June 2001

Loft Story, shown on France’s M6 channel since 26 April, is drawing audiences of upwards of 10m. A TV programme has never before attracted this kind of response in France, or fascinated, worried or irritated so many people. Although we know that images tell us more about the society watching them than about the images themselves, their meaning here is far from clear.The foreign press has reported that the French have been swept away by “ Loft Story mania” (1). Political, economic and social (...)

Next month Morocco marks the second anniversary of the death of King Hassan II and Muhammad VI’s accession to the Alawite throne. At first the young king impressed public opinion by the speed with which he took measures in regard to greater freedoms, political exiles and victims of repression; and his skill in handling Islamist groups and the sacking of the former interior minister were welcomed as evidence of his desire for progress. But recently this progress has come to a halt, leaving society impatient for the real change it expects.

Adding to their unpopularity, the Taliban decided in May to force Hindus living in Afghanistan to wear a distinctive sign on their clothing. The recent UN Security Council embargo has increased the regime’s isolation, but its full force is being felt by the Afghan people who are also suffering from an unprecedented drought. To make matters worse, the Taliban have responded to the sanctions by suspending talks with the opposition. Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of its most prominent leaders, received expressions of support in Europe in April. Yet western policy towards Afghanistan remains deeply ambiguous.

On 8 June President Mohammad Khatami won a sweeping victory in Iran’s presidential elections. But despite his clear mandate for political reform, he is still up against strong opposition. The conservative clergy holds key positions in the power structure and, during his previous term of office, stepped up its repression, closing newspapers, detaining and arresting intellectuals and members of the progressive and liberal opposition. Nonetheless, Khatami has a powerful ally: the dynamism of Iranian society.

The international community froze all loans to Haiti in 1997 because of the country’s political turmoil. This May President Mejía of the neighbouring Dominican Republic appealed for aid to be resumed since its discontinuation is affecting not only Haiti but the whole region. As the political vacuum grows, the mafia is expanding to fill it: the traffic in drugs has increased more than threefold in the space of four years, adding to Haiti’s already disastrous image.

African-American boxers are well aware that they are exploited and they use the language of prostitution and slavery to express their awareness. But although they lead a tough, ascetic life, they rarely protest at the poor rewards and resign themselves to being bodily merchandise. Loïc Wacquant spent three years living and training with them in Chicago’s South Side black ghetto.

The Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik was charged with criminal conspiracy in connection with the Order of the Solar Temple this April in France: 71 of its members had died in four so-called collective suicides from 1994 to 1997. The case focused attention on groups which claim to be religious sects, but are instead engaged in money-making activities. France is now ushering in legislation that will allow the courts to dissolve such movements. The US administration is, however, trying to ensure their impunity on grounds of religious freedom and supports various cults which peddle forms of new-right and neo-conservative ideology in the name of anti-communism.

The Vichy regime prompted investigation and debate leading to a new understanding of that period. Yet France’s colonial past remains unmentionable. De Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America and one of the principal advocates of liberal politics, remains highly respected despite his support for violence in the conquest of Algeria. This gives some idea of the pitfalls surrounding the current French debate on torture during the war in Algeria. Torture was not just the result of conflict: it was part and parcel of colonisation. And it revealed the contradictions of republican France, proclaiming universal emancipation but practising discrimination.

Cuts in development aid from governments in the last two years have not as yet been offset by private sector investments. The EU has abandoned voluntarism by ending the system created as part of the Lomé convention, and is now focusing exclusively on opening up new markets. As a result, countries in the South are now embracing various bilateral ventures, sometimes with surprising results.

South Africa is still deep in crisis: unemployment, drugs, sexual violence, homophobia, blatant inequality in schools, vigilantes. Yizo Yizo, a TV soap with a huge audience, devised in conjunction with the ministry of education, tackles all these issues, reflecting the lives of the young in the ghettos. Each episode provokes heated protest from the new black elite: in today’s South Africa the polemic is no longer racial but social.

One of the contradictions that Ariel Sharon’s government faces is the economic repercussion of the Palestinian intifada, particularly in view of how, during the 1990s, Israel profited from the Oslo accords.