Slavoj Zizek in an interview for Germany's Deutsche Welle television, talking about Occupy, communism and the need for a reinvention of democracy.
Slavoj Žižek is regarded as one of the ideological pioneers of the Occupy movement, but he says its demands don't go far enough. Žižek sees no future for capitalism and is calling for a radical break with the past in favor of a new social order.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
"Iran, the Green Movement and the USA": Hamid Dabashi on the Future of the Iranian Pro-Democracy Movement
Iranian protesters returned to the streets on Sunday to mark the deaths of two men killed during demonstrations last week. Police used batons and tear gas to break up the protests. Among those detained were Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. “On one hand, the Iranian authorities are expressing solidarity with the democratic movement in Tunisia and Egypt and throughout the region," says Columbia University Professor Hamid Dabashi. "Then deny that very principle to their own people." [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday anti-government protesters gathered in different parts of Iran to mark the deaths of two men killed during demonstrations last Monday. For the second time in a week, supporters of the opposition Green Movement clashed with security forces in the capital Tehran and elsewhere. According to witnesses, in some places, police officers and baton-holding mercenaries outnumbered the protesters. Also on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, accused Iran of “exploiting” the current political unrest in the Arab world. He emphasized the Israeli government’s concern over a plan to send two Iranian warships into the eastern Mediterranean.
HAMID DABASHI: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Its great to have you. Tell us what is happening. What do you understand took place in Iran over the weekend?
HAMID DABASHI: I think beginning with the 14th of February in solidarity with the revolutions in Tunisia and in Egypt, we’ve entered a new phase of the green movement. Green Movement went through at least two phases. The first phase was phase of mass street demonstrations that began back in June of 2009 and continued all the way until February 2010. The second phase, when Mousavi began to write a series documents culminating in a charter of the Green Movement which are extraordinary documents in the history of democratic movements in Iran. But in the aftermath of this massive, massive democracy movement in North Africa to Afghanistan, in fact, these events galvanized the Green Movement in Iran. And as a result, we have entered a new phase. There are two aspects to be noticed in this new phase. Number one, the Green Movement has initiated its own calendar that is the 14th of February coincides with nothing, that is simply in solidarity with the revolutions in Tunisia and Cairo, in Egypt. And in the course of which two young demonstrators were killed by security forces, their corpses were stolen, their identities were falsified. And they were pretended to be part of the Basij organization.
On the seventh day anniversary of the death of these two young demonstrators, again the Green Movement called for a demonstration, but this time around, because the entirety of the major highways and streets and major squares of the cities were occupied by the military, by in fact the entire country was turned into a garrison, the demonstrators opted to do their work in a specific neighborhood. And also remember, the galvanizing force of Al Jazeera in the case of Tahrir Square in Cairo, Al Jazeera does not have that kind of presence in Iran. As a result, what the kids were doing, they would gather in a specific neighborhood and their mobile phones, they shot 30 seconds to a minute and a half minute of video of demonstrations and sent it to YouTube, and as a result asserted their presence.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response of the Iranian government?
HAMID DABASHI: The response has been not only massively, massive cracking down, but also hypocrisy. Because on one hand, the Iranian authorities are expressing solidarity with the democratic movement in Tunisia and Egypt and throughout the region, and then they denied that very principle to their own people. So with one move, the Green Movement has in fact achieved two ends. It reasserted itself in public space and forced the empty hand of the Islamic republic in terms of its rhetoric for democratic changes in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote a book about the Green Revolution. The whole Green Movement. But you thought it was dead in the last year.
HAMID DABASHI: I never thought it was dead. I thought it was a standstill. Because what we have is the power of Islamic Republic in the region, not because of how smart they are, but because of the horrors of the Bush administration and war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq. And as a result, the Islamic republic had emerged as a very powerful broker, peace broker. President Obama could do nothing in Afghanistan without the help of the Islamic Republic. The same in Iraq. So while Islamic Republic was very weak weak domestically inside Iran, and whatever it did it strengthened the Green Movement in the region, it was in a negotiating position if President Obama wanted to deliver on his promise to come out of Iraq, it needed the support of the Islamic Republic, particularly with the Shiite community in the south. That stand still has now changed to the benefit of the green movement because of the democratic uprising in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: And on the one hand, you had the President Ahmadinejad congratulating the protesters in Egypt and in cracking down on his own.
HAMID DABASHI: Of course. That is the hypocrisy of it. The minute the Egyptian revolution was happening, Mr. Khamenei sent a message to Egyptians in Arabic congratulating them for the revolution there were about to have. Within minutes, the Muslim Brotherhood issued in a statement this is not an Islamic revolution this is an Egyptian revolution, for Egyptians Muslims, Christians and any other person, so the rise of democratic revolutions in the region is is exposing the hypocrisy of the Islamic Republic.
AMY GOODMAN: Benjamin Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister accused Iran of exploiting the current political unrest in the Arab world, highlighting his government’s concern over planned to send two Iranian warships into the eastern Mediterranean, talk about that.
HAMID DABASHI: First of all, it is not unrest Mr. Netanyahu should recognize this is a democracy movement, this is a massive revolutionary uprising for democracy. Mr. Netanyahu is used to dealing with Arab dictators, so when he sees democratic uprising, he calls it unrest. Number two, in my judgment, those were very wary of what is happening in the Arab and Muslim world are the United States, Isreal, and the Islamic Republic. Because they have entered into old tiring politics of dispair, and they cannot tolerate the rise of democratic movements in the region. The sending of two warships through the Suez Canal...
AMY GOODMAN: ...First time since 1979...
HAMID DABASHI: ..Since 1979, is an attempt by Islamic Republic to divert attention from the democratic movement both inside Iran and in the region. And lo and behold, Israel that doesn’t like the democratic movement either and calls them unrest, response immediately. I would put that exactly next to Obama’s administration’s obscene vetoing of this UN Security Council draft resolution against expansion of settlements in Palestine. Precisely because these three acts of the Islamic Republic, Israel continuing expansion into Palestine and the United States, they are trying to pull back the politics of the region into the politics of despair because what they’re witnessing they don’t like.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dabashi, you have a very quick response on the part of the United States against the Iranian government for cracking down on the protesters. President Obama, Secretary State Hillary Clinton, not as quick response when Bahrain attacked the protesters there, the home of U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, though eventually Obama did call. Talk about that.
HAMID DABASHI: Its hypocrisy.
AMY GOODMAN: And Libya as well.
HAMID DABASHI: It is absolute hypocrisy Amy. In fact every time American administrations, neo-conservatives, even President Obama’s administration comes near the Green Movement supporting it and so forth, it discredits it. And the Green Movement has actually restored its dignity by coming close to Egyptian and Tunisian revolution. So the best thing the Obama administration can do for the Green Movement, please, don’t come near it. The hypocrisy is so palpable, the young Tunisian who set themselves on fire in desperation because of this neoliberal economics that Ben Ali was known for, the State Department even did not know, let alone express solidarity with the Tunisian people. President Obama did not come to even address the issues of the masses of millions of Egyptians in Tahrir Square until Mubarak was about to leave. The hypocrisy is what is exposed here. And as a result, the best thing that Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton can do for the green movement, don’t come close to it. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Your latest book that’s just come out is on Shiism.What role does Shiism play in what is being called this Arab spring?
HAMID DABASHI: Shiism, the way I read it, is a religion of protest and it never belongs to people who are in power. The Islamic republic came to power back in 1979 by banking on the revolution in the aspect of Shiism, but it is a paradox within Shiism that as soon as it is in power it loses legitimacy. And that legitimacy is now cast into people, young people in the streets, fighting against the Islamic Republic. I don’t see what is happening in the region as Sunni-Shiia bifurcation at all. In fact I see it as the retrieval of a cosmopolitan political culture that includes Islam, Sunnism and Shiism both but is not really similar to it.
AMY GOODMAN: What do think is gonna happen in Iran right now? I mean, this was not predicted, of course.
HAMID DABASHI: As I have always said Amy, anything that the Islamic Republic does will strengthen the green movement is a paradox. If it cracks down, it will be strengthened. If it allows it to unfold, it will strengthen it. Right now as of yesterday, Mousavi is not only under house arrest. In fact they have just built a metal gate in the cul de sac that leads to his house. And with that…..
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who he is.
HAMID DABASHI: Mr. Mousavi was the eight-year Prime Minister under Homeni during the Iran-Iraq war. A very, one of the founding members of the Islamic republic. And then after those eight years, he went into seclusion. He’s a painter, he’s very much interested in art and so forth. His wife had more of a public role as [unintelligble] the chancellor of the university. And then during the last presidential election in 2009 he re-entered politics with a very clear message that this revolution has gone wrong and we need to retrieve its ideals and aspirations. And there is a sizable Iranians who believe he actually won the election but the election was rigged and in the aftermath of that, we have the rise of the Green Movement. His incarceration, first of all before that there were chants of death for Mousavi and, Karroubi, from the parliament of the Islamic Republic. The most clear indication of the implosion of the Islamic Republic from within where you have eight year Prime Minister and eight-year President and former Speaker of the House, you’re asking for their heads and not in the streets but…..
AMY GOODMAN: in the parliament
HAMID DABASHI:In the parliament itself.
AMY GOODMAN: They were chanting.
HAMID DABASHI:The most visible indication of the collapse, internal implosion of the Islamic Republic. But now they have even gone further and put him under house arrest but putting him under house arrest means that with that very act, the Iranian Mendela is now born. Because leading uprisings, leading revolutions from inside prison is the best thing that can happen to a political leader.
AMY GOODMAN: And Karroubi?
HAMID DABASHI: Karroubi is very much sort of hand in hand with Mousavi. They have been coordinating, as much as coordination is possible between two people in house arrest. He has his own constituency and has been very valiant, courageous, both of them extraordinarily courageous under the circumstances. But the nature of the leadership of the Green Movement, Amy, is not contingent on one person. It is a rolling kind of leadership that can be inside Iran, outside Iran. Young people in the streets, the new media YouTube etc., that is where the revolution is headed; because of demography and economics, two factors that are leading the uprising.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday Iranian authorities briefly detained the daughter of the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful opposition supporter inside the country’s clerical leadership. Faezeh Hashemi, she was born in 1962. Talk about her and her father.
HAMID DABASHI: I think the sins of the parents should not be extended to their children.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, as a political operator in my judgment has lost credibility in this movement. He plays too much on both sides. But, that does not extend to his children, particularly for Faezeh Hashemi, his daughter who has always been an activist of women’s rights, human rights, democratic rights in the streets. And as of course she came out and said, that I was just out shopping and had nothing to do with it. But the fact the matter is that there is a sizable constituency particularly among women who look up to her.
AMY GOODMAN: And they said that she was protesting in the streets according to the IRNA news agency.
HAMID DABASHI: Exactly, exactly, exactly
AMY GOODMAN: Overall media coverage?
HAMID DABASHI: Media coverage. Nowhere near what “Al-Jazeera” did for Egypt or in fact doing for North Africa. Partially because there is no presence of global media, CNN, and so forth. [Unintelligble] was covering it from Pakistan. But I also believe this is the age of new media and smaller scale media; your own work and other similar smaller scale networks that have a global reach because of the Internet. And also the fact is that these young people, 80% of the Iran population is under the age of 40, 70% under the age of 35; they are in charge of representing themselves by virtue of this, your know, mobile phone that they carry. They feed the YouTube, they are on Facebooks. They generate the sustained pressure not only in cyberspace, but in physical space and as a result, they are the ones that had informed the global media. That is where they get their ideas. The combination of new media and globalized media is the best thing that can happen. But as I said they have had to change their strategy, how to mobilize in the streets, in the absence of globalized media.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dabashi, Wikileaks. The trove of U.S. government cables that have come out. What have they revealed about the U.S. relationship with Iran?
HAMID DABASHI: This has been generated through most of the Wikileaks. Not much that we did not know. The fact that United States and Iran have common strategic interest in the region in the Persian Gulf area in Afghanistan, in Iraq is something that we have known forever. The fact that some of the Persian Gulf area potentates, they don’t like the rising power military and diplomatic power of Islamic Republic is also something that we have known. So altogether, I think the ability of the people, the democratic will of the people to generate and sustain information and globalize it is far more important than secret wheelings and dealings between the powers that be.
AMY GOODMAN: How long is Ahmadinejad’s term?
HAMID DABASHI: Four years. He is now two years into his second term.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you predict this movement, now in the streets could go?
HAMID DABASHI: I think the crisis of the Islamic Republic, the burning need of Islamic Republic faces, at they face is not just who is going to be the next president. We have the globalized discrediting of the Islamic Republic, which now it faces, number one. Number two, the democratic uprising in North Africa has exposed the hypocrisy of the Islamic Republic. So, of course the Islamic Republic for 32 years has managed to stay in power precisely by using and abusing the crisis that comes its way. It’s for the first time in its 32-years that it is facing domestic and regional crisis that it cannot manage. So as a result, every day the brutal theocratic garrison state that it is, becomes more exposed.
HAMID DABASHI: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, professor Hamid Dabashi, is the Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian Studies and comparative literature, Columbia University. Among his books, "Iran, the Green Movement and the USA” and his latest is called “Shiism”.
BENJAMIN NEYANYAHU: I think that today we can see in what an unstable region we live, a region in which Iran is trying to take advantage of the situation and broaden its influence by transferring two warships via the Suez Canal. Israel views this Iranian step with gravity."AMY GOODMAN: To discuss the situation in Iran and the region, we have with us Professor Hamid Dabashi from Columbia University. His most recent book is "Iran, the Green Movement and the USA". Also he has written the book Shiism. We welcome you to "Democracy Now!"
HAMID DABASHI: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Its great to have you. Tell us what is happening. What do you understand took place in Iran over the weekend?
HAMID DABASHI: I think beginning with the 14th of February in solidarity with the revolutions in Tunisia and in Egypt, we’ve entered a new phase of the green movement. Green Movement went through at least two phases. The first phase was phase of mass street demonstrations that began back in June of 2009 and continued all the way until February 2010. The second phase, when Mousavi began to write a series documents culminating in a charter of the Green Movement which are extraordinary documents in the history of democratic movements in Iran. But in the aftermath of this massive, massive democracy movement in North Africa to Afghanistan, in fact, these events galvanized the Green Movement in Iran. And as a result, we have entered a new phase. There are two aspects to be noticed in this new phase. Number one, the Green Movement has initiated its own calendar that is the 14th of February coincides with nothing, that is simply in solidarity with the revolutions in Tunisia and Cairo, in Egypt. And in the course of which two young demonstrators were killed by security forces, their corpses were stolen, their identities were falsified. And they were pretended to be part of the Basij organization.
On the seventh day anniversary of the death of these two young demonstrators, again the Green Movement called for a demonstration, but this time around, because the entirety of the major highways and streets and major squares of the cities were occupied by the military, by in fact the entire country was turned into a garrison, the demonstrators opted to do their work in a specific neighborhood. And also remember, the galvanizing force of Al Jazeera in the case of Tahrir Square in Cairo, Al Jazeera does not have that kind of presence in Iran. As a result, what the kids were doing, they would gather in a specific neighborhood and their mobile phones, they shot 30 seconds to a minute and a half minute of video of demonstrations and sent it to YouTube, and as a result asserted their presence.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response of the Iranian government?
HAMID DABASHI: The response has been not only massively, massive cracking down, but also hypocrisy. Because on one hand, the Iranian authorities are expressing solidarity with the democratic movement in Tunisia and Egypt and throughout the region, and then they denied that very principle to their own people. So with one move, the Green Movement has in fact achieved two ends. It reasserted itself in public space and forced the empty hand of the Islamic republic in terms of its rhetoric for democratic changes in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote a book about the Green Revolution. The whole Green Movement. But you thought it was dead in the last year.
HAMID DABASHI: I never thought it was dead. I thought it was a standstill. Because what we have is the power of Islamic Republic in the region, not because of how smart they are, but because of the horrors of the Bush administration and war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq. And as a result, the Islamic republic had emerged as a very powerful broker, peace broker. President Obama could do nothing in Afghanistan without the help of the Islamic Republic. The same in Iraq. So while Islamic Republic was very weak weak domestically inside Iran, and whatever it did it strengthened the Green Movement in the region, it was in a negotiating position if President Obama wanted to deliver on his promise to come out of Iraq, it needed the support of the Islamic Republic, particularly with the Shiite community in the south. That stand still has now changed to the benefit of the green movement because of the democratic uprising in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: And on the one hand, you had the President Ahmadinejad congratulating the protesters in Egypt and in cracking down on his own.
HAMID DABASHI: Of course. That is the hypocrisy of it. The minute the Egyptian revolution was happening, Mr. Khamenei sent a message to Egyptians in Arabic congratulating them for the revolution there were about to have. Within minutes, the Muslim Brotherhood issued in a statement this is not an Islamic revolution this is an Egyptian revolution, for Egyptians Muslims, Christians and any other person, so the rise of democratic revolutions in the region is is exposing the hypocrisy of the Islamic Republic.
AMY GOODMAN: Benjamin Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister accused Iran of exploiting the current political unrest in the Arab world, highlighting his government’s concern over planned to send two Iranian warships into the eastern Mediterranean, talk about that.
HAMID DABASHI: First of all, it is not unrest Mr. Netanyahu should recognize this is a democracy movement, this is a massive revolutionary uprising for democracy. Mr. Netanyahu is used to dealing with Arab dictators, so when he sees democratic uprising, he calls it unrest. Number two, in my judgment, those were very wary of what is happening in the Arab and Muslim world are the United States, Isreal, and the Islamic Republic. Because they have entered into old tiring politics of dispair, and they cannot tolerate the rise of democratic movements in the region. The sending of two warships through the Suez Canal...
AMY GOODMAN: ...First time since 1979...
HAMID DABASHI: ..Since 1979, is an attempt by Islamic Republic to divert attention from the democratic movement both inside Iran and in the region. And lo and behold, Israel that doesn’t like the democratic movement either and calls them unrest, response immediately. I would put that exactly next to Obama’s administration’s obscene vetoing of this UN Security Council draft resolution against expansion of settlements in Palestine. Precisely because these three acts of the Islamic Republic, Israel continuing expansion into Palestine and the United States, they are trying to pull back the politics of the region into the politics of despair because what they’re witnessing they don’t like.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dabashi, you have a very quick response on the part of the United States against the Iranian government for cracking down on the protesters. President Obama, Secretary State Hillary Clinton, not as quick response when Bahrain attacked the protesters there, the home of U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, though eventually Obama did call. Talk about that.
HAMID DABASHI: Its hypocrisy.
AMY GOODMAN: And Libya as well.
HAMID DABASHI: It is absolute hypocrisy Amy. In fact every time American administrations, neo-conservatives, even President Obama’s administration comes near the Green Movement supporting it and so forth, it discredits it. And the Green Movement has actually restored its dignity by coming close to Egyptian and Tunisian revolution. So the best thing the Obama administration can do for the Green Movement, please, don’t come near it. The hypocrisy is so palpable, the young Tunisian who set themselves on fire in desperation because of this neoliberal economics that Ben Ali was known for, the State Department even did not know, let alone express solidarity with the Tunisian people. President Obama did not come to even address the issues of the masses of millions of Egyptians in Tahrir Square until Mubarak was about to leave. The hypocrisy is what is exposed here. And as a result, the best thing that Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton can do for the green movement, don’t come close to it. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Your latest book that’s just come out is on Shiism.What role does Shiism play in what is being called this Arab spring?
HAMID DABASHI: Shiism, the way I read it, is a religion of protest and it never belongs to people who are in power. The Islamic republic came to power back in 1979 by banking on the revolution in the aspect of Shiism, but it is a paradox within Shiism that as soon as it is in power it loses legitimacy. And that legitimacy is now cast into people, young people in the streets, fighting against the Islamic Republic. I don’t see what is happening in the region as Sunni-Shiia bifurcation at all. In fact I see it as the retrieval of a cosmopolitan political culture that includes Islam, Sunnism and Shiism both but is not really similar to it.
AMY GOODMAN: What do think is gonna happen in Iran right now? I mean, this was not predicted, of course.
HAMID DABASHI: As I have always said Amy, anything that the Islamic Republic does will strengthen the green movement is a paradox. If it cracks down, it will be strengthened. If it allows it to unfold, it will strengthen it. Right now as of yesterday, Mousavi is not only under house arrest. In fact they have just built a metal gate in the cul de sac that leads to his house. And with that…..
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who he is.
HAMID DABASHI: Mr. Mousavi was the eight-year Prime Minister under Homeni during the Iran-Iraq war. A very, one of the founding members of the Islamic republic. And then after those eight years, he went into seclusion. He’s a painter, he’s very much interested in art and so forth. His wife had more of a public role as [unintelligble] the chancellor of the university. And then during the last presidential election in 2009 he re-entered politics with a very clear message that this revolution has gone wrong and we need to retrieve its ideals and aspirations. And there is a sizable Iranians who believe he actually won the election but the election was rigged and in the aftermath of that, we have the rise of the Green Movement. His incarceration, first of all before that there were chants of death for Mousavi and, Karroubi, from the parliament of the Islamic Republic. The most clear indication of the implosion of the Islamic Republic from within where you have eight year Prime Minister and eight-year President and former Speaker of the House, you’re asking for their heads and not in the streets but…..
AMY GOODMAN: in the parliament
HAMID DABASHI:In the parliament itself.
AMY GOODMAN: They were chanting.
HAMID DABASHI:The most visible indication of the collapse, internal implosion of the Islamic Republic. But now they have even gone further and put him under house arrest but putting him under house arrest means that with that very act, the Iranian Mendela is now born. Because leading uprisings, leading revolutions from inside prison is the best thing that can happen to a political leader.
AMY GOODMAN: And Karroubi?
HAMID DABASHI: Karroubi is very much sort of hand in hand with Mousavi. They have been coordinating, as much as coordination is possible between two people in house arrest. He has his own constituency and has been very valiant, courageous, both of them extraordinarily courageous under the circumstances. But the nature of the leadership of the Green Movement, Amy, is not contingent on one person. It is a rolling kind of leadership that can be inside Iran, outside Iran. Young people in the streets, the new media YouTube etc., that is where the revolution is headed; because of demography and economics, two factors that are leading the uprising.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday Iranian authorities briefly detained the daughter of the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful opposition supporter inside the country’s clerical leadership. Faezeh Hashemi, she was born in 1962. Talk about her and her father.
HAMID DABASHI: I think the sins of the parents should not be extended to their children.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, as a political operator in my judgment has lost credibility in this movement. He plays too much on both sides. But, that does not extend to his children, particularly for Faezeh Hashemi, his daughter who has always been an activist of women’s rights, human rights, democratic rights in the streets. And as of course she came out and said, that I was just out shopping and had nothing to do with it. But the fact the matter is that there is a sizable constituency particularly among women who look up to her.
AMY GOODMAN: And they said that she was protesting in the streets according to the IRNA news agency.
HAMID DABASHI: Exactly, exactly, exactly
AMY GOODMAN: Overall media coverage?
HAMID DABASHI: Media coverage. Nowhere near what “Al-Jazeera” did for Egypt or in fact doing for North Africa. Partially because there is no presence of global media, CNN, and so forth. [Unintelligble] was covering it from Pakistan. But I also believe this is the age of new media and smaller scale media; your own work and other similar smaller scale networks that have a global reach because of the Internet. And also the fact is that these young people, 80% of the Iran population is under the age of 40, 70% under the age of 35; they are in charge of representing themselves by virtue of this, your know, mobile phone that they carry. They feed the YouTube, they are on Facebooks. They generate the sustained pressure not only in cyberspace, but in physical space and as a result, they are the ones that had informed the global media. That is where they get their ideas. The combination of new media and globalized media is the best thing that can happen. But as I said they have had to change their strategy, how to mobilize in the streets, in the absence of globalized media.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dabashi, Wikileaks. The trove of U.S. government cables that have come out. What have they revealed about the U.S. relationship with Iran?
HAMID DABASHI: This has been generated through most of the Wikileaks. Not much that we did not know. The fact that United States and Iran have common strategic interest in the region in the Persian Gulf area in Afghanistan, in Iraq is something that we have known forever. The fact that some of the Persian Gulf area potentates, they don’t like the rising power military and diplomatic power of Islamic Republic is also something that we have known. So altogether, I think the ability of the people, the democratic will of the people to generate and sustain information and globalize it is far more important than secret wheelings and dealings between the powers that be.
AMY GOODMAN: How long is Ahmadinejad’s term?
HAMID DABASHI: Four years. He is now two years into his second term.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you predict this movement, now in the streets could go?
HAMID DABASHI: I think the crisis of the Islamic Republic, the burning need of Islamic Republic faces, at they face is not just who is going to be the next president. We have the globalized discrediting of the Islamic Republic, which now it faces, number one. Number two, the democratic uprising in North Africa has exposed the hypocrisy of the Islamic Republic. So, of course the Islamic Republic for 32 years has managed to stay in power precisely by using and abusing the crisis that comes its way. It’s for the first time in its 32-years that it is facing domestic and regional crisis that it cannot manage. So as a result, every day the brutal theocratic garrison state that it is, becomes more exposed.
HAMID DABASHI: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, professor Hamid Dabashi, is the Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian Studies and comparative literature, Columbia University. Among his books, "Iran, the Green Movement and the USA” and his latest is called “Shiism”.
How Much Democracy Is Too Much? By Slavoj Zizek
Democracy is not merely the “power of, by, and for the people.” It is not enough just to claim that, in democracy, the will and the interests (the two in no way automatically coincide) of the large majority determine state decisions. Democracy—in the way the term is used today—concerns, above all, formal legalism. Its minimal definition is the unconditional adherence to a certain set of formal rules which guarantee that antagonisms are fully absorbed into the “rules of the game.”
“Democracy” means that, whatever electoral manipulation actually takes place, every political agent will unconditionally respect the results. In this sense, the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 were effectively “democratic.” Despite obvious and patent electoral manipulations in Florida, the Democratic candidate accepted his defeat. In the weeks of uncertainty after the elections, Bill Clinton made an appropriately acerbic comment: “The American people have spoken. We just don’t know what they said.” This comment should have been taken more seriously than it was meant, for it revealed how the present machinery of democracy can be problematic, to say the least. Why should the left always and unconditionally respect the formal “rules of the game”? Why should it not, in some circumstances, put in question the legitimacy of the outcome of a formal democratic procedure?
Alternatively, there is at least one case in which formal democrats themselves (or, at least, a substantial portion of them) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: What if formally free elections are won by an anti-democratic party whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among other places, in Algeria a few years ago.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people were not yet “mature” enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim is to educate the majority to become proper democrats is preferable.
Following this rhetorical line of attack, the gradual limitation of democracy is clearly perceptible in attempts to “rethink” the present situation in the aftermath of the Iraq war. One is, of course, for democracy and human rights, but one should “rethink” them. A series of recent interventions in the public debate give a clear sense of the direction of this “rethinking.” In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, Bush’s favored columnist, locates the threat to freedom in “overdoing democracy,” i.e., in the rise of “illiberal democracy at home and abroad.” He draws the lesson that democracy can only “catch on” in economically developed countries: If developing countries are “prematurely democratized,” the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism.
No wonder, goes this theory, that today’s economically most successful Third World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule. The immediate lessons for Iraq are clear and unambiguous: Yes, the United States should bring democracy to Iraq, but not immediately. There should first be a period of five or so years in which a benevolently authoritarian, U.S.-controlled regime would create proper conditions for the effective functioning of democracy. This regime will not tolerate, for example, a democratic desire to nationalize oil revenues, or to apply sanctions to Israel, or to refuse global free trade schemes. We know now what bringing democracy means: It means that the United States and its “willing partners” impose themselves as the ultimate judges who decide if and when a country is ripe for democracy.
———————
As for the United States itself, Zakaria’s diagnosis is that “America is increasingly embracing a simple-minded populism that values popularity and openness as the key measures of legitimacy. … The result is a deep imbalance in the American system, more democracy but less liberty.” The remedy is thus to counteract this excessive “democratization of democracy” by delegating more power to impartial experts insulated from the democratic fray, like the independent central banks.
Such a diagnosis cannot but provoke ironic laughter: Today, in this alleged “overdemocratization,” the United States and Britain started a war on Iraq against the overwhelming will of the rest of the planet (and, in Britain’s case, its own people). And are we not, all the time, witnessing the imposition of key decisions concerning global trade agreements by “impartial” bodies exempted from democratic control? Even more fundamentally, is it not ridiculous to complain about “overdemocratization” in a time when the key economic and geopolitical decisions are, as a rule, not an issue in elections? For at least the past three decades, what Zakaria demands is already fact. What we experience today are acrimonious splits over ideological lifestyle issues, where fierce debates rage and choices are solicited (on abortion, on gay marriages, etc.), but where basic economic policy is presented as a depoliticized domain of expert authority. The proliferation of “overdemocracy” with its “excesses” of a “culture of complaint” is ultimately the front whose backside is the silent, sturdy weaving of economic, corporatist logic.
The obverse of the same tendency to counteract democratic “excesses” is the open dismissal of any international body that would effectively control the conduct of war—which might, after all, be necessary from time to time to enforce the economic agenda. Exemplary is Kenneth Anderson’s recent New York Times Magazine essay, “Who Owns the Rules of War?” whose subtitle makes the point unambiguously clear: “The war in Iraq demands a rethinking of the international rules of conduct. The outcome could mean less power for neutral, well-meaning human rights groups and more for big-stick-wielding states. That would be a good thing.”
The main complaint of this essay is that, “For the past 20 years, the center of gravity in establishing, interpreting and shaping the law of war has gradually shifted away from the military establishments of leading states and toward more activist and publicly aggressive NGOs.” This tendency is perceived as unbalanced, “unfair” toward the big military powers who intervene in other countries, and partial toward the attacked countries—with the clear conclusion that the militaries on the “big-stick-wielding states” should themselves determine the standards by which their actions will be judged.
This conclusion is indeed consistent with the U.S. rejection of the authority of the International Criminal Court over its citizens. And it spells out a bitter reality: that a new dark age is descending upon the human race.
“Democracy” means that, whatever electoral manipulation actually takes place, every political agent will unconditionally respect the results. In this sense, the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 were effectively “democratic.” Despite obvious and patent electoral manipulations in Florida, the Democratic candidate accepted his defeat. In the weeks of uncertainty after the elections, Bill Clinton made an appropriately acerbic comment: “The American people have spoken. We just don’t know what they said.” This comment should have been taken more seriously than it was meant, for it revealed how the present machinery of democracy can be problematic, to say the least. Why should the left always and unconditionally respect the formal “rules of the game”? Why should it not, in some circumstances, put in question the legitimacy of the outcome of a formal democratic procedure?
Alternatively, there is at least one case in which formal democrats themselves (or, at least, a substantial portion of them) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: What if formally free elections are won by an anti-democratic party whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among other places, in Algeria a few years ago.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people were not yet “mature” enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim is to educate the majority to become proper democrats is preferable.
Following this rhetorical line of attack, the gradual limitation of democracy is clearly perceptible in attempts to “rethink” the present situation in the aftermath of the Iraq war. One is, of course, for democracy and human rights, but one should “rethink” them. A series of recent interventions in the public debate give a clear sense of the direction of this “rethinking.” In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, Bush’s favored columnist, locates the threat to freedom in “overdoing democracy,” i.e., in the rise of “illiberal democracy at home and abroad.” He draws the lesson that democracy can only “catch on” in economically developed countries: If developing countries are “prematurely democratized,” the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism.
No wonder, goes this theory, that today’s economically most successful Third World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule. The immediate lessons for Iraq are clear and unambiguous: Yes, the United States should bring democracy to Iraq, but not immediately. There should first be a period of five or so years in which a benevolently authoritarian, U.S.-controlled regime would create proper conditions for the effective functioning of democracy. This regime will not tolerate, for example, a democratic desire to nationalize oil revenues, or to apply sanctions to Israel, or to refuse global free trade schemes. We know now what bringing democracy means: It means that the United States and its “willing partners” impose themselves as the ultimate judges who decide if and when a country is ripe for democracy.
———————
As for the United States itself, Zakaria’s diagnosis is that “America is increasingly embracing a simple-minded populism that values popularity and openness as the key measures of legitimacy. … The result is a deep imbalance in the American system, more democracy but less liberty.” The remedy is thus to counteract this excessive “democratization of democracy” by delegating more power to impartial experts insulated from the democratic fray, like the independent central banks.
Such a diagnosis cannot but provoke ironic laughter: Today, in this alleged “overdemocratization,” the United States and Britain started a war on Iraq against the overwhelming will of the rest of the planet (and, in Britain’s case, its own people). And are we not, all the time, witnessing the imposition of key decisions concerning global trade agreements by “impartial” bodies exempted from democratic control? Even more fundamentally, is it not ridiculous to complain about “overdemocratization” in a time when the key economic and geopolitical decisions are, as a rule, not an issue in elections? For at least the past three decades, what Zakaria demands is already fact. What we experience today are acrimonious splits over ideological lifestyle issues, where fierce debates rage and choices are solicited (on abortion, on gay marriages, etc.), but where basic economic policy is presented as a depoliticized domain of expert authority. The proliferation of “overdemocracy” with its “excesses” of a “culture of complaint” is ultimately the front whose backside is the silent, sturdy weaving of economic, corporatist logic.
The obverse of the same tendency to counteract democratic “excesses” is the open dismissal of any international body that would effectively control the conduct of war—which might, after all, be necessary from time to time to enforce the economic agenda. Exemplary is Kenneth Anderson’s recent New York Times Magazine essay, “Who Owns the Rules of War?” whose subtitle makes the point unambiguously clear: “The war in Iraq demands a rethinking of the international rules of conduct. The outcome could mean less power for neutral, well-meaning human rights groups and more for big-stick-wielding states. That would be a good thing.”
The main complaint of this essay is that, “For the past 20 years, the center of gravity in establishing, interpreting and shaping the law of war has gradually shifted away from the military establishments of leading states and toward more activist and publicly aggressive NGOs.” This tendency is perceived as unbalanced, “unfair” toward the big military powers who intervene in other countries, and partial toward the attacked countries—with the clear conclusion that the militaries on the “big-stick-wielding states” should themselves determine the standards by which their actions will be judged.
This conclusion is indeed consistent with the U.S. rejection of the authority of the International Criminal Court over its citizens. And it spells out a bitter reality: that a new dark age is descending upon the human race.
How Much Democracy Is Too Much? - In These Times (May 19)
TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY? by Slavoj Zizek
"Democracy" is not merely the "power of, by, and for the people," it is not enough just to claim that, in democracy, the will and the interests (the two in no way automatically coincide) of the large majority determine the state decisions. Democracy - in the way this term is used today - concerns, above all, formal legalism: its minimal definition is the unconditional adherence to a certain set of formal rules which guarantee that antagonisms are fully absorbed into the agonistic game. "Democracy" means that, whatever electoral manipulation took place, every political agent will unconditionally respect the results. In this sense, the US presidential elections of 2000 were effectively "democratic": in spite of obvious electoral manipulations, and of the patent meaninglessness of the fact that a couple hundred of Florida voices will decide who will be the president, the Democratic candidate accepted his defeat. In the weeks of uncertainty after the elections, Bill Clinton made an appropriate acerbic comment: "The American people have spoken; we just don't know what they said." This comment should be taken more seriously than it was meant: even now, we don't know it - and, maybe, because there was no substantial "message" behind the result at all. This is the sense in which one should render problematic democracy: why should the Left always and unconditionally respect the formal democratic "rules of the game"? Why should it not, in some circumstances, at least, put in question the legitimacy of the outcome of a formal democratic procedure?
Interestingly enough, there is at least one case in which formal democrats themselves (or, at least, a substantial part of them) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: what if the formally free elections are won by an anti-democratic party whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among other places, in Algeria a couple of years ago, and the situation is similar in today's Pakistan.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people was not yet "mature" enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim will be to educate the majority into proper democrats is preferable.
This strategic suspension of democracy is reaching new heights today. The US were putting tremendous pressure on Turkey where, according to opinion polls, 94% of the people are opposed to allowing the US troops' presence for the war against Iraq - where is democracy here? Every old Leftist remembers Marx's reply, in The Communist Manifesto, to the critics who reproached the Communists that they aim at undermining family, property, etc.: it is the capitalist order itself whose economic dynamics is destroying the traditional family order (incidentally, a fact more true today than in Marx's time), as well as expropriating the large majority of the population. In the same vein, is it not that precisely those who pose today as global defenders of democracy are effectively undermining it? In a perverse rhetorical twist, when the pro-war leaders are confronted with the brutal fact that their politics is out-of-tune with the majority of their population, they take recourse to the commonplace wisdom that "a true leader leads, he does not follow" - and this from leaders otherwise obsessed with opinion polls...
When politicians start to directly justify their decisions in ethical terms, one can be sure that ethics is mobilized to cover up some dark, threatening prospects. It is the very inflation of abstract ethical rhetoric in George W. Bush's recent public statements (of the "Does the world have the courage to act against Evil or not?" type) which manifests the utter ETHICAL misery of the U.S. position - the function of ethical reference is here purely mystifying, merely serving to mask the true political stakes (which are not difficult to discern). In order to trace these stakes, recall how the geopolitic hardliners like to compare today's situation of the US to that of a patient on dialysis: the US ªway of life´ in all its aspects, including the ideological ones, crucially depends on the availability of a certain minimal amount of the oil supply, only one third of which can be provided by the US themselves. The US are thus like a patient on dialysis whose survival depends on the influx of oil mostly controlled by the Muslim population which is antagonistic to the US values and might - in short, a patient whose dialysis machine is controlled by a crazy doctor who hates the patient... The only way to avoid the permanent threat is to directly take control of the key oil suppliers in the Middle East.
The gradual limitation of democracy is clearly perceptible in the attempts to "rethink" the present situation - one is, of course, for democracy and human rights, but one should "rethink" them, and a series of recent interventions in the public debate give a clear sense of the direction of this "rethinking." In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, Bush's favored columnist, locates the threat to freedom in "overdoing democracy," i.e., in the rise of "illiberal democracy at home and abroad" (the books subtitle). He draws the lesson that democracy can only "catch on" in economically developed countries: if the developing countries are "prematurely democratized," the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism - no wonder that today's economically most successful Third World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule. The immediate lessons for Iraq is clear and unambiguous: yes, the US should bring democracy to Iraq, but not impose it immediately - there should first be a period of five or so years in which a benevolently-authoritarian US dominated regime would create proper conditions for the effective functioning of democracy... We know now what bringing democracy means: it means that the US and its "willing partners" impose themselves as the ultimate judges who decide if a country is ripe for democracy.
As for the US themselves, Zakaria's diagnosis is that "America is increasingly embracing a simple-minded populism that values popularity and openness as the key measures of legitimacy. /.../ The result is a deep imbalance in the American system, more democracy but less liberty." The remedy is thus to counteract this excessive "democratization of democracy" (or "deMOREcracy") by delegating more power to impartial experts insulated from the democratic fray, like the independent central banks. Such a diagnosis cannot but provoke an ironic laughter: today, in the alleged "overdemocratization," the US and the UK started a war on Iraq against the will of the majority of their own populations, not to mention the international community. And are we not all the time witnessing the imposition of key decisions concerning global economy (trade agreements, etc.) by "impartial" bodies exempted from democratic control? Is the idea that, in our post-ideological era, economy should be de-politicized and run by experts, today not a commonplace shared by all participants? Even more fundamentally, is it not ridiculous to complain about "overdemocratization" in a time when the key economic and geopolitic decisions are as a rule not an issue in elections: for at least three decades, what Zakaria demands is already a fact. What we are effectively witnessing today is a split into ideological life-style issues where fierce debates rage and choices are solicited (abortion, gay marriages, etc.), and the basic economic policy which is presented as a depoliticized domain of expert decisions - the proliferation of "overdemocracy" with the "excesses" or affirmative action, the "culture of complaint," and the demands for financial and other restitutions of victims, is ultimately the front whose back side is the silent weaving of the economic logic.
The obverse of the same tendency to counteract the excesses of "deMOREcracy" is the open dismissal of any international body that would effectively control the conduct of a war - exemplary is here Kenneth Anderson's "Who Owns the Rules of War?" (in The New York Times Magazine, April 13 2003), whose subtitle make the point unambiguously clear: "The war in Iraq demands a rethinking of the international rules of conduct. The outcome could mean less power for neutral, well-meaning human rights groups and more for big-stick-wielding states. That would be a good thing." The main complaint of this essay is that, "for the past 20 years, the center of gravity in establishing, interpreting and shaping the law of war has gradually shifted away from the militaries of leading states and toward more activist human rights organizations;" this tendency is perceived as unbalanced, "unfair" towards the big military powers who intervene in other countries, and partial towards the attacked countries - with the clear conclusion that the militaries on the "big-stick-wielding states" should themselves determine the standards by which their actions will be judged. This conclusion is quite consistent with the US rejection of the authority of the Hague War Crimes tribunal over its citizens. Effectively, as they would have put it in Lord of the Rings, a new Dark Age is descending upon the human race.
Interestingly enough, there is at least one case in which formal democrats themselves (or, at least, a substantial part of them) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: what if the formally free elections are won by an anti-democratic party whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among other places, in Algeria a couple of years ago, and the situation is similar in today's Pakistan.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people was not yet "mature" enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim will be to educate the majority into proper democrats is preferable.
This strategic suspension of democracy is reaching new heights today. The US were putting tremendous pressure on Turkey where, according to opinion polls, 94% of the people are opposed to allowing the US troops' presence for the war against Iraq - where is democracy here? Every old Leftist remembers Marx's reply, in The Communist Manifesto, to the critics who reproached the Communists that they aim at undermining family, property, etc.: it is the capitalist order itself whose economic dynamics is destroying the traditional family order (incidentally, a fact more true today than in Marx's time), as well as expropriating the large majority of the population. In the same vein, is it not that precisely those who pose today as global defenders of democracy are effectively undermining it? In a perverse rhetorical twist, when the pro-war leaders are confronted with the brutal fact that their politics is out-of-tune with the majority of their population, they take recourse to the commonplace wisdom that "a true leader leads, he does not follow" - and this from leaders otherwise obsessed with opinion polls...
When politicians start to directly justify their decisions in ethical terms, one can be sure that ethics is mobilized to cover up some dark, threatening prospects. It is the very inflation of abstract ethical rhetoric in George W. Bush's recent public statements (of the "Does the world have the courage to act against Evil or not?" type) which manifests the utter ETHICAL misery of the U.S. position - the function of ethical reference is here purely mystifying, merely serving to mask the true political stakes (which are not difficult to discern). In order to trace these stakes, recall how the geopolitic hardliners like to compare today's situation of the US to that of a patient on dialysis: the US ªway of life´ in all its aspects, including the ideological ones, crucially depends on the availability of a certain minimal amount of the oil supply, only one third of which can be provided by the US themselves. The US are thus like a patient on dialysis whose survival depends on the influx of oil mostly controlled by the Muslim population which is antagonistic to the US values and might - in short, a patient whose dialysis machine is controlled by a crazy doctor who hates the patient... The only way to avoid the permanent threat is to directly take control of the key oil suppliers in the Middle East.
The gradual limitation of democracy is clearly perceptible in the attempts to "rethink" the present situation - one is, of course, for democracy and human rights, but one should "rethink" them, and a series of recent interventions in the public debate give a clear sense of the direction of this "rethinking." In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, Bush's favored columnist, locates the threat to freedom in "overdoing democracy," i.e., in the rise of "illiberal democracy at home and abroad" (the books subtitle). He draws the lesson that democracy can only "catch on" in economically developed countries: if the developing countries are "prematurely democratized," the result is a populism which ends in economic catastrophe and political despotism - no wonder that today's economically most successful Third World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only after a period of authoritarian rule. The immediate lessons for Iraq is clear and unambiguous: yes, the US should bring democracy to Iraq, but not impose it immediately - there should first be a period of five or so years in which a benevolently-authoritarian US dominated regime would create proper conditions for the effective functioning of democracy... We know now what bringing democracy means: it means that the US and its "willing partners" impose themselves as the ultimate judges who decide if a country is ripe for democracy.
As for the US themselves, Zakaria's diagnosis is that "America is increasingly embracing a simple-minded populism that values popularity and openness as the key measures of legitimacy. /.../ The result is a deep imbalance in the American system, more democracy but less liberty." The remedy is thus to counteract this excessive "democratization of democracy" (or "deMOREcracy") by delegating more power to impartial experts insulated from the democratic fray, like the independent central banks. Such a diagnosis cannot but provoke an ironic laughter: today, in the alleged "overdemocratization," the US and the UK started a war on Iraq against the will of the majority of their own populations, not to mention the international community. And are we not all the time witnessing the imposition of key decisions concerning global economy (trade agreements, etc.) by "impartial" bodies exempted from democratic control? Is the idea that, in our post-ideological era, economy should be de-politicized and run by experts, today not a commonplace shared by all participants? Even more fundamentally, is it not ridiculous to complain about "overdemocratization" in a time when the key economic and geopolitic decisions are as a rule not an issue in elections: for at least three decades, what Zakaria demands is already a fact. What we are effectively witnessing today is a split into ideological life-style issues where fierce debates rage and choices are solicited (abortion, gay marriages, etc.), and the basic economic policy which is presented as a depoliticized domain of expert decisions - the proliferation of "overdemocracy" with the "excesses" or affirmative action, the "culture of complaint," and the demands for financial and other restitutions of victims, is ultimately the front whose back side is the silent weaving of the economic logic.
The obverse of the same tendency to counteract the excesses of "deMOREcracy" is the open dismissal of any international body that would effectively control the conduct of a war - exemplary is here Kenneth Anderson's "Who Owns the Rules of War?" (in The New York Times Magazine, April 13 2003), whose subtitle make the point unambiguously clear: "The war in Iraq demands a rethinking of the international rules of conduct. The outcome could mean less power for neutral, well-meaning human rights groups and more for big-stick-wielding states. That would be a good thing." The main complaint of this essay is that, "for the past 20 years, the center of gravity in establishing, interpreting and shaping the law of war has gradually shifted away from the militaries of leading states and toward more activist human rights organizations;" this tendency is perceived as unbalanced, "unfair" towards the big military powers who intervene in other countries, and partial towards the attacked countries - with the clear conclusion that the militaries on the "big-stick-wielding states" should themselves determine the standards by which their actions will be judged. This conclusion is quite consistent with the US rejection of the authority of the Hague War Crimes tribunal over its citizens. Effectively, as they would have put it in Lord of the Rings, a new Dark Age is descending upon the human race.
Too Much Democracy - lacan.com (Apr. 14)
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