tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post1466872519564036131..comments2023-09-12T01:15:08.356-07:00Comments on Honduras Coup 2009: "Between them they've buried the bipartisan system": Rodolfo Pastor FasquelleRAJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00097415587406899236noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-45676890027793204062009-08-19T10:06:53.769-07:002009-08-19T10:06:53.769-07:00Reading yesterday's comments backwards, sorry!...Reading yesterday's comments backwards, sorry! should have concentrated the two on translation together.<br /><br />"petreos" seems to me to be literally untranslatable while also completely transparent. So I have been translating it different ways in different places. "Stony" does not quite work, admittedly. <br /><br />I like "articles set in stone" but I have been trying to search for a single-word adjective that keeps the material flavor (permanent, unchangeable, all work but lose the metaphor, which I think echoes the biblical ten commandments, and such a resonance matters).<br /><br />So, watch for me to translate this all sorts of different ways. When I translate poetry I feel authorized to use equivalent but not literal images; maybe I need to treat this metaphor the same way. Constitutional law as poetry.RAJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00097415587406899236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-60709802404147173422009-08-19T10:02:07.063-07:002009-08-19T10:02:07.063-07:00On Nell's comment: my interest here is in repr...On Nell's comment: my interest here is in representing Honduran scholars, intellectuals, and activists as much as possible. So I am not evaluating what Minister Pastor Fasquelle is calling for here.<br /><br />That said, I think it is important to recognize that the resistance to the coup is unified in their demands for restoration of constitutional order, but has still not come to a unified position on the upcoming election; and as a movement that is popular and democratic, may well not come to a single position.<br /><br />The division Oscar talks about between a small group discussing options and expecting the larger body of the movement to go along with what was decided is for that reason extremely interesting, because it may be a key test of how popular a movement will actually come out of the present crisis.<br /><br />But when long-time Liberal politicians like Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle (or for that matter, Mel Zelaya in the days before the coup) proposing that progressive party members should move to support UD in the upcoming election, that is a break with (as he says here) a hundred-year long history that is of importance simply as an enunciation of disavowal of the party. <br /><br />So, I read this less as a problematic statement for the negotiation among progressive factions and the resistance, and more as a very important statement about the longer-term meaning of the coup for the unity of the Liberal party and the possibilities of relatively rapid reshaping of the political landscape.RAJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00097415587406899236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-23918671406975171862009-08-19T09:54:12.845-07:002009-08-19T09:54:12.845-07:00The referent may well be the military or the cops,...The referent may well be the military or the cops, but I stand by my translation here: <i>chafa</i> literally means useless. (I recognize it as Mexican slang, not a word in my own entirely-Honduran speaking vocabulary.)RAJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00097415587406899236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-77339010534937496322009-08-18T18:06:29.927-07:002009-08-18T18:06:29.927-07:00An enjoyable piece, with reservatons.
If by "...An enjoyable piece, with reservatons.<br /><br />If by "the next elections" Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle means "the next legitimate elections", in 2013, then maybe so.<br /><br />If he's talking about November 29, then his prediction is not only exceedingly optimistic, even triumphalist, but also divisive. There's are serious differences in the movement over the question of participation, and I'm not sure that the tone this takes, while bracing in its mockery of the sellout golpistas, is is the most constructive contribution to the discussion: It seems to take participation as a foregone conclusion. <br /><br />That this is a sensitive issue is evident in Oscar's most recent <a href="http://quotha.net/node/220" rel="nofollow">report</a>, where he complains about the leadership's closed meetings. It's going to be hard to have as open and inclusive a discussion about the stance toward the elections as there needs to be, when they're operating so much under siege.Nellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01969732734453586544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-73846064631237990372009-08-18T16:41:41.406-07:002009-08-18T16:41:41.406-07:00Raj-
Not a 100% sure, but I think chafa in the f...Raj- <br /><br />Not a 100% sure, but I think chafa in the first sentence is slang for cop, or in this case, the military that's now being left holding the bag. At least that's how I took it when I read it in the Tiempo.Doug Zylstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03023935711242140793noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341954168256070610.post-6906103194198973432009-08-18T14:46:50.122-07:002009-08-18T14:46:50.122-07:00"the stony articles"
I presume this mean..."the stony articles"<br />I presume this means the "articulos pétreos" of the constitution. Would a more idiomatic translation be "articles set in stone"? Neither really gets to the concept that these were supposedly to be "irreformable" - "unchangeable" articlesJohn (Juancito) Donaghyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12711543214465586727noreply@blogger.com