The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left PDF
Preview The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left
The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left edited by Jela Krečič Edited by Jela Krečič Copy editor: Jeff Bickert Contributors: Boris Buden, Mladen Dolar, Saroj Giri, Boris Groys, Agon Hamza, Jamil Khader, Jela Krečič, Robert Pfaller, Frank Ruda, Alenka Zupančič, Slavoj Žižek Published by IRWIN, Ljubljana and Wiener Festwochen, Vienna Design: New Collectivism Printed by Tiskarna Januš d.o.o., Ljubljana, 2017 in 3000 copies ISBN 978-961-90851-2-7 The book is supported in part by Arbeiterkammer Wien and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 314.151.3-054.73(4)(082) The FINAL countdown : Europe, refugees and the left / [contributors Boris Buden ... et al.]; edited by Jela Krečič. - Ljubljana : Irwin; VFenna : Wiener Festwochen, 2017 ISBN 978-961-90851-2-7 (Irwin) 1. Buden, Boris 2. Krečič, Jela 289881344 Published on the occasion of the NSK State Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale 9 Jela Krečič The Final Countdown or Lessons to Be Learned from Comedy and Antihumanism 21 Alenka Zupančič Back to the Future of Europe 33 Boris Groys Contemporary Europe: In Search of Cultural Biotopes 49 Robert Pfaller White Lies, Black Truths: Elements of Adult Communication 67 Mladen Dolar Who is the Victim? 79 Saroj Girl Parasitic Anti-Colonialism 103 Boris Buden The One Too Many: On How Democracy Ends in Sophistry 129 Frank Ruda First as Tragedy, Then as Tragedy? Jamil Khader 143 Beyond the Biopolitics of the Refugee: Totality, Global Capitalism, and the Common Struggle Agon Hamza The Refugee Crisis and the 167 Helplessness of the Left 187 Slavoj Žižek Terrorists with a Human Face Jela Krečič The Final Countdown or Lessons to Be Learned from Comedy and Antihumanism If we had to propose a single word that marked the beginning of the 21st century, that word would surely be crisis. This new century opened with the 9/11 attacks, and the so-called terrorist crisis has been in play ever since, indeed continues to this day. The world also saw several natural disasters, among them the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, with almost a quarter of a million people killed, which in turn produced an exceptional humanitarian crisis. In 2008 came the financial crisis, which began in the Americas and Europe and soon evolved into a full-blown economic crisis that hit comparatively marginal countries like Greece especially hard. The Middle East remains a place of permanent crisis, with the focus shift ing from Afghanistan to Iraq and on through Tunis, Egypt and Palestine to Syria. The turmoil in Syria and environs came with and was followed by the so-called refugee crisis, when tens of thousands of refugees from devastated parts of the Middle East fled to Europe seeking asylum. Last year, with Great Britain's decision to part ways with the European Union, we began speaking of the EU crisis. And though all of these crises are quite different, they all share a common denominator—they are all part of the body of crises that constitute the new normal. Crisis—or the state of crisis—is here to stay; it is permanent. If and when one crisis passes, it is only so that another crisis can take its place. Crisis has become a way of life. Think only of politics in the West, which seems to consist largely in the politics of managing one crisis or another, while the frame of every crisis and its solution remains intact. In other words, while everybody is sacrificing something (Europeans their wel fare state, Arabs their secular traditions) in order to overcome the crisis at hand, the social and economic foundations that led to the crisis remain the same. The existing order has become a prolonged system of crisis management, with its one unchangeable and untouchable dominant: neoliberal capitalism. 9 Never before have we seen so much outspoken criticism aimed at neolib eral capitalism and the crises it produces as we find today. At the same time, never was there a firmer (unconscious) conviction that there is simply no alternative to the prevailing global system. Perhaps this com bination is not as paradoxical as it may appear. The need to constantly point out social injustices, to identify the victims of the global capitalist order, is perhaps closely connected to a sort of superstitious belief that nothing can or will really change, and that the real catastrophe will not materialize as long as we remain conscious and vigilant. Today, particularly in the West, we can discern two attitudes towards the crises. One is the more or less cynical attitude of the ruling politicians who are "just" managing the crisis. This position is a rightist one, even if it is manifested in and by nominally "leftist" governments; the only difference the rising rightist populism brings to this managerial aspect of politics is the urge to blame some form of otherness (immigrants, LGBT community, etc.) for all of the present crises currently unfolding. Today's predominant leftist attitude has been largely reduced to lamenting the unjustness and cruelty of capitalism or wringing their hands over the ignorant, ordinary people who are falling for politicians like Donald Trump. But this reaction of the Left's is not, however, self-evident—it begs interpretation, especially if we consider the fact that the most tangible result of the 2008 financial collapse is an even stronger, and more brutal version of capitalist exploitation and domination. As a result, we could say that, behind and beneath the great prolifera tion of crises our media is only to happy to bombard us with—economic, financial, ecological, refugee, moral—the foremost crisis is the crisis of the Left, which cannot seem to find a way out of the discourse of crisis imposed by the managing elite. The fact that the Left so often complains about its own incapacity, its own internal fights and conflicts, only goes to show that today's Left dwells in its own crisis. It seems to find a cer tain enjoyment in maintaining the moral high ground, in displaying the ability to recognize and put on record all the world's injustices, while at the same time it is thoroughly unable to provide any real political strategy or alternative. If the cynicism of the ruling elites and the lamentations of the defeated Left are the principal answers to today's theoretical and political dead locks, how can we escape the debilitating and immobilizing power of 10 The Final Countdown...
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