It is my custom before sleeping to read a novel. I turn off the events of the day and start my journey into the world of imagination. Last night, I was reading Madame Bovary when my wife told me about the latest turn in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. I was surprised, but left it to the morning to find out what happened. The New York Times report made it clear, the person who had every right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by the courts, appears to be really innocent, a victim, not a criminal.
The implications for French and global politics and culture are significant. I worry that France, which desperately needs a serious political alternative, may be deprived of a capable public servant as President because of a false accusation and prosecution. I also worry that very serious problems concerning the relationship between public and private, the intimate and the open, sex and politics, may now go unexamined because the case is being closed, when serious deliberate consideration is what is needed now more than ever, there and here.
Daniel Dayan and I have been discussing the case as it unfolds. A few minutes ago, I received an email from him, continuing our discussion. We will actually make this discussion a part of our “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” seminar at the Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, later this month.
He wrote:
“Just a little note to set up our discussions to come: I may have told you that I was talking with a friend on a bench in Central Park, one Saturday morning, around 11 AM just when the Strauss-Kahn episode was going on, 10 blocks south. Uncannily, I was telling my friend that Strauss-Kahn was likely to win the elections unless he was the victim of some trap. I did not realize the trap I was anticipating was functioning already while my friend and I were . . .