[Reader-list] Zizek on Egypt

[Patrice Riemens]

Meanwhile Americans might 'get it' thru this medium:

http://twitpic.com/3v4mti

(courtesy Fred Noronha)

cheers, p+3D!


> No but America considers itself a liberal country. It claims to wage war
> for
> 'freedom' and 'democracy' around the world. These categories, are of
> course,
> shifting goalposts. The US killed the Left and encouraged the rise of
> radical Islamists in Afghanistan when it considered Communism the greatest
> enemy of 'freedom' and 'democracy' and now...
> The only reason dictators like Mubarak could lord it over for 30 years is
> because of US and Israel support. Now if only the tide could lap against
> the
> shores of the kingdom of Saud.
>
> On 02/02/11 4:12 AM, "TaraPrakash" <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder why the author is selectively attacking the liberals. George
>> Bush
>> attacked Iraq and defended with the D word. As far as I know Bush is not
>> was
>> not will not ever be considered a liberal.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "SJabbar" <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
>> To: "Sarai" <reader-list at sarai.net>
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 9:31 AM
>> Subject: [Reader-list] Zizek on Egypt
>>
>>
>>>
>>>      Slavoj Žižek in The Guardian
>>>
>>>
>>> Why fear the Arab revolutionary spirit?
>>> The western liberal reaction to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia
>>> frequently shows hypocrisy and cynicism
>>>
>>>
>>> What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/tunisia-government-protests>
>>> and Egypt
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/jan/31/egypt-protests-live-updates
>>>>  is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best
>>>> secular
>>> democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive
>>> regime,
>>> its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The
>>> cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab
>>> countries,
>>> genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the
>>> vast
>>> majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or
>>> nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will
>>> happen
>>> next? Who will emerge as the political winner?
>>>
>>> When a new provisional government was nominated in Tunis, it excluded
>>> Islamists and the more radical left. The reaction of smug liberals was:
>>> good, they are the basically same; two totalitarian extremes - but are
>>> things as simple as that? Is the true long-term antagonism not
>>> precisely
>>> between Islamists and the left? Even if they are momentarily united
>>> against
>>> the regime, once they approach victory, their unity splits, they engage
>>> in
>>> a
>>> deadly fight, often more cruel than against the shared enemy.
>>>
>>> Did we not witness precisely such a fight after the last elections in
>>> Iran?
>>> What the hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/02/iran-mousavi-dictatorship-khame
>>> ini-protests>  stood for was the popular dream that sustained the
>>> Khomeini
>>> revolution
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/feb/03/iranian-revolution-archive>
>>> : freedom and justice. Even if this dream utopian, it did lead to a
>>> breathtaking explosion of political and social creativity,
>>> organisational
>>> experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. This
>>> genuine
>>> opening that unleashed unheard-of forces for social transformation, a
>>> moment
>>> in which everything seemed possible, was then gradually stifled through
>>> the
>>> takeover of political control by the Islamist establishment.
>>>
>>> Even in the case of clearly fundamentalist movements, one should be
>>> careful
>>> not to miss the social component. The Taliban is regularly presented as
>>> a
>>> fundamentalist Islamist group enforcing its rule with terror. However,
>>> when,
>>> in the spring of 2009, they took over the Swat valley in Pakistan, The
>>> New
>>> York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/asia/17pstan.html>
>>> reported that they engineered "a class revolt that exploits profound
>>> fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless
>>> tenants". If, by "taking advantage" of the farmers' plight, the Taliban
>>> are
>>> creating, in the words of the New York Times "alarm about the risks to
>>> Pakistan, which remains largely feudal," what prevented liberal
>>> democrats
>>> in
>>> Pakistan and the US similarly "taking advantage" of this plight and
>>> trying
>>> to help the landless farmers? Is it that the feudal forces in Pakistan
>>> are
>>> the natural ally of liberal democracy?
>>>
>>> The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that the rise of radical
>>> Islamism
>>> was always the other side of the disappearance of the secular left in
>>> Muslim
>>> countries. When Afghanistan is portrayed as the utmost Islamic
>>> fundamentalist country, who still remembers that, 40 years ago, it was
>>> a
>>> country with a strong secular tradition, including a powerful communist
>>> party that took power there independently of the Soviet Union? Where
>>> did
>>> this secular tradition go?
>>>
>>> And it is crucial to read the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt (and
>>> Yemen
>>> and ... maybe, hopefully, even Saudi Arabia) against this background.
>>> If
>>> the
>>> situation is eventually stabilised so that the old regime survives but
>>> with
>>> some liberal cosmetic surgery, this will generate an insurmountable
>>> fundamentalist backlash. In order for the key liberal legacy to
>>> survive,
>>> liberals need the fraternal help of the radical left. Back to Egypt,
>>> the
>>> most shameful and dangerously opportunistic reaction was that of Tony
>>> Blair
>>> as reported on CNN: change is necessary, but it should be a stable
>>> change.
>>> Stable change in Egypt today can mean only a compromise with the
>>> Mubarak
>>> forces by way of slightly enlarging the ruling circle. This is why to
>>> talk
>>> about peaceful transition now is an obscenity: by squashing the
>>> opposition,
>>> Mubarak himself made this impossible. After Mubarak sent the army
>>> against
>>> the protesters, the choice became clear: either a cosmetic change in
>>> which
>>> something changes so that everything stays the same, or a true break.
>>>
>>> Here, then, is the moment of truth: one cannot claim, as in the case of
>>> Algeria a decade ago, that allowing truly free elections equals
>>> delivering
>>> power to Muslim fundamentalists. Another liberal worry is that there is
>>> no
>>> organised political power to take over if Mubarak goes. Of course there
>>> is
>>> not; Mubarak took care of that by reducing all opposition to marginal
>>> ornaments, so that the result is like the title of the famous Agatha
>>> Christie novel, And Then There Were None. The argument for Mubarak -
>>> it's
>>> either him or chaos - is an argument against him.
>>>
>>> The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly
>>> supported
>>> democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on
>>> behalf
>>> of
>>> secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all
>>> deeply
>>> concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance?
>>> Today,
>>> more than ever, Mao Zedong's old motto is pertinent: "There is great
>>> chaos
>>> under heaven - the situation is excellent."
>>>
>>> Where, then, should Mubarak go? Here, the answer is also clear: to the
>>> Hague. If there is a leader who deserves to sit there, it is him.
>>>
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>>
>
>
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