo global. Acompanhei isso de perto, trabalhei sob comando de Amauri. A Globo precisava se livrar do estigma (merecido) de manipulação – que vinha da ditadura, da tentativa de derrubar Brizola em 82, da cobertura lamentável das Diretas-Já em 84 (comício em São Paulo foi noticiado no “JN” como “festa pelo aniversário da cidade”), da manipulação do debate Collor-Lula em 89.

Amauri fez um trabalho muito bom. Havia liberdade pra trabalhar. Sou testemunha disso. Com a morte de Evandro, um rapaz que viera do jornal “O Globo”, chamado Ali Kamel, ganhou poder na TV. Em pouco tempo, derrubou Amauri da praça São Paulo.

Patrícia Poeta no “JN” significa que Kamel está (um pouco) mais fraco. E que Amauri recupera espaço. Se Amauri voltar a mandar pra valer na Globo, Kamel talvez consiga um bom emprego no escritório da Globo na Sibéria, ou pode escrever sobre racismo, instalado em Veneza ao lado do amigo (dele) Diogo Mainardi.

Conheço detalhes de uma conversa entre Amauri e Kamel, ocorrida em 2002, e que revelo agora em primeira mão. Amauri ligou a Kamel (chefe no Rio), pra reclamar que matérias de denúncias contra o governo, produzidas em São Paulo, não entravam no “JN”. Kamel respondeu: “a Globo está fragilizada economicamente, Amauri; não é hora de comprar briga com ninguém”. Amauri respondeu: “mas eu tenho um cartaz, com uma frase do Evandro aqui na minha sala, que diz – Não temos amigos pra proteger, nem inimigos para perseguir”. Sabem qual foi a resposta de Kamel? “Amaury, o Evandro está morto”.

Era a senha. Algumas semanas depois, Amauri foi derrubado.

Kamel foi o ideólogo da “retomada consevadora” na Globo durante os anos Lula. Amauri foi “exilado” num cargo em Nova Yorque. Patrícia Poeta partiu com ele.

Ele continua em seu blog.

Um filme de Ian MacKenzie.

A foto de Dorli Rainey, 84 anos, depois de tomar spray de pimenta na cara foi tirada pelo fotógrafo Joshua Trujillo, em Seattle, durante um dos muitos ataques coordenados da polícia norte-americana aos núcleos do movimento Occupy – e já foi eleita pelo Guardian como a imagem icônica do movimento que acaba de completar dois meses – sob bordoada.