Adio utopiei: Revolutiile din 1989 dupa doua decenii
27/09/2009 — tismaneanu
Tocmai a aparut in revista Dissent online interventia mea despre aniversarea revolutiilor din 1989. Sunt publicate si alte comentarii pe acelasi subiect semnate, intre altii de Shlomo Avineri, Ana Seleny, Paul Berman si Jeffrey Wasserstrom.
Imi amintesc seara din ianuarie 1990 cand am primit acasa la Philadephia un telefon neasteptat: “It’s Irving Howe” mi-a spus persoana care sunase. Il vazusem conferentiind pe legendarul editor al lui Dissent, ii citisem cartea devenita clasica despre roman si politica, stiam multe despre polemicile cu stanga pro-sovietica, cu directia New Left, dar si cu neoconservatorii. Irving Howe si Michael Harrington au incercat sa reconstruiasca socialismul democratic, un fel de via media intre comunism si liberalism. Li s-a asociat filosoful politic Michael Walzer. Din opera lui Howe raman notabile multe eseuri literare, cartea despre emigrantii evrei din New York (The World of Our Fathers), studii de istoria ideilor, in primul rand despre traditia gandirii socialiste anti-autoritare. A fost unul dintre cei patru protagonisti ai filmului Arguing the World (impreuna cu Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer si Daniel Bell).
Mi-a cerut atunci un articol pentru numarul special al revistei dedicat revolutiilor din Europa de Est. L-am scris si aparut sub titlul “From Euphoria to Rage”. Ulterior, am ramas in contact cu editorii de la Dissent, in special cu prietenul meu Mitchell Cohen, autorul biografiei lui Lucien Goldmann aparuta la Princeton University Press, profesor de stiinte politice la City University of New York. Intre contributing editors se numara ganditori de care ma simt extrem de apropiat: Agnes Heller (New School University) si Jeffrey Isaac (Indiana University). Irving Howe s-a stins din viata acum cativa ani. In urma cu o luna am fost abordat de redactia revistei spre a scrie, alaturi de alti politologi, istorici, sociologi, un scurt bilant al celor decenii scurse de la momentul intr-adevar world-historical (weltgeschichtlich, in sens hegelian) al revolutiilor din ‘89.
TWO DECADES have passed since the extraordinary tumult called by many “the upheaval in the East”—the chain of dramatic events that led to the accomplishment of what most of us thought to be unthinkable: the collapse of communist regimes and the end of a system that seemed destined to last forever. In spite of many critical retrospective assessments, the revolutions of 1989 fulfilled our most important aspirations: they irretrievably shattered Leninism and opened the path to the self-empowerment of the citizens of Eastern Europe. But the most important result—the new idea brought about by the year 1989—was the re-thinking of the notion of citizenship.
The struggles that followed during post-communism were fundamentally centered on the concepts of civility and accountability. Politics, culture, social relations all were connected in one way or another to definitions of what it means to be a citizen. The immediate aftermath of 1989 showed us two possible paths to follow: the one where the revolutions succeeded in instilling a sustainable sense of civic belonging, and those cases where the revolutions themselves were temporarily sidetracked and even negated, aborted, or abducted. All in all, it seems that Ralf Dahrendorf’s synthetic formula remains brilliantly enduring: “citizens in search of meaning.” The crucial challenge after 1989 was that of successfully (or at least satisfactorily) building a moral and political consensus based on shared trust in accountable institutions and predictable procedures.
Postat in 1989, Argumente, Bibliografii, Secolul XX, totalitarism. Lasă un comentariu »
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