[Reader-list] Politics of American Un-civilization

[Isaac D W Souweine]

Avinash:

I wonder if you’re giving enough credit to the implications of 
Shuddha’s post for forming a nuanced understanding of geo-political 
power relations. Everyone seems to agree that the Lok Vidya 
text/piece/article treats “the US” qua political agent a bit 
simplistically/unproblematically. And yet in your most recent response 
you still seem to favor the “block’s biggest bully” analogy, as if the 
power which we name as “US power” redounded to one definable group of 
influential people. For me, Shuddha’s piece is a reminder of the need 
for a more discriminating, complex understanding of power and how it 
works. This isn’t about discounting state power or the centrality of 
the international state system, but it definitely is about remaining 
committed to drawing specific, precise maps of power relations, as 
opposed to relying on simple sketches. Thus, just as we must be 
careful to separate the “US” from “the Bush regime” and the “US voting 
public”, we must also be careful to understand that so-called “US 
power” is not univocal. While this is most obvious when considering 
conflicts between US state power and the power of so-called US 
corporations (often better termed multi or transnational), I think the 
basic approach can be extended in just about all directions, 
especially as one investigates the curious political alliances in the 
US electorate which allow for something like, say, US policy viz. the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With the rise of things like globalized 
corporate mediatainment on the one hand and cheap, distributed 
information technology on the other, the world really is getting more 
complicated in terms of the way ideologies are produced and contested, 
the way temporary alliances are built and dissolved. In the face of 
this complexity, it seems to me that our job is to rise to the 
challenge, even if we have to take our treasured dialectics of 
oppression and resistance and imbue them with unsettling degrees of 
flexibility, overlap and indeterminacy. 

All that said, and having now reread the Lok Vidya piece a few more 
times, I guess at another level I’m wondering what all the fuss is 
about. So this particular US regime is less into soft power and more 
into scare tactics and divinely inspired governance-by-hunch. But is 
it some new fact that the world’s great superpower wants to “rule the 
world", at least to the extent that such a thing is possible? Did Bill 
Clinton preside over a much different US regime in terms of basic 
power aims? Indeed, since the time James Monroe in 1823 (with JQ Adams 
whispering in his ear) told Europe to stay out of his rather 
inclusively drawn back-yard, the plot seem to have remained somewhat 
consistent, even if the backyard has since grown. I don’t mean to 
conflate almost 200 years of world history here, nor do I mean to 
elide the differences between different US regimes, which have often 
been significant (at least for certain populations), but unless the 
writer of the Lok Vidya piece thinks its news that America really 
isn’t out there supporting truth, justice and “democracy”, there seems 
to be a whole lot of hand wringing going on here. 

Mind you, I’m happy to grant that if any politicians deserve to be 
treated with Starwarsesque finger wagging about their desire for world 
dominance, it’s certainly the Leo Strauss toting neo-con crew of 
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld etc., who really are as ideological as they come. 
Likewise, I would certainly agree that these politicians/strategists 
and the regime they drive have instituted  aggressive, destabalizing 
and violent geo-political strategies, that they have tried to alter 
longstanding and necessary rules of international diplomacy (e.g. the 
Geneva accords) and that, most importantly, their reactionary 
politics, which unfortunately bode quite ill for passport-privileged 
Americans (among others), should be fought at every turn. But, all 
that acknowledged, why aren’t we taking some time to consider this 
shift from soft to hard power and asking whether it augurs certain 
changes in the world system viz the centrality/viability of US power 
(not to mention more complex and interesting changes occurring in the 
role of nation states, international regulatory bodies, global 
capitalism etc.). Taking Gramsci at his word - when hegemony fails, is 
not coercion soon to follow? I know, the big bad bully still has lots 
of army bases, but how are his long-term prospects?  
   
These days, everyone is so fixated on the madness of the Bush regime, 
which makes for easy pickings at one level, but if an incredibly 
divided US voting public does manage to banish the younger Bush, what 
then? If America relearns a bit of its soft power touch, will it shift 
from being the govt. of uncivilization to the govt. of civilized 
repression?? Beacuse as I see it, Mr. Kerry’s job will be to oversee 
the same basic regime of state power as his predecessor (though 
perhaps with a more internationalist demeanor). Meanwhile, the actual 
power wielded by the so-called “Most Powerful Man in the World” will 
continue to become more variegated, multi-valent and distributed, thus 
requiring ever-more careful analysis in the service of precisely drawn 
maps for resistance/ transcendence.   


 
 



----- Original Message -----
From: Avinash Jha <avinash at csdsdelhi.org>
Date: Saturday, October 23, 2004 7:01 pm
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Politics of American Un-civilization

> First of all, let me point to a misunderstanding which can be 
> cleared by
> even a cursory reading of the text that I posted. No claim was 
> made that if
> there is a leak, it has to be deliberate. Or, if pictures or 
> videos of
> torture come to light they must be deliberate in order to 
> terrorize people.
> The claim is about a specific episode. Actually all responses to 
> the piece
> display this misreading. If I were to claim that some misreadings are
> deliberate, it will certainly not mean that all misunderstandings are
> deliberate misreadings. There certainly are whistleblowers and 
> they take
> great risks. In fact, I was looking for the whistleblowers in this 
> specificcase, and finding none. I don't rule it out even for this 
> case, even now.
> But there certainly are deliberate leaks too, as there are deliberate
> misreadings.
> 
> If other images of such violence also seem to display a 
> theatrical, scripted
> quality, then certainly my observation that the theatrical quality 
> in Abu
> Ghraib videos points to something deliberate about it is invalid. 
> And I am
> not about to embark on a comparative analysis of these images. 
> People can
> judge it for themselves and I am not desperate to prove this 
> claim. It is
> not so important.
> 
> The problem with Shuddha's mail begins from what follows these 
> readings -
> "if we are prepared to accept this [that Abu Ghraib videos, 
> Manipur video
> and the images of Iran executions are deliberate attempts to 
terrorize
> people], there seems to be little point in saying that the US 
> governmentalone does this." Who says that the US government alone 
> does this? My
> neighbourhood goonda may also e doing it. When I talk about my 
> neighbourhoodgoonda, to the exclusion of all other oppressors, 
> because he is the one I
> want to deal with now, no one can come and tell me that I must 
> talk about US
> imperialism, Indian imperialism. Nor does it mean that my 
> neighbourhoodgoonda or my national dictator is as powerful and as 
> important for the whole
> world as the US state. The point is not talking about this and 
> that in the
> same breath. One is not dealing in oppressions, one is trying to 
> deal with
> specific oppressions. What does one deal with, at what moment, in 
> what way,
> is not subject to some general prescription.
> 
> To say, as Shuddha does, that "Most governments in the world have 
> acted with
> appalling violence towards those that they have had the 
> opportunity to rule,
> including those like the Iranian government, who make a loud noise 
> about how
> they are opposed to US Imperialism, or the Indian government,...", 
> in this
> context, is either meaningless or dangerous. It is the same 
> argument Indian
> state uses for encounter killings of naxalites and militants or 
> Hindutavadiextremists make about Muslims. "They are oppressing 
> their own people, so
> they can be eliminated". This is what the US said about Saddam 
> Hussain'sregime. The argument in this form is dangerous. If one is 
> saying that most
> governments have acted with appalling violence so why talk of 
> America - the
> argument in this form is meaningless. Let's fight against all states!
> Certainly. But the US state has a special relation with all 
> states. The US
> will let you fight against some states and not against some other 
> states.Some states are more equal than others in the global 
> society. Even an
> ordinary American with an ordinary American passport enjoys 
> privileges all
> over the world. And even innocent Americans land up paying a price 
> for this
> privilege. European passport fetches a little less privilege. Indian
> passport even less. But more than many others. And certainly more 
> than those
> who have no passports.
> 
> If he wants to "argue for a distinction between the actions of the 
> state and
> the propenstities of subjects", he must. Experience of many white 
> people on
> the streets during the Iranian revolution or at a massive angry 
> gathering on
> the occasion of  Steve Biko's funeral showed that many common 
> people make
> that distinction. Examples can be multiplied from various contexts 
and
> surely this is not limited to non-Europeans or non-whites only. Of 
> course,there will be as many examples of occasions when the 
> distinction between the
> state and the people is blurred or vanishes completely. People who 
are
> subject to and complicit with racist, militarist political 
> entities are
> likely to fail to make this distinction. The piece from Lokvidya 
> Samvadargues that the political force that the US represents and 
> especially the
> force that Bush represents survives and grows by arousing the 
> 'egotistic and
> animal insticts' of American people and such people are likely to 
> fail to
> see that distinction between people and states which is so 
> important to
> Shuddha and to many more people. This is perhaps one sense in 
> which this
> force is also a force of un-civilization.
> 
> Actually, it is not the claim that the original 'Lok Vidya Samvad 
> July 2004'
> piece that I translated and posted makes, which is in question. 
> The very act
> of making such claim and doing so using the language of 'American
> Un-civilization' is being identified with "hysterical anti-
> Americanism" and
> much more. You will think twice before making any similar claim on 
> thislist. Not that being hysterical is necessarily something I 
> will always deny.
> There are so many things in life that make one hysterical.
> 
> 
> What does the piece in question state? It says that the US is 
> adopting a
> strategy of terror. "The way US went ahead to start a war in Iraq 
> solely on
> the basis of its military strength in opposition to global 
resistance,
> spurning the sentiments of people everywhere, and by completely 
> disregardingthe United Nations, brings to light the current US 
> policy and strategy. The
> policy clearly is to rule the world and the strategy is terror."  
Note
> "current policy and strategy". Then it goes on to argue that the 
> leak of Abu
> Ghraib was part of this policy of terror. Further, that this 
> policy of
> terror is also necessitated by the electoral needs of Republican 
> Party. "The
> republican party cannot trounce the democratic party by paying lip 
> serviceto democratic values or by talking about international 
> cooperation. Only way
> Bush can win is by arousing the egotistic and animal instincts of the
> American people." It may be right or wrong but is it disrespectful to
> American people? Does not the statement imply that a political 
> force of this
> kind can be built only by arousing the egotistic and animal 
> instincts of
> people, wherever it may be. Is this equating state and people? 
> Only argument
> that Shuddha offers against the specific claim made in the article 
> is that
> genuine whistleblowers do exist.
> 
> Is he reading subtle, elusive sub-texts and wants to alert us all. 
> Actually,he seems to be doing much more. He starts by referring to 
> 'lok vidya piece',
> goes to 'lok vidya text', to 'writers of the text', and finally, 
> in the last
> paragraph it is 'lok vidya' itself which "rides the moral high 
> horse".  To
> the readers of this list, lok vidya has been presented, described,
> interrogated, and fixed as displaying 'hysterical anti-
> Americanism', as an
> entity which does not flutter its eyelashes at the brutality of 
> Indian,Iranian and Iraqi states, one which cannot see the 
> difference between states
> and their subjects. The article or the argument is not contested 
> in a
> dialogue of equals, as was done by Vivek (please note, readers, 
> that the
> posting is addressed to both "Dear Avinash and Vivek"). It has to 
> be framed,
> discredited and destroyed because it talks in a different language 
> - the
> language of 'un-civilization', of 'egotistic and animal 
> instincts'. And the
> same tiresome anti-American politics. Nip it in the bud. The world is
> populated either by globalists like himself or 
> nativists/nationalists as
> constructed by himself.
> 
> Lok vidya literally means 'People's knowledge' or 'Worldly 
> knowledge'. Lok
> vidya Samvad is a journal and a group which wants to engage in a 
> dialogueabout people's knowledge. So, obviously, the writer who 
> writes in Lok vidya
> Samvad cannot speak on behalf of lok vidya. People's knowledge can 
> not be
> identified with the voice of any One. People's knowledge is 
> grounded in
> ordinary life. No One or no theoretical construct has the 
> authority or the
> power to go beyond ordinary life to reconstruct life according to its
> dictates. There is knowledge dialogue always going on in life, 
> sometimesless, sometimes more. We (meaning every one) can 
> participate in the dialogue
> but cannot place ourselves above the dialogue.
> 
> If Shuddha is aggrieved by slurs we sometimes indulge in when we 
> talk about
> the naivety of Americans, or their self-importance, their 
> ignorance of the
> world and so on, he is justified in his irritation. Often it is 
> accompaniedwith a feeling of superiority, the kind Europeans feel 
> regarding lack of
> culture and civilization in America in contrast to Europe. This 
> indeed is
> deplorable. But this is certainly no way to fight those attitudes.
> 
> Let me end with a joke. Gandhi was once asked - "What do you think of
> Western Civilization?" He replied - "It is a good idea".
> 
> We are waiting.
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net>
> To: "Avinash Jha" <avinash at csdsdelhi.org>; <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Politics of American Un-civilization
> 
> 
> > Dear Avinash and Vivek,
> >
> > I have been following with some interest the discussion on the 
> veracity> of the Abu Ghraib videos and images following from the 
> posting of the
> > 'lokvidya' piece on the same.So much so that I am provoked to 
> gather the
> > courage to make what is for me a rather rare posting (nowadays) 
> on to
> > the Reader List.
> >
> > I cannot but help thinking whenever Abu Ghraib is referred to 
> about two
> > other pieces of imagery that I have seen that have always left 
> me with a
> > lot of questions. Let me talk about them a little. Perhaps even 
> in an
> > unforgivably cursory fashion.
> >
> > One is a set of images of public executions in the Islamic 
> Republic of
> > Iran, that I sawpresented in a sit in by Iranian political 
> refugees in
> > Frankfurt this summer, and another is the video that some of us 
> in Sarai
> > and Delhi university have seen of the video footage of the
> > police/paramilirary/army violence meted out to demonstraters in the
> > north eastern Indian state of Manipur. In both instances, what has
> > struck me is the theatrical, almost scripted quality of the 
violence
> > that both these sets of images seem to contain. In the images 
> from Iran,
> > I have seen young men and women being hung from cranes with 
> their eyes
> > open, facing death, as a mullah stands watchful. In the Manipur 
> footage> I have seen men of the security forces (it is not always 
> clear whether
> > they are police, paramilirary or army personnel) routinely 
> humiliate and
> > terrorize the population with a horrible banality. In both these
> > instances, I am left wondering, who took these images, and why.
> >
> > Of course, they may also have been taken by sadist Indian or 
Iranian
> > people in power, and of course they may have a certain utility in
> > terrorizing those that they seek to terrorize (the Iranian 
> opposition to
> > a deeply violent regime, or to those Manipuris who resist the 
> violence> of the armed occupation of the security forces of the 
> Indian state). If
> > this were true (and it may well be true) then their nature 
> mirrors the
> > reality implicit in the charge contained in the  Lok Vidya 
> text's take
> > on the Abu Ghraid images  - the one that  suggests that the Abu 
> Ghraib> videos only demonstrate the depths to which US government 
> and military
> > procedures can plummet . And that they are a part of a 
> deliberate US
> > government strategy to terrorize the Iraqi people. So too, the 
> Manipur> videos must be a deliberte attempt to scare the 
> Manipuris, and the
> > Iranian execution images a state sanctioned means to silence 
> dissent.> Their usage by Iranian and Manipuri opposition groups 
> complicates this
> > assumption a little, but let us leave this aside for the moment.
> >
> > But, if we are prepared to accept this, there seems to be little 
> point> in saying that the US government alone does this. I find 
little
> > justification in attatching the tag - 'American' to the 
> expression 'Un
> > Civilization', It seemse to me about as pointless as saying  - 
> 'Iranian> barbarians' or 'Indian brutes'. I find labels like 
> 'Indian brutes'
> > offensive, even though I know that the Indian state acts in a 
brutal
> > fashion, all the time. I want to argue for a distinction between 
the
> > actions of the state and the propenstities of subjects. Every 
> act of
> > violence in the North East or in Kashmir, is undertaken 
> ostensibly in
> > the name of all Indian citizens, and that includes me, and the 
> writers> of the Lok Vidya text. If we want to say 'American Un-
> Civilization' then
> > let us at the same time, and in the same breath, take 
> responsibility and
> > complete, personal, moral responsibility, as Indian citizens for 
the
> > enormous violence and humiliation that Indian nationalism and 
> the Indian
> > state have visited on many people in South Asia. Let us stand up 
> and be
> > counted as brutes in our own backyard. Some may reject this 
> imperative> as absurd, and I would not disagree with them. But one 
> cant have it both
> > ways, you cant absolve yourself and blame others for the same 
> offenses.>
> > Most governments in the world have acted with appalling violence 
> towards> those that they have had the opportunity to rule, 
> including those like
> > the Iranian government, who make a loud noise about how they are 
> opposed> to US Imperialism, or the Indian government, which is 
> always happy to
> > have folk dances from the north east on Republic day annotate the
> > torture cells and sophisticated methods of militarized 
> repression for
> > the north easterners - as part of the same uncomplicated and 
> wonderful> reality that is the day to day practice of Indian 
> nationalism.>
> > On the other hand, we may also specualate that just as there are 
> people> everywhere in the world who are horrified and angry at the 
> violence of
> > their own governments, there are people in Iran, the North East 
(and
> > hopefully the rest) of India and in the US administered prisons 
> of Abu
> > Ghraib (as well as in the United States) who act as conscientious
> > whistle blowers, who want to let people all over the world know 
what
> > happens in the name of American democracy, the Islamic 
> revolution in
> > Iran or the ideology of Indian nationalism...It may be possible 
that
> > they are also part of the networked chaind of authorship and 
> viewership> that devolves on to the Abu Gh'raib images, the 
> Iranian execution
> > photographs and the Manipur videos...
> >
> > The Lok vidya text, in designing a grand strategem in which the 
> images> are only a mechanism of mastery, seems to rule out this 
> possibility, and
> > seem to suggest that there can be only one explaination for the
> > authorship and the reception of such images, and that explaination
> > always only points in the direction of the imperatives of power,
> > especially what is considered to be the functional imperatives 
> of the
> > 'American' hegemon.
> >
> > Reality may be more complicated than the comforts of Indian or 
third
> > worldist Anti- Americanism may allow for (and let me make it 
> clear here
> > that  I am no apologist for the American, or for that matter 
> what is
> > called the Indian or Iranian master narrative)
> >
> > Perhaps the writers of the Lok Vidya text might do well to 
> consider that
> > just as all those who happen to have American passports might not
> > automatically endorse the actions of the United States 
> administration at
> > home and abroad, so too, some of us who may be Iranian or Indian or
> > Chinese or Russian citizens may not be always in agreement with the
> > violence our states visit on to Kashmir, the Indian North East, 
> in Iran,
> > in Tibet and China or in Chechnya (or elsewhere in the 
territorities
> > they make fragrant with their sovereign powers) . If you look at 
the
> > videos from Manipur, you can see that Abu Gh'raib is only one 
> more place
> > in the world where people are robbed of dignity. Something not very
> > different also happens, and happens as a part of routine state 
> policy,> routine military conduct, within the territory of the 
> Indian republic on
> > a fairly routine basis.
> >
> > I feel the kind of hysterical anti-Americanism that the title 
> 'American> Un Civilization'  suggests leaves us, the rest of the 
> world, - the
> > Indians, the Iranians, the Chinese, the French, and all the rest 
> - on a
> > moral high horse that I am not at all comfortable about riding.
> > Perehaps, as a conscious denizen of a messy world,  I have never 
> been> able to achieve the pristine innocence that riding that 
> moral high horse
> > seems to require as a pre condition.
> >
> > What I am aware of is the sensation at the pit of my stomach, that
> > informs me that  the Ashwamedha Yagya (the Imperial Horse 
> Sacrifice) of
> > Indian nationalism is as sickening  as is the excess of the 
> violence of
> > the current US mandate in Iraq, or, the history of the  lethal and
> > murderours intensity of Ba'athist Iraqui Nationalism under the 
> Saddam> Hussein dispensation. Lamenting the violence of one, 
> cannot blind me to
> > the other. And this inability not to see the networked-ness of 
> violence,> makes it difficult for me to accept the explainatory or 
> ethical value of
> > judgements like 'American Un-Civilization'.
> >
> > Most importantly, it does violence, - immense and enormous 
> violence to
> > those millions of Americans who took to the streets of American 
> cities> in loud and visible disagreement,  against the war in 
> Iraq, and who are
> > continuing to make their dissent known in many different ways.
> >
> > Perhaps Lok Vidya rides their high horse better  than I do, but 
> I am
> > more comfortable with an obstinate and lowly mule that never 
> trusts the
> > motives of any master, least of all its own...
> >
> > with regards
> >
> > Shuddha
> >
> >
> >
> > -- 
> > Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective)
> > The Sarai Programme
> > Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)
> > 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India
> > Phone : + 91 11 23960040
> > Fax :     + 91 11 23943450
> > E Mail : shuddha at sarai.net
> > http://www.sarai.net
> > http://www.raqsmediacollective.net
> >
> >
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
> 
> 
> 
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