usa

Walk on the wild side

alambert — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:31:34 +0100

Milieu des années 1950. Ray, qui vient de faire une saison sur les chemins de fer, débarque à New York. Au Bowery précisément, l’un des quartiers les plus miséreux de la ville où viennent s’échouer, dans les flophouses et parfois à même le trottoir, les clochards, les marginaux et autres recalés du rêve américain. Ray n’en est pas encore là, il revient avec un maigre pécule et une valise. Il passe sous le métro aérien qui depuis presque quatre-vingt ans enténèbre l’avenue et entre au Round House Bar & Grill, histoire de faire quelques connaissances – il cherche du travail et un endroit pour dormir. Il a un air un peu craintif. Il sait sûrement qu’il met un pied en enfer.

Lionel Rogosin est le fils unique d’un self made man juif, qui a fait fortune dans le textile. En 1954, il abandonne une carrière qui s’annonçait prometteuse, pour se consacrer au cinéma. C’est un reste de son engagement volontaire dans la Navy, lors de la Seconde Guerre mondiale : l’oppression, sous toutes ses formes, existe, il faut la combattre. “Je vis comme si je tentais de détruire Auschwitz.” L’entreprise familiale n’était peut-être pas le lieu idéal pour pareil combat. Il faut voir si le cinéma quant à lui peut lutter. Rogosin a une idée en tête, faire un film pour dénoncer l’Apartheid en Afrique du Sud. Comme il débute derrière la caméra, il lui faut se faire la main. Il habite Greenwich village, il commence à traîner plus à l’est, au Bowery.

On dit que beaucoup des perdus du Bowery reviennent eux aussi de la guerre. On n’a pas tous la chance d’être fils unique. Eux sont le revers de la médaille.

Ray s’offre un verre avant d’en offrir à la tablée entière. Le voilà donc introduit. Il n’a pas l’air de s’apercevoir de la tête de ses camarades alors que cela renseigne. Bien vite, il en sait un peu plus sur le quartier mais il est aussi un peu plus léger. Les piliers de comptoir s’éloignent un à un – ce n’est pas tout ça mais il faudrait éviter de rendre son verre au pigeon. Reste Gorman, qui sera le Virgile de Ray. Lui aussi a l’intention de trouver une chambre pour la nuit.

Rogosin a déjà un peu filmé avec sa Bolex 16 mm lors de ses voyages en Europe, en Israël, en Afrique. Au Bowery aussi, il essaie de filmer ce qu’il voit, sous le manteau. Ce doit être à ce moment-là qu’il rencontre Gorman, qui va être son Virgile. Il lui parle de son projet de film.

Ray a mal à la tête quant il se réveille sur le trottoir le lendemain. C’est assez confus mais ce qui est sûr c’est qu’il est délesté de son pécule et de sa valise. Un congénère chiffonnier qui émerge des cartons lui apprend où trouver du travail chez des transporteurs. Gorman, lui, n’a pas trop mal dormi, merci. La montre et la valise de Ray en gage, voilà qui devrait lui permettre de passer quelques nuits à l’abri.

La White Horse Tavern, à Greenwich, est le repère des artistes. Là aussi Rogosin parle de son film. À l’écrivain Mark Sufrin ainsi qu’à l’opérateur Richard Bagley, un pilier de la Tavern. Bagley a photographié The Quiet One de Sidney Meyers, écrit par James Agee et Helen Levitt. Ce sont des rencontres qui comptent. Le projet de Rogosin enthousiasme tout ce petit monde.

“On boit un verre ?” C’est Gorman qui demande. Mais Ray a décidé que ça suffisait comme ça – il ne va pas régaler tous les soirs et le dollar qu’il a gagné aujourd’hui à décharger des camions, il le garde. D’ailleurs il a entendu parler d’une mission sur le Bowery. Là-bas, interdit de boire. Il va y passer la nuit et se refaire. Gorman a essayé lui aussi, il y a longtemps – il n’a pas tenu. Bonne soirée, si tu me cherches tu sais où me trouver. Il se barre en gloussant. La mission, c’est l’enfer au milieu de l’enfer. Pour un bol de soupe, un coin de ciment où dormir, Ray fait la queue derrière des barreaux. Je doute que Ray ait vu Le Voleur de bicyclette de De Sica, mais ça ressemble à la scène de la messe. Il faut tenir les leçons de morale, le sermon sur le Christ qui n’oublie personne, pas même les Bowery men. Surtout il faut tenir la sobriété. C’est plus facile de faire face aux trognes des autres avec un peu de mazout dans le sang. Sinon, ça fait miroir et c’est presque intolérable de se reconnaître en eux. Ray s’évade pour retrouver la nuit du Bowery.

Ça fait des mois que Rogosin “repère” dans le quartier. Au risque de sa santé. Un samedi après-midi, il rencontre un prénommé Ray. Il arrive des chemins de fer et a une “gueule”.

“– A propos, d’où tu viens, toi ? T’es de quel coin ?” Ray, bien enfumé : “– Mon originalité, tu veux dire ? – Ton origine, quoi ! – Je suis né dans le Kentucky, j’ai grandi en Caroline du Nord. Mon frère jumeau a voulu entrer dans l’armée. On était potes, lui et moi. Alors, je suis aussi entré dans l’armée…”

En mars 1955, l’équipe commence à tourner mais ça ne va pas. C’est Bagley qui le dit. Ces gars sont en mission, ils sont tous convaincus qu’il faut aller au contact de la réalité, descendre les caméras dans la rue – jusqu’à ses bas-fonds. D’ailleurs, ils écrivent sans le savoir une nouvelle page de l’histoire du cinéma, mais quelque chose cloche. Rogosin et Sufrin retournent à leurs papiers. “Il faut une trame.” Ils se souviennent de Ray.

La deuxième nuit de Ray au Bowery est emportée, excessive, humaine, démente. Il boit, il éructe, il cogne, il s’effondre. Ils sont un certain nombre de grognards comme lui, battus par K.O. A-t-on jamais vu ça en images ? A-t-on jamais vu des faces pareilles, filmées de cette manière ?

Ils se souviennent aussi de De Sica – mais l’ont-ils jamais oublié ? Eux, les enfants de Flaherty et de son “documentaire joué”, ont pris – comme beaucoup d’autres – la claque de leur vie dans les rues de Rome. On va faire comme ça. “Mais c’est de la fiction !” Ce qui ne veut rien dire et ils vont le prouver. Où ça de la fiction ? Ça fait des semaines que c’est devenu leur vie à eux aussi. Embauché Ray, embauché Gorman, pas pour décharger les camions mais pour jouer Ray, Gorman, tous les oubliés de Bowery St., les mazoutés, et aussi, un peu, Lionel, Richard, Mark. On va faire comme ça – la caméra dans les décors réels, avec les gens d’ici dans leur propre rôle. Mais on va faire mieux : on va bricoler l’appareil pour enregistrer le son directement – et s’il faut mettre en scène, faire rejouer ce qu’on a vu, on le fera, l’important est de savoir aussi capter le hasard qui va survenir. Quelques lignes de dialogues écrites et beaucoup d’improvisation. Rogosin rend la parole aux sans voix. Immersion, plongée. Devant la caméra, mais également derrière. Longues nuits au Bowery.
Rogosin leur offre également une image. Lors de leur première rencontre, il a désigné les autoportraits de Rembrandt à Bagley pour lui expliquer son film ; l'opérateur a compris instantanément. C’est Bagley qui décide des emplacements de la caméra, lui qui compose avec des moyens dérisoires l’image merveilleusement digne d’On the Bowery. Il donne à Rogosin ces visages qui vous regardent depuis le territoire des ombres.

“Reality – as close as we can come to it – is rarely seen on the screen, but when reality is seen it is strongly felt¹.”

Gorman se réveille dans sa chambre d’hôtel, le flacon traîne sur les frusques qui jonchent le sol. Ray, lui, n’est même plus en état de se réveiller, il faut qu’on le porte loin de la descente de flics. Lorsque Gorman retrouve Ray attablé au bar, que Ray lui dit qu’il faut qu’il se barre du Bowery, qu’il lui manque juste de quoi s’acheter des fringues décentes, il a presque envie de le croire. Il le dit à Ray : si jamais il avait du pognon, il le jure, il lui en filerait. Ray a déjà entendu ça. Justement, avec la montre et la valise de Ray déposées au clou, il a encore quelques billets en poche. Il va hésiter un moment, mais il va rendre ses dollars à Ray pour qu’il se fasse la malle. Lui, de toute façon, ne va pas partir. Il est condamné à finir au Bowery, il le sait.

Une trame de fiction (“Ray débarque au Bowery, une valise à main, il cherche à loger pas cher et c’est le début de sa descente aux enfers…”) et du son enregistré sur place dans la mesure de ce qui est techniquement possible : les moyens que Sufrin, Bagley et Rogosin ont trouvé pour échapper au “commentaire” traditionnel et plonger le spectateur dans la réalité du quartier et de ces existences dantesques. Faire corps avec le sujet, sans regarder de loin ni de haut. Au ras des choses, du caniveau s’il le faut, des verres le plus souvent. Rogosin réussit avec On the Bowery là où il échouera ensuite (un peu avec Come back, Africa en 1960, plus nettement dans Good Times, Wonderful Times en 1965) : neutraliser l’a priori moral, la bonne conscience humaniste, le surplomb du réalisateur omniscient sur son sujet. La fiction sert à ça. A faire du documentaire. Ni pour, ni contre. Avec.

Dans le Bowery c’est une question de survie, tout le monde est complice. L’alcool est le sujet principal des conversations, l’épouse, le compagnon, et on lui dresse des louanges perpétuelles. L’alcool vous tue et vous sauve. Il vous sauve en vous tuant. Un pacte lie tout ces gens : personne ne doit s’en sortir. Ray ne peut lutter seul contre l’esprit de corps du Bowery. Il rechute.

Le tournage durera jusqu’au mois d’octobre 1955. Pour trois nuits et trois jours de la vie de fiction de Ray.

Gorman dit qu’avant le Bowery, il était journaliste au Washington Herald ou qu’il était chirurgien. La politesse exige qu’on acquiesce. Il ne s’agit pas de croire mais de faire comme si. L’alcool aide, qui est lui-même un mensonge. Tout le monde raconte des craques, à part Ray peut-être. La vie est une fiction qu’on se raconte d’abord à soi-même ; parfois on appelle ça la mémoire.

“Tout film est un documentaire sur ses acteurs et son propre tournage.” Voilà qui règle la question de la fiction. Rogosin coupe court : Ray joue Ray, Gorman joue Gorman, le chiffonnier Frank Frank le chiffonnier. Ensuite, toute la question est de savoir comment les conditions d’un tournage, d’une fiction vont leur permettre de dévoiler davantage de “vérité”. Et de se révéler à eux-mêmes. On the Bowery est aussi un documentaire sur des ivrognes en train de jouer des ivrognes.

Des travailleurs saisonniers, des clochards célestes, New York, la défaite et le bagout. L’errance immobile, l’absence complète de perspective : les damnés du Bowery sont de plein droit des figures du cinéma moderne².

La distance vient au montage. Rogosin embauche d’abord Helen Levitt – monteuse et photographe connue pour ses clichés de la rue new-yorkaise. Elle saccage le film. Rogosin la vire et recrute Carl Lerner, bientôt son mentor, ancien collaborateur de Joseph Strick et futur monteur de Douze hommes en colère de Sidney Lumet et de Come Back, Africa... C’est à eux deux qu’on doit la sécheresse clinique d’On the Bowery.

Le plus étonnant : le spectateur pressent intuitivement si l’image qu’il voit est documentaire ou si elle est mise en scène. Le fondement même de la démarche de Rogosin est d’accepter ce différentiel de régime, de ne pas chercher à le réduire ou à le dissimuler : la fiction va soutenir l’apparition de fragments bruts de réel, vus pour eux-mêmes. Les personnages sont des passeurs, des voyants, et c’est ce qui gravite autour d’eux qui importe : les “figurants”, les “décors”, les “costumes”… La fiction n’est qu’une fonction. Elle se sent à des détails : la focalisation sur un individu particulier, les mouvements d’appareils, l’éclairage, le surdécoupage des scènes. Elle permet de véritables épiphanies documentaires : des instants qui échappent aux nécessités du raccord, des successions libres de plans fixes. Un regard qui reste en attente face à la réalité, qui semble vouloir une réponse alors même qu’aucune question n’a été posée. Le documentaire est une présence muette. En cela, Rogosin poursuit mais surtout radicalise ses modèles néo-réalistes.

“To tell the truth as you see it, incidentally, is not necessarily the truth. To tell the truth as someone else sees it is, to me, much more important and enlightening. Some documentaries are fantastic. Like Lionel Rogosin’s pictures, for instance ; like On The Bowery. This is a guy who’s probably the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time, in my opinion.” (John Cassavetes)

Ray s’appuie sur un lampadaire. Gorman vient de lui donner une liasse et lui a fait promettre de se tirer du Bowery. Il semble hésiter encore. Il regarde les clochards, ceux qui ne sont pas encore sortis de leur nuit. N’en sortiront plus. Scène cardinale : Ray qui regarde les clochards, c’est la fiction qui regarde le documentaire. Techniquement rien ne raccorde – comme souvent dans On the Bowery – la caméra est trop proche, les espaces forcés, Ray ne peut pas vraiment voir ces visages-là. Au fond, ils refusent de participer au récit, ils témoignent pour eux-mêmes. Regards perdus dans le vide, en équilibre précaire, qui parfois se raccrochent à l’œil de la caméra et semblent vouloir vous murmurer quelque chose. Ray s’élance, il sort du champ et du film. Raccord sur l’architecture métallique du métro aérien, plan “objectif”, bruit assourdissant du passage de la rame : Ray a disparu dans la coupe ou dans le son.

On the Bowery obtient le Prix du meilleur documentaire à Venise et au British Film Festival. Il est nominé aux Oscars. Puis carbonisé par la presse américaine que les ratés de la réussite individuelle n’intéressent guère. Le film fait le tour des festivals mais n’est pas vu aux Etats-Unis. Au moins, Rogosin peut-il tourner son film sur l’Apartheid. Ce sera Come back, Africa, un autre voyage en enfer (tournage illégal, caméra dissimulée). Il y aura encore quelques autres films, puis de moins en moins, puis plus du tout. Rogosin sort du champ et de l’histoire.

Gorman sait qu’il est condamné à finir au Bowery. Ça ira assez vite. Il avait promis à Rogosin qu’il ne toucherait pas un verre le temps du tournage, lui qui est déjà au stade terminal d’une cirrhose. Promesse tenue. Les prises de vues achevées, il reprend la bouteille et se tue en une nuit. Rogosin règle ses obsèques. “On the Bowery, à Gorman Hendricks.”

Le corps de fiction de Ray attire Hollywood, qui lui propose un contrat. Ray préfère son corps réel et le documentaire. L’alcool aussi, peut-être. Il empruntera toutefois une chose à son personnage – sa disparition. Quelques mois plus tard, Ray Salyer saute dans un train de marchandise et quitte le Bowery sans qu’on ne sache jamais pour quel autre Cercle.

Ray Salyer, Gorman Hendricks, Frank Matthews, Lionel Rogosin, Mark Sufrin, Richard Bagley, Carl Lerner. Shadows. Faces. Too Late Blues…

“On a marché environ dix minutes jusqu’à l’endroit où Lionel Rogosin devait être inhumé. Le temps était couvert, le soleil perçait parfois les nuages, un vent froid nous mordait les os. De sa tombe, Lionel Rogosin a une vue spectaculaire sur les panneaux « Hollywood », pile en face de lui sur les montagnes toutes proches. Aux côtés des sept membres de la famille Rogosin, il y avait une douzaine d’autres personnes. La plupart, comme moi-même, devait avoir vu l’annonce de l’enterrement dans le Los Angeles Times du jour-même³.”

Dans le film qu’il consacre au tournage d’On the Bowery, le fils de Rogosin interviewe l’historien Ray Carney. Celui-ci explique qu’“il y a une sorte d'histoire parallèle. On connaît l'histoire institutionnelle, celle qui figure dans les livres. Et cette histoire évoque les grands cinéastes, ainsi que de grands films récompensés aux Oscars. Puis il y a la véritable histoire. Ce sont des réalisateurs tels qu’Engels, Rogosin, Clarke, Cassavetes. Pour moi, ils sont à l'origine de la grande tradition du cinéma américain. Il s'agit de fiction, mais d'un tout autre genre.” On pourrait ajouter les noms de James Agee, de Ben Maddow, de Sydney Meyers (The Quiet One), de Joseph Strick (The Savage Eye), de Kent MacKenzie (The Exiles). Pourquoi cette “véritable histoire” est-elle oubliée ? Sûrement parce qu’on a écrit l’histoire du cinéma en utilisant un partage assez arbitraire : celui qui distinguait d’un côté la fiction, dépositaire du “grand art” donc de la reconnaissance, de l’autre le documentaire. Les films comme On the Bowery, qui démentaient ce partage, n’y ont pas résisté. Il faut peut-être réécrire les livres.

Ce texte a été rédigé pour la revue Images de la culture du CNC, n° 26, paru en décembre 2011. Le catalogue d'Images de la culture est consultable à cette adresse : http://www.cnc.fr/idc, qui offre également la possibilité de télécharger les précédents numéros ; éditeur Marc Guiga (et notamment pour ce texte consacré à Rogosin – un grand merci !).
Ce travail a également fait l'objet d'une séance dans le cadre de L'oBservatoire, en septembre 2011. Le billet de présentation comporte, en plus d'une bibliographie, la reproduction d'un article d'André S. Labarthe consacrée au film de Rogosin, “L'oreille de Rogosin”, Cahiers du cinéma n° 115, janvier 1961, pp. 55-56.

1 Lionel Rogosin, “Interpreting Reality (Notes on the Esthetics and Practices of Improvisational Acting)”, Film Culture, n° 21, 1960.

2 “Volonté commune : faire voir et donner à entendre le monde par ceux que l’histoire officielle ne reconnaît guère comme « des sujets » (au double sens du mot) : enfants, pauvres, ouvriers, exclus du « progrès », « primitifs », marginaux… La conscience de « l’espèce humaine », ressortant de la destruction massive, réclamait ces anti-héros, aussi loin de l’héroïsation de l’individu « gagneur » propre aux fictions commerciales que de l’héroïsation des masses caractéristique des documentaires de propagande. La crise morale ouverte par la catastrophe appelait des formes de narration plus directe, plus dépouillée, dédramatisée pour capter le drame ordinaire de ces vies sans abri [...].” François Niney, L’épreuve du réel à l’écran : essai sur le principe de réalité documentaire, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2002, 2e édition, p. 121.

3 “We walked about ten minutes to put Lionel Rogosin in his final resting place. The weather was overcast, with the sun breaking through the clouds, with a crispy mildly cold wind constantly nipping our bones. In his eternal resting place, Lionel Rogosin has a spectacular view of the Hollywood sign, in front of him in the not too distant mountains. Beside the seven members of the Rogosin family, there are about twelve other mourners. I assume that many of the other mourners, like myself, seemed to have read about Rogosin’s 10 a.m. burial in an obituary notice that appeared in today’s Los Angeles Times.” Témoignage de Ntongela Masilela en ligne à cette adresse : http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/NAM/sophia/writers/rogosin/rogosinS.htm

Loss of Date

mharpeled — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:50:10 +0200

I saw in the street, death,
in the midst of the ordinary day.
The Police arrived, the firefighters arrived, the first-aide arrived.
The curious mob ran away from the scene
For fear of the Police
For fear of death
For fear of testimony in the Courtyard.

The body stayed, his legs smashed, his head on the ground.
I was near by, my hand held its hand, the blood pressure decreased,
The hot liquid ran from the face to the asphalt.
A drunk man was moving above us, trying to understand.
The officer asked for ID
The doctor signed the death declaration
The driver asked: “What’s up, Man?”
The road was futile silence.
The policemen looked at the scene, bored to death.
The accident investigator measured,
I was a witness, the dead did not look at the ground.
The flying birds were a joke.

The driver said that he was not driving
fast, the green light was replaced
by the red, my head was turned
back, the body was already on the ground.

I ran, as I was trained, I bent down as I bent:
Hard in training, easy in battle.
My temples thundered like the voice of bullets.
The death of the other was another death
His hand in my hand, a useless item.
His hand in my hand, an overlapping excess.

The street returned to routine, Time is money, Life must go on.
The policeman went back to the police station.
The fire-fighter back to the fire station.
I to the coffee, the dead to the mortuary
waiting to be transferred to the purification room.
I was back with my cold espresso, looking
at the headlines of USA Today,
at the fluidity of the traffic,
at the woman sitting in the corner, her head submerged in her hands.
My heart was beating, the blood pressure,
the contraction of the muscles, the trembling of the legs.
Now, was the dead dead? Was the brain on the ground?
I was looking at the trucks hitting the road,
the wheels rotating. Movement is Life.
You cannot swim in the same river twice.
You cannot take time back, nor death.
O Gilgamesh, what you are seeking, you will never find,
the Gods took Life for themselves,
death they gave to man.Do not forget:
Dead is dead.
A body is a body.
A head is a head.
A hand is a hand.
Flesh is flesh.
Blood is blood.

Ascertaining death: the heartbeat did not beat,
the pressure did not pressure, there was no longer any reaction to pain,
the head was smashed, pieces of brain on the road.
Did you verify the death? Did you let him die?
A useless witness: killing you did not verify, death you did not give.
What you took you took: a hand, a memory, a mortality.

“The Accident”, said the Press.
“The Event”, said the Police.
“The Loss”, said the Insurance Company.
“The Case”, said the lawyer.
“The Disaster”, said the family.
“Death”, said I, “Death.”
My hands fell by themselves,
My head was on the road.

God was not involved,
nor the authorities, arriving late, after death,
Post mortem, to clean the blood, to document.
The dead became a statistic, a funeral ceremony, a memory.
God wasn’t in the Picture.

By chance, I was passing by.
By chance, the dead crossed the road.
By chance, the driver was drunk.
By chance, the light changed from green to red.
By chance, the driver did not see.
By chance, God was not there.
The scene was left to the models of Game theory,
to the mercy of probabilities,
to the chances.

The dead had no chance.
“One chance in a million”, said the expert,
“Dead is dead”, said I.
A body is a body,
blood is blood,
chances are chances.

“If they give you something - take it,
If they beat you – run away”,
If you have legs anymore. Please, do not forget your head.
If there is shooting bend to the ground, fire back,
send a missile, send a postcard, send flowers, send your regrets.
Do not jump if it is not necessary;
Do not be sure of yourself until the day of your death.
Do not judge your fellow man until you have been in his position.
Do not say any word that in the end will be heard.

Do not pity yourself.
Do not say: With God’s help everything will be all right,
do not forget that heaven does not help on earth - Run.
Despair yourself from mercy, don’t have compassion - Run.
Don’t cry before, during, or now.
After funerals, committees, investigations, dreams – Run.

For the crimes that you did, you will never pay:
you killed by an angel, by a messenger,
you wrote a report, you lived in lies, in the silence of secrets.
In the end of the outflanking there was death, a dead end.
All your dreams are reminders.
The murmurs of whispers.
The murmurs of footsteps.
The murmurs of background noise.
All your dreams remembrances,
the historian that you became.

Do you remember?
“Who in his sleep and who when he wakes up; who by fire and who by water?”
Your father gave you the death that he received from his father, chains of transmission.
Each generation and generation and his dead;
Each generation and generation and his wars;
Each generation and generation and his cries.
So you picked some flowers?
So you had some oleanders?
So you cried under some weeping willows?
So what’s up, Man?
So you had some fun,
so you fucked,
so you did not die?
Do you remember the Desert of Judea, the falling man?
Do you remember, Man?

Now, forget.

Interprétation : Benjamin PERRIELLO (avec les remerciements chaleureux de l'auteur).

A.M.A.B.O.

alambert — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:00:00 +0100

Obama elected. Correction tout à la fois historique, symbolique et affective du désastre de 2000.
Le cas Obama soulève néanmoins de drôles de questions. Celle-ci notamment : comment une pure singularité peut-elle réunir une telle unanimité ?

Afro-Américain

Après bien des présidents noirs dans les séries US, Barack Obama est le premier afro-américain élu, dans le vrai monde, à la présidence des Etats-Unis. L’histoire en marche.

Avec lui, on apprend ce qu’on savait déjà. Le racisme n’est pas un problème « racial », une question de couleur de peau, un déterminé biologique. Mais une donnée culturelle : la détestation est une détestation de la différence (quelque chose comme : « ton mode d’être m’est radicalement, instinctivement, insupportable »). Sous cet angle, le « racisme » doit être requalifié et son histoire, réécrite. Au profit d’un récit de la disjonction. C’est l’écart entre deux cultures, en tant qu’il est un phénomène historique, changeant, temporel, qui doit être considéré¹ ; et, avec lui, les phénomènes consécutifs de réfractions imaginaires (quelque chose comme : « tu incarnes » ou « tu me renvoies une image inconciliable avec l’image que je me fais de moi-même – et qui l’agresse »).

Obama ne réfracte pas les différences. Plus que métis, il est parfaitement indéterminé. Indétermination miraculeuse (dimension « angélique » d’Obama, si on veut bien considérer que l’indétermination est le propre des anges). Il est noir mais blanc ou l’inverse, il est afro mais américain ou l’inverse, il est intellectuel mais sympa ou l’inverse. Sa négritude est prise dans une élégance très Kennedy et une gestuelle « classes supérieures blanches ». Chrétien mais avec un nom d’origine musulmane. Ses liens familiaux le rattache à l’Afrique mais il respire Chicago, c'est-à-dire une certaine idée de l’Amérique (North-Eastern). Conséquence logique : il est du milieu dont on sait qu’il est toujours un peu mou².

Obama accomplit une forme de synthèse inédite, rare on imagine, et l’indétermination est visiblement l’agent d’un destin³. Mélange unique, improbable, miraculeux : personne ne peut décider ce qu’est Obama ; il est de toutes les appartenances⁴.

Monde

Aspect troublant de la candidature Obama : l’unanimité. La séduction est mondiale et même « américaine » : la victoire est large dans le pays, avec une participation relativement massive : l’un des présidents les mieux élus⁵. Il y avait donc une forme d’évidence dans cette candidature, et les américains, qu’on prend tellement pour des crétins, ont réalisé un coup de maître. L’Amérique n’a pas raté l’occasion qu’elle avait de reprendre les destinées imaginaires et morales du monde.
C’est assez stupéfiant – tout le monde a senti. Mais qu’il y a-t-il derrière ce sentiment ?
Quelle est la singularité d’Obama, qui fait l’unanimité, qui fait « évidence » ?

Obama a tenté de démontrer qu’il est possible de remporter des élections sans trop négocier sur les valeurs. Même la campagne la plus féroce, avec des adversaires de la dignité et de l’équanimité que l’on sait.
Il a donné le sentiment qu’on pouvait gagner avec des idées (revendication reprise dans son discours de victoire lorsqu'il explique que la force des Etats-Unis n’est pas l’impérialisme économique ou militaire mais réside dans leurs « idéaux⁶ »), un minimum de foi dans l’échange politique, une forme de constance et de fermeté, non sans humour.
Il a donné l’impression de s’adresser aux américains comme à des êtres politiques.

Même s’il n’est pas encore question ici de points de programme, la civilité d’Obama a inauguré une autre pratique de la politique – dont on désespérait quelques peu ces temps-ci.
Le sérieux et la tenue d’Obama, en mettant en lumière la vulgarité foncière, l’agitation véhémente et approximative des néo-cons, et avec eux des « pragmatiques » de tout poil, son lyrisme également, ont rendu à la politique quelques lustres – et c’est le cadeau le plus précieux qu’a fait sa campagne à la politique mondiale.

Grandeur d’Obama : il était possible à des citoyens de la planète entière de se retrouver dans cette manière de s’adresser à eux – et de la désirer pour eux-mêmes.

Le nouvel étalon : c’est le style d’Obama, l’aisance mêlée à une certaine forme de gravité et une profondeur, sinon sincères du moins parfaitement « jouées ».
Les curseurs sont remis à zéro. A l’échelle française, cela se traduit ainsi : Sarkozy qui, après Chirac, a un temps incarné la jeunesse et le renouveau, est immédiatement ringardisé, c'est-à-dire ramené à sa véritable nature et à la plus simple évidence.
Sarko, qui va devoir abandonner le « parler camelot » et réapprendre la décence.
Sarko, dépassé par ce qu’il déteste le plus et ce dont il est le plus incapable (une forme d’aisance naturelle et de sérénité) : Obama est la différence de Sarkozy ; on peut s’attendre à quelques écarts « racistes » .

Accélérateur

Singularité d’Obama ?
Les commentateurs font comme si il y avait dans cette élection un effet de système : la maturité de la démocratie US, l’obsolescence de la question raciale.

On ne peut pourtant s’empêcher de penser que ce saut historique n’a été possible qu’à condition d’une personnalité hors-norme, à sa maîtrise et à son sens politique. C’est l’une des ombres au tableau, finalement : cette occasion unique de redresser huit ans de désastres néo-conservateur, il a fallu qu’elle passe par un homme, cette pure singularité qu’est Obama.
C’est un peu malheureux à dire : ce n’est pas n’importe quel noir qui est élu à la présidence des Etats-Unis, c’est Obama⁷. Comment les sciences sociales peuvent-elle traiter ce « phénomène »-là ?

Cette singularité a renversé les barrières mentales, produit une impressionnante accélération temporelle, constitué un nouvel état de fait, devenu instantanément la règle pertinente (toujours l’« évidence »)⁸. On est aussi en droit de penser que cette accélération, fut-elle le fait d’un cas limite, n’est qu’un vecteur : au fond, elle ne fait que rattraper un retard des pratiques et des usages sur les mentalités.
Les questions sociales évoluent beaucoup plus vite qu’on ne le prévoit généralement mais pas linéairement, par à-coups (problème : les secousses partent dans les deux sens : dans celui du progressisme comme dans celui de la réaction). Ces sautes passent souvent par des personnalités singulières, le reliquat de nos Grands Hommes et de la Grande Histoire. En réalité, et c’est assez flagrant dans le cas Obama, ces personnalités sont des figures, des incarnations de complexes imaginaires (et on pourrait penser que leur influence, leur puissance, sont précisément fondées sur un ressort imaginaire). Pouvoir de l’image⁹.

Best

De fait, Obama n’est pas seulement, comme aurait dit Malcom X, un « bon noir » (comprendre : à la solde des blancs et de leurs valeurs) : éduqué, poli, modéré, satisfait.
C’est l’incarnation sur terre d’un pur fantasme. La personnification vivante de l’imaginaire culturel actuel. Et je suis bien obligé d’avancer – sous couvert d’unanimité – qu’Obama a quelques qualités tangibles, qu’il n’est pas qu’une image de qualité.

C'est ce que démontrerait la perfection de sa campagne (primaires incluses). Une assurance fondée sur une culture ouverte et une intelligence brillante (le côté prof à Harvard) ; le sens de la gravité et la hauteur de vue, relayés par le timbre et la prestance ; une empathie naturelle (le sourire nègre somptueux, le père de famille et l’amoureux de Michelle, le côté « démocrate » ou l’action sociale dans les quartiers noirs de Chicago) ; la modernité et l’urbanité également (Chicago encore, et le côté « métro »¹⁰ version black is sexy). La liste est évidemment incomplète.
Il faut encore ajouter le dernier degré de la civilisation : l’aisance physique et surtout le style (qui suppose toute de même une certaine connaissance des images).

Obama semble avoir toutes les qualités. Sorte de constellation, il est parfaitement de son temps, dont il propose une figure quasi-idéale. Obama, zéro défaut.
En fait, il est le meilleur produit de l’Occident moderne.
(Peu importe alors la couleur de sa peau : il nous donne une image glorieuse de nous-même – tels que nous nous fantasmons.)

Occident

Le meilleur produit de l’Occident. Ou disons ce que l’Occident peut produire de meilleur. Voilà le fait historique : l’Occident, petit miracle, vient de porter à sa tête la quintessence de lui-même.
Et tout à coup, par une sorte d’« évidence » éclatante, et d’autant plus éclatante qu’elle a été longuement occultée, le monde occidental retombe sur ses pieds. D’où l’idée de correction historique, symbolique et affective. En élisant Obama, l’Amérique a réparé l’accroc bushiste – il est certain que Bush, sous cet angle, c’est marcher sur la tête, l’incarnation du pire possible.

En même temps, on sent bien qu’il s’agit d’un simple mouvement de conformation. L’Occident a retrouvé bonne figure, mais c’est celle de la la perpétuation (de lui-même, de ses valeurs¹¹).

Une partie de basket-ball... en attendant les résultats.
Pour tromper l'ennui, Barack Obama s'est rendu dans un gymnase du quartier ouest de Chicago pour une partie de basket-ball. Son état-major de campagne n'a pas précisé avec qui il allait jouer.
Le Monde, 5 novembre 2008 — 23:24.

Les illustrations ont été glanées sur internet. Les images n° 3, 4, 5, 7 proviennent du site du Times (Callie Shell©).

1 Le « racisme » est alors le nom donné à l’une des époques de cette histoire culturelle de la disjonction et de la détestation.

2 Du milieu, mais pas trop du Midwest :

3 « Axelrod et Obama se sont rencontrés une première fois en 1992, quand le second n’était pas encore entré en politique, mais avait déjà été repéré par la machine démocrate de Chicago. Obama l’engage pour sa campagne sénatoriale en 2003. La légende veut qu’Axelrod ait ensuite passé une année à observer son client, à prendre des notes, à analyser ses positions politiques, à passer sa vie en revue. Ensemble, ils ont élaboré le message de la campagne, le «discours narratif», celui de la «nouvelle identité» américaine qu’Axelrod a calqué sur l’histoire personnelle de ce candidat atypique, métis, fils d’un immigré intellectuel du Kenya et d’une Américaine libérale (progressiste) du Kansas. Quel meilleur symbole pour cette Amérique de demain que le candidat et son stratège veulent multiculturelle et ouverte sur le monde ? », « Les hommes du nouveau président », Libération, 6 novembre 2008.

4 La remarque ne vaut pas pour Michelle et ses filles : la famille d’Obama n’est pas du tout indéterminée.

5 « Depuis qu'ils en ont le droit, il est rare que plus d'un électeur américain sur deux se déplace pour aller voter, même pour une élection présidentielle. L'année 2008 marque à ce titre un moment historique : selon les calculs de l'universitaire Michael McDonald, près des deux tiers (64,1 %) des électeurs ont participé au scrutin national, un taux inégalé depuis... 1908. (...) Le dernier décompte fait état de 349 grands électeurs pour M. Obama (79 de plus que la majorité de 270 requise) et de 163 pour M. McCain. », Le Monde, 6 novembre 2008.

6 « Ce soir, nous avons prouvé une fois de plus que la véritable force de notre peuple vient non pas de la puissance de nos armes ni de l'échelle de notre prospérité, mais du pouvoir endurant de nos idéaux », trad. Le Monde, "Une nouvelle aube de leadership américain", 05 novembre 2008.

7 Obama a très tôt dégagé quelque chose qui a fait prédire à certain esprit éveillé qu’il serait le premier noir président.

8 J'imagine que tout un chacun, à présent, a pu mesurer à l'occasion d'une discussion avec une "personne de couleur", que planait au-dessus de l'échange l'élection d'Obama : je le pense, il/elle le pense aussi, et les cartes sont redistribuées. On avait beau n'être pas "raciste", il y a quelque chose de nouveau.

9 Il ne s'agit pas ici de l’image médiatique, insidieuse et vilaine comme on sait – je parle des structures culturelles collectives.

11 « A ceux qui nous regardent ce soir d'au-delà de nos rivages, des parlements et des palais jusqu'à ceux qui se blottissent autour de postes de radio dans les coins oubliés du monde – nos histoires sont distinctes, mais notre destin est partagé, et une nouvelle aube de leadership américain est arrivée. A ceux qui voudraient abattre ce monde – nous vous vaincrons. A ceux qui veulent la paix et la sécurité – nous vous soutenons. »« Une nouvelle aube de leadership américain », Le Monde, 05 novembre 2008.

Thoughts-giving on Thanksgiving

mharpeled — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:39:17 +0200

Uncle Sam's Farm

Oh, of all the mighty nations
Of the east or of the west,
The glorious Yankee nation
Is the leader and the best.
There is room for everybody
And her banner is unfurled !
It's a general invitation
To the people of the world.
[…]
Yes we are bound to beat the nations,
For our motto's go ahead
And we'll tell the foreign paupers
That our people are well fed
For the nations must remember,
That Uncle Sam is not a fool,
For the people do the voting,
And the children go to school.
Jesse Hutchinson, Uncle Sam's Farm, (1778-1851)

How does one become a native-born son of the “New World”? How does one become an autochthon in a country of immigrants? How does one became an American, part of Uncle Sam's Farm?

Thanksgiving is an American holiday. It is the American holiday, the national holiday of American-ness. It is the holiday that marks belonging to the Corpus Americani. It is, moreover, unique to the United State of America. Notably, Thanksgiving is a National holiday, one in which a transfer takes place: from the public arena to the private sphere. For the main ritual the celebratory meal of roasted turkey is done not in the public space, but in the warm embrace of family, in the Home. It is celebrated mainly in the familial circle, around the family table. One’s belonging to the body of the Nation, to the political body, is manifested in the a-political body of the Family. The imagined national genealogy is transferred into the biological genealogy of the Family. What is the nature of this transference? For the holiday table is not the Table of the Lord, but merely the Table of the Nation. The body of the sovereign is passed into the familial body. But how is this passage from one to another effected? How does the holiday transfer from the Public to the Private? From the Nation to the Family? From narrative to practice? From myth to ritual and vice versa? In other words: how does the Corpus Americani transubstantiate, became flesh and blood?

The Thanksgiving holiday is enacted through a cycle of three main rituals: the Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, the Presidential Pardon of the Turkey, and the Holiday Meal. This cycle lasts around a week: the Proclamation is published some five days before Thanksgiving Day; the Pardon is given some two days before the Holiday. See Table 1. In 2005 for example, the Proclamation was published in Saturday (19th November), in Tuesday (the 22th) the Turkeys Marshmallow and Yam were Pardoned in the White House and in Thursday (the 24th) around 53 millions turkeys were eaten on the holiday tables.

Table 1: The Thanksgiving cycle

The three rituals mark a gradual passage not just from the secular to the festive, but also, as we shall see, from the fervent national pathos to family praxis, where high discourse is replaced by low discourse. August national trappings give way to the familial gathering. For most Americans, Thanksgiving seems to be, first and foremost, an excuse for a family gathering. The national aspect of it appears neglected. This could be understood as a manifestation of an American propensity to individualism, a decline in collectivist ideals. Alternatively, one could argue that the national aspect is so deeply rooted that, although there is no direct manifestation of it during the family meal, the nation nevertheless exists strongly in the background.

It seems that between the National and the Familial there is a large gap. It is the gap between narrative and praxis, the memory and identity of collectives versus those of individuals. I will propose here that the Pardon of the Turkey mediates between the two levels, between the high and low discourse, the national and the popular, between the narrative and the praxis. The analysis will follow the chronological order of the Cycle: starting with the Proclamation, and showing how it marks the official discourse of the National Myth. I will then discuss the Pardon as mediation ritual. The holiday meal will be discussed from the point view of “Commensality,” of eating together. Finally, the turkey will be discussed as the essential link that connects the various elements of the holiday.

I. The Proclamation of Thanksgiving

The case study will be the 2001 Thanksgiving cycle. Because it came ten weeks after the terrorist attacks of 11 September it reflects a time of crisis, a moment when American collectivity seemed to have been enhanced by external threat; traditional messages took on renewed relevance; old myths were re-awakened, endowed with new vivacity. The Proclamation of 16 November 2001 encapsulates this National narrative in only six hundred and forty-six words; In seven parsimonious paragraphs, the myth is told in all its glory and bombast. The first paragraph, indeed, opens with a citation from an earlier Thanksgiving proclamation, given by President Eisenhower “nearly half a century ago.” Why such an ambiguous usage; Why not simply give the exact date of the earlier proclamation – 31 October 1958? The ambiguity of time here is not just a matter of speech. It brings the reader into the realm of legend and myth: ‘once upon a time…’ The citation is brief and fragmentary:

Nearly half a century ago, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed Thanksgiving as a time when Americans should celebrate "the plentiful yield of our soil . . . the beauty of our land . . . the preservation of those ideals of liberty and justice that form the basis of our national life, and the hope of international peace¹."

Comparing this citation with the original text can tell us something about mythological transformation. The cited text has been placed in bold:

We are grateful for the plentiful yield of our soil and for the blessings of food and clothing and shelter that have succored us throughout the year. We rejoice in the beauty of our land; in every brave and generous act of our fellow man; and in the counsel and comfort of our friends. We deeply appreciate the preservation of those ideals of liberty and justice which form the basis of our national life and the hope of international peace. For these and all the many spiritual and temporal benefactions betokening god’s goodness, we offer up our prayers of gratitude².

From the original text, all that remains is “the plentiful yield of our soil,” “the beauty of our land,” and the ideals of liberty that are nothing less than the “the hope of international peace.” No less important is what has been omitted: the simple thanks given for food, clothing, shelter, “our fellow man,” and the “comfort of our friends.” The prosaic details have been pushed out; they have given way to the great deeds of war, as the 2001 Proclamation continues:

Now, in the painful aftermath of the September 11 attacks and in the midst of our resolute war on terrorism, President Eisenhower's hopeful words point us to our collective obligation to defend the enduring principles of freedom that form the foundation of our Republic³.

The Proclamation starts with the need to protect the Nation, associating it with a particular set of equivalencies: Soil=Land=Liberty=Nation=Peace. All of these have come under terrorist attack; we have been terrorized. The collective order has been threatened by apparently chaotic violence. What is threatened is the “basis,” the foundation of the Republic: the liberty for the defense of which our “collective obligation” must be invoked. The words “Us, We, Our” repeat constantly⁴. The collective – the Us of the Nation – is beyond time: what has been said in the past becomes a contemporary discourse, eternal. That the nation is eternal and that this eternity is the source of its authority, we discover in the second paragraph:

During these extraordinary times, we find particular assurance from our Thanksgiving tradition, which reminds us that we, as a people and individually, always have reason to hope and trust in God, despite great adversity⁵.

The National Optimism, which is common to “Us,” the common denominator of the American people “as a people and individually” is based on “the hope and trust in God”. Like on the dollar bills: “In God we Trust” and “e pluribus unum” are put together; one nation, under God, indivisible. God, mentioned no less than seven times in the Proclamation, is indivisible, just as the Nation under him is indivisible. Here Thanksgiving wears the aspect of a religious holiday, although it is not part of any religion in particular. This is a “free-floating” religiosity, general, ambiguous but at the same time embracing, inclusive. This is the secular national religiosity, the Americanity: Thanksgiving and the 4th of July are for the nation what Easter and Christmas are for Christianity. But the two holidays differ: Independence Day is a direct celebration of the Nation’s coming into being; Thanksgiving focuses, as its name suggests, on giving thanks, to God most of all. The Nation replaces here the Holy Community, the Muslim Umma or the Christian Corpus Christi. And as in the Christian myth (which repeats the Last Supper in each Mass) so also in the American myth: the Thanksgiving meal repeats the original, mythical meal of the Pilgrims. Returning to the text of the 2001 Proclamation:

In 1621 in New England, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God, in whom they placed their hope, even though a bitter winter had taken many of their brethren⁶.

The Proclamation does not tell us the details of the story; Americans know them from primary school. How the first Americans, a group of 120 Pilgrims, fled religious persecution in the Old World by sailing on the Mayflower to the New World. How these freedom-starved few found refuge in the New World, landing on Plymouth Rock in 1621. How during the fist winter more than half died. How the governor of the colony declared the first Thanksgiving. How the Indians gave the colonists three turkeys. How the colonists cooked those turkeys and invited the Indians to share them. And, of course, how the good Indian Squanto taught the whites to use a dead fish as fertilizer when planting maize…

The President-Pedagogue reminds us of the essential. But there are variants, revisionist retellings, critical deconstructions. These exceed his brief. By their nature, myths are condensed - like moments of fear or love, the language is sparse; a little conveys a lot. The Presidential historical lesson continues. The brutal winter of Puritan New England gives way to a new hope for freedom: Washington’s revolutionary army at Valley Forge:

In the winter of 1777, General George Washington and his army, having just suffered great misfortune, stopped near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to give thanks to God. And there, in the throes of great difficulty, they found the hope they needed to persevere. That hope in freedom eventually inspired them to victory⁷.

The message is clear. The President had already invoked it in his proclamation on the evening after the attacks on 11 September: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me” (Psalms 23:4)⁸. Here, Valley Forge is the valley of the shadow of death, the gaping crater of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. Hoping becomes an imperative: one must always have hope; always praise the Lord (Cf. Psalms 71:14); it is a sine qua non for eventual salvation. The Democracy is placed under the Deocracy, subjected to God.

The third paragraph continues the presidential history lesson, but shifts to the origin of the Thanksgiving Proclamation itself:

In 1789, President Washington, recollecting the countless blessings for which our new Nation should give thanks, declared the first National Day of Thanksgiving. And decades later, with the Nation embroiled in a bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln revived what is now an annual tradition of issuing a presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving. President Lincoln asked God to "heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and Union⁹.

The Proclamation, then, draws its authority from Tradition, from the pantheon of the fathers of the Nation, in whose company their present-day successor is now privileged to dwell: Washington, Lincoln, Bush. The War of Independence and the Civil War are linked to September 11. But the discourse of Lincoln from 1863 cannot find its way into the mouth of Bush in November 2001 without certain differences becoming apparent: Bush refers not to a bloody war of brother against brother, but to the terrorist attacks of Al-Qa’ida. The history lesson is now ended; the parallels have been drawn; now the flock is ready to receive instruction on the appropriate frame of mind with which to approach the feast:

As we recover from the terrible tragedies of September 11, Americans of every belief and heritage give thanks to God for the many blessings we enjoy as a free, faithful, and fair-minded land¹⁰.

The president specifies three groups to which special thanks are due: to the rescue forces who sacrificed themselves, to “our leaders at every level” (lest, in our gratitude, we forget our President), and last but not least the millions who reached out to help their fellow citizens in need¹¹.

The homily, and call for thanks now concluded, the President next issues the call for prayer and charity:

In thankfulness and humility, we acknowledge, especially now, our dependence on One greater than ourselves. On this day of Thanksgiving, let our thanksgiving be revealed in the compassionate support we rende to our fellow citizens who are grieving unimaginable loss; and let us reach out with care to those in need of food, shelter, and words of hope. May Almighty God, who is our refuge and our strength in this time of trouble, watch over our homeland, protect us, and grant us patience, resolve, and wisdom in all that is to come.

The Proclamation has now come to end. The voice of the text changes, from the Us of the many, the We, it passes now to the “I,” to the unique, irreplaceable voice of the sovereign, the wielder of the exception:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 22, 2001, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage Americans to assemble in their homes, places of worship, or community centers to reinforce ties of family and community, express our profound thanks for the many blessings we enjoy, and reach out in true gratitude and friendship to our friends around the world.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have here unto set my hand this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty.

We conclude by marking the phases through which we have passed. The President emerges not merely as head of state or leader of a nation; he is also the high priest of Americanity. He proclaims the holiday, he “encourages” the Americans to practice it fittingly: “to assemble in their homes, places of worship, or community centers to reinforce ties of family and community,” that we may better “express our profound thanks.” In other words, the role of the president is to remind the nation of its myths, to link them to the present time, and to give meaning to our praxis. The ritual serves here as a positive confirmation of the myth, the gathering together at the family or community level is the confirmation of the belonging to the collective Us, to the US. Being part of the Nation is also being part of its myth, through praxis.

The Proclamation ends by synchronizing Gregorian time with American time, “the year of our Lord” with the “Independence of the United States of America.” The time of the Corpus Christi is reconciled to that of the Corpus Americani. There are moments when history penetrates into the fabric of everyday life; these we call “historical moments,” the ones for which we can answer the question: “Where were you when…”? Where were you when JFK was assassinated? When Challenger exploded? When the towers collapsed? The event is “bigger than life”; the “where were you…” does not explain the event, but marks our participation in it, our very place as part of the community. In this sense it is not so different from other such questions, proffered in other quarters: Where were you when they crucified my Lord? All those questions seek to test the bonds of connection: between individuals and the collective body. The historical event becomes a kind of Big Bang, severing the continuity of time: before September 11 and after; They are understood as different eras. So it is with events that come to be understood in quasi-cosmological terms: The world will never be the same.

Sixty-seven days after the attacks, when President Bush published his Thanksgiving Proclamation, the idea of celebrating a holiday – and a holiday of gratitude, no less – might have seemed incongruous. The collapsing towers, the photos of the missing, the voices and images of the grieving, the smell of bodies in the rubble – all still hung in the air. The economic crisis, the bursting of the “Dot Com Bubble,” all served to increase the feeling of crisis in the US. The country was covered with flags, signs that read “United We Stand,” and even regular activities were imbued with meaning: the president, we may recall, had called on Americans to shop, to spend money, to consume. The traditional banalities of such consumption: became generalized slogans: “Thanks for Shopping,” or “Thank you for Traveling,” usually accompanied on a poster with an American flag. Not for shopping or flying with one company or another, but merely for shopping at all, in “these extraordinary times.”

The leader had become a historian, and the historians were called up for duty. The presidential history, to be sure, is was nothing more but also nothing less than mythology: an event in the past that repeats itself in the present. As in the Proclamation, past and the present exist together. The chaotic now is understood by finding analogy with a collective past, by placing it at the end of a long chain of events: the Proclamation of Eisenhower (“Nearly half a century ago”); the events of the 11 September and the war against terrorism; the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving of 1621 and that of George Washington’s troops in the winter of 1777; Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863 finally back to the present, in the post 9/11 world.

Mythology, then, seeks not to create critical distance between different events in time, but to merge all such events into one meaning, into a complementary chain of analogies. The Proclamation is a mosaic of historical events and texts put together in an a-historical way. The word “History” is absent in the text, replaced by “Tradition”. The a-temporality of the proclamation is the temporality of the myth. A reservoir of archetypical events, a succession of units, interwoven together, and serving as a model to explain the present. As a succession of repetitions in the past, they serve as proof of the nature of the event and point to the proper reaction to it. The disaster which can not be grasped, to which we are hopelessly pinned becomes part of the nature of national time, understood in a cyclical conception of reality.

One of the basic credos of Americanity may be found in the Proclamation: that even in the hardest moment, a man should never loose hope, for God’s Providence will help him. Thanksgiving has become part of the American nature, the American character, rooted in the primordial past of the United States of America: we must ever, and always, give thanks to god. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18). Thanks to God is not just an expression of this faith; it is a basic law in the economics of Salvation: “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6: 38).

II. The Pardon of the Turkey

The Presidential Pardon of the Turkey is one of the New World’s most “exotic” rituals. Every year, since 1947, the National Turkey Federation, or NTF, presents the president with two live turkeys and two dressed ones, in celebration of ThanksgivingSource: 12. While the dressed turkeys are eaten, the live ones are kept for the pardoning ceremony. One day before Thanksgiving the delegation from the NTF, comes to the White House, with the two chosen turkeys. One of the two turkeys will be used for the ceremony, while the other will be kept as substitute. The ceremony is held in the Rose Garden, the audience consisting of White House staff and their school-age children, as well as other schoolchildren specially invited for the event. The ceremony itself is very short, lasting perhaps five minutes: the president comes out from the White House, gives a short speech, pets the turkey and invites the schoolchildren to do likewise, poses for pictures, and then disappears again into depths of the White House. Both turkeys are now pardoned; they will not be eaten (unlike millions of their fellows), but will instead live happily ever after in a zoo, protected as the “Presidential Turkeys.” The ceremony is covered by the print and electronic media.

The 2001 Pardon ceremony started at 1:48 pm and finished at 1:52 pm. I give here the full text of the Presidential talk in the Pardon ritual as it appears on the official web site of the White House:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Good afternoon, and welcome to the White House. I'm not going to speak too long, because our guest of honor looks a little nervous. Nobody's told him yet that I'm going to give him a pardon.
We're especially glad that so many of the young can come today. Thank you all for being here. In a few moments, you can come up and pet the turkey if you want to.
Nick Weaver and Stuart Procter of the National Turkey Foundation are here, and I want to thank you both for being here. Honored you're here. Actually, you probably don't know this, but there were two turkeys brought to Washington for this occasion. By custom, an alternate is always on hand to fill in if needed.
This one right here – his name is Liberty. And the other turkey, the alternate, his name is Freedom. Now, Freedom is not here because he's in a secure and undisclosed location. (Laughter.)
This White House tradition dates back to Abraham Lincoln. Probably what you don't know is that Abraham Lincoln had a son named Tad who kept a turkey as a pet. I thought about trying to keep the turkey as a pet, but I don't think the two dogs and the cat would like it.
From our very beginnings, gratitude has been a part of our national character. Through the generations, our country has known its share of hardships. And we've been through some tough times, some testing moments during the last months. Yet, we've never lost sight of the blessings around us: the freedoms we enjoy, the people we love, and the many gifts of our prosperous land.
On this holiday, we give thanks for our many blessings and for life itself. Thanksgiving reminds us that the greatest gifts don't come from the hands of man, but from the Maker of Heaven and Earth.
These week [sic] American families will gather in that spirit. We will remember, too, those who approach the holidays with a burden of sadness. We think especially of families that recently lost loved ones, and of our men and women in the Armed Forces serving far away from home.
This is a nation of many faiths. And this holiday season, we'll all be joined in prayer that those who mourn will find comfort; that those in dangers will find protection; and that God will continue to watch over the land we love.
I now have the duty of ending the suspense of our feathery guest. For this turkey and his traveling companion, this will not be their last Thanksgiving. They will live out their days in comfort and care of Kidwell Farm of Herndon, Virginia. By virtue of an unconditional presidential pardon, they are safe from harm.
May God continue to bless America, and I hope everybody has a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for coming. We'll go over and see the turkey. (Applause¹³.)

How are we to understand the ceremony of the Pardon of the Turkey? Is it a “serious” event? Or a charivari, a carnavelistic mock ritual of subversion?

Photo of the ceremony on the White House Official Web Site

We might note that the president opens his speech with a series of jokes. The first of these is in the opening line: “I'm not going to speak too long, because our guest of honor looks a little nervous. Nobody's told him yet that I'm going to give him a pardon.” Why is it funny? It creates a tension between the President and the turkey, between the stupidity of the bird, and its humanization. Pardon as we know is human, as is execution. Other animals (though they can certainly be killed) cannot be executed, and therefore cannot be pardoned. Execution is a legal punishment; the punishment for particular crimes as enumerated in law and statute. The sovereign, however, wields the power of exception, the authority to suspend statute, to pardon the condemned. I will come back to this point later on. Thus to substitute “our feathery guest” for the body of a real human being is a classical carnival act. It recalls the Medieval Mass of the Donkey, in which a donkey was brought to the altar of the church and a mass was sung to it, rather than to Christ.

But we get ahead of ourselves: let us return to our discussion of the presidential jokes. The second joke concerns the structure of political power:

Actually, you probably don't know this, but there were two turkeys brought to Washington for this occasion. By custom, an alternate is always on hand to fill in if needed. This one right here – his name is Liberty. And the other turkey, the alternate, his name is Freedom. Now, Freedom is not here because he's in a secure and undisclosed location. (Laughter.)

What is so funny here? It’s not the bombastic names given to the birds: Liberty and Freedom. Freedom and liberty are not laughing matters, eleven weeks after 9/11 in particular. The audience is laughing because the joke recalls a profound insecurity: after 9/11, the President and the Vice-President were kept separate, lest one of them be killed. What is at stake is the fragility of sovereignty itself, of the continuity of political power as such. The joke traces this tension, bringing its own discourse ad absurdum.

The third joke, also plays with an anthropomorphic politics, plays on the possibility of tensions within the presidential household. “I thought about trying to keep the turkey as a pet, but I don't think the two dogs and the cat would like it.” A friend-enemy dichotomy is transferred here into the animal world. The language of homeland security is transferred to keeping the peace between the presidential pets. The high politics of war and peace are brought, as it were, from the Situation Room to the doghouse. The entire event is amusing and the three jokes that opened the ceremony prepare us for a serious message concerning the festivity. As in the Proclamation, the president speaks about gratitude. Here that gratitude becomes “part of our national character,” embossed as a theology of hope, thanksgiving, and subjection to God. “Thanksgiving,” the president explains, “reminds us that the greatest gifts don't come from the hands of man, but from the Maker of Heaven and Earth.” As in the Proclamation, the President explains to what and to whom one should give thanks. We are instructed in what we should do “that God will continue to watch over the land we love.”

The three jokes of the president and his advisers touch on three important aspects of sovereignty: the power over life and death, the continuity of the regime, and the politics of peace and war. Parodying it makes it less threatening: the question of the death penalty becomes funny. The president’s power over human life applies not just to those condemned to death for some criminal offense, but also to the lives of soldiers he commands – indeed, over all of his citizens. To soften this, to make presidential power human, to render it merely amusing is to subvert criticism. The temporal power of sovereignty is terrifying. We hasten to reassure ourselves that it is perhaps not so serious after all. But whether we admit it or not, we are sovereignty’s subjects and we depend upon it for our sense of security. If we do not take sovereignty seriously, how may we critique it, control it, keep watch over it?

The pardon of the Turkey is a serious event for the National Turkey Federation. It is a good opportunity to do some marketing of the Turkey, on the eve of the day when the Turkey industry does fully one quarter of its annual business. Bottom line, the Federation is – as its internet site explains – “the national advocate for all segments of the turkey industry, providing services and conducting activities which increase demand for its members' products by protecting and enhancing their ability to profitably provide wholesome, high-quality, nutritious products¹⁴.” But what does the President stand to gain from the pardoning of the Turkey? After all, the president is not selling Turkey. Doubtless, as the NTF web site explains, the ceremony provides “the President an opportunity to reflect publicly on the meaning of the Thanksgiving season¹⁵”. It is the medium through which the high message of the national myth is transferred to the public. It is a pedagogical spectacle, in which sovereignty is manifest. The humanized Turkey – like animals in Aesop’s fables – serves to disguise a moral, wrapping human affairs in animal skins. In the Pardon, the national narrative of the proclamation is softened.

The logic of the pardon is the logic of exception. The exceptionality of the Pardon vis-à-vis the approximately 53 million turkeys consumed (or sacrificed) over Thanksgiving finds its analogue in the exceptionality of the President vis-à-vis the 265 million Americans. The difference between the sovereign and its subjects is dramatized by the unique ritualization of the presidential turkey. The turkey links presidential discourse to the family meal, but it does so by differentiating it. One notes a set of differences between the two:

Pardon of the Turkey	Thanksgiving Meal
The White House	The Family House
Outside	Inside
Garden	Eating room
Living Turkey	Dead Turkey
Petting	Eating
Naming the Turkey	No name
President	Father

Eating the turkey is an act of commensality – of becoming part of a community by partaking in food, by acting together as a community of eating. Traditionally, the Turkey is cut by the father of the family, and is shared by all the members of the family. When the father of the family unifies the family by cutting the Turkey and by dividing the Turkey among the family member, the President unifies the family around the Turkey, by pardoning the Turkey and by inviting the children to pet it. The Pardon is a negative of the meal. This comic reverse of the family ritual serves to send a message to the Corpus Americani that the President is both a part and not a part of the Corpus Americani. As Magnus Fiskesjo notes in his book The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, the Death of Teddy’s Bear, and the Sovereign Exception of Guantánamo:

Masquerading as a joke, it is really a symbolic pardoning act which, through public performance, establishes and manifests the sovereign’s position at the helm of the state by highlighting, as an attribute of his position, his power to control matters of life and death. […] The symbolic pardon granted to a turkey, giving it a continued lease on life, signals the very manner in which sovereignty thrives on the exception. […] In this zone of exception, the life-and-death issues at hand are decided on the say-so of the one man whose body natural assumes the position at the helm of the body politic¹⁶.

The Turkey of the Pardon embodies the exception of Sovereignty. But what manifests itself in the Turkey of the meal? What is the meaning, not of the living feathered bird, but of the dead bird consecrated in its own sauce? The Turkey Thanksgiving raison d’être, we are told, is to commemorate the turkeys of the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving meal. However, it is also understood that the turkey is a native bird, the American bird, and thus represents Americaness. We eat the native bird in order to become natives; we have to digest nativeness to become autochthons.

Along these lines, one can read the myth of the first Thanksgiving as the myth of passage of autochthonicity from the Indians to the Whites. Often, it is said that the Indians gave the Pilgrims wild turkeys that they themselves hunted, that the Pilgrims cooked them and that the Pilgrims invited the Indians to their meal. The raw meat of the wild bird that the “savages” gave to the “civilized” whites was returned to them as cooked meat. Raw and cooked, Nature and Culture, Indians and Whites.

The First Thanksgiving, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930).

It is interesting that the native bird is not named after the native peoples, but rather after a nation of the old world. Can we imagine the French eating, on 14 July, some fowl named Chile? Or that the Turks are eating some America? The Thanksgiving obsession with autochthonicity would make more sense in French, where the word for turkey is dinde – de l’inde, Indian.

In the myth of the first Thanksgiving, thanks is shifted from the Indians to God. In Bush’s version of Thanksgiving the Indians are completely absent. The passage is no longer a passage from the natives to the settlers, but rather one from the fathers of the nation to us, from the President to the citizen.

Thoughts-giving on Thanksgiving

What is the meaning of the word “Thanksgiving”? Of “Thanks” plus “Giving”? What is it to “thanks give”? To be a thanks giver? Saying “thanks” is an automatic expression of gratitude: “Thank you,” “Thanks,” “Merci,” “Grazie,” “Vielen Dank.” It is a gesture that we do when we are given something by someone: it is a response to giving – when we receive, we give our thanks in return. This is second nature of the polite man. The primary sense of the word “thank” in Old English was “thought.” But if originally thanking meant thinking about, then in our usage saying “thanks” is something that we do, most of the time, quite automatically – that is to say, thoughtlessly. In Thanksgiving being thankful becomes the nature of the American nation: “we are a grateful nation,” a hopeful, optimistic people. This is the discourse of the PC – not the discourse of the Political Correct, but rather of the Positively Correct. To be American means to be positive: a positive imperative one interiorizes. This is the culture of the superlative, of the inflation of the positive, of a super-abundance of love and goodness. Doubtless, this Capital of Satisfaction, of Greatness must have some positive sides, but such an inflationary addiction to praise is a danger to criticism and, thus, to politics.

If the PC is interiorized, then auto-censorship precedes the social. The PC becomes not just the Positively Correct but Personal Correctness. Doubt is arrested before it can take its place in the republic of criticism – the political is dead. The political is born in the “between” of negotiation, in the questioning of Tradition, an endless polishing of policy. When the public becomes private, when the nation becomes the home, the polis is dead. We are staying at home, neutralizing the public sphere of the “between.” The polis is reduced the infrastructure of physical bureaucracy, a sphere of nomos stripped of the political. When the positive imperative of Greatness dominates social interaction, the result is a neutralization of the Polis.

So what, in the end, is this Thanksgiving? Is it a national holiday or a family one? Does the Turkey embody Sovereignty, the Corpus Americani or family unity? Probably both. However, what is striking in Thanksgiving is the unique place that it gives to thanking in the imagined national character. Do the French have a special holiday for thanking their Frenchness? The Germans, the Syrians, the New Zealanders? Whereas every country has its independence day, Thanksgiving is an American enterprise. One wonders how much the PC theology of Thanksgiving is limiting political life in the USA? Thanking is a quiet, quietistic action. When thanking is applied to politics, one has to ask “why and for the sake of what are we thanking?”
Myths are dynamic. They do not cease to change, to transform. One can trace Thanksgiving back through a series of mythological transformations from the Biblical myth of Exodus – and its holiday, Passover – to Christianity and to Americanity. In Christianity the meal of Passover was transformed to the Last Supper, the Pascal Sacrifice with the crucifixion, the Pascal Lamb into the Lamb of God. The Passover became Pasqua (Easter). The liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt becomes the liberation of humanity from the original sin. Et cetera. The mythological foundation event, the Last Supper was the model for the collective meals of the first Christian communities, the Agape – the meal of Love – where the community was gathered around the Lord’s table, breaking bread. From this ritual developed the Mass, where the Eucharist is taken.
Receiving the Eucharist in the Mass became a central sacrament. With the Eucharist, one confirmed one’s belong to the Corpus Christi, which later becomes the Corpus Misticum. Protestantism criticized belief in transubstantiation and the Eucharist was conceived more as a symbolic invocation of the Last Supper than as an actual transformation. With the decline of the Eucharist in Protestant thinking, there arose the collective festive meal of Thanksgiving. The link between Thanksgiving and the Eucharist is indirect, but it is not fanciful: Eucharist is Greek for Thanksgiving.

President George W. Bush is joined by Lynn Nutt of Springfield, Mo., as he poses with “Flyer” the turkey during a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006 in the White House Rose Garden, following the President’s pardoning of the turkey before the Thanksgiving holiday.

1 George W. Bush 2001 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 16, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011116-3.html

2 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation”, 31 October 1958. Source:
www.pilgrimhall.org/ThanxProc1950

3 George W. Bush 2001 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 16, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011116-3.html

4 The words “We” appears 5 times,” Our”, 16 times, and “Us” 9 times.

5 George W. Bush 2001 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 16, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011116-3.html

6 George W. Bush 2001 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 16, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011116-3.html

7 Ibid.

8 “America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism. Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me." This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. Thank you. Good night, and God bless America.”, 09/11/2001, END 8:35 P.M. EDT, Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/2001091

9 “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore if, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.”, Abraham Lincoln, “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation”, 3 October 1863. Source: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/ThanxProc1862

10 George W. Bush 2001 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 16, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011116-3.html

11 Let us particularly give thanks for the self-less sacrifices of those who responded in service to others after the terrorist attacks, setting aside their own safety as they reached out to help their neighbors. Let us also give thanks for our leaders at every level who have planned and coordinated the myriad of responses needed to address this unprecedented national crisis. And let us give thanks for the millions of people of faith who have opened their hearts to those in need with love and prayer, bringing us a deeper unity and stronger resolve.

12 www.eatturkey.com/consumer/history/history.html

13 George W. Bush, Pardon of the Turkey, 2001. Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011119

14 Source: www.eatturkey.com/about/about.html

15 www.eatturkey.com/consumer/history/history.html

16 Fiskesjo, Magnus. The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, the Death of Teddy’s Bear, and the Sovereign Exception of Guantánamo, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003, p. 3.