A Londres, le pr\u00e9sident Sarkozy, qui n’en est pas \u00e0 une contorsions du langage et de l’id\u00e9e pr\u00e8s, a c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 l’entente formidable (Sarko-Gordon Brown) en c\u00e9l\u00e9brant le mod\u00e8le britannique dont il a affirm\u00e9 qu’il \u00e9tait un de ses guides et un de ses objectifs. Parall\u00e8lement \u00e0 sa visite mais certainement sans intention de nuire, The Spectator<\/em> publie le 26 mars<\/a> un essai de l’auteur de th\u00e9\u00e2tre et l’historien des id\u00e9es David Selbourne<\/a>, d\u00e9crivant l’\u00e9tat de crise profonde o\u00f9 se trouve plong\u00e9 le Royaume-Uni, le mod\u00e8le britannique en question.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tEn fait, Selbourne d\u00e9peint la crise des d\u00e9mocraties occidentales et du syst\u00e8me lib\u00e9ral, dont effectivement le Royaume-Uni est un des phares incontestables, donc un des stades les plus avanc\u00e9s de cette crise. Il compare in fine<\/em> la p\u00e9riode actuelle pour le Royaume-Uni \u00e0 celle du milieu du XVII\u00e8me si\u00e8cle, o\u00f9 intervint la r\u00e9volution de Cromwell: \u00abIn Britain in the mid-17th century, before Cromwell took up the sword, the people were said to be mad with liberty, as now. He spoke of the carnal confidence which many had in misunderstood and misapplied precepts, as now. Moreover, with Western economies largely driven by consumer spending and growth made the measure of national progress, liberal democracies must be regarded as stumbling towards the dark.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tL’\u00e9tat du Royaume-Uni aujourd’hui? \u00abThe ills of Western democracies are afflicting the most liberal societies known to history. Among other things, Britain suffers from growing inequality, housing shortage, a falling quality of health provision, rising rates of many types of crime, a failing pedagogy, agricultural impoverishment and a huge scale of consumer debt…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLa p\u00e9roraison de l’historien des id\u00e9es va au coeur du d\u00e9bat le plus fondamental, avec la d\u00e9nonciation de l’attaque contre l’id\u00e9e de nation. C’est la mise en \u00e9vidence de la crise identitaire qui affecte les d\u00e9mocraties occidentales, encore une fois, le mod\u00e8le britannique en premier pour son compte.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abWith such retreats, many from moral cowardice, there has necessarily come lost identity and lost sense of nation. Indeed, in these times of misjudgment, sense of nation is now as if under taboo, to civil society’s peril. Citizenship (of an increasingly identityless country) has also been permitted to signify so little that no polity could cohere on its basis, modernise as you may. Moreover, no society can rest, or has ever rested, upon the possession of rights alone, whether human rights or other. But in these times of misjudgment, duties, and especially enforceable duties the duties that bind us are once more perceived by many as intrusions and impositions upon personal freedom.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIn a plural society, mere co-existence among its increasingly separate parts is not enough to sustain it. This, too, was once a commonplace political truth. If well cared for, declared Cromwell in 1657, the interest of the Nation was better than any rock to fence men in their other interests, private interests. In Britain, such interest of the Nation has been gradually submerged by, and sold off to, market forces, subordinated to extra-territorial jurisdiction, and hidden from sight. In this flux, the half-baked policies of today’s main political parties have largely converged, while what Cromwell called the lost honour of parliament with even Mr Speaker (and his wife) accused of malfeasance has further weakened government itself.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbWhy? Among other things, because attempts to set the national house in order cannot succeed when the public holds politicians in growing contempt. Those who place their own private and party interests before the public good cannot lay down the law for others. Come, come, we have had enough of this, Cromwell told the Rump Parliament in 1653. Today, many millions of discontented British citizens doubtless think the same when they contemplate the state of the nation, the nation for which it is thought to be wrong to care.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAnd it is here that there is to be found the greatest misjudgment of all: underestimation of the extent and degree of subterranean anger in Britain or in those who have not yet left it, or who cannot go over its inequities, its sequestered or flogged-off public institutions, its destructive and self-destructive freedoms and licences, and much more besides.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbLiberty to Cromwell and we must listen again to this voice meant rigorous settled obedience to laws that are just’; or, as Burke put it, we must give away some natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages. Up and be doing!, said the great Protector in 1643, speaking directly to us now; we must act lively, do it without distraction, neglect no means; and, going to the heart of today’s confusions also, weak counsels and weak actings undo all.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbMoreover, as the free society disintegrates, it is a progressive not a reactionary stance to favour the restoration of the idea of nation, the values and duties of citizenship, the safeguarding of the public domain from the privateer, the elevation of the ethic of public service over private interest and, yes, ID cards too. To hold otherwise is to invite, or incite, the justly angered to find their own ways to a new political settlement in Britain or to leave it in ever greater droves.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tDans cet essai, l’int\u00e9r\u00eat des opinions de David Selbourne, qu’on pourrait rapprocher, comme position, de celles d’Alain Finkelkraut en France, est qu’elles s’expriment notamment dans tr\u00e8s forte hostilit\u00e9 \u00e0 l’islamisme et \u00e0 la religion musulmane dans le cadre int\u00e9rieur du Royaume-Uni. Cela permet de mettre en \u00e9vidence les confusion des diverses positions dans ces questions. Selbourne fait en m\u00eame temps un proc\u00e8s violent \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 lib\u00e9rale jug\u00e9e mortif\u00e8re et suicidaire, et \u00e0 l’islamisme et \u00e0 la religion musulmane, dont le statut favoris\u00e9 dans les d\u00e9mocraties lib\u00e9rales est jug\u00e9 par lui comme le signe et la cons\u00e9quence de ce caract\u00e8re mortif\u00e8re et suicidaire. Mais si l’on prend la situation de l’attaque contre l’islamisme et la religion mulsulmane au niveau international, on sait que c’est ce m\u00eame courant lib\u00e9ral, avec la globalisation et le citoyen priv\u00e9 d’identit\u00e9 et transform\u00e9 en consommateur, qui la m\u00e8ne en priorit\u00e9. Dans ce cas, les situations sont renvers\u00e9es par rapport \u00e0 celles que d\u00e9nonce Selbourne qui, au niveau int\u00e9rieur, assimile dans une m\u00eame opprobe l’id\u00e9ologie lib\u00e9rale et l’islamisme qu’elle favoriserait.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tSelbourne est un intellectuel de tendance conservatrice. Il se trouve plac\u00e9 devant les m\u00eames contradictions par rapport \u00e0 cette r\u00e9f\u00e9rence puisque les conservateurs, qu’on jugerait d\u00e9voy\u00e9s pour l’occasion, notamment les conservateurs anglo-saxons et particuli\u00e8rement aux USA, sont \u00e0 la t\u00eate du courant d\u00e9structurant de la globalisation, qui s’affirme dans ce cas de la globalisation am\u00e9ricaniste, pour les besoins de la cause, contre les divers modes de d\u00e9sordre ou de r\u00e9sistance de l’islamisme. La r\u00e9f\u00e9rence de l’islamisme est un faux masque ou un faire-valoir pour le lib\u00e9ralisme. Elle est d\u00e9structurante au niveau int\u00e9rieur des nations non-musulmanes, et donc sa cause est applaudie et sa p\u00e9n\u00e9tration favoris\u00e9e par le courant lib\u00e9ral. Elle est au contraire structurante au niveau international, par sa seule r\u00e9sistance \u00e0 la globalisation ou par son r\u00f4le dans diverses r\u00e9sistances nationales, et elle est attaqu\u00e9e par le courant lib\u00e9ral. O\u00f9 est la substance? O\u00f9 est l’accident?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl s’agit donc de distinguer la substance de l’accident. La question de l’islamisme et de la religion musulmane est une r\u00e9f\u00e9rence contingente, qui peut changer compl\u00e8tement de sens selon le point de vue que l’on adopte. Le vrai proc\u00e8s de Selbourne est fait contre une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 par essence d\u00e9structurante, dont, estime-t-il, l’un des aspects de cette d\u00e9structuration est l’accueil qu’elle fait \u00e0 l’islamisme. L’essentiel est bien dans la critique du courant d\u00e9structurant lui-m\u00eame, qui est le courant lib\u00e9ral transnational, qui tend \u00e0 mettre en cause toutes les structures qui lui r\u00e9sistent, et particuli\u00e8rement l’id\u00e9e de nation en premier.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abL’Angleterre a perdu son identit\u00e9 et le sens de la nation<\/em>\u00bb, \u00e9crit David Selbourne, et c’est \u00e9videmment l’id\u00e9e principale de son essai. Est-ce l\u00e0 le mod\u00e8le que c\u00e9l\u00e8bre le pr\u00e9sident fran\u00e7ais, qui tente de retrouver quelques points dans les sondages en cherchant \u00e0 figurer une repr\u00e9sentation digne et affirm\u00e9e, une repr\u00e9sentation identitaire et dot\u00e9e du sens de la nation, de sa fonction? La confusion des id\u00e9es et des situations, qui caract\u00e9rise d\u00e9j\u00e0 la description d’une situation nationale par un historien des id\u00e9es, ne peut \u00e9pargner \u00e9videmment un politicien qui n’a pas encore \u00e9t\u00e9 touch\u00e9 par la gr\u00e2ce du sens de l’Etat. Et encore, certes, si cette gr\u00e2ce existe toujours pour le politicien de base… Quoi qu’il en soit, on saluera au moins cette phrase de Selbourne, parfaitement anti-moderne<\/a> dans le sens d\u00e9fini par Andr\u00e9 Compagnon (\u00abCelui qui peut dire nous modernes tout en d\u00e9non\u00e7ant le moderne.<\/em>\u00bb), cette phrase exactement: \u00ab…it is a progressive not a reactionary stance to favour the restoration of the idea of nation<\/em>\u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 29 mars 2008 \u00e0 16H49<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Londres, le pr\u00e9sident Sarkozy, qui n’en est pas \u00e0 une contorsions du langage et de l’id\u00e9e pr\u00e8s, a c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 l’entente formidable (Sarko-Gordon Brown) en c\u00e9l\u00e9brant le mod\u00e8le britannique dont il a affirm\u00e9 qu’il \u00e9tait un de ses guides et un de ses objectifs. Parall\u00e8lement \u00e0 sa visite mais certainement sans intention de nuire, The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4875,3907,3947,7498,5197,4590,7497],"class_list":["post-69794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-britannique","tag-destructuration","tag-islamisme","tag-liberaliste","tag-modele","tag-sarkozy","tag-selbourne"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}