Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 17:31:00 +0000 From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk> Subject: readings on the 11th september Eric/|All Following on from my emailing of the piece from the Guardian - I finally got round to I've finally got round to reading Zizek's text 'welcome to the desert of the real' published by Verso. Over the past year I've read many texts that have touched on the WTC event and the responses of postmodern global capitalism - few however have been as directly political and as directed as the Zizek. (The general tendency seems to have been some liberal hand-wringing, the dominance of the new-right (post-modernists to fault) and the gradual emergence of anti-colonial/anti-war alliances. However where Zizek's text gets especially interesting is in his brief discussion of the fear that haunts europe - which he describes remarkably well namely that "... the true oppostion today is not the one between the First world and the Third world...." (The postmodern global capitalism of America and its colonies ) "...and the remaining secound world (Europe)..." The fear within the european states is of course the reason for the avoidence of the developing conflict - evidenced by both the supposed rise in anti-americanism and the associated lack of sympathy with american suffering amoung some european intellectuals (true - especially in my specific case) The true story is the opposite - the lack of any european political initiatives - and compliance with the US, everyone gave in to US pressure. The human costs for this behavior being in the US third world colonies - Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan and the future one of Iraq... but the lack of european political initiatives - isn't this because of a fear of the inevitable conflict ? Has anyone else read this text - including the rather interesting critique of Hardt/Negri on page 147? Steve
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