> There's a big difference between an organized mass
movement like the anti-apartheid movement, and the
bleatings of Clinton and Blair and liberal editorialists
(not to mention the Israeli government, which has a lot of
nerve criticizing anti-immigrant/racist politicians).
Such bleatings only add to the allure of the demonized character.
Careful Doug, your Aristotelian side is showing. This is quite un-Kantian of you. Imagine that, different tactics for different situations...
Kelley wrote:
> but zizek didn't bother to offer any of that, did he?
What Zizek offered was a banal response, as has been noted. In other words, a kind of dispassionate attachment - engaged but not from "on high." Zizek is almost... bored... in other words, the strategy he is employing is far more level headed than the alarmist clocks that are ringing out. As far as I can see, he's engaged (why would be bother writing if not). It's like when Atwood mispelled Prichard's name... the final jesting blow - "You are so pathetic I can't even be bothered to look up the details." Revealing Prichard for what he is, an impotent bureaucrat, and not even a clever one at that. This is the kind of engagement that Zizek is advocating (and has advocated). Let's call it ERNEST JESTING. It is not an avoidance of difficult situations, or a ignorance of political dangers - it is a highly engaged political strategy - that isn't limited to "we're better than you are" politics.
"The rebellion often takes on the weird and clownish forms which get on the nerves of the Establishment. In the face of the gruesomely serious totality of institutionalized politics, satire, irony, and laughing provocation become a necessary dimension of the new politics." - Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation
Ken L. wrote:
> Whenever fascists raise their ugly hoods, they must be
chased out of town. They cannot be ignored, and they are
not a joke. (To act as though they are is to insult their
victims.) But why is it that academics can be so blase
about fascism, as KM is, or so able to turn discussion away
from the threat to find fault with and blame easy targets,
as Zizek does? People who actually suffer at the hands of
the National Front, the Front National, and the Freedom
Party do not enjoy such luxury, and it is not academic
poseurs (or their symbiotic social democratic foils) who
have stopped them, but mass movements like SOS Racisme.
I'm not advocating or recommending ignorance or passivity. On the contrary, active engagement is important and necessary. I'm recommending an alternative strategies. In Ontario, Mike Harris won the recent provincial election, with some 40% of the vote. Why? Because the centre and leftist parties campaigned for him. How did they do that? They called him a "mean, mad Mike Harris." Guess what - THAT WAS HIS PLATFORM - sleeves rolled up, roll in the mud with the best of ‘em... He was campaigning on the platform that he was a stand up, fight ‘em all kind of guy. The strategy of "outing" Harris made him attractive. I think the extention of solidarity is important, but not as a blank cheque.
Laughter and Grins:
When at midnight of January first, 1994, the Zapatista rebels quietly and with local indigenous approval took over several cities in Chiapas, Mexico, Marcos dialed from San Cristobal the headquarters of the Mexican government military chiefs: "Feliz Ano Nuevo, Cabrones!" - "Happy New Year, Jerks!"
At the largest Prague demonstration of the Velvet Revolution about one million people pulled up keys from their pockets and rattled them for the end of the totalitarian regime. Hated rulers escaped their defenestration from the Prague Castle but were locked out from power.
After 1989, Czech students gave a fresh pink coat to the Soviet tank-monument commemorating the 1945 liberation of Prague. The Soveit Embassy was furious. Next day the tank was forced into its military green. By the following morning, the tank was cross-dressed pink again. In the end this tank-monument to ‘liberation' had to be moved elsewhere.
When Prague's demonstrators in 1969 greeted the riot police with a chant, "long live the police force!" this unit was dislodged as an aggressive force. The chant cast a disarming, perhaps castrating charm over the phallus.
>From Martin J. Beck Matustik, Specters of Liberation: Great
Refusals of the New World Order.
Doug wrote:
> Things are rather different now. Austria is not a country
in crisis, like Germany was, and the EU and US are quite
hostile to Haider, in contrast to their stance of 60 years
ago. Whatever's happening, it's not a rerun of Hitler's
rise.
Again, Doug, your praxis is showing. I think a comparison with Milosevic in more in line with what is happening - and my return volley, "Haider is no fun!" Calling him a fascist might end up building support, not in the short term - but in the long term - by offering up nationalism as a legitimate political alternative.
Chip wrote:
>The idea that "outing" racists and fascists does not work
is completely false and there is substantial data to reject
this notion. Anyone with a library card can disprove this
assertion.
As far as I can tell, Haider is planting a seed, and if the media isn't careful, they might end up supplying the fertilizer. The Toronto Star reported that most Freedom Party supporters are youth. If this is the case, why? I'll suggest this: the moralizing attitude of the liberal patriarch, setting down the law, is ripe for ‘rebellious subjectivity' - right into the arms of a paternal loving father - the nationalist dictator.
ken