Monday, May 7, 2012

Le racisme des intellectuels

LE MONDE |

L'importance du vote pour Marine Le Pen accable et surprend. On cherche des explications. Le personnel politique y va de sa sociologie portative : la France des gens d'en bas, des provinciaux égarés, des ouvriers, des sous-éduqués, effrayée par la mondialisation, le recul du pouvoir d'achat, la déstructuration des territoires, la présence à leurs portes d'étranges étrangers, veut se replier sur le nationalisme et la xénophobie.

C'est déjà du reste cette France "retardataire" qu'on accusait d'avoir voté non au référendum sur le projet de Constitution européenne. On l'opposait aux classes moyennes urbaines éduquées et modernes, qui font tout le sel social de notre démocratie bien tempérée.

Disons que cette France d'en bas est quand même, en la circonstance, le baudet de la fable, le pelé et le galeux "populiste" d'où nous vient tout le mal lepéniste. Etrange, au demeurant, cette hargne politico-médiatique contre le "populisme". Le pouvoir démocratique, dont nous sommes si fiers, serait-il allergique à ce qu'on se soucie du peuple ? C'est l'avis dudit peuple, en tout cas, et de plus en plus. A la question "les responsables politiques se préoccupent-ils de ce que pensent les gens comme vous ?", la réponse entièrement négative "pas du tout" est passée de 15 % de l'ensemble en 1978 à 42 % en 2010 ! Quant au total des réponses positives ("beaucoup" ou "assez"), il est passé de 35 % à 17 % (on se reportera, pour cette indication statistique et d'autres d'un très grand intérêt, au numéro hors série de la revue La Pensée titré "Le peuple, la crise et la politique" et réalisé par Guy Michelat et Michel Simon). La relation entre le peuple et l'Etat n'est pas faite de confiance, c'est le moins qu'on puisse dire.

Faut-il conclure que notre Etat n'a pas le peuple qu'il mérite, et que le sombre vote lepéniste atteste cette insuffisance populaire ? Il faudrait alors, pour renforcer la démocratie, changer le peuple, comme le proposait ironiquement Brecht...

Ma thèse est plutôt que deux autres grands coupables doivent être mis en avant : les responsables successifs du pouvoir d'Etat, de gauche comme de droite, et un ensemble non négligeable d'intellectuels.

En définitive, ce ne sont pas les pauvres de nos provinces qui ont décidé de limiter autant que faire se peut le droit élémentaire d'un ouvrier de ce pays, quelle que soit sa nationalité d'origine, de vivre ici avec sa femme et ses enfants. C'est une ministre socialiste, et tous ceux de droite ensuite qui se sont engouffrés dans la brèche. Ce n'est pas une campagnarde sous-éduquée qui a proclamé en 1983, que les grévistes de Renault - en effet majoritairement algériens ou marocains - étaient des "travailleurs immigrés (...)agités par des groupes religieux et politiques qui se déterminent en fonction de critères ayant peu à voir avec les réalités sociales françaises".

C'est un premier ministre socialiste, bien entendu à la grande joie de ses "ennemis" de la droite. Qui a eu la bonne idée de déclarer que Le Pen posait les vrais problèmes ? Un militant alsacien du Front national ? Non, c'est un premier ministre de François Mitterrand. Ce ne sont pas des sous-développés de l'intérieur qui ont créé les centres de rétention pour y emprisonner, hors de tout droit réel, ceux qu'on privait par ailleurs de la possibilité d'acquérir les papiers légaux de leur présence.

Ce ne sont pas non plus des banlieusards excédés qui ont ordonné, partout dans le monde, qu'on ne délivre aux gens des visas pour la France qu'au compte-gouttes, pendant qu'on fixait ici même des quotas d'expulsions que devait à tout prix réaliser la police. La succession des lois restrictives, attaquant, sous prétexte d'étrangeté, la liberté et l'égalité de millions de gens qui vivent et travaillent ici, n'est pas l'oeuvre de "populistes" déchaînés.

A la manoeuvre de ces forfaits légaux, on trouve l'Etat, tout simplement. On trouve tous les gouvernements successifs, dès François Mitterrand, et sans répit par la suite. En la matière, et ce ne sont que deux exemples, le socialiste Lionel Jospin a fait savoir dès son arrivée au pouvoir qu'il n'était pas question d'abolir les lois xénophobes de Charles Pasqua ; le socialiste François Hollande fait savoir qu'on ne décidera pas les régularisations de sans-papiers autrement sous sa présidence que sous celle de Nicolas Sarkozy. La continuité dans cette direction ne fait aucun doute. C'est cet encouragement obstiné de l'Etat dans la vilenie qui façonne l'opinion réactive et racialiste, et non l'inverse.

Je ne crois pas être suspect d'ignorer que Nicolas Sarkozy et sa clique ont été constamment sur la brèche du racisme culturel, levant haut le drapeau de la "supériorité" de notre chère civilisation occidentale et faisant voter une interminable succession de lois discriminatoires dont la scélératesse nous consterne.

Mais enfin, nous ne voyons pas que la gauche se soit levée pour s'y opposer avec la force que demandait un pareil acharnement réactionnaire. Elle a même bien souvent fait savoir qu'elle "comprenait" cette demande de "sécurité", et a voté sans état d'âme des décisions persécutoires flagrantes, comme celles qui visent à expulser de l'espace public telle ou telle femme sous le prétexte qu'elle se couvre les cheveux ou enveloppe son corps.

Ses candidats annoncent partout qu'ils mèneront une lutte sans merci, non tant contre les prévarications capitalistes et la dictature des budgets ascétiques que contre les ouvriers sans papiers et les mineurs récidivistes, surtout s'ils sont noirs ou arabes. Dans ce domaine, droite et gauche confondues ont piétiné tout principe. Ce fut et c'est, pour ceux qu'on prive de papiers, non l'Etat de droit, mais l'Etat d'exception, l'Etat de non-droit. Ce sont eux qui sont en état d'insécurité, et non les nationaux nantis. S'il fallait, ce qu'à Dieu ne plaise, se résigner à expulser des gens, il serait préférable qu'on choisisse nos gouvernants plutôt que les très respectables ouvriers marocains ou maliens.

Et derrière tout cela, de longue date, depuis plus de vingt ans, qui trouve-t-on ? Qui sont les glorieux inventeurs du "péril islamique", en passe selon eux de désintégrer notre belle société occidentale et française ? Sinon des intellectuels, qui consacrent à cette tâche infâme des éditoriaux enflammés, des livres retors, des "enquêtes sociologiques" truquées ? Est-ce un groupe de retraités provinciaux et d'ouvriers des petites villes désindustrialisées qui a monté patiemment toute cette affaire du "conflit des civilisations", de la défense du "pacte républicain", des menaces sur notre magnifique "laïcité", du "féminisme" outragé par la vie quotidienne des dames arabes ?

N'est-il pas fâcheux qu'on cherche des responsables uniquement du côté de la droite extrême - qui en effet tire les marrons du feu - sans jamais mettre à nu la responsabilité écrasante de ceux, bien souvent - disaient-ils - "de gauche", et plus souvent professeurs de "philosophie" que caissières de supermarché, qui ont passionnément soutenu que les Arabes et les Noirs, notamment les jeunes, corrompaient notre système éducatif, pervertissaient nos banlieues, offensaient nos libertés et outrageaient nos femmes ? Ou qu'ils étaient "trop nombreux" dans nos équipes de foot ? Exactement comme on disait naguère des juifs et des "métèques" que par eux la France éternelle était menacée de mort.

Il y a eu, certes, l'apparition de groupuscules fascistes se réclamant de l'islam. Mais il y a tout aussi bien eu des mouvements fascistes se réclamant de l'Occident et du Christ-roi. Cela n'empêche aucun intellectuel islamophobe de vanter à tout bout de champ notre supérieure identité "occidentale" et de parvenir à loger nos admirables "racines chrétiennes" dans le culte d'une laïcité dont Marine Le Pen, devenue une des plus acharnées pratiquantes de ce culte, révèle enfin de quel bois politique il se chauffe.

En vérité, ce sont des intellectuels qui ont inventé la violence antipopulaire, singulièrement dirigée contre les jeunes des grandes villes, qui est le vrai secret de l'islamophobie. Et ce sont les gouvernements, incapables de bâtir une société de paix civile et de justice, qui ont livré les étrangers, et d'abord les ouvriers arabes et leurs familles, en pâture à des clientèles électorales désorientées et craintives. Comme toujours, l'idée, fût-elle criminelle, précède le pouvoir, qui à son tour façonne l'opinion dont il a besoin. L'intellectuel, fût-il déplorable, précède le ministre, qui construit ses suiveurs.

Le livre, fût-il à jeter, vient avant l'image propagandiste, laquelle égare au lieu d'instruire. Et trente ans de patients efforts dans l'écriture, l'invective et la compétition électorale sans idée trouvent leur sinistre récompense dans les consciences fatiguées comme dans le vote moutonnier.

Honte aux gouvernements successifs, qui ont tous rivalisé sur les thèmes conjoints de la sécurité et du "problème immigré", pour que ne soit pas trop visible qu'ils servaient avant tout les intérêts de l'oligarchie économique ! Honte aux intellectuels du néo-racialisme et du nationalisme bouché, qui ont patiemment recouvert le vide laissé dans le peuple par la provisoire éclipse de l'hypothèse communiste d'un manteau d'inepties sur le péril islamique et la ruine de nos "valeurs" !

Ce sont eux qui doivent aujourd'hui rendre des comptes sur l'ascension d'un fascisme rampant dont ils ont encouragé sans relâche le développement mental.

Né en 1937, professeur de philosophie à l'Ecole normale supérieure, Alain Badiou articule pensée formelle et récit littéraire, argumentation conceptuelle et intervention politique. Il est notamment l'auteur d'Entretiens I (Nous, 2011), de La République de Platon (Fayard, 596 p., 24,50 €) et, dans la série "Circonstances", aux Nouvelles Editions Lignes, de Sarkozy : pire que prévu, les autres : prévoir le pire (94 p., 9,50 €).

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Chancellor Birgeneau announces he is stepping down at end of year

Dear members of the Berkeley campus community:

I am writing to let you know that I have informed President Mark Yudof of my decision to step down as Chancellor of UC Berkeley on December 31, 2012. Serving as the Ninth Chancellor of one of the world's preeminent teaching and research universities has been an immense privilege and honor. I am deeply grateful to have been entrusted with the profound responsibility of leading this great institution and its outstanding faculty, staff and students through one of the most challenging periods in its 144-year history.

I arrived in September, 2004 with a deep appreciation of the essential role that Berkeley plays in setting the standard nationally and internationally for public higher education. It was my intention to serve as Chancellor for seven years to lead Berkeley in breaking new paths on the frontiers of knowledge and education, to support its noble public mission and to further its goals of access and excellence. Because of the extraordinary circumstances facing the University of California that emerged with the financial crisis and steep loss of state funding, I have stayed on as Chancellor longer than I had originally intended. With the support of an exceptionally talented senior leadership team, we have worked very hard to navigate successfully the most extreme disinvestment by the state in UC's history. We have greatly strengthened Berkeley's financial management leadership, stabilized our budget in the short to medium term, and are developing a sustainable financial model for the future to support access and excellence. Thanks to the efforts and contributions of everyone in our campus community - faculty, staff, students, retirees, alumni and friends - we have made great strides in maintaining and expanding Berkeley's excellence and preserving its unique public character. Although challenges still remain, I am confident that we have put into place a clear pathway for the years ahead and strategies that will support Berkeley's ongoing excellence and its impact on the world.

In spite of the financially challenging times, working together as a campus community we have made tremendous progress on many fronts and have many extraordinary accomplishments of which we can be justly proud. Berkeley faculty continue to garner awards and honors in all disciplines, including three Nobel Prizes since 2005, two in Physics and one in Economics; we and MIT lead all universities in the United States and Canada with 43 Sloan Fellowships each for our junior faculty since 2004, a strong marker for future success. For graduate students, Berkeley also continues to share the lead with MIT as one of the two top-choice schools for winners of National Science Foundation fellowships. In the 2010 National Research Council rankings, the first detailed survey since 1995 of the nation's research universities, Berkeley ranked second nationally behind Harvard and well ahead of all other schools in the number of graduate programs in the very top group. Our research funding has grown from some $500 million in 2004 to well over $700 million in recent years. We are consistently ranked in the top tier of research and teaching universities in the world, a reflection of our comprehensive excellence across the arts and humanities, social sciences, physical and life sciences, and the professions.

We have strengthened the university through a $3 billion fundraising Campaign, the largest in Berkeley's history. The Campaign to-date has raised $2.4 billion during one of the most difficult financial times since the Great Depression, thanks to the support of alumni and friends who believe in our future. At the heart of the Campaign is the Hewlett Endowed Chairs Matching Program. This enormously successful program has raised $220 million in just four years for support of 100 faculty chairs; this includes over $2.5 million annually in graduate fellowships across all schools and colleges. We have also generalized this model to the national level; specifically, we have proposed to the federal government that it invest $10 billion over the next ten years to create through a federal-state-private partnership program 10,000 endowed chairs in support of our country's leading public teaching and research universities.

We are breaking the boundaries between disciplines to solve some of the world's most pressing problems and have created unprecedented models for public universities to partner with government, industry and private philanthropy. The multi-disciplinary research efforts of the Berkeley Energy and Climate Initiative, the Energy Biosciences Institute, the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and the Haas Diversity Research Center hold the promise of transforming our lives and our world. In a very short time, we have become leaders in the study of alternative energy and climate change. We are advancing human health through biosciences, bioengineering, and biomedical and stem cell research. We are finding ways to alleviate global poverty through innovative programs, technologies, services and business practices and are bringing together world-class scholars to address disparities related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities in California and nationwide.

Our undergraduate student body continues to be among the very best in California and each year we have attracted more applicants, with over 60,000 freshman applications this year. We have stabilized our enrollment at 21,000 places for Californians with a further 4,000 places for non-residents. When I first arrived at Berkeley, I was struck by the very small number of international and out-of state students in the undergraduate student body. I am very pleased that we have been able to increase this number substantially, with plans to grow to 20% by 2014, to benefit the student experience as well as bring additional revenue to the campus. We are educating Berkeley students to gain multi-cultural experience that will serve them well in our increasingly globalized society. We also have continuously invested in improving the undergraduate academic experience by updating classroom facilities with technology and adding Reading and Composition classes, gateway courses in the physical sciences, and foreign language courses. We are currently building two new undergraduate biology laboratories that will mitigate the situation in the impacted gateway life sciences courses. Our graduation rates have risen to over 90%. We have raised seven endowed Chairs dedicated to teaching and are in the process of establishing an Undergraduate Teaching Collegium led by Letters & Science. We have supported our students' ambitions to give back and change the world for the better and are very proud that Berkeley still holds the record for the most volunteers in the history of the Peace Corps. Our students have also worked diligently to make us a leading campus for sustainability.

Although a necessary response to the loss of state funding was an increase in tuition and fees, we nevertheless have been able to sustain access and affordability for our students from low-income families through our financial aid policies. Some 40% of our undergraduate students now pay no tuition at all, and the cost for Pell Grant recipients, whose families usually have incomes under $45,000, has dropped over the past five years. At the same time, the number of students with Pell Grants now constitutes 35% of our student body, meaning that we are educating about the same number of low-income undergraduate students as all the eight Ivy League universities combined. We recently set a landmark by becoming the first public university to provide substantial financial aid to middle-income families through our Middle Class Access Plan (MCAP). This program limits the parental contribution to 15% of family income for families earning between $80,000 and $140,000 annually. Overall, Berkeley students graduate with the lowest student debt among all public teaching and research universities across the country. I am also personally very gratified by the support we have been able to provide to our most disadvantaged students. We have worked hard to secure a major endowment for our California Independent Scholars Program that supports former foster children. After several years of advocacy by our students and myself, and thanks to the dedicated efforts of State Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, Assembly bills 130 and 131, which allow for university and state aid for undocumented students, were signed into law by Governor Brown; we are now actively raising funds to support these students. We can all be very proud of our success in ensuring that Berkeley remains an important engine of social mobility.

As a result of our financial challenges, our staff have experienced some very difficult changes through staff reductions and organizational change. They have responded with great resilience, and their engagement with Operational Excellence, our comprehensive effort to reduce $75 million in permanent annual costs through improved administration, has been extraordinary. We have already achieved over $20 million in annual savings. We are investing in our workforce and technology and significantly improving our administrative processes and our financial management capacity. I am confident that with the dedication and commitment of our staff, we will continue to build administrative excellence to help secure our future with a highly skilled workforce.

One area that required special attention was Intercollegiate Athletics. We have greatly strengthened the financial management capacity of Intercollegiate Athletics and put in place a plan that will reduce the university's annual support from over $12 million to $5 million by 2014. Initially, we had proposed the elimination of four sports teams and the loss of Intercollegiate Athletics status for one, but, with the support of donors who raised over $20 million, we were able to maintain these teams and establish viable plans for their sustainability. Our talented student-athletes and coaching staff have advanced Cal's overall standing in the Director's Cup to third place in the nation, our first time ever in the top five.

Inclusion - equal opportunity for all - is Berkeley's ideal, and I am especially proud of the progress that we have made in this arena, although there is still much work to be done. We were among the first universities in the country to create an Equity and Inclusion portfolio at the Vice-Chancellor level. We are near the mid-point of a ten-year strategic plan for Equity and Inclusion that engages our entire campus community. We have raised an astonishing $32 million to support our efforts and, as I have already mentioned, have established the Haas Diversity Research Center. It now has twelve faculty positions dedicated to the Center with the involvement of dozens more faculty from across the campus in its six research thrusts. In collaboration with Aspire Schools, we opened Cal Prep, our charter school for students from K-6 to K-12, which last year graduated its first cohort of students, all of whom have gone on to four-year colleges and universities. Although underrepresented minority representation in the Cal student body has risen to about 15%, we are still suffering from the effects of Proposition 209; I strongly support our students' efforts to ensure its repeal.

The face of our campus has continued to be transformed with new and renovated facilities to support our research, teaching, and athletic endeavors for the 21st century. These include the splendid C.V. Starr East Asian Library, the superbly renovated Bancroft Library, and the magnificent Stanley Hall, which were begun by my predecessor and whose funding was completed at the start of my term. We have added the impressive Sutdarja Dai Hall, which is home to CITRIS. The old Naval Architecture Building was beautifully transformed, and a new three-story wing was attached to it, to house our new Blum Center for Developing Economies. On the west side of campus, the modern Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences was recently opened, and the Energy Biosciences building will be completed this summer. In the southeast quadrant, the School of Law has expanded and elegantly renovated its library and other facilities. The state-of-the-art Simpson Student Athlete High Performance Center has opened, and the much needed Memorial Stadium seismic upgrade and refurbishment is scheduled to be completed in time for the first game of the 2012 football season, preserving this beloved facility for future generations of Cal students and alumni. Two other important Berkeley landmarks, Sather Gate and the Campanile, have been strengthened and restored to their original state. We have accomplished this ambitious capital renewal program primarily through donor funding and careful management of debt servicing.

Looking ahead, with the move of the College of Letters and Science administration to a renovated Durant Hall, we have secured funding for the reconstruction of Campbell Hall for expanded academic facilities for Physics and Astronomy. A site has been chosen, plans developed, and a campaign is underway for a new Berkeley Art Museum. A student referendum has secured funding for the revitalization of Lower Sproul Plaza, and the project is set to begin this fall. The Richmond Field Station has been chosen as the site for a second Lawrence Berkeley National Lab campus. UC Berkeley and LBNL have long enjoyed a strong partnership. This will be a tremendous step forward, adding new synergies to an already impressive combination of scientific forces and world class research infrastructure.

I look forward to our university's future with great optimism. Berkeley is a place of incredible energy and creativity, and there are many other initiatives that I have not been able to mention that cumulatively make us the most exciting teaching and research university in the world. It has truly been a wonderful privilege to work with such an accomplished and dedicated community of faculty, staff, students, retirees, alumni and friends. I want to thank you all for what you do to support Berkeley's mission.

Thank you for welcoming Mary Catherine and me so warmly to the Berkeley community and for your encouragement and support of my leadership.

After stepping down as Chancellor, I am planning to return to the Departments of Physics and Materials Science and Engineering as a regular faculty member and hope that I have at least one more truly significant physics/materials science experiment still to come in my academic career. I intend to continue working at the state and national levels to ameliorate the deplorable funding situation of our nation's great public teaching and research universities. Finally, I will continue my efforts on behalf of our most disadvantaged students including, especially, advocacy for passage of the federal DREAM act.

President Yudof will be appointing a search committee as set out by university policy on the appointment of Chancellors. I will continue to devote my full energies to leading Berkeley until my successor is appointed by the UC Regents and will work with her or him to effect a smooth transition.


Robert J. Birgeneau
Chancellor

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

State-Wide Day of Mobilization: January 19

1/19 California Statewide Mobilization for UC Regents Meeting At UC Riverside
California Statewide Mobilization for UC Regents Meeting
by Back2Kali

Friday Jan 13th, 2012 4:12 AM
We are writing to have our voices heard and to propose an action against the perpetually inflicted austerity measures and fee hikes rendering ourselves a lost generation. As the disaster capitalists liquidate our means of public education and healthcare, we face the repercussions - rampant unemployment, swollen student debt, prison expansion and a gutted public sector. The harsh reality of the austerity state. Our futures are being mortgaged in order to maintain bloated administrative salaries and the privatization of critical social services across the state, country, and around the world.

In the past decade alone the UC has seen a 342.2% increase in tuition and fees. This trend directly corresponds with a period of exorbitant administrative growth and devastating cuts to instruction, support services and staff, and other critical UC programs. On December 13, 2011 Governor Jerry Brown announced another $100 million in cuts to the UC system, which brings the total to $750 million this fiscal year alone.

The annual fees for attending a UC were $3,859 in 2001-2002; now they are $13,218, and estimated to increase substantially within the next four years. This trend runs completely contradictory to the 1960 CA Master Plan, which calls for tuition-free public higher education in this state. Quality, accessible public higher education is a cornerstone for establishing social and economic equality on local to global levels and as such demands our active support and protection.

Our public institutions of higher education are being actively privatized and glutted by regents, trustees and administrators who are deeply invested in large private business interests. These people and the interests they represent want to continue profiting from a drive to remake our public institutions in the image of private-for-profit models.

We are asking that all of us continue to take a stand and fight back to defend our public institutions against the betrayal of many of those charged with their protection. As the students, faculty, and staff who run California's public colleges and universities, it is our responsibility to assert every day that these are OUR SCHOOLS and that we are not powerless to further the mission of maintaining affordable, accessible and quality public higher education not only in this state, but around the world. An accessible educational experience is important for people everywhere to be able to obtain if they so choose that we might construct a more equitable, just and peaceful world for everyone.

The UC regents are invested with the responsibility of "managing" the UC system. They have insistently refused to engage in constructive dialogue with students, faculty and staff on critical issues that have been repeatedly brought to their attention. Some of them are personal friends and/or business partners of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or other influential politicians and that is precisely how they obtained their initial appointment as regents. A vast majority of the current regents have no professional background in public education and a corresponding majority of them maintain direct ties to business interests that seek to develop financially profitable relationships with the UC and other public institutions.

Banks and other corporations get bailed out and we get sold out, time and again. The regents' silence in Sacramento fits the destructive model of privatization that they have in mind for the UC. As part of this agenda, it also fits their interests to raise the salaries of administrators even as they tell the rest of us that we need to "continue making sacrifices."

Enough is enough. We will continue to demand that the UC regents and administrators be held accountable for their actions. Please join us in protest at the regents' next meeting, scheduled to take place at UC Riverside on January 18-19, 2012.

A statewide mobilization against austerity and fee hikes is being called for Thursday, January 19. Students, educators and workers from across the state will be busing in as we continue defend quality and accessible public education. See you on the battlefield.

Sincerely,
Concerned Students, Faculty, Staff and Community Members of UC Riverside