[Linganth] A Better Place To Live In - A web project

[Celso Alvarez Cáccamo]

(Please excuse cross-postings).

Dear all,

I am requesting contributions for a simple, collaborative web project.

US President Bush and other high officials have repeatedly stated after the
ousting of Saddam Hussein that "The world is now a better place to live
in", or other variants ("...without Saddam Hussein"). This was partially
echoed, for example, by Spain's ex-president Aznar ("El mundo está mejor
sin Saddam Hussein"), and, I believe, by the defeated Popular Party
candidate Mariano Rajoy during the elections campaign.

I was intrigued by the meaning (?) of Bush's statement, and wrote a short
pseudo-pragmatic-ideological-political commentary of it, basically for
myself. But then I thought I'd like to understand the meaning of Bush's
words much better.

I wonder if anyone has made any analysis on the statement, either on paper
or in their minds. I would like to invite anyone to write a
text/interpretation/analysis/commentary on the statement(s) as heard by
public figures, in any language, for a web site where we could place them
and check for common interpretations to see whether we are all crazy,
whether we think too much about language, or whether the various brands and
practitioners of discourse analysis can independently arrive at reasonably
shared interpretations of a simple statement (these "whether"s are not
mutually exclusive ;-) ) .

This is not a grandiose project, and the texts don't need to be finished
pieces of (high) academic discourse: any approach, any language, any length
(my text is only 2 and a half single-spaced pages, in English). All texts
received will be uploaded to the web site. The only requirement is for the
texts to somehow discuss the various elements of the statement as it was
produced (or its variants): the world as a better place (to live in) (now)
(without Saddam), etc. My main role will be that of setting up the web
pages and keep you posted.

Those of you who wish to contribute, please email the text directly to me,
and as soon as I have a couple of analyses-commentaries I'll set up the web
page. If there are enough of them, who knows what can be done with them
later. And if anyone finds any such analysis on the Internet, please let me
know.

I hope at least a few people like the project. If we're only two or three,
well, we can exchange these texts among ourselves and go on to something else.

Thank you!,

-celso
Celso Alvarez Cáccamo
lxalvarz at udc.es
http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac