Jean Ziegler

This article deals with the sociologist and politician Jean Ziegler; the Romanist of the same name is treated under Jean Ziegler (Romanist) .

Jean Ziegler (1991)

Jean Ziegler (born April 19, 1934 as Hans Ziegler in Thun , legal resident in Bern and Geneva ) is a Swiss sociologist , politician, and non-fiction and novelist. He is considered one of the best-known critics of capitalism and globalization . From 1967 until he was voted out of office in 1983 and again from 1987 to 1999, he was a Geneva member of the National Council for the Social Democratic Party .

From 2000 to 2008 he was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food - first on behalf of the Human Rights Commission , then the Human Rights Council - and a member of the UN Task Force for humanitarian aid in Iraq . From 2008 to 2012 Ziegler was a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, and in September 2013 he was re-elected to this body. He is also on the advisory board of the civil and human rights organization Business Crime Control .

Life

Jean Ziegler (right) in conversation with the President of the Swiss National Council, Hedi Lang (1981/82)

Jean Ziegler (2011)

Jean Ziegler at the “Summit of Alternatives” 2015 in Munich

Jean Ziegler grew up as the son of a German-speaking Protestant magistrate in Thun . From 1953 he studied law in Bern and Geneva, from 1956 law and sociology in Paris and from 1959 sociology in New York. In 1958 he received his doctorate in law and in 1967 became a private lecturer in sociology in Bern. During his law studies he joined the Swiss Zofingerverein (Zofingia) . He describes the claim that he was a staunch anti-communist at the time as nonsense. According to his own statements, a two-year stay in Africa as a UN expert immediately after the assassination of the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the misery he saw there caused him to radically change his basic views. In 1999 he protested together with Alfred Werner and forty other personalities against a loan from Switzerland to South Africa. He processed his impressions from Africa in his novel Das Gold von Maniema (1996).

Ziegler was friends with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - who strongly encouraged him to change his first name to Jean . When she was editing Ziegler's first article, she crossed out his first name, replaced him with Jean and said: "Hans, that's not a name!" Ziegler was with Che Guevara friends, he was the driver during participation of Cuba at the first World Sugar Conference, the United Nations in Geneva . At his request that he take it with him on his return trip to Cuba, Che replied: “Your place is here. Here is the monster's brain, this is where you have to fight. " Ziegler stayed in Switzerland, then studied sociology , converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and used French instead of German.

In 1970 Ziegler brokered a contact between the then openly terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization PLO and the Swiss Foreign Minister Pierre Graber , according to which, according to Marcel Gyr, a standstill agreement had been reached. Switzerland should therefore have been spared further terrorist acts, but it would have supported the PLO in their efforts to set up an office at the UN headquarters in Geneva. In addition, charges against a Palestinian suspect of the attack on Swissair flight 330, which left 47 dead, were suspended for unknown reasons. When the agreement, which was kept secret until 2016, became public, Ziegler tried to justify it by stating that he acted “with good intentions”. According to Ziegler, the Palestinian commandos had "been engaged in an armed liberation struggle", so that "under these circumstances it would not have been advisable to prosecute one of their members". Ziegler also mentioned that he wanted to apologize to the bereaved.

Until his retirement in May 2002, Ziegler was Professor of Sociology at the University of Geneva and a permanent visiting professor at the Sorbonne in Paris .

In his non-fiction books, Ziegler criticized Switzerland's historical role several times, among other things because of its behavior during the Nazi era . He accused the politically and economically responsible persons of those years of having prolonged the Second World War through the movement of goods and capital with the German Reich via money laundering and trading in gold . He also criticized the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan .

Because of massive criticism of Swiss politics, economy, finance and their institutions in his publications, he was repeatedly attacked as a “ traitor ” and prosecuted by several institutes and private individuals, sometimes successfully, under civil and criminal law. The convictions for damages drove him to economic ruin. In 2011, according to his own statement, his debt level was between 5.5 and 6 million euros, which mainly stem from lost lawsuits due to reputational damage and the like, which were initiated by entrepreneurs and banks that he had previously criticized. Ziegler said in an interview that just the designation of a well-known Swiss business lawyer as "Vulture" cost him 320,000 Swiss francs , although he was later convicted as a fraudster and could therefore now legally be called that. Moussa Traoré , who was president of Mali (one of the poorest countries in the world) for 23 years , was awarded 180,000 francs in damages. Ziegler had described him as a " kleptocrat " and wrote that he had shifted two billion US dollars from the state treasury to his private account in Switzerland while people in his country were dying of hunger. Traoré was later sentenced to death in Mali for embezzling state funds. The designation of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a “ fascist ”, on the other hand, was rather cheap with a fine of 2000 francs for “ defamation ”. Ziegler also publicly announced several times that he was bankrupt because of the litigation debts . The house in Russin near Geneva, where he lives, therefore belongs to his wife and his car is only leased . He has been married to the Swiss art historian and former university lecturer Erica Deuber Ziegler (* 1942) since 1999 . His first marriage was to the Egyptian sociologist Wédad Zénié (* 1940; mother of his son Dominique Ziegler ).

From September 2000 to April 2008 Ziegler was UN special rapporteur on the right to food. In this role, in addition to annual general reports and recommendations, he wrote country reports on Niger (2002), Brazil (2003), Bangladesh , the Palestinian Territories (2004), Ethiopia , Mongolia (2005), Guatemala , India , Lebanon and Niger (2006) , Cuba and Bolivia (2007). Among other things, he called for a five-year moratorium on agriculturally produced biofuels , a provisional right to stay for refugees from hunger and a code of conduct for non-state actors - especially companies - with regard to the right to food.

On March 26, 2008, Ziegler was elected to the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council with 40 of 47 votes, where he took a seat for one year according to the drawing of lots. Despite increasing criticism from, for example, the US UN ambassador Samantha Power and the UN Watch organization founded by the American Jewish Committee , Ziegler was re-elected advisor to the UN Human Rights Council on September 26, 2013. He prevailed against the Spanish candidate Fernando Mariño Menéndez with 33 to 12 votes.

Political stance

Ziegler in the occupied Audimax of the University of Vienna (2009)

Ziegler, who has been a member of the Swiss Social Democratic Party for decades, is considered a staunch opponent of globalized capitalism. In an interview with the left-wing daily Junge Welt , he attested that "the 500 largest transnational corporations" had "unbelievable productive power", but they only functioned according to one principle, "maximizing profit, in the shortest possible time, at any human price." That must be ended "before it destroys us." He criticizes a “ refeudalization in the world” and describes himself as a communist in the sense of Karl Marx's phrase: “Everyone according to his capabilities, everyone according to his needs”. According to this phrase, he regards the Paris Commune of 1871 as “the only communist state that has ever existed”. On the other hand, he classifies states in the former Eastern Bloc like the Soviet Union as “ terrorist states” on the basis of their policies . He praised Cuba's politics with regard to nutrition, health and education of the population. He denies that Cubans are generally prevented from leaving and that Cuba is a spy state. Rather, the country is permanently defamed in a completely cynical way by an American-dominated media society. He does not want to brush problems with the human rights situation in Cuba under the table, but considers other problems to be more important for the international community.

He accuses companies - especially multinational corporations - of rejecting any responsibility for human rights or environmental protection, and thus of being largely responsible for world hunger . Corporations also exerted considerable influence over politics, thereby threatening democracy. Ziegler describes starvation as murder. The population growth as a cause of hunger called Ziegler as "complete nonsense" because the world agriculture could feed 12 billion people. In his view, the declaration of world hunger as a result of "overpopulation" serves to calm the guilty conscience.

In particular, in the US policy under George W. Bush , Ziegler saw a policy that was geared to corporate interests and the " oligarchy of American finance capital ". This is the reason why the US regimes that violate human rights worldwide - as such, Ziegler et al. a. Russia under Vladimir Putin because of the war in Chechnya and Israel over the occupation of the Palestinian territories - and refused to participate in the Kyoto Protocol and the ban on anti-personnel mines . Ziegler sees the Iraq war and the global " war on terror " as measures in the interests of US oil companies.

Jean Ziegler said in Switzerland on Sunday October 5, 2014: “Al-Qaeda with its sleeping cells in the west is much more dangerous for the world than IS. It is terrible what the IS militias are doing. But compared to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, IS is reducing the global terrorist threat. Al-Qaeda is a world revolutionary gang of murderers, the IS ultimately a limited theocratic state. "

Criticism of Ziegler

Allegation of partiality

In addition to the rejection that Ziegler experienced because of his criticism of global globalization and economic policy, he was criticized in particular by the UN Watch , an organization founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1993 , which lamented the "unfair treatment of Israel by the United Nations". After Ziegler wrote in a country report on the Palestinian Autonomous Territories in 2004 that Israel was obstructing the Palestinian population's access to adequate food, UN Watch accused him of criticizing almost exclusively the United States, Israel and individual corporations, but that he was caught in numerous food crises do not act at all or only act “with diplomatic kid gloves”.

Accused of supporting dictators

In his capacity as chairman of the World Jewish Congress , Ronald Lauder criticized Ziegler's appointment for a seat on the advisory committee of the UN Human Rights Council in 2008 and described him as a “self-proclaimed human rights activist”, above all as a “supporter of dictators like Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Fidel Castro in Cuba ». The French journalist Luc Rosenzweig, long-time editor and Germany correspondent of the daily Le Monde , described Ziegler as “ owed to al-Gaddafi and Castro,” or as “adorateur” of Castro and “slipper” ( lécheur de babouches ) al-Gaddafi . Ziegler is said to have co-founded the Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights, which was launched in 1989, and was a member of its award committee until 2010, as well as being a member of its seven-person executive office. At the time, he praised the prize as the “Anti-Nobel Prize of the Third World”.

In 2002, Ziegler himself, along with the French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy , the Libyan writer Ibrahim al-Koni and ten other writers and publicists, received this award. However, Ziegler denied ever having accepted the award. After the start of the uprising in Libya in February 2011, he distanced himself from Gaddafi. When asked whether he had stood by Gaddafi for too long, he said in September 2011 that he could be accused of following the invitations for too long without noticing that Gaddafi had meanwhile “gone completely crazy”. As part of Ziegler's renewed candidacy for the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, the organization UN-Watch published a video in September 2013 that shows Ziegler receiving the “Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights” in 2002. After Ziegler had previously denied the award of the award to him for years, he explained that he had returned the award within 48 hours. Despite the criticism, he was re-elected to the committee on September 26, 2013.

Alleged contact with the Marxist left

Ziegler's support of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) on the occasion of the German federal election in 2017 also caused criticism : Ziegler was quoted in a leaflet of the party as saying that it was “very important to show solidarity, internationalist and militant against any right-wing government policy and to unite reactionary and fascist organizations and propaganda ». One of his books was also published in the party publisher "Neuer Weg", where relativizing and justifying writings on Stalinism were also published. In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Ziegler was then certified as "not wanting to know, indifference and family coexistence with people from yesterday". Jean Ziegler, still the undisputed member of the Swiss Social Democrats, replied that he did not want to support the MLPD in 2017, but rather a “global left alliance for solidarity with the third world” and denied any close relationship with Stalinism.

Accusation of approving the use of force

In April 2019, he said in relation to the change in what he believed to be the extremely violent capitalist economy that had produced a "cannibalist world order", "it will certainly not work without violence." In 2015, Ziegler demanded in an ORF discussion program that “[food] speculators should be hung up”.

In 2015 he answered the question of whether violence was an option for him with “of course” and referred to Che Guevara's statement that “the guerrilla [...] is an armed teacher”.

In an interview in 2012 he compared neoliberalism and German fascism with the following quote: «German fascism took six years to kill 56 million people. Neoliberalism can easily do that in just over a year. "

These statements are regularly criticized by his political opponents.

honors and awards

• 1966: Stevenson Memorial Prize
• 1987: Ziegler renounces the Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres previously awarded to him in order to be able to exercise his mandate in the National Council after the 1987 election
• 1999: Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book , awarded for Ziegler's complete works
• 2000: Chevalier dans l'Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres
• 2006: Heckerhut , awarded for his trust in the power of the word.
• 2008: Prix littéraire pour les droits de l'homme
• 2008: Salzburg State Prize for Future Research
• 2008/9: Honorary doctorate from the University of Brussels
• 2009: Honorary doctorate from the University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis
• 2009: "Thun Prize" from the city of Thun
• 2011: Award of the (never given) speech at the opening of the Salzburg Festival 2011 as “Speech of the Year” by the Seminar for General Rhetoric at the University of Tübingen
• 2012: International ethecon Blue Planet Award
• 2019: Otto Bauer badge of the SPÖ

Fonts (selection)

Autograph by Jean Ziegler

• The shame of Europe. About refugees and human rights . Bertelsmann, Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3-570-10423-1 .
• What's so bad about capitalism? Answers to my granddaughter's questions. C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-570-10370-8 .
• "We failed" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2017 ( online - interview with Jean Ziegler).
• The thin line of hope. My battles won and lost and the ones we'll win together. C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-570-10328-9 .
• Change the world! Why we must overthrow the cannibal world order. C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-570-10256-5 .
• We let them starve to death: mass destruction in the third world . Bertelsmann, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-570-10126-1 .
• The living and death. Ecowin-Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3-7110-0018-7 . (Completely revised new edition of the book from 1975)
• The uprising of conscience : The 2011 festival speech that was not held. Ecowin, Salzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7110-0016-3 .
• The hatred of the west. How the poor people defend themselves against the economic world war. Bertelsmann, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-570-01132-4 .
• The Empire of Shame. The fight against poverty and oppression. Bertelsmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-570-00878-9 ; about this: Polar review
• The new rulers of the world and their global adversaries. Bertelsmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-570-00679-4 .
• Foreword in James H. Hatfield : The Bush Empire. How George W. Bush was made president. Atlantik, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-926529-42-3 .
• Switzerland, the gold and the dead. Goldmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-12783-1 .
• How does hunger come into the world? A conversation with my son. Bertelsmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-570-30059-5 .
• How wonderful to be Swiss. Goldmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-15003-5 .
• The barbarians are coming. Capitalism and organized crime. Goldmann, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-442-15029-9 .
• The gold of Maniema. Novel. Knaus, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-8135-0032-2 . (New edition by Verlag Neuer Weg, 2010, ISBN 978-3-88021-378-4 )
• Switzerland washes whiter. The financial hub of international crime. R. Piper, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03258-3 . (New edition by Droemer Knaur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-426-04857-4 )
• The victory of the vanquished. Oppression and cultural resistance. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1989, ISBN 3-87294-382-0 .
• Comrades in power. From socialist ideals to reasons of state. Athenaeum 1988, ISBN 3-610-08505-3 .
• Burkina Faso - A Hope for Africa? Conversation with Thomas Sankara / Jean-Philippe Rapp . Rotpunktverlag, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-85869-043-0 .
• The Swiss empire. Rowohlt 1982. (New edition by rororo 1986, ISBN 3-499-17496-0 )
• Against the order of the world. Liberation movements in Africa and Latin America. Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 1986, ISBN 3-87294-272-7 .
• Africa: The New Colonization. Luchterhand 1980, ISBN 3-472-88017-1 ; Original edition title: Main basse sur l'Afrique. Editions du Seuil, 1978.
• The living and death. Luchterhand 1977. (New edition by Ullstein 1986, ISBN 3-548-35154-9 )
• A Switzerland beyond suspicion. Book guild Gutenberg 1982, ISBN 3-7632-2683-4 .

literature

• Jürg Wegelin : Jean Ziegler: The life of a rebel. Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-312-00485-0 .
• I have a dream - Jean Ziegler. In: Die Zeit , No. 47/2005
• Interview with Jean Ziegler in the magazine Schrot & Korn . Edition 2/2013.
• Lucien Scherrer, Marc Tribelhorn: Jean Ziegler - the unwavering one. An interview. In: NZZ. May 21, 2019, accessed May 21, 2019.
• Micheline Calmy-Rey , Franco Cavalli (eds.) And others: Jean Ziegler - citoyen et rebelle. The long way from Thun to Geneva. Pour un monde plus just. Edition 8, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-85990-331-9 .

Movies

• Nicolas Wadimoff: Jean Ziegler - The optimism of the will. Documentary, Switzerland 2016, 90 min.

Web links

Commons : Jean Ziegler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Jean Ziegler  - Quotes

• Publications by and about Jean Ziegler in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Jean Ziegler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jean Ziegler in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Guy Le Comte: Ziegler, Jean. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Jean Ziegler in the archive database of the Swiss Federal Archives

Texts by Jean Ziegler

• Jean Ziegler's bi-weekly column in the Swiss trade union newspaper "work"
• Uprising of conscience . Ziegler's speech that was not given at the Salzburg Festival 2011, in WOZ , August 4, 2011

Portraits

• Otto Langels: A rebellious sociologist turns 80 deutschlandfunk.de, April 19, 2014

Audio

• Fight against daily death SWR2 interview, 2010 (MP3, 29:05 min.)
• «Thanks to Che Guevara, I've gotten so old» Interview with Dominic Dillier, SRF , May 1, 2017 (in Swiss German , 58:48 min.)

Video

• 2008: Awarding of the Salzburg State Prize for Future Research to Jean Ziegler (YouTube, 14:37 min.)
• 2011: Conversation with Jean Ziegler on the program «Schawinski» (in Swiss German, 28:41 min.)
• 2015: Jean Ziegler in a talk with Markus Gilli on TeleZüri (in Swiss German, 21:41 min.)
• 2019: Conversation with Jean Ziegler on the program «Schawinski» (in Swiss German, 30:10 min.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ «Everything I have learned in life I have learned in Thun» Der Bund, March 17, 2009.
2. ↑ Le pasteur Werner, une vie au service du Christ et de la paix | La Méduse. Retrieved October 14, 2018 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} I am a white negro . In: The time . No. 1, 2011. Interview with Jean Ziegler
4. ↑ Marcel Gyr: Up close and personal with terrorists. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 20th January 2016.
5. ↑ Marcel Gyr: Swiss Terror Years. Jean Ziegler's secret mission. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 20th January 2016.
6. ↑ Jean Ziegler apologizes about the PLO deal. In: Tages-Anzeiger. January 28, 2016.
7. ↑ ^{a b} A child who dies of hunger is murdered. ARD Special for the Frankfurt Book Fair, September 25, 2011.
8. ↑ Herlinde Koelbl: I lied like men always do. Interview. In: The time . Zeitmagazin No. 53/2017. (zeit.de)
9. ^ Work of Jean Ziegler at the UN: Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food righttofood.org
10. ^ Ziegler's publications as UN special rapporteur on the right to food righttofood.org.
11. ↑ Ziegler complains of a "schizophrenic attitude". In: SF Tagesschau. October 16, 2007.
12. ↑ sf.tv : Jean Ziegler advises Human Rights Council , Wednesday, March 26, 2008.
13. ^ Jean Ziegler elected to the Human Rights Council. nzz.ch, September 26, 2013.
14. ↑ See: Blick, Interview., January 30, 2017.
15. ↑ In: young world. 15th May 2019.
16. ↑ J. Ziegler: The Empire of Shame. 2005, pp. 213-279.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e} “It's a pure miracle that I'm here”. In: Tages-Anzeiger . March 17, 2009 (archived website)
18. ↑ A ballot paper doesn't fill you up. In: The world . January 20, 2006.
19. ↑ J. Ziegler: How does hunger come into the world? 2002, pp. 19-26.
20. ^ UN Watch: Mission & History.
21. ^ UN Watch: Blind to Burundi - Jean Ziegler's Neglect of the World's Food Emergencies. (PDF; 2 MB). October 2004.
22. ↑ Ronald S. Lauder: Switzerland's shabby deal with Iran. worldjewishcongress.org, March 31, 2008.
23. ↑ Peut-on prêcher la vertu dans un bordel? ( Memento from April 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
24. ↑ Le socialisme suisse: un oxymore dévastateur. ( Memento from January 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
25. ↑ Joseph Croitoru : In Ghadhafi's tent . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . April 15, 2011; Retrieved May 1, 2011.
26. ^ Ziegler's Libya Connection . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 25, 2006.
27. ↑ He believes his own lies. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 7, 2011.
28. ^ Ziegler's lie and the attack by the Israel lobby. In: Tages-Anzeiger online. September 24, 2013, accessed online September 24, 2013.
29. ↑ candidate flyer of the MLPD
30. ^ Jean Ziegler's Stalinist Connection. NZZ.ch, February 4, 2019.
31. ↑ Trump is an imperialist in the classic sense. In: young world. August 24, 2019.
32. ↑ Globalization critic Ziegler: "It certainly won't work without violence" . In: The press . April 2, 2019 ( diepresse.com [accessed April 4, 2019]).
33. ↑ Jean Ziegler calls for murder / lynching. March 30, 2015, accessed April 4, 2019 . 
34. ↑ There is only one spark missing. In: spiegel.de. January 5, 2015, accessed April 8, 2019 . 
35. ↑ Junge Welt: Jean Ziegler in the "Junge Welt" conversation: "For the peoples of the South, the third world war began long ago." In: derstandard.at. November 5, 2012, accessed April 8, 2019 . 
36. ^ Hans Rauscher: The problem with Jean Ziegler. In: presseportal.de. April 15, 2019, accessed February 20, 2019 . 
37. ↑ 1987: Order for Ziegler parlament.ch
38. ↑ Whoever dies of hunger is murdered. In: links.kn, July 2006, p. 3.
39. ↑ Jean Ziegler reçoit le Prix littéraire des droits de l'homme. lalibre.be, December 3, 2008.
40. ^ Award ceremony 2008 to Jean Ziegler jungk-bibliothek.org
41. ^ Awarding of the Salzburg State Prize for Future Research to Jean Ziegler on November 20, 2008 (video)
42. ↑ Invitation to the award of an honorary doctorate in Paris (PDF) on January 17, 2009 (PDF)
43. ↑ Speech of the Year rhetorik.uni-tuebingen.de
44. ↑ Media information from the Ethics & Economics Foundation
45. ↑ The Swiss Jean Ziegler talks about the refugee crisis. Review in the FAZ from 2020-05-24.
46. ↑ Every starvation death is an “unacceptable tragedy” Interview on the book We let them starve , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, November 17, 2012.
47. ^ "My most elementary book" Interview on the book The Living and Death , tagesanzeiger.ch, December 30, 2011.
48. ^ Review of the film: Jack of all trades in Cuba . In: Berner Zeitung. 18th January 2017.