quote:
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, military commander and politician: born Encarnación, Paraguay 3 November 1912; President of Paraguay and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces 1954-89; married 1940 Eligia Mora Delgado (two sons, one daughter); died Brasilia 16 August 2006.
Ask most Westerners about the landlocked South American republic of Paraguay, and they may only know it as a haven for ex-Nazis or as the tropical backdrop to the film The Mission and Graham Greene's novel Travels with my Aunt. But for Paraguayans, the second half of the 20th century meant one man: General Alfredo Stroessner. Even after he was ousted in February 1989 after 34 years as president, his hold on the nation's psyche was such that Paraguay is still struggling to escape his legacy of authoritarianism, cronyism and corruption...
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article1219698.ece
Unfortunately, the political mainstream has been sprinkled with "Stroessners" as Slavoj Zizek wrote a couple of years ago:
quote:
A notable precursor in this field of para-legal 'biopolitics', in which administrative measures are gradually replacing the rule of law, was Alfredo Stroessner's regime in Paraguay in the 1960s and 1970s, which took the logic of the state of exception to an absurd, still unsurpassed extreme.
Under Stroessner, Paraguay was - with regard to its Constitutional order - a 'normal' parliamentary democracy with all freedoms guaranteed; however, since, as Stroessner claimed, we were all living in a state of emergency because of the worldwide struggle between freedom and Communism, the full implementation of the Constitution was forever postponed and a permanent state of emergency obtained. This state of emergency was suspended every four years for one day only, election day, to legitimise the rule of Stroessner's Colorado Party with a 90 per cent majority worthy of his Communist opponents.
The paradox is that the state of emergency was the normal state, while 'normal' democratic freedom was the briefly enacted exception. This weird regime anticipated some clearly perceptible trends in our liberal-democratic societies in the aftermath of 11 September. Is today's rhetoric not that of a global emergency in the fight against terrorism, legitimising more and more suspensions of legal and other rights?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n10/zize01_.html
Only the good die young. Now he can go sing in the heavenly choir with his good buddies, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, amid the odor of sanctimony and jackboots.
By all accounts, Ariel Sharon ain't going to be around too much longer either...
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, military commander and politician: born Encarnación, Paraguay 3 November 1912; President of Paraguay and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces 1954-89; married 1940 Eligia Mora Delgado (two sons, one daughter); died Brasilia 16 August 2006.
Ask most Westerners about the landlocked South American republic of Paraguay, and they may only know it as a haven for ex-Nazis or as the tropical backdrop to the film The Mission and Graham Greene's novel Travels with my Aunt. But for Paraguayans, the second half of the 20th century meant one man: General Alfredo Stroessner. Even after he was ousted in February 1989 after 34 years as president, his hold on the nation's psyche was such that Paraguay is still struggling to escape his legacy of authoritarianism, cronyism and corruption...
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article1219698.ece
Unfortunately, the political mainstream has been sprinkled with "Stroessners" as Slavoj Zizek wrote a couple of years ago:
quote:
A notable precursor in this field of para-legal 'biopolitics', in which administrative measures are gradually replacing the rule of law, was Alfredo Stroessner's regime in Paraguay in the 1960s and 1970s, which took the logic of the state of exception to an absurd, still unsurpassed extreme.
Under Stroessner, Paraguay was - with regard to its Constitutional order - a 'normal' parliamentary democracy with all freedoms guaranteed; however, since, as Stroessner claimed, we were all living in a state of emergency because of the worldwide struggle between freedom and Communism, the full implementation of the Constitution was forever postponed and a permanent state of emergency obtained. This state of emergency was suspended every four years for one day only, election day, to legitimise the rule of Stroessner's Colorado Party with a 90 per cent majority worthy of his Communist opponents.
The paradox is that the state of emergency was the normal state, while 'normal' democratic freedom was the briefly enacted exception. This weird regime anticipated some clearly perceptible trends in our liberal-democratic societies in the aftermath of 11 September. Is today's rhetoric not that of a global emergency in the fight against terrorism, legitimising more and more suspensions of legal and other rights?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n10/zize01_.html
Only the good die young. Now he can go sing in the heavenly choir with his good buddies, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, amid the odor of sanctimony and jackboots.
By all accounts, Ariel Sharon ain't going to be around too much longer either...
