Re: [nettime-fr] hommage à, a tribute to : Naomi Klein

["ctgr-pavu.com" <ctgr@free.fr>]

moi aussi je veux de l'argent gratuit.

--
OG
-/ ra ra ra ra crat' lanterrrrrne ! /-

Le jeudi, 12 jun 2003, à 15:47 Europe/Paris, Louise Desrenards a écrit :

> Vive les manifs pour soutenir les négociations en cours ;  
> criticalsecret qui
> n'a jamais reçu de fric pour autant est labellisé au statut des
> Intermittents, comme société de presse édition et de rédacteurs et de
> production audio-visuelle...
>
> J'espère que les intermittents auront toujours cours quand enfin il y  
> aura
> trois sous pour se payer par ici au rythme asynchrone de nos  
> productions en
> ligne... en attendant, on signe.
>
> Comme je ne peux pas bouger de la maison, non pour raison X mais pour X
> raisons, j'en profite pour regarder le monde tourner ailleurs et  
> j'espère
> vous en faire d'autre part profiter...
>
> A+
> Louise
> ------------
>
> Naomi Klein : vous la connaissez déjà.
> Franchement : c'est quelqu'un !
>
> Son site
> http://www.nologo.org
>
> où aujourd'hui on peut y lire en édito du 5 juin
> son article sur l'Irak
> “Downsizing in Disguise”
> http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&s=klein
>
> Le livre en anglais-US : Paperback.
>
> Le livre disponible en Français : Actes Sud.
> (2è édition en poche)
> (Fnac):
> http://www.fnac.com/Shelf/ 
> article.asp?PRID=1275278&SID=ddc1e47f%2Dd08e%2D690
> b%2Db30b%2D3f2b46ea1ae7&UID=0c6c1981e%2Dd235%2Db063%2D9c28%2Dcfa8725ad0 
> 51&AI
> D=&Origin=GOOGLE&Pe=1&No=1&Fr=0&Mn=2&Ra=-1&To=0
> Plus court pour le lien (Amazon):
> http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/171-7786788-2312234
>
> ---------------
>
> On pourrait dire, la Noam Chomsky de l'identité (tous corps propres
> compris :  des marques, du fric, du graphisme, de l'art,  de la  
> communauté,
> de la famille, du citoyen).
>
> La fin de l'engagement de l'Esthétique corrélative de l'Ethique à  
> l'acte de
> l'événement mondial de la communication par les signes... Cinquante ans
> après Mac Luhan, quarante ans après l'inscription prémonitoire de
> Baudrillard inspiré par Simondon et Barthes, nous voici au fait concret
> incontournable...
>
> On pourrait donc se poser la même question sur la fin de l'Ethique  
> (dans la
> disparition du couple dialectique de la fin et des moyens, à l'horizon  
> de la
> fin des utopies matérialistes comme projet social révolutionnaire —  
> tout
> simplement parce qu'on éprouve bien historiquement, dans une sorte de
> mémoire et de conscience cognitives collectives, qu'elles se réalisent  
> en
> leur contraire ou en pire réalité) : intégration du moyen et de la fin  
> à
> l'acte révolutionnaire lui-même. Cet acte,  dans un rapport  
> d'influence de
> l'environnement qui le fait évoluer : et réciproquement cet acte  
> d'inspirer
> des changements de l'environnement, changements prédictibles à l'acte  
> même,
> quoique non définissables en propre.
>
> Point n'est besoin de violence dans ce cas... Dans l'azur pollué des  
> villes:
> patience d'être. Retrouver le sens du risque et de l'aventure ce n'est  
> pas
> péter les plombs ni mettre du plomb dans l'aile, c'est apporter de  
> l'oxygène
> à la vie.
>
> Naomi Klein, elle est partie d'un truc hyper simple, un pragmatisme  
> critique
> de son origine et de son éducation particulières, mais aussi de ses  
> propres
> faiblesses ressenties, sous influence de l'appel de l'environnement,
> conditionnant ses points de vue d'adolescente...
>
> ... et voilà :
> Entre autre : active à Prague (Meeting de la Banque mondiale).
>
> Le site de Radiohead (groupe musical est solidaire) :
> http://www.radiohead.com
>
> ---------------
> Une critique singulière du communautarisme...
> elle n'est pas rétro existentialiste pour autant ;-)
>
> http://www.greatquestions.com/f/q2_klein_2.html  
>
> Deuxième article de Naomi Klein
>
> La semaine dernière, Neil Bissoondath écrivait qu'au Canada nous avons  
> fait
> un tel fétiche des cultures et traditions autres que les nôtres que  
> chez la
> plupart d'entre nous, "la Canadienneté est très superficielle." Notre  
> "vrai"
> moi est enraciné dans la vision irréaliste d'un ailleurs, n'importe où  
> sauf
> ici.
>
> Cette description touche chez moi une corde sensible. Enfant de deux  
> Juifs
> américains issus de l'Europe de l'Est, j'ai souvent regardé ce qui se
> passait aux États-Unis, en Israel ou en Europe, et senti à quel point  
> la
> question de la nationalité était étrangement arbitraire et en fait,
> abstraite.
>
> M. Bissoondath suggère que l'irréalité de notre Canadienneté découle de
> l'ignorance : nous souffrons d'un manque d'identité comme nation,  
> faute de
> liens avec le passé. Mais qu'advient-il quand, tentant de forger ces  
> liens
> plus profonds avec le pays, le passé se révèle non pas notre ami, mais  
> notre
> ennemi ? Qu'advient-il si en apprenant l'histoire du Canada - pas la  
> version
> rassurante et héroÏque, mais la vérité, sale et souvent brutale - nous
> découvrons que notre inclusion dans ce pays n'a jamais été que  
> superficielle
> ?
>
> C'est exactement ce qui attend plusieurs Canadiens, surtout ceux  
> d'origine
> britannique ou française, s'ils examinent non seulement le passé de  
> notre
> nation, mais aussi une large portion de son présent. Le Canada s'est  
> inventé
> une identité à partir d'un mythe. S'il faut en croire cette fiction,  
> nous
> possédons un caractère national essentiel, au delà de l'histoire  
> familière
> de territoires volés et d'immigration, nous serions autre chose qu'une
> nation de fieffés bâtards, d'exilés et d'aventuriers.
>
> Au centre du discours nationaliste canadien, au coeur du débat sur  
> l'unité
> nationale et des querelles persistentes au sujet de ce qui constitue
> vraiment un Canadien, c'est le mensonge que véhicule la notion des  
> "deux
> peuples fondateurs". Selon le regretté Robert F. Harney, historien et
> professeur d'études ethniques à l'Université de Toronto, l'histoire qui
> raconte la façon dont s'est développé le multiculturalisme officiel,  
> donne
> "l'impression d'une intrusion des groupes ethniques au coeur de  
> l'ancienne
> lutte opposant les vrais Canadiens/ Canadians." Le czar du français,  
> Camille
> Laurin, résumait le phénomène quand il décrivait le Canada comme étant  
> une
> "nation complètement réalisée" à laquelle les immigrants pouvaient se
> joindre, mais qu'ils ne pouvaient altérer.
>
> L'idée d'un Canada essentiel et invariable, devant être protégé des  
> hordes
> étrangères importunes, a été présente tout au long de notre histoire  
> et a
> inspiré quelques une de nos plus ignobles politiques nationales. Une  
> quête
> de pureté ethnique se cache derrière la Loi sur l'immigration chinoise  
> de
> 1923 qui a radicalement restreint l'immigration des Chinois au Canada
> jusqu'en 1947. Pendant trois décennies, c'est elle qui a arraché les  
> enfants
> autochtones à leur foyer pour les confier à des familles blanches,  
> pratique
> qui a atteint son apogée dans ce qu'on a appelé le "Sixties Scoop."  
> Elle
> s'est traduite par des examens médicaux falsifiés pour empêcher  
> plusieurs
> Africains-Américains d'immigrer au Canada avant la Première Guerre  
> mondiale,
> par la politique du "aucun c'est encore trop" pratiquée envers les  
> réfugiés
> juifs pendant l'Holocauste et par l'internement de 21 000 Canadiens
> d'origine japonaise pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale.
>
> Les exemples plus récents abondent, indiquant clairement aux Canadiens
> minoritaires qu'ils ne sont ici qu'à titre d'invité. Le cas d'un  
> Jacques
> Parizeau et de son "nous savons qui nous sommes" révélateur le soir du
> référendum, n'est pas unique. La même xénophobie est apparue lors des  
> crises
> de colère provoquées par le port du turban dans la Légion canadienne  
> et la
> GRC et, plus récemment, dans le débat à savoir si un dieu, et lequel,  
> avait
> sa place dans la constitution canadienne. Elle est présente aussi  
> quand nous
> nous lamentons de "l'exode des cerveaux" aux États-Unis tout en  
> exilant au
> siège avant de nos taxis urbains d'innombrables détenteurs de doctorats
> venus de l'Inde et de l'Afrique dont nous refusons de reconnaître les
> diplômes.
>
> Cette douleureuse histoire de petites et grandes exclusions est la  
> raison de
> l'absence au Canada du territoire commun du "nous", pour reprendre les
> termes de M. Bissoondath. Trop souvent, au premier signe de trouble, ce
> "nous" se fragmente en "nous" et "eux". Pendant la première moitié de  
> ce
> siècle, l'opinion canadienne et les politiques sur l'immigration  
> étaient
> déchirées entre le besoin de peupler et de développer ce vaste pays et
> celui, tout aussi pressant. de protéger la pureté ethnique du Canada.
> Faut-il s'étonner que plusieurs minorités ethniques, victimes d'une  
> telle
> duplicité, hésitent à considérer le Canada comme leur vraie patrie ?
>
> Si plusieurs Canadiens n'éprouvent qu'un sentiment d'affection  
> superficiel
> envers leur patrie d'adoption, c'est peut-être parce qu'ils n'ont  
> jamais été
> invités à aller plus loin - à entrer dans le club privé de la  
> Canadienneté
> essentielle, encore largement définie par les hauts et les bas des  
> relations
> entre Anglais et Français, Est et Ouest. Les gens rationnels  
> réagissent à
> cette inclusion des beaux jours, à moitié consentie, de la seule façon
> logique : en créant et en défendant des enclaves sécuritaires et
> confortables.
>
> La seule vraie faute du multiculturalisme n'est pas qu'il encourage la
> ségrégation, mais qu'il contribue à la camoufler en permettant à nos  
> élites
> politiques de présenter les étalages haut en couleur d'une ethnicité
> commanditée officiellement, comme étant la preuve qu'à titre de  
> nation, nous
> avons dépassé le stade de la mentalité colonialiste. Le  
> multiculturalisme ne
> consiste pas à "payer les gens pour qu'ils conservent leurs racines
> étrangères" comme le suggèrent ses critiques. C'est un pot-de-vin : on  
> paie
> les groupes ethniques pour qu'ils demeurent à l'écart. En encourageant  
> la
> création de parcs à thème ethnique bien délimités, les gardiens du  
> Canada
> distraient la concurrence et protègent le territoire.
>
> Si le multiculturalisme a échoué, c'est que nous avons tenté  
> d'accomplir
> l'impossible : épouser la diversité tout en s'accrochant aux vieilles  
> idées
> de supériorité ethnique. Avec comme résultat qu'au Canada, le
> multiculturalisme est à peine plus qu'un exercice de commercialisation.
>
> Il pourrait en être autrement. Le Canada doit son existence aux  
> bâteaux, non
> à un droit acquis de naissance. Notre passé est en fait une collection  
> de
> passés; sans sa diversité, le Canada n'existe pas. Il n'y a pas de
> Canadienneté essentielle, ensevelie dans un glorieux et lointain passé,
> perdue par inadvertance. Tout ce qu'on retrouve, c'est la  
> Grande-Bretagne et
> la France - d'autres rêves d'un ailleurs. La Canadienneté est là, en  
> face de
> nous : c'est le flot constant d'immigrants qui ont choisi de venir  
> ici, ce
> sont les gens dont c'était le pays avant notre arrivée.
>
> La possibilité qu'émerge une culture à partir de notre passé est à la  
> fois
> stimulante et merveilleuse. Mais pour ce faire, nos écoles doivent  
> enseigner
> l'histoires des Polonais et des Ukrainiens qui ont colonisé les  
> Prairies,
> des Italiens qui ont bâti nos villes, des Chinois qui ont construit le
> chemin de fer transcontinental, des Loyalistes noirs qui ont contribué  
> à la
> colonisation de la Nouvelle-Écosse et des Japonais qui ont développé
> l'industrie de la pêche sur la côte ouest. Ces histoires ne doivent
> cependant pas être racontées sous forme de dramatiques moralisantes  
> ayant
> pour thème notre hospitalité et notre grand coeur. Elles doivent  
> traduire
> exactement ce qui s'est passé : un pays a voulu profité de l'aubaine  
> que
> représente une main-d'oeuvre étrangère bon marché, sans être contaminé  
> par
> l'influence corrosive de cultures "étrangères". M. Bissoondath croit  
> que
> connaître notre histoire peut nous transformer en nation, mais cette
> connaissance pourrait avoir une autre fonction, tout aussi importante  
> : elle
> peut nous aider à comprendre pourquoi nous sommes parfois si divisés.  
> Si
> nous acceptons sincèrement d'affronter le passé, nous apprendrons  
> peut-être
> comment devenir un pays plus uni, possédant une identité pleinement
> intégrée, sufisamment généreux pour inclure tous les Canadiens. Sinon,
> jamais nous n'échapperons à la ségrégation actuellement présente sous
> couvert de multiculturalisme ou à la querelle binaire qui passe pour la
> création d'une nation.
>
> -------------------
>
> Qui est Naomi Klein ?
>
> http://www.greatquestions.com/f/bio_q2_klein.html    
>
> Naomi Klein est une journaliste torontoise fréquemment invitée à  
> commenter
> les questions sociales à la télévision. Ancienne collaboratrice de  
> rédaction
> au magazine Elm Street, ses articles ont parus dans Toronto Life, Ms  
> et The
> Village Voice. Son livre, NO LOGO : SOLUTIONS FOR A SOLD PLANET, sera  
> publié
> à l'automne.
>
>
> Published on Saturday, September 23, 2000 in the Guardian of London
> http://www.guardian.co.uk
>
> Hand-To-Brand-Combat:
> A Profile Of Naomi Klein
> As a teenager, Naomi Klein was a dedicated mall rat, fixated on  
> designer
> labels. A bare decade later, the author of a life-changing book on
> anti-corporatism and the new politics, she is at the heart of the  
> protest at
> the current World Bank summit in Prague. She tells Katharine Viner how
> everything turned around for her
>
>
> by Katharine Viner
>
>  
> From the age of six, growing up in Canada, Naomi Klein was obsessed  
> with
> brand names, and what she could buy. She had a thing about the bright  
> signs
> she saw from the back-seat window of the family car: McDonald's,  
> Texaco,
> Burger King and, especially, the fluorescent yellow gorgeousness of  
> Shell:
> "So bright and cartoon-like I was convinced that, if I could climb up  
> and
> touch it, it would be like touching something from another dimension -  
> from
> the world of TV." She used to stitch little fake alligators on to her
> T-shirts so they would look like Lacoste, had a Saturday job in Esprit  
> (they
> had the best logo), and her biggest fights with her parents were over  
> Barbie
> and the price of designer jeans. In her high-school yearbook - where  
> some
> are labelled "most likely to succeed" - she was "most likely to be in  
> jail
> for stealing peroxide". She was defined by the products she used to  
> change
> the colour of her hair.
>
>
> Naomi Klein/CBC Photo
> But now, aged 30, Klein has written a book, No Logo, which has been  
> called
> "the Das Kapital of the growing anti-corporate movement". The teenager
> fixated on brand names has become a campaigner against our over-branded
> world, and a populariser of the kind of anti-corporate ideas that are
> currently fuelling protesters against the IMF/World Bank meeting in  
> Prague.
> The book has been a word-of-mouth sensation, giving voice to a  
> generation of
> people under 30 who have never related to politics until now. The band
> Radiohead were so inspired by No Logo that they have banned corporate
> advertising from their British tour, deeming all venues "logo-free" -  
> Ed
> O'Brien, the guitarist, says, "No Logo certainly made me feel less  
> alone.
> She was writing everything I was trying to make sense of in my head.  
> It was
> very uplifting."
>
> As a chronicler of what she calls "the next big political movement -  
> and the
> first genuinely international people's movement" - Klein writes that  
> Nike
> paid Michael Jordan more in 1992 for endorsing its trainers ($20  
> million)
> than the company paid its entire 30,000-strong Indonesian workforce for
> making them; why, in her opinion, this makes people angry; and why that
> anger is expressed in rallies outside the Nike Town superstore, rather  
> than
> outside government buildings or embassies. She shows how globalisation  
> has
> hit the poor the most, and how this new political movement is both
> historically informed and absolutely of the moment, like nothing that  
> has
> gone before.
>
> And, as we shall see, it was bound to be some- one such as Naomi Klein  
> who
> would be both at the heart of anti-corporatism and interpret it for  
> everyone
> else. The anti-corporate movement is resolutely disparate, and has no
> leaders; but it is no coincidence that its most prominent populariser  
> should
> be a 30-year-old woman from North America (the heart of wealth and  
> power),
> whose political background is a leftwing family and a teenage rebellion
> through shopping. As we shall see, she is perfectly placed to reflect  
> these
> times.
>
> Klein's argument starts with what we all recognise. Logos, she says,  
> are
> "the closest thing we have to an international language, by force of
> ubiquity". Most of the world's six billion people could identify the
> McDonald's sign, or the Coca-Cola symbol - we are united by what we are
> being sold. And the selling, these days, isn't just in magazines or on
> billboards: Gordon's gin fills British cinemas with the smell of  
> juniper
> berries; in some Scandinavian countries, you can get "free"  
> long-distance
> calls if you consent to ads cutting into your telephone conversations;  
> Nasa
> has solicited ads to run on its space stations. There's no escape.
>
> Furthermore, advertising today is not merely about selling products;  
> it is
> about selling a brand, a dream, a message. So Nike's aim is not to sell
> trainers but to "enhance people's lives through sports and fitness".  
> IBM
> doesn't sell computers, it sells "solutions". And as for Polaroid,  
> well,
> it's not a camera - it's a "social lubricant". You sell the message of  
> your
> brand, not your product, and you can expand as widely as you like. As
> Richard Branson says, you "build brands not around products but around
> reputation" - and leap from record shops to cola to banking to trains.
>
> But Branson's trains show how fragile this strategy might be - if  
> Virgin
> trains don't run on time, why should you trust his bank? Or look what
> happened to Nike - from being "the spirit of sports" in the early 90s,  
> the
> campaign against its use of atrocious sweatshops in developing  
> countries led
> CEO Phil Knight to confess in 1998 that his shoes "have become  
> synonymous
> with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse". When it's no  
> longer
> just about trainers, when the corporations have promised so much more  
> - a
> way of life! - they have very much more to lose.
>
> What's more, says Klein, people start to resent the colonisation of  
> their
> lives. Fine, they say, I'll buy my shoes from you, but I don't want  
> you to
> take over my head. Young activists, says Klein, feel that their  
> cultural and
> political space has been taken away and sold back to them,  
> neatly-packaged,
> as "alternative" or "anti-sexist" or "anti-racist". So Seattle grunge
> (including its star, Kurt Cobain) implodes through commercialisation,  
> and
> the designer Christian Lacroix says, "It's terrible to say, very often  
> the
> most exciting outfits are from the poorest people." So the Body Shop
> displays posters condemning domestic violence and Nike runs an ad  
> saying, "I
> believe high heels are a conspiracy against women." So Nike signs up  
> black
> stars such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, and then adorns the  
> walls of
> Nike Town with quotes from Woods saying, "There are still courses in  
> the US
> where I am not allowed to play, because of the colour of my skin." It's
> anti-racism without the politics; 50 years of civil-rights history  
> reduced
> to an anodyne advertising slogan.
>
> Next, the big brands effectively force out small businesses and take  
> over as
> much physical space as possible, with mergers and synergy being the  
> business
> buzzwords. Starbucks coffee shops (once they have co-opted a right-on,
> third-world-loving, world-music-playing milieu) operate by  
> "clustering": an
> area becomes saturated with branches, local cafes close down  
> (preferably
> well-liked independent ones in groovy areas) and the big brands take  
> over.
> Meanwhile, McDonald's wages a 26-year battle against a man called  
> Ronald
> McDonald whose McDonald's Family Restaurant in a small town in  
> Illinois was
> founded in 1956. How dare he be born with the same name as a corporate
> giant?
>
> And while the corporations are busy doing what they think is important  
> -
> branding a way of life, putting the squeeze on independent  
> shopkeepers, and
> the like - someone, somewhere, has to make the stuff. This may be a  
> time of
> "degraded production in the age of the superbrand", as Klein puts it,  
> but
> corporations do tend to need a product somewhere along the line. The  
> "death
> of manufacturing" is only a western phenomenon - as we're consuming  
> more
> products than ever, someone must be making them. But it's difficult to  
> find
> out who. As Klein says, "the shift in attitude toward production is so
> profound that, where a previous era of consumer goods corporations  
> displayed
> their logos on the facades of their factories, many of today's  
> brand-based
> multinationals maintain that the location of their production  
> operations is
> a 'trade secret', to be guarded at all costs." Very often, it seems,  
> they
> are produced under terrible conditions in free-trade zones in  
> Indonesia,
> China, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and elsewhere.
>
> The sweatshops Klein visited in Cavite, the largest free-trade zone in  
> the
> Philippines, have rules against talking and smiling. There is forced
> overtime, but no job security - it's "no work, no pay" when the orders  
> don't
> come in. Toilets are padlocked except during two 15-minute breaks per  
> day -
> seamstresses sewing clothes for western high-street chains told Klein  
> that
> they have to urinate in plastic bags under their machines. Women like
> Carmelita Alonzo, who sewed clothes for the Gap and Liz Claiborne, had  
> a
> two-hour commute home, and died after being denied time off for  
> pneumonia, a
> common illness in these factories. As Klein says, people are now  
> demanding
> to know why, if the big brands have so much power and influence over  
> price
> and marketing, they do not also have the power to demand and enforce  
> ethical
> labour standards from such suppliers.
>
> And don't think, says Klein, that the developing world is the only  
> place for
> exploitation by western industry. "Cavite may be capitalism's dream
> vacation, but casualisation is a game that can be played at home," she
> writes. Europe and North America have played host to the most  
> extraordinary
> rise in impermanence at work over the past two decades. The "McJob" is  
> a
> contemporary template: low-paid, no benefits, no union recognition and  
> no
> guarantee that your job will be there in the morning. At Wal-Mart, the
> world's largest retailer which opened its first British shop in July  
> after
> buying Asda, "full time" in its US branches means just 28 hours a  
> week; the
> average annual wage is a barely-livable $10,920. "You can buy two  
> grande
> mocha cappuccinos with my hourly salary," says Laurie Bonang, a worker  
> in
> Starbucks. Microsoft, the gleaming testament to the hi-tech products  
> of our
> future, has an extraordinary one-third of its workforce working as  
> temps. As
> Klein says, "It was Microsoft, with its famous employee stock-option  
> plan,
> that developed and fostered the mythology of Silicon Gold; but it is  
> also
> Microsoft that has done the most to dismantle it."
>
> So what happens when working conditions and modes of production fail to
> match up to a glorious, positive, right-on brand identity? People  
> start to
> get angry.
>
> Anticorporate activism is on the rise precisely because branding has  
> worked
> so well, believes Klein, in a neat example of the Marxist idea that
> capitalism contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
> "Multinationals such as Nike, Microsoft and Starbucks have sought to  
> become
> the chief communicators of all that is good and cherished in our  
> culture:
> art, sport, community, connection, equality. But the more successful  
> this
> project is, the more vulnerable these companies become. When they do  
> wrong,
> their crimes are not dismissed as the misdemeanours of another  
> corporation
> trying to make a buck. This is a connection more akin to the  
> relationship of
> fan and celebrity: emotionally intense, but shallow enough to turn on a
> dime." Having lived that relationship with consumer goods herself,  
> Klein
> knows just how it feels.
>
> She says that anti-brand activism is taking place on two fronts. "On  
> the one
> hand, it's throwing bricks through McDonald's window in Seattle. On the
> other, it's saying that we actually want the real thing, the real  
> 'third
> place' [not home, not work] that Starbucks tries to sell to us, the  
> real
> public space. People are saying: 'I do want real community, this is a  
> strong
> and powerful idea, and I resent the fact that this idea has been  
> stolen from
> me.' You've got these products that are held up on insane pedestals -  
> all of
> the collective longings of our culture have been projected on to  
> lattes or
> trainers. So there's a process of actively denting the facade of the  
> brand
> with the reality of the production."
>
> This deconstruction takes many forms, some more successful than  
> others. The
> activism includes "culture jamming", whereby ads are subverted by  
> "guerrilla
> artists" to send anti-corporate messages out to the public; jammers  
> paint
> hollow skulls on the faces of Gap models, or change an Apple ad  
> featuring
> the Dalai Lama and the slogan "Think Different" to "Think  
> Disillusioned". It
> includes the campaign group Reclaim The Streets, which started in  
> Britain
> partly in response to the 1994 Criminal Justice Act and which focuses  
> its
> concerns on environmentalism and the removal of public space; they stop
> cars, block a road and have a party on it. Reclaim The Streets is now  
> an
> international movement - on May 16, 1998, 30 Global Street Parties took
> place around the world.
>
> Students in North America, meanwhile, have been active in  
> anti-sweatshop
> campaigns, most noticeably since 1995-96, which Andrew Ross, author of
> anti-sweatshop textbook No Sweat, calls "the year of the sweatshop".  
> It was
> a year that brought many revelations. One typical example: a factory  
> manager
> making clothes in El Salvador for a major US clothing firm announced  
> that
> "blood will flow" if anyone joined a union. And another, more shocking  
> for
> the American public: the named-brand clothes line of TV presenter  
> Kathie Lee
> Gifford (a bit like Lorraine Kelly, only cheesier) was manufactured by  
> child
> labourers in Honduras and in illegal sweatshops in New York. (She  
> cried on
> TV and became an anti-sweatshop campaigner herself.) Guess, Mattel,  
> Disney
> and Nike were the targets of similar exposés.
>
> The tactics of many of these anti-sweatshop groups involve "head-on
> collisions between image and reality", says Klein, whether it is  
> filming an
> Indonesian Nike worker gasping as she learns that the trainers she  
> made for
> $2 a day sell for $120 a pair in San Francisco Nike Town, or comparing  
> the
> hourly salary of Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney ($9,783), with that of a
> Haitian worker who stitches Disney merchandise (28 cents).
>
> Other brand tactics simply hit companies where it hurts most. Nike  
> didn't
> seem too bothered about the campaign against it that took off so  
> vehemently
> in the US in the mid-90s, until a group of black 13-year-olds from the
> Bronx, the company's target market and the one exploited by it to get a
> street-cool image, learned that the trainers they bought for $180 cost  
> $5 to
> make, which led to a mass dumping of their old Nike trainers outside  
> New
> York's Nike Town. (One boy, reports Klein, looked straight into the TV  
> news
> camera and, showing a brand understanding that should alert his elders,
> said, "Nike, we made you. We can break you.")
>
> The UK's McLibel trial, which began in 1990, hurt McDonald's so  
> seriously -
> even though the firm eventually won the case - because it forced the
> hamburger giant to be open about its business practices. After suing  
> two
> British environmentalists for libel, the firm was forced to spend a
> humiliating 313 days in court, the longest trial in British history,
> defending every last detail of its business and making a number of
> spectacular gaffes along the way, such as one executive's claim that
> Coca-Cola is nutritious because it is "providing water, and I think  
> that is
> part of a balanced diet"; and another's that McDonald's burial of  
> rubbish in
> landfill sites is "a benefit, otherwise you will end up with lots of  
> vast
> empty gravel pits all over the country".
>
> Some activists use the courtroom; others, such as those opposed to  
> Shell's
> involvement with the Nigerian military government that devastated the  
> Ogoni
> lands and executed their champion, the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1994,  
> focus
> on issues of freedom of expression. Others humiliate corporations on  
> TV,
> take over roads, jam ads, gather wherever there is an international  
> summit
> (Auckland, Vancouver, Manila, Birmingham, London, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur,
> Cologne, Washington DC, Seattle, Prague), wreck a McDonald's before it  
> has
> even been built (the Peasant Confederation in Millau, France). And in  
> the
> developing world, home to the main victims of the global economy, rural
> activists burn GM seeds and hold laughing protests (Karnataka state  
> farmers
> in India, who claim to number 10 million), revolt against the  
> privatisation
> of the water system (Bolivia), strike and take over the national  
> university
> over a World Bank edict to raise student fees (Mexican students). The
> protest in Seattle was so huge because it was diverse; the US union  
> movement
> marched side by side with the head of the Filipino peasant movement.  
> It is
> global, anarchic and chaotic, like the internet it uses to organise;  
> it is,
> says Klein, "the internet come to life".
>
> When we meet, Klein serves a fruity drink that, its maker's claim, is  
> packed
> with intelligence-boosting herbs. (I don't remember the brand name.)  
> She is
> shy at first, and then not shy at all. She doesn't wear Gap or drink
> Starbucks, and is a lively and witty speaker (in public, too); her
> conversation is full of pop culture vernacular and jokes against  
> herself. We
> sit in her backyard in Toronto, which has a flourishing 'No Logo'  
> clematis
> (named to celebrate finishing her book), and are interrupted a couple  
> of
> times: first by her husband, Avi Lewis, a big TV star in Canada for his
> hugely successful, four-times-a-week political discussion programme;  
> then by
> his mother, Michele Landsberg, one of Canada's foremost radical  
> feminists,
> bearing gossip and a salmon. Klein and Lewis married because they  
> wanted to
> "have a big party", but they don't wear rings because they don't want  
> to be
> branded as married. Entertaining, political, down-to-earth, they  
> clearly
> have a great time together; Lewis says that, since he met Klein, he's  
> "got a
> lot more serious and had a lot more fun".
>
> Klein grew up with politics all around her. Her grandparents were  
> American
> Marxists in the 30s and 40s; her grandfather was an animator at Disney  
> who
> was fired and blacklisted for organising the company's first strike.  
> Her
> parents, who are also American, moved to Canada in protest at the  
> Vietnam
> war. Her father is a doctor and her mother, Bonnie Klein, made the  
> seminal
> anti-pornography film, This Is Not A Love Story, in 1980. "My mother  
> was
> really involved in the anti-pornography movement, and when I was at  
> school I
> found it very oppressive to have a very public feminist mother - it  
> was a
> source of endless embarrassment. When This Is Not A Love Story came  
> out,
> there was a lot of backlash against my mother. The headline in the  
> Toronto
> Globe And Mail was "Bourgeois Feminist Fascist", and she was made  
> Hustler
> magazine's asshole of the month; they took my mother's head and put it  
> on
> the back of a donkey. It was not cool in 1980 to be making films about
> pornography. Not at my elementary school, anyway."
>
> This, she says, is part of the reason she wanted nothing to do with  
> politics
> when she was growing up. "I think it's why I embraced full-on  
> consumerism. I
> was in constant conflict with my parents and I wanted them to leave me  
> the
> hell alone." Her brother, who is two years older, did not go through  
> the
> same kind of rebellion: "I don't think he was quite so much a victim  
> of the
> 80s as I was. We had no culture growing up. We had Cyndi Lauper."
>
> So, after years of obsession with Barbie, Girl's World and Disneyland,  
> what
> brought about the change? "I know the only way that I escaped the mall  
> -
> which is not to say that I don't ever go, or enjoy it - the only way I  
> got
> consumerism and vanity into a sane place in my life, though I don't  
> think we
> are ever rid of them, was just by becoming interested in other things.  
> It's
> that simple. Saying that you're a bad person for buying this or  
> wanting this
> only turns people off." Klein was all set to go to the University of  
> Toronto
> to study English and philosophy when her mother had a very severe  
> stroke
> aged 46. She took a year off to care for her. "I think that's what  
> stopped
> me from being such a brat."
>
> When she went to university a year later, a major news event ensured  
> that
> her politicisation was inevitable. "The pivotal moment politically for  
> me
> was in December 1989, when there was a massacre at the University of
> Montreal. A man went into the engineering school - he had failed to  
> get a
> place - and he separated the men from the women, shouted, 'You're all a
> bunch of fucking feminists', and opened fire. He killed 14 women.  
> There was
> nothing like that incident in Canadian history - this is not America,  
> where
> serial murders happen all the time - and it was a hate crime against  
> women.
> It was a cataclysmic moment. It politicised us enormously. Of course,  
> after
> that you call yourself a feminist."
>
> It was also at university that Klein learned what it's like to be  
> attacked
> for her opinions. She is Jewish, and during the intifada she wrote an
> article in the student newspaper called Victim To Victimiser, in which  
> she
> said "that not only does Israel have to end the occupation for the
> Palestinians, but also it has to end the occupation for its own people,
> especially its women". As a result of this one 800-word article, Klein
> received bomb threats at her home and at the newspaper office - "and  
> to this
> day I have never been more scared for my life".
>
> "After the article came out, the Jewish students' union, who were  
> staunch
> Zionists, called a meeting to discuss what they were going to do about  
> my
> article - and I went along, because nobody knew what I looked like.  
> And the
> woman sitting next to me said, 'If I ever meet Naomi Klein, I'm going  
> to
> kill her.' So I just stood up and said, 'I'm Naomi Klein, I wrote  
> Victim To
> Victimiser, and I'm as much a Jew as every single one of you.' I've  
> never
> felt anything like the silence in that room after that. I was 19, and  
> it
> made me tough."
>
> Klein became an outspoken feminist activist at college, campaigning on
> issues of media repre- sentation and gender visibility that constituted
> feminism at the end of the 80s - she received rape threats as a result  
> -
> and, rather than finish her degree, she dropped out to work as an  
> intern on
> the Toronto Globe And Mail. She left to become editor of an alternative
> political magazine, This Magazine. "When I was there [in the early  
> 90s], I
> did not feel that we were part of a political movement in any way - in  
> that
> there was not a left. We had to kind of invent it as we went along. The
> stress of it was the stress of the left. It burned us out." The left  
> that
> did exist Klein found depressing. "The only thing leftwing voices were
> saying was stop the cuts, stop the world we want to get off. It was  
> very
> negative and regressive, it wasn't imaginative, it didn't have its own  
> sense
> of itself in any way."
>
> It was around this time that advertising and branding started to co-opt
> alternative politics and culture. "On the one hand, there was this  
> total
> paralysis of the left. But, at the exact same time, all these ideas  
> that I
> had thought were the left - feminism and diversity and gay and lesbian
> rights - were suddenly very chic. So, on the one hand, you're  
> politically
> totally disempowered, and on the other all the imagery is  
> pseudo-feminist,
> Benetton is an anti-racism organisation, Starbucks does this
> third-world-chic thing. I watched my own politics become  
> commercialised."
> This imagery was, she says, a "mask for capitalism. It was making it  
> more
> difficult to see the power dynamics in society. Because this was a  
> time when
> there was a growing income gap between rich and poor that was quite
> staggering all over the world - and yet everything looked way more
> equitable, in terms of the imagery of the culture."
>
> Klein went back to university in 1995 to try to finish her degree, and
> something very clearly had changed. "I met this new generation of young
> radicals who had grown up taking for granted the idea that  
> corporations are
> more powerful than governments, that it doesn't matter who you elect  
> because
> they'll all act the same. And they were, like, fine, we'll go where the
> power is. We'll adapt. It didn't fill them with dread and depression.  
> When I
> was at university before, we thought our only power was to ban  
> something -
> but they were very hands-on, DIY, if you don't like something change  
> it, cut
> it, paste it, download it. Even though I don't think culture jamming by
> itself is a powerful political tool, there's something about that  
> posture
> that's impressive - it's unintimidated hand-to-brand contact. The young
> activists I know have grounded their political activism in economic  
> analysis
> and an understanding of how power works. They're way more  
> sophisticated than
> we were because they've had to be. Because capitalism is way more
> sophisticated now.
>
> "I think I'm lucky because I got to witness a significant shift,  
> something
> that changed, and I wanted to document that shift. And it seemed very,  
> very
> clear to me that if there was going to be a future for the left it  
> would
> have to be an anti-corporate movement."
>
> And so, Seattle in November last year - where 50,000 demonstrators  
> actually
> prevented a major WTO meeting from happening - did she expect it to be  
> so
> big? "Oh no. Seattle surprised me with its militancy. It surprised the
> organisers. It surprised everyone. I mean, this was the States . There  
> were
> all these underground networks of activism, and it just came to life.  
> Right
> now, the movement is at the stage of grassroots ferment - and it'll  
> either
> degenerate into chaos or it'll come together organically into something
> new."
>
> The first thing people tend to ask Klein is where she shops. Does she  
> buy
> Nike trainers? Does she never nip into Starbucks for a grande  
> cappuccino? Is
> her wardrobe certifiably sweatshop-free? "I'm the worst person to ask  
> these
> questions," she says, "because since the book came out people really  
> are
> watching what I buy. If I walked around Toronto with a Starbucks, it  
> would
> be seen that I was endorsing that brand." But, she says, for anyone who
> hasn't written a book about corporations and sweatshops, it's a  
> different
> matter. "I firmly believe that it's not about where you shop. I'm  
> lucky in
> that I happen to live a few blocks from some great independent  
> designers, so
> I actually can shop in stores where I know where stuff is produced.  
> But I
> can't say that to a 17-year-old girl in the suburbs who can only shop  
> at the
> mall. It's not a fair message.
>
> "This is not a consumer issue; it's a political issue. There is a way  
> for us
> to respond as citizens that is not simply as consumers. Over and over  
> again,
> people's immediate response to these issues is: what do I buy? I have  
> to
> immediately solve this problem through shopping. But you can like the
> products and not like the corporate behaviour; because the corporate
> behaviour is a political issue, and the products are just stuff. The
> movement is really not about being purer-than-thousand producing a  
> recipe
> for being an ethical consumer. That drains a lot of political energy."
>
> Is this why she published in Britain with Flamingo, part of the
> Murdoch-owned HarperCollins, a major corporation if ever there was  
> one? "To
> be honest, I really did not have my pick of publishers in Britain.  
> Only one
> wanted the book. What I said when I signed with HarperCollins was that  
> I was
> going to go out of my way to write about Murdoch, more than I would  
> have
> done otherwise. I did, and they didn't touch it."
>
> As a populariser of the movement's arguments, does Klein consider  
> herself an
> activist or a journalist? "I see myself as an activist journalist," she
> says. "I became a journalist because I'm not comfortable being an  
> activist.
> I hate crowds - I know, great irony - and I'm physically incapable of
> chanting. I'm always slightly detached, so I write about it to feel  
> more
> comfortable. I like to believe that I can be part of this movement  
> without
> being a propagandist. There's a really strong tradition of this, like  
> Gloria
> Steinem, Norman Mailer, Susan Faludi. I do think that there's so much
> fragmentation in this movement that if someone tries to work out a  
> coherent
> thesis - even if you don't agree with all or even much of it - it can  
> be
> helpful by making something more solid."
>
> In Prague, at the protests against the IMF/World Bank, she will be  
> speaking
> at today's counter-summit, but she is concerned that the media has  
> already
> portrayed the protesters as mad terrorists crossing continents with  
> the sole
> intention of kicking some Czech police. "Months ago we were already  
> seeing
> the most extreme attempts to criminalise protest. This is a protest  
> about
> the IMF and the World Bank, and the effects they're having on poorer
> countries. We must not let the reaction of the state and the police  
> entirely
> define the message. I'm going to Prague because I believe it is a  
> crucially
> important opportunity to show the world what this movement really is -  
> the
> first genuinely international people's movement."
>
> There are some who wonder, though, whether the IMF and corporations  
> are the
> right target. Isn't it governments that we should be aiming at, since  
> it is
> governments, initially led by Reagan and Thatcher with their dramatic
> lowering of corporate taxes, which gave the corporations such power in  
> the
> first place? "I think these corporations are not really targets, they  
> are
> metaphors," says Klein. "They're being used by this generation of young
> activists as a popular education tool to understand the global  
> economy. When
> I was at university, we were intimidated and didn't understand anything
> about globalisation. So we tuned out from that and turned in on  
> ourselves
> and became more and more insular - which is the great irony of those  
> years,
> because that was when all this accelerated globalisation was  
> happening. We
> weren't watching. And what I see happening with, say, the campaign  
> against
> Nike is a tactic on the part of activists who've decided to turn these
> companies into metaphors for the global economy gone awry."
>
> In other words, when the global economy is so huge, so forbidding, the
> corporations are an accessible way in. "When the WTO was created in  
> Uruguay
> in 1995, there were no protesters outside. These trade bureaucrats  
> created a
> world of incredibly complex institutions and arcane trade agreements  
> written
> by policy wonks with no interest in popularising. So I believe that
> anti-corporate campaigns are the bridge: they're the first baby-step to
> developing an analysis of global capitalism."
>
> Indeed, an important and fascinating aspect of the movement has been  
> popular
> education - groups holding mass teach-ins on global politics,  
> international
> economics, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO (the "iron triangle of  
> corporate
> rule"); Naafta, the EU, Gatt, Apec, G-8, the OECD, structural  
> adjustment. At
> Seattle, activists in their 20s sat for eight hours at a stretch  
> listening
> to speakers from around the world decode globalisation for them.
>
> Is this a re-invention of left politics? After a decade in the  
> wilderness,
> is anti-corporatism the post-cold war new New Left? "I think it is,"  
> says
> Klein, "but it's only at the early stages of re-invention. Sometimes, I
> think it's moving towards creating a global new deal, and sometimes I  
> think
> it's way more radical than that. And it might be - I don't know." I  
> mention
> the impact of the very word "capitalism", which had gone resolutely  
> out of
> fashion until June 18, 1999, when demonstrators staged an  
> "anti-capitalist"
> demonstration in the City of London. "Since June 18, the comeback of  
> the
> word 'capitalism' is just extraordinary," laughs Klein. "It's like  
> Santana -
> what the hell's going on? Suddenly they're talking about 'capitalism'  
> on
> CNN, and in Washington there are all these little girls wearing caps  
> with
> 'Capitalism Sux' on them. For a long time, the very word has been  
> invisible
> - it's just the economy, the way the world works." And that change has
> happened in little over a year. "That's why I feel optimistic, and I'm  
> not
> impatient about the pace of change."
>
> The trouble is, we're used to thinking that something that is
> anti-capitalist must be straightforwardly socialist or communist,  
> which is
> not the case with this movement. It is, instead, "an amalgam of
> environmentalism, anti-capitalism, anarchy and the kitchen sink", says  
> Klein
> - which leads us to the central criticism levelled at all the  
> anti-corporate
> protests. What do they stand for? What are their goals? Where is their
> vision?
>
> "I think I have more patience for finding this out than most people,"  
> says
> Klein. "I've been following this movement for five years, and I know  
> where
> we were at five years ago and I know where we are now. We were  
> nowhere. That
> a genuine political movement can begin to emerge in that timespan,
> organically, on its own - it's extraordinary. I think a lot of those
> demanding a manifesto or a leader are people of a different generation  
> who
> have an idea in their mind of what a political movement looks like,  
> and they
> want Abbie Hoffman or Gloria Steinem and where are they?"
>
> Even such diverse campaigns - from groups fighting against Nike, or
> agribusiness, or world debt, or the Free Trade Area of the Americas -  
> "share
> a belief that the disparate problems with which they are wrestling all
> derive from global deregulation, an agenda that is concentrating power  
> and
> wealth into fewer and fewer hands". And the fragmentation of the  
> campaigns,
> says Klein, is a "reasonable, even ingenious adaptation of changes in  
> the
> broader culture". The movement, with its hubs and spokes and hotlinks,  
> its
> emphasis on information rather than ideology, reflects the tool it  
> uses - it
> is the "internet come to life". This is why it doesn't work well on
> television, unlike the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s with their  
> leaders,
> their slogans, their single-issue politics.
>
> When people say that the movement lacks vision, believes Klein, what  
> they
> really mean is that it is different from anything that's gone before,  
> that
> it is a completely new kind of movement - just as the internet is a
> completely new kind of medium. "What critics are really saying is that  
> the
> movement lacks an overarching revolutionary philosophy, such as  
> Marxism,
> democratic socialism, deep ecology or social anarchy, on which they all
> agree." But the movement should not, says Klein, be in a hurry to  
> define
> itself. "Before they sign on to anyone's 10-point plan, they deserve  
> the
> chance to see if, out of the movement's chaotic, decentralised,  
> multi-headed
> webs, something new, something entirely its own, can emerge."
>
> No Logo has been leapt upon by some commentators who are thrilled by  
> Naomi
> Klein's rejection of the identity politics of her youth, and so see it  
> as
> anti-feminist. "This is not a rejection of feminism," she says. "It is  
> a
> return to the roots of feminism - early feminism was very involved in
> anti-sweatshop action, and the current anti-sweatshop movement very  
> much
> sees it as a feminist issue, since it is overwhelmingly women of  
> colour who
> are being abused by the systems. I feel that we lost our way in the  
> late
> 80s, when feminism became disengaged from its roots, which originally  
> had
> critiques of capitalism and of consumerism. I am a feminist and this  
> is a
> feminist book."
>
> This, I believe, is crucial to understanding both why the movement is  
> so
> popular with young people and why Klein is so perfectly placed to be  
> its
> chief populariser. In the 60s and 70s, activists concentrated their
> anti-racism and feminism on matters of equality - equal rights and  
> equal
> pay. In Klein's 80s and 90s, they campaigned instead on issues of  
> culture
> and identity: portrayal in the media, who gets to the board. But the  
> new
> generation of activists is taking the best bits of both: developing a
> radical critique of the global economy, while incorporating identity
> politics as a matter of course. So, whereas Sheila Rowbotham was  
> greeted
> with a barrage of wolf-whistles and guffaws when she got on stage to  
> speak
> about education at a leftist conference in 1968, no one is surprised  
> that
> this movement's main theorist is a woman. This is a far more inclusive
> movement than those that have gone before.
>
> There's a personal recollection in No Logo in which Klein talks about  
> being
> 17 and wondering what to do with her life. She was frustrated, because  
> if
> you wanted to be a traveller Lonely Planet had got there first; if you
> wanted to be an avant-garde artist, someone had done it all already,  
> and put
> the image on a mug for you to take home. "All my parents wanted was  
> the open
> road and a VW camper," she writes. "That was enough escape for them."  
> Now it
> feels as if there is "no open space anywhere". It is as if this  
> generation's
> culture is being sold out as they are living it; there is nothing left  
> to
> discover.
>
> Her thesis is about trying to find some space that hasn't been bought  
> up by
> anyone; trying to rediscover our identities as citizens, and not just
> consumers. It is about globalisation, and the power corporations have  
> over
> our lives. But it is also about being 30, having spent your youth in a
> disaffected age. Her grandfather, the animator blacklisted by McCarthy,
> would be proud: Naomi Klein might just be helping re-invent politics  
> for a
> new generation.
>
> No Logo, by Naomi Klein, is published by HarperCollins. For links,  
> visit the
> book's website.
>
> © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
>
> -----------------
>
> Livres écrits par Naomi Klein
>    et
> Ouvrages qu'elle recommande (en outre du sien)
>
> No Logo: Solutions for a Sold Planet
>
>
>     If One Were to Write a History
> Robert F. Harney
>
>     Imagined Communities
> Benedict Anderson
>
>      Nation and Narration
> Homi Bhabha
>       
>     None is Too Many
> Irving Abella, Harold Troper
>
>      Semiotext(e)
>      The Concubine's Children: Portrait of a Family Divided
> Jordan Zinovich
>            
>        Click: Becoming Feminists
> Denise Chong
>       
>
> ----------------------
> Complément d'info et réf :
> Semiotext(e) est la revue et la maison d'édition de Sylvère Lotringer  
> et
> Chris Kraus ;
> Pour Lotringer avant 1968, voir les archives de Recherches
> in criticalsecret N°8 ;
> sommaire html, à Anne Querrien :
> http://www.criticalsecret.com/n8/htsum/index.html
> directement dans le navigateur :
> http://www.criticalsecret.com/n8/quer/3rec/index.html
>
> ----------------------
>
>
>
>
> < n e t t i m e - f r >
>
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< n e t t i m e - f r >
 
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