eurocentrism

With the relaunching of Transeuropéennes in its new form, the journal is squarely poised to engage a prolonged reflection on one of the key antagonisms of our times: the relation between translation and cultural regions. I would like to share a line of interrogation that I recently developed in relation to a critique of Michel Foucault’s eurocentrism that may help shed peripheral light on some of the issues at stake.

Tunisia and Egypt were both model countries. They were success stories. Tunisia had reaped much Western praise. Former French president Chirac spoke about the Tunisian “economic miracle” that allowed the regime to feed and house the people and to give them health and education. What else, he added, should the people want? President Sarkozy declared two years ago that the space for freedom was expanding in Tunisia. The former US secretary of defense Rumsfeld praised Tunisia as a “successful country” because it created an “environment that is hospitable to investment, enterprise and to opportunity for their people.” A senior State Department official commended Tunisia for its “impressive economy and social structure.”

Since January 14^th, when Ben Ali “scarpered”, since February 10^th, when Mubarak resigned, a feeling of joy and a powerful raising up of hope has animated the struggles of Tunisians, the Egyptians, Arab intellectuals and militants – and all those who have, for a long time, stood by them - for dignity, freedom, justice, democracy in their countries, at great cost.

In contrast to its self-portrayal as the ‘East’ vis-à-vis France, Germany’s national self posed as the ‘West’ in relation to its Slavic neighbors. Studia Zahodnie in Poland has meant German Studies while Ostforschung in Germany meant Polish studies. The imagining of East/West in virtual reality does not stop at the German-Polish border. Posited as the ‘East’ by Germans, Poles regarded themselves as ‘Europeans’ against the ‘Asiatic’ Russians. In turn, Russians, underprivileged as ‘Tartars’ in Europe, could represent themselves as Europeans confronting Asian neighbors as indicated in the Dostoyevsky’s diary.