Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 07:04:23 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Re: AUT: Tariq Ali vs. John Holloway
From: "stevphen shukaitis" <stevphen-AT-greenpeppermagazine.org>


usually tariq ali's writing seems very insightful and useful to me - but
not here. he's totally conflating the notion of not seizing state power
with not addressing state power or providing alternatives. that seems
rather silly. the argument seems to be that since one is not arguing to
seize control of the state one cannot elaborate an alternative or address
ways to engage, desconstruct, and destabilize state processes and fields
of power. if anything it would seem that arguments not based upon a
seizure of state power would be more useful in terms of coming up with
alternatives, as for instance the zapatista notion of creating zones of
pluricultural autonomy and the acknowledgment of boundaries and forms of
political participation that do not necessarily correspond to the
demarcations that the state has imposed.

cheers.
stevphen






> <URL: http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/593/593p24.htm >
> Tariq Ali: Chavez will win in Venezuela
>> ...Do you see the US empire absorbing this energy by proposing a softer
>> version of neoliberalism?
>
> I don’t think [US rulers], at the moment, are prepared to do that. They
> will only do that if they feel threatened. And they don’t feel
> threatened
> at the moment. And one reason — I have to be very blunt here — they
> don’t
> feel threatened is because there is an idealistic slogan within the social
> movements, which goes like this: “We can change the world without taking
> power.” This slogan doesn’t threaten anyone; it’s a moral slogan.
> The
> Zapatistas — who I admire — when they marched from Chiapas to Mexico
> City,
> what did they think was going to happen? Nothing happened. It was a moral
> symbol, it was not even a moral victory because nothing happened.
>
> I think that phrase was understandable in Latin American politics, people
> were very burnt by recent experiences: the defeat of the Sandinistas, the
> defeat of the armed struggle movements.
>
>  From that point of view, the Venezuelan example is the most interesting
> one. It says: “In order to change the world you have to take power, and
> you have to begin to implement change — in small doses if necessary —
> but
> you have to do it. Without it nothing will change.”
>
> Without adequately addressing state power, what alternative to
> neoliberalism is the global social justice movement offering?
>
> It has no alternative! [These activists] think that it is an advantage not
> to have an alternative. But, in my view that’s a sign of political
> bankruptcy. If you have no alternative, what do you say to the people you
> mobilise? The MST [Landless Workers Movement] in Brazil has an
> alternative, it says, “take the land and give it to the poor peasants,
> let
> them work it”. But the thesis of the Zapatistas, is a thesis for
> cyberspace: let’s imagine. But we live in the real world, this thesis
> isn’t going to work. Therefore, the model for me of the MST in Brazil is
> much much more interesting than the model of the Zapatistas in Chiapas
> --
> Michael Pugliese
>
>
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>


stevphen shukaitis
Guest Editor, "Life Beyond the Market" issue
www.greenpeppermagazine.org

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