A reader has informed me that my forwarded post on this subject did not appear on LBO-talk, so I'll try again with a cut-and-paste version.
Louis Proyect posted this excerpt from Zizek's writing on the Marxism list:
> Although it may fascinate some confused
>pseudo-Leftists, this obscene carnivalization of the social life is
>effectively the other, public, face of ethnic cleansing: while in Belgrade
>people defiantly dance on the streets, three hundred kilometers to the
>South, a genocide of African proportions is taking place.
Philip Ferguson posted this commentary:
> I agree with Lou that it does "give you a flavor of Zizek's obnoxious
> war-mongering posture". But also isn't it just plain racist?
>
> When Zizek says 'a genocide of African proportions', I assume for instance
> he is not talking about colonial powers' murders of Africans, but Africans
> supposedly committing 'genocide' on each other. Why say 'a genocide of
> African proportions'? Call me an old-fashioned anti-imperialist, but when
> I hear the word genocide, I tend to connect it with 'European proportions'.
>
> Apparently, for Zizek however, these uncivilised people of the Third World
> - Africans and their eastern European equivalent, the Serbs - are just
> genocidal maniacs and thank god we have civilised Nato, so civilised in
> fact that it apparently doesn't even bomb civilian targets.
>
> Is this guy for real?
>
> Also, I think some kind of left-wing fatwa should be declared on these
> people who bandy around the term 'genocide'.
>
> I don't doubt that *some* Serbs butchered *some* Kosovars and *some*
> Bosnian Muslims and probably some other people. Some Kosovars and some
> Bosnian Muslims and some Croats have also butchered some Serbs. None of
> this has anything whatsoever to do with *genocide*, a term which refers to
> a deliberate attempt to wipe out an entire people.
>
> Philip Ferguson
Ken Lawrence