Daniel Bensaïd

Daniel Bensaïd

Bensaïd at a conference in Barcelona in April 2008
Full name	Daniel Bensaïd
Born	March 25, 1946(1946-03-25) Toulouse
Died	January 12, 2010(2010-01-12) (aged 63)
Era	20th century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Trotskyist

Daniel Bensaïd (25 March 1946 – 12 January 2010^[1]) was a philosopher and a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France. He became a leading figure in the student revolt of 1968, while studying at the University of Paris X: Nanterre.

Life and career

Bensaïd was born in Toulouse, to a father who was a Sephardic Jew from Algeria, and who had moved from Oran, where he met Bensaïd's mother, to Vichy Toulouse.^[2] In response to the 8 February 1962 Charonne massacre of Algerians in Paris, Bensaïd joined the Union of Communist Students. Irritated by the party orthodoxy he swiftly became part of a left opposition within the union, and was among the dissidents expelled from the party in 1966.^[2]

In 1966 Bensaïd began studying at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, where he helped found the Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire, which became the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR).^[2] With Daniel Cohn-Bendit he helped to found the Mouvement du 22 Mars (Movement of 22 March) which was involved in the protests of May 1968 in France.^[2]

He became a leading theorist of the LCR and the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. He was also a Fellow at the International Institute for Research and Education. Upon his death, Tariq Ali described him as "France's leading Marxist public intellectual, much in demand on talkshows and writing essays and reviews in Le Monde and Libération."^[2] He was known for his studies of Walter Benjamin and Karl Marx, and a recent analysis of French postmodernism.

He died of cancer arising from the side effects of drugs used to treat AIDS, which he had had for the previous 16 years.^[2]

Criticism and debate

Bensaïd and the Fourth International tradition have come under attack from sections of the far left for the strategy they have advanced in the social movements; in particular, for seeing reform and revolution as a false dichotomy, and proposing the formation of "broad parties". In one such critique, Luke Cooper, of the journal Fifth International, criticised Bensaïd for arguing that—in certain, specific circumstances—it maybe permissible to enter a capitalist government, and seek to use the existing state as an instrument of revolutionary transformation.^[3] Bensaïd also debated revolutionary strategy with other Fourth International members, and the British Socialist Workers Party's Alex Callinicos.^[4]

Bibliography

• with Henri Weber: Mai 1968: Une répétition générale (François Maspero, 1968)
• La revolution et le pouvoir (Penser, 1976)
• Walter Benjamin sentinelle messianique (Plon, 1990)
• La discordance des temps : essais sur les crises, les classes, l'histoire (Editions de la Passion 1995)
• Marx l'intempestif : Grandeurs et misres d'une aventure critique (Fayard 1996); English translation: Marx for Our Times (Verso 2002)
• Le pari melancolique (Fayard 1997)
• Le sourire du spectre (Michalon 2000)
• Qui est le juge? (Fayard 1999)
• Contes et le gendes de la guerre ethique (Textuel 1999)
• Eloge de la resistance e l'air du temps (Textuel 1999)
• Une lente impatience. Stock - Un ordre d'idées 2004. ISBN 2-234-05659-4
• Les irreductibles (Textuel 2001)
• Fragments Mécréants. Mythes Identitaires et République Imaginaire (2005)
• "In Memory of a Rebel." Telos 44, Summer 1980.

References

1. ^ Laure Equy, "Le théoricien de la LCR, Daniel Bensaïd, est mort", Libération, 12 January 2010
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Tariq Ali, The Guardian, 14 January 2010, Daniel Bensaïd obituary
3. ^ Daniel Bensaïd and the “Return of Strategy”
4. ^ Hegemony and the United Front [1] The Return of Strategy [2]

External links

• Daniel Bensaïd Archive at marxists.org
• All Daniel Bensaïd's articles (french language) on La Brèche Numérique
• Daniel Bensaïd's articles in International Viewpoint
• "Socialists from France speak out: Interviews with Daniel Bensaid and Alexandre Gaudillière". Socialist Worker. http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=5743. Retrieved 2007-05-07. 
• "We Carry On Fighting. What Else is There to Do?": Remembering Daniel Bensaîd
• Obituary by Tariq Ali
• Obituary by Alex Callinicos

Persondata
Name	Bensaid, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	25 March 1946
Place of birth	Toulouse
Date of death	12 January 2010
Place of death