Ceaseless observation ” “

A review of contemporary culture published by the Jesuits of France, “Études” is now marking its 150th anniversary (1856-2006): a “birthday” celebrated in its January number, entirely dedicated to the theme of “existing”. “150 years of ideological debates, and of technological and scientific progress, but also of many conflicts”, notes the director of the review, Father PIERRE DE CHARENTENAY , in his editorial, emphasising that the “aim of celebrating this anniversary is to indicate the journey we have made so far in order better to shape our course in future”. Founded by Father Ivan Gagarin for the apostolate of the Russians in 1856, “Études” was soon resumed by the French Jesuits with a wider objective. Twice suppressed during the nineteenth century, and then again during the Second World War, after 1974 it widened its scope and embarked on a new openness to dialogue with the whole world. With a print-run of 15,000 copies and over 11,000 subscribers, “Études” – says the editorial – “still remains a forum of significant debate on ideological systems, injustices and our collective representations”. (For further information: www.revue-etudes.com) AN EXCITING TASK. “The future promises to be full of perils – points out Father de Charentenay in his editorial -. The tasks before us are immense: justice at the international level, ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, in particular with Islam, individualism and democracy, international and domestic peace, attention to ecology and climate change, terrorism…”. So the “difficult but exciting” task of the review is “ceaselessly to observe the postmodern age to underline the opportunities it offers” and, at the same time, “not to hesitate to denounce uncertainties, mental confusions and the pretensions of a freedom that has lost its own meaning, or a false modernity that has been erected into a dogma”. THE GREAT ANXIETY. According to JEAN-CLAUDE GUILLEBAUD, the present age “is instilled with a particular anxiety, which might be said to be ontological” and “has nothing to do with fear of international terrorism, climate change, or delinquency” because, argues Guillebaud, “it has far deeper roots”. “The new world”, the result of recent “anthropological changes”, remains “in large part indecipherable: an enigma that torments our collective consciousness” and “imbues each one of us with the idea of apocalypse, in its dual significance of destruction and revelation”. According to the journalist, “we are experiencing one of the great breaking points of history which, like the fall of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, or the Industrial Revolution, have given birth to a new world: a planetary vortex, which overturns our representations of modernity and whose sense we have difficulty in grasping”. RULES VALID FOR EVERYONE. “All depends on the idea we have of the international system. If we are convinced that what matters is the power of States, then Europe counts for nothing. If on the other hand we believe that values, ideas, movements of opinion are more important”, then “the opportunities” of the old continent seem clear. According to ZAKI LAIDI, researcher at the CISR (Centre of International Studies and Research), “today the great international questions can no longer be regulated by force alone”, and the proof of that is Iraq. Nonetheless, observes Laidi, it’s not clear whether we are heading towards a world organized and regulated by norms – according to the European project -, or whether we are witnessing a return to the realpolitik of the past with the growth of the power of China, India and Russia”. “This is the real question: the Europeans are banking on the system of rules – he continues -, but I’m not sure whether the other big powers share this view of the world”. “The Chinese, for example, wish to join the ‘club of the big powers’ not to champion the rule of law, but to defend their own interests”. Europe, concludes Laidi, has the task of “trying to convince others to join a system of governance regulated by laws that are valid for everyone, including the big powers”. LIVING IN PALESTINE. “No Israeli woman, no mother, after having accompanied her own son to school, can be sure of seeing him again in the evening: it’s enough for him to take the same bus as a Palestinian suicide-bomber, or cross through the market of any Israeli town at the same time as one of the brigades of Al Aqsa, to never set foot in his home again”, observes ANTOINE SFEIR, expert of the Islamic world. But the Palestinian mother suffers too: “Publicly – says Sfeir – she says she is proud of her son, but when she finds herself alone in her home, once the official speeches have ended, she is a woman destroyed by grief, who keeps on saying amid tears: ‘They took him without even asking me whether I agreed'”. In the view of the journalist, “according to a survey, only a minority of Palestinian society say they are favourable to the suicide attacks carried out in Israel”. More hostile is their attitude to the Israeli settlers, “less than 200,000 on the West Bank, but well armed, often arrogant, and always provocative…”.