Category Archives: Newsletter

Editorial

It has commonly been said that the present ‘recession’ is the worst setback to the world economy since the ‘Great Depression’ that began in the USA in 1929. The philosopher Paul Mattick points out, in his recent book Business as Usual (2011) that this claim falsely implies that crises are the exceptions to some general rule of stability. There have been depressions in virtually every decade since the 1820s, before which economic statistics offer little basis for generalisation. Even the phrase ‘Great Depression’ itself was borrowed after 1929 from the devastating crisis of 1873-96.

In 1860, the French ‘Académie des sciences morales et politiques’ sponsored a competition to ‘inquire into the causes, and indicate the effects, of commercial crises that took place in Europe and North America during the nineteenth century . . . As commercial relations have expanded, the perturbations that crises bring with them are also touching more and more regions’. As early as 1819, Mattick writes, J. C-L. Simonde de Sismondi explained a recent crisis in terms that are all too familiar in our own time: the unplanned nature of the market economy; the fact that consumers’ income is less than the value of goods produced; the related idea that more is invested in production than is justified by the extent of the market; and the unequal distribution of income. Continue reading →

Participation - image: euranet.connect (cc: by)

Jessica Nitschke

In a report from the “Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung” in Germany, three main elements of the democratic life of the EU were described. The first element is the directly elected European Parliament, which is designed to represent formally the citizens at European level. The second element of the EU’s democratic life is that of the elections, parliaments and governments of nation states, which are in turn represented at the European Council and the EU’s Council of Ministers.The last is that of European civil society, which is now specifically targeted by the European Commission in the EU’s decision-making processes. Continue reading →

Greece - image: archer10 (cc: by-sa)

One of our enduring historical clichés is that Greece is  ‘the cradle of democracy ‘. Like many cliches this is neither totally false, nor very enlightening. Athens around the year 500 BC was a city-state, a polis, a kind of democracy although – once women, males under eighteen, resident foreigners and (most numerously of all) slaves were excluded – perhaps only 10-15% of its inhabitants were citizens with the power to elect or be elected. In no way was ancient Greece what we might call a  ‘liberal ‘ or  ‘constitutional democracy ‘, in which a representative government also guarantee certain individual and collective rights to minorities, such as freedom of speech and religion. Continue reading →

Empowerment - image: taubuch (cc: by)

Une stratégie clé des Eglises dans la gestion de leur responsabilité environnementale réside dans le renforcement de l’autonomie des capacités d’auto-organisation, des forces de vie.

La recherche sociopédagogique des dernières décennies a attiré de plus en plus l’attention sur l’importance de l’Empowerment (l’autonomisation) comme concept pédagogique holistique: un processus d’apprentissage et de maturation, au travers duquel les personnes quittent le fourré de leur dépendance, la soumission au paternalisme et aux mécanismes de contrôle externes, et trouvent une position de force dans laquelle elles deviennent le sujet principal de leur propre développement. Continue reading →

50 years ago

La convention qui régit les relations d’association entre la Communauté européenne et les 16 Etats d’outre-mer africains et malgache, vient à échéance à la fin de cette année. Que mettre à la place? La question est posée depuis plusieurs mois ; les ministres européens en ont parlé entre eux, puis les africains. Ils en traitent au cours de ce mois à Bruxelles entre experts blancs et noirs. On ne sait trop ce qui sortira de ces délibérations, mais force est de constater que les intentions des Six n’apparaissent pas encore très clairement. Les Africains et les Malgaches ont par contre exposé avec un grand luxe de détails ce qu’ils attendaient du futur régime d’association. Leurs vues à ce sujet sont connues officiellement depuis Yaoundé et la Conférence interparlementaire de Strasbourg. Elles ont été exprimées depuis, lors des rencontres qui ont eu lieu à différents niveaux entre diplomates africains et européens. Continue reading →

Editorial

In 2012 JEO-OCIPE (Brussels) is being restructured as the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC).
Following a decision of the Conference of European Provincials at its plenary assembly in Poland in October 2011, OCIPE, also known as the Jesuit European Office, is being restructured. Up to this point, OCIPE has been an international Jesuit network in Brussels, Budapest, Strasbourg and Warsaw. Juridically, though, it is a lay association registered in Strasbourg.
As a result of the change, the offices in Budapest and Warsaw will become social centres of their respective provinces. The precise framework and scope of the future work in Strasbourg, linked especially to the Council of Europe, is currently under discussion, but remains of close concern to the Society of Jesus and to the new Brussels JESC office. JESC itself will be a separate legal entity, apostolically under the aegis of the Conference of European Provincials.
Operationally, JESC will continue to reflect and comment on European affairs from the perspective of faith, to maintain our relationships in the EU institutions and with our other partners in Brussels such as COMECE, and to bring Catholic Social Thought to bear on the affairs of the EU. So we shall have two principal roles: of coordination/networking at the level of the European social apostolate, and of reflection and commentary on European Affairs.
These changes entail a new title, new email addresses, etc. We become the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC). Our website is now www.jesc.net and our office email addresses have changed from surname@ocipe.info to surname@jesc.net. Please take note of these changes and adapt your bookmarks and address books accordingly. Thank you and Happy New Year!

Sakharov Prize - image: European parliament (cc: by-nc-nd)

Western observers have sympathised with the demonstrators and the rebels in North Africa who have expelled their dictators. They have taken great risks to gain their new liberty. They deserved even more sympathy when their action in the streets was prolonged to participate in free elections. Thus, so inferred our observers, they took a major step toward establishing a true democracy: a good thing for them and a good thing for us, since democratic authorities tend to have peaceful relationships with foreign countries. However we are gradually learning more. It was indeed a first step, but only a first step. A stable democracy is not achieved by means of a single, more-or-less successful electoral process. Continue reading →

Church ceiling - image: Feuillu (cc: by-nc)

Les scandales de la pédophilie dans l’Eglise catholique dont se sont rendus coupables des prêtres, des religieux et jusqu’à des évêques en divers pays d’Europe ont provoqué une grande crise de confiance, affaibli l’autorité des responsables et contribué à accentuer une certaine marginalisation de cette institution dans la société civile et politique. Mais celle-ci tente actuellement, sous l’impulsion du pape lui-même, de recenser les victimes, de coopérer avec les services de justice, en cessant de se réfugier dans un silence complice. Le million de jeunes rassemblés à Madrid pour les Journées mondiales de la Jeunesse a apporté, en sens inverse, des images réconfortantes: soif de prière, joie de vivre malgré la crise menaçante, confiance faite au pape et à la hiérarchie, capacité de passer de l’agitation bruyante au silence général, ce mélange des genres tellement contraire à la nature des médias que l’on sent désarmés devant l’absence de sons captables et d’images parlantes. Continue reading →