a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

"for" not "of"

mad mel was thinking about "things that no one is even THINKING about", ie all she cares about is israel.

xp I think a lot of ppl (myself included) agree w you re Iraq

fuck knows. stack up the counterfactuals: were saddam in power now, what would be happening in iraq?

Personally, I felt at the time that one of the many tragedies of the Iraq war was that it actually set back and discredited the idea of democracy promotion.

― Citizen Smith (Jamie T Smith), Wednesday, February 23, 2011 1:17 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm not sure what this means exactly. it evidently hasn't discredited the idea of democracy in general. are you saying these revolutions would have happened *sooner* were it not for the iraq war? or what?

Domestically, within the US and Britain, the idea of spreading our "values" was discredited, no? Whatever moral authority "we" had internationally was damaged?

I've no idea whether these revolutions would have happened *sooner* were it not for the iraq war, though.

No reason why they should have

I've had a lot of conversations with people where the "they're not ready for democracy" argument was largely informed by opposition to Iraq war.

Botched "liberal intervention" not only made more such interventions difficult/impossible (a good thing in my book) but also made promoting freedom/human rights/democracy through non-military means more difficult.

Sorry, thinking this through as I type, so thanks for making me be more precise.

It may not have set back the cause of democracy or its desirability, but it set back the West's (questionable and hypocritcal in any case) efforts to promote it.

Since these uprisings seem to have happened without either Western encouragement or opposition, probably had no impact on them whatsoever.

But it was an attempt to answer the hypocrisy charge, which has some mileage.

Domestically, within the US and Britain, the idea of spreading our "values" was discredited, no? Whatever moral authority "we" had internationally was damaged?

our moral authority was damaged by the torture, definitely, but people didn't oppose the war because it was inevitable that we'd start torturing people. they opposed it partly because, as tracer says, you can't impose democracy with a gun, which is certainly something to debate.* i think for a fair few anti-war types it isn't something even to debate tho. anyway, that's why i raised the no-fly zone question.

*tbh a lot of anti-war people went further than this, hence my shock at zizek recently becoming the 'liberal democracy 4 egypt' guy -- he's explicitly not in favour of liberal democracy usually, so what gives?

Botched "liberal intervention" not only made more such interventions difficult/impossible (a good thing in my book) but also made promoting freedom/human rights/democracy through non-military means more difficult.

― Citizen Smith (Jamie T Smith), Wednesday, February 23, 2011 1:50 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

people weren't protesting botched intervention, just intervention. idk, i think we look incredibly shitty now for legitimizing gadaffi in the last decade, and the people who did it will tell you it helped the cause by turning him off WMD... complex shit man, complex shit.

*tbh a lot of anti-war people went further than this, hence my shock at zizek recently becoming the 'liberal democracy 4 egypt' guy -- he's explicitly not in favour of liberal democracy usually, so what gives?

guy talks a lot of shit?

duh

i think we look incredibly shitty now for legitimizing gadaffi in the last decade, and the people who did it will tell you it helped the cause by turning him off WMD... complex shit man, complex shit.

Never mind Venezuela, maybe Alex Salmond can offer Muammar a wee bungalow in Gourock or something

*tbh a lot of anti-war people went further than this, hence my shock at zizek recently becoming the 'liberal democracy 4 egypt' guy -- he's explicitly not in favour of liberal democracy usually, so what gives?

Don't know a lot about Zizek but he's presumably not in favour of military dictatorships either?

I think it could be as simple as a general support for self-emancipation of the people? Haven't read him on it so can't give an actual analysis, but seems reasonable.

Zizek has said explicitly before that military dictatorships can be better than democracies

[LIBYA, 9:45 a.m., 4:45 p.m. local] A Libyan military aircraft crashed Wednesday southwest of Benghazi after the crew refused to follow orders to bomb the city, Libya's Quryna newspaper reported.

Holy shit.

Since these uprisings seem to have happened without either Western encouragement or opposition, probably had no impact on them whatsoever

also possible: the uprisings are for democracy thanks to Iraq, otherwise they might've been for fascism, theocracy or some variant. Tbf the variables mount up so quickly it's best to judge Iraq on basis of Iraq only imo.

also possible: the uprisings are for democracy thanks to Iraq

Strikes me as highly unlikely, esp. considering it's hardly been a roaring success in Iraq so far. Currently pushing Belgium for the top slot as world's least functioning democracy aren't they?

Zizek has said explicitly before that military dictatorships can be better than democracies

― Mordy, Wednesday, February 23, 2011 3:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark
durr durr do you have a cite or will you just continue repeating this one context-free statement until the end of time in order to 'prove' that Zizek, regardless of what he might say to the contrary, 'really' wants military dictatorships

PS I guess this does not exactly count as 'the region' unless the region in question is 'the mediterranean', but a friend of mine who is abroad right now and just missed (like, by a couple hours) the beginning of the egyptian stuff is now chilling in a hotel in athens in the middle of some light rioting

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-110223-greece-protest5-jm.photoblog900.jpg

xpost, re. Zizek

I have seen quotes from Zizek books in the LRB where he seems somewhat sympathetic to Stalin and Mao... not quite the same thing as supporting military dictatorships, but maybe heading in that direction.

oh man is that cop on fire??

the are they ready question re democracy is somewhat legit imo - only its not abt the people its abt the governmental institutions - tho obvs its not an argument against trying - its more an understanding of what its gonna take - weve seen in iraq voting isnt democracy particularly

btw this times headline after reading the article seems quite off the mark - replace fighting with massacring and you get the idea

http://grab.by/96PV

xxxpost Well I mean he's a total commie but... not like, an unrepentant, uncritical stalinist. I think what little he's written about the dude is mostly provocation — anti-anti-communism, as it were.

And I'm not sure what's wrong with being "somewhat sympathetic to" Mao tbqh, provided "somewhat sympathetic to" doesn't imply any kind of orthodoxy or dogma so much... as a shared problematic? "Third-Worldism" and all that.

(uh i put an ellipsis in the wrong place, hopefully my meaning can still be reconstructed)

it's becoming apparent to me that 1) libya having a lot more oil and 2) journalists effectively shut out of tripoli and 3) no background of steady labor organizing (as in egypt) means these protests are probably gonna end up really differently

being somewhat sympathetic to mao is no cool sry

I don't think I really understand what "sympathy" means in the context of history but whatever

greeks just freaking love rioting, its a part of their culture like baseball is to us

good points via our man #1 revolution fan sully http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/02/why_do_protests_bring_down_reg.html

yeah that was good, but so much of this stuff just seems like common sense!

also, obligatory lol@academic trends:

Much of the action in the last days of January seems to have consisted of various high profile figures using the protest to signal their allegiance to or defection from Mubarak. This kind of signaling is less studied now in political science but it was a major part of the so-called transitology literature on authoritarian regimes in Latin America and other 3rd Wave cases.

(... which actually sounds like it would be kind of interesting to read!)

ah so-called transitology literature! *swirls cognac*

yeah that was good, but so much of this stuff just seems like common sense!

― on some outer space shit (bernard snowy), Wednesday, February 23, 2011 10:47 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i somewhat agree but its weird i feel like in the west its basically been forgotten that protests are strategic in nature - here the idea has devolved into 'go out there and show how you feel'

sorry, i am booked class to class today but first

durr durr do you have a cite or will you just continue repeating this one context-free statement until the end of time in order to 'prove' that Zizek, regardless of what he might say to the contrary, 'really' wants military dictatorships

stfu. i'm generally one of Zizek's biggest defenders so it's not like I'm just making shit up to make him look bad. And specifically in "Living in End Times" he writes (I don't have a page cite - PLEASE FORGIVE ME) that with Democracies there is the appearance of consent so resistance/protest in light of inequalities is v limited. By contrast a dictator knows he only rules with the consent of the people in a much more explicit manner and therefore needs to act more in their self interest. in my own words: that democracy can serve as a valve to let off steam and not let any real reforms come to the surface while dictators need to be more responsive more immediately or risk losing their heads.

haha

UM.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/7908076/Palestinian-tycoons-with-Libya-links-behind-Tory-donations.html

Mordy if he did say that i think it's pretty weak - maybe dictators have to be more directly responsive under certain gamed conditions but it's only once every twenty years or so, and the status quo is brutal repression, no social mobility, no independent labor unions, etc

part of what he may be trying to get at is the difference between the Repressive and the Ideological State Apparatus - the former is club clonking you in the head: it's clear who's wielding it and you are free to hate them (but not free to successfully do anything about it); with the latter, your thoughts are brought into line at "the root", so the clonking club never needs to make an appearance. it's tempting to "prefer" the first because revolutionary ideology is thwarted rather than rendered nonexistent in the first place

Tories in receiving money from craven businessmen shockah?

I think it's well understood that the West preferred stability-through-Qadaffi to other options in Libya. But once the shit hit the fan, I don't see any evidence that Cameron (or his business-partner supporters) care about anything except getting the country stable ASAP (probably with the minimum loss of life). So it's not as if Cameron's still in Qadaffi's pocket.

have never understood why anyone on this board gives two fucks about Zizek.

And I'm not sure what's wrong with being "somewhat sympathetic to" Mao tbqh

don't even know how to respond to this really.

Blair's been a bit quiet this week...

i liked the sulky libyan exile on al-jazeera two nights ago who when asked what the west should do about libya said "just stop buying oil from them. for like three days. just three days."

have never understood why anyone on this board gives two fucks about Zizek.

i find his writing really interesting + provocative and i took him in grad school

ah. academia. that explains it.

i took him in grad school

Must have been quite an experience.

BOOM

i mean that sincerely