[DEBATE] : JHB Civil society anti xenophobia coalition initiative

[Nerisha Baldevu]

Press Release

Coalition Being Built In Preparation For March Against Xenophobia

Since planning for a march against xenophobia was announced by the 
Social Movements Indaba (SMI) last week, a number of other concerned 
organisations and individuals have joined the initiative to help 
demonstrate a united force in the city of Johannesburg, organised in 
struggle against the terror and fear that have been sown amongst all of 
us -- South African and non-South African -- over the last few weeks.

A loose coalition - of organisations affiliated to the SMI; refugee and 
immigrant communities and organisations from the inner city, Hillbrow 
and Yeoville; trade unions; groups of artists; and so on - has emerged 
to reclaim the spaces of our city and townships from the hatred, anger, 
and violence that have come to occupy them.   

*On Saturday, the 24^th of May, this coalition will be marching, at 9am, 
from the Pieter Roos Park in Hillbrow (cnr Queens & Empire rds) through 
Hillbrow and the inner city, past the Gauteng legislature, to the 
library gardens.*

We will deliver a memorandum to government to demand that it takes 
responsibility for the xenophobia that has resulted in the current state 
of emergency in Gauteng, and we will hand over a message of solidarity 
and support to our fellow African brothers and sisters, represented by 
various organisations and groups. 

Hillbrow and the inner city are places in which a large number of 
immigrants reside.  They have also been the sites of much of the violent 
xenophobia experienced over the last few weeks.  We believe that by 
marching through these areas we will be reclaiming them as spaces in 
which all of us are able to live free from the threat of xenophobic 
harassment, and that we will be showing our solidarity and support for 
those who have been hurt and humiliated in this period.  When a minority 
of people has sown fear and terror amongst all of us in such a manner 
that division and hatred are easily encouraged and entrenched, we 
believe that this is even more important.          

A cultural programme will follow the march on Saturday, at the library 
gardens.  A programme of events beyond Saturday is also unfolding, and 
the coalition seems set to continue for some time to come.  We believe 
that it is important to build such a coalition to ensure that the 
struggle against xenophobia continues, and, that we understand that 
xenophobia is a manifestation of the legitimate frustrations of the poor 
and working class in a capitalist society designed to pit one oppressed 
and exploited group against another.  Through the coalition, we hope to 
bring our different struggles together as we understand their common 
source in the capitalist system, and direct our anger at this source. 

For further information & interview about the march, contact:

Silumko Radebe (Anti Privatisation Forum) 0731737268

Mhlobo Gunguluzi (Khanya College) 0843773013

Makoma Lekalakala (Social movements Indaba) 082 682 9177

F



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> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re:  Re: (Fwd) SA *still* against apartheid victims' US
>       lawsuits (Patrick Bond)
>    2. Re:  Re: (Fwd) SA *still* against apartheid victims' US
>       lawsuits (robert weissman)
>    3.  Zizek on Democracy Now! (Sean Jacobs)
>   
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [DEBATE] : Re: (Fwd) SA *still* against apartheid victims' US 
> lawsuits
> From:
> Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za>
> Date:
> Mon, 12 May 2008 22:16:16 +0200
> To:
> pbond at mail.ngo.za, debate: SA discussion list <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
>
> To:
> pbond at mail.ngo.za, debate: SA discussion list <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
> CC:
> jubileesouth at yahoogroups.com
>
>
> (This lesson in how to paralyse the US legal system is quite telling: 
> sue multiple corpos. "The justices have ties to Bank of America, 
> Bristol-Myers Squibb, Colgate-Palmolive, Credit Suisse, Exxon Mobil, 
> Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Nestle, among nearly three dozen companies 
> that asked the high court to step in.")
>
> US court allows apartheid lawsuit to proceed
> Mark Sherman | Washington DC, United States   12 May 2008 05:15
>
> The United States Supreme Court said on Monday that it cannot 
> intervene in an important dispute over the rights of apartheid victims 
> to sue US corporations in US courts because four of the nine justices 
> had to sit out the case over apparent conflicts.
>
> The result is that a lawsuit accusing some prominent companies of 
> violating international law by assisting South Africa's former 
> apartheid government will go forward.
>
> The court's hands were tied by federal laws that require at least six 
> justices to hear any case before them.
>
> Short of the required number by one, the court took the only path 
> available to it and upheld an appeals court ruling allowing the suit 
> to proceed.
>
> The justices have ties to Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, 
> Colgate-Palmolive, Credit Suisse, Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, IBM 
> and Nestle, among nearly three dozen companies that asked the high 
> court to step in.
>
> Business groups, the Bush administration and the current South African 
> government also sought the high court's intervention. They argued that 
> the lawsuit is damaging international relations, threatening to hurt 
> South Africa's economic development and punishing the companies using 
> a fuzzy concept of aiding violations of international law.
>
> Last year's ruling by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New 
> York "allows an unprecedented and sprawling lawsuit to move forward 
> and represents a dramatic expansion of US law", the administration 
> said in court papers.
>
> Lawyers for the South Africans bringing the complaint said it was 
> premature for the Supreme Court to get involved. The lawyers said they 
> plan to narrow their complaint, perhaps omitting some corporations and 
> showing more clearly how the companies assisted the apartheid government.
>
> The case involves the Alien Tort Claims Act, an 18th-century law that 
> allows foreigners to sue in US courts over international law 
> violations. It was originally intended to allow foreigners to have a 
> place to make claims against pirates, but the law has been 
> increasingly used in the last 15 years to sue corporations for their 
> alleged involvement in human rights abuses overseas.
>
> The lawsuit raises sticky questions about US policy toward governments 
> accused of repression. For example, the administration said the 
> government may impose targeted sanctions while still allowing commerce 
> in order to encourage reform. The suit could undermine that policy. -- 
> Sapa-AP
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [DEBATE] : Re: (Fwd) SA *still* against apartheid victims' US 
> lawsuits
> From:
> robert weissman <rob at essential.org>
> Date:
> Mon, 12 May 2008 16:44:41 -0400
> To:
> pbond at mail.ngo.za, debate at essential.org:SA discussion list 
> <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
>
> To:
> pbond at mail.ngo.za, debate at essential.org:SA discussion list 
> <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
> CC:
>
>
> The hilarious element is that the Supreme Court could not rule on the 
> case because too many of the justices had to recuse themselves because 
> of conflicts -- mostly investments in firms parties to the litigation.
>
> Court won't block US lawsuit by apartheid victims
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080512/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_apartheid_3
> By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mon May 12, 10:32 AM ET
>
> WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday that it can't intervene in 
> an important dispute over the rights of apartheid victims to sue U.S. 
> corporations in U.S. courts because four of the nine justices had to 
> sit out the case over apparent conflicts.
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> The result is that a lawsuit accusing some prominent companies of 
> violating international law by assisting South Africa's former 
> apartheid government will go forward.
>
> The court's hands were tied by federal laws that require at least six 
> justices to hear any case before them.
>
> Short of the required number by one, the court took the only path 
> available to it and upheld an appeals court ruling allowing the suit 
> to proceed.
>
> The justices have ties to Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, 
> Colgate-Palmolive, Credit Suisse, Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, IBM 
> and Nestle, among nearly three dozen companies that asked the high 
> court to step in.
>
> The justices' latest financial disclosures show:
>
> _Chief Justice John Roberts owned Hewlett-Packard stock.
>
> _Justice Stephen Breyer owned stock in Colgate-Palmolive, Bank of 
> America, IBM and Nestle.
>
> _Justice Samuel Alito holds shares in Exxon Mobil, which caused him to 
> sit out the still-pending dispute over the $2.5 billion punitive 
> damages award for the Exxon Valdez disaster. Alito also owns 
> Bristol-Myers Squibb.
>
> Justice Anthony Kennedy does not hold stock in any affected company, 
> but his son, Gregory, is a managing director at Credit Suisse. He sat 
> out a case last term involving the investment bank.
>
> Business groups, the Bush administration and the current South African 
> government also sought the high court's intervention. They argued that 
> the lawsuit is damaging international relations, threatening to hurt 
> South Africa's economic development and punishing the companies using 
> a fuzzy concept of aiding violations of international law.
>
> Last year's ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New 
> York "allows an unprecedented and sprawling lawsuit to move forward 
> and represents a dramatic expansion of U.S. law," the administration 
> said in court papers.
>
> Lawyers for the South Africans bringing the complaint said it was 
> premature for the Supreme Court to get involved. The lawyers said they 
> plan to narrow their complaint, perhaps omitting some corporations and 
> showing more clearly how the companies assisted the apartheid government.
>
> The case involves the Alien Tort Claims Act, an 18th-century law that 
> allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts over international law 
> violations. It was originally intended to allow foreigners to have a 
> place to make claims against pirates, but the law has been 
> increasingly used in the last 15 years to sue corporations for their 
> alleged involvement in human rights abuses overseas.
>
> The lawsuit raises sticky questions about U.S. policy toward 
> governments accused of repression. For example, the administration 
> said the government may impose targeted sanctions while still allowing 
> commerce in order to encourage reform. The suit could undermine that 
> policy.
>
> The case is American Isuzu Motors v. Ntsebeza, 07-919.
>
>
> Patrick Bond wrote:
>
>> Good news from, of all places, Washington!
>>
>> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 7:45 PM, Charles Abrahams <charles at ak.law.za> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> > Deal All
>>> >
>>> > New just came in this afternoon. The US Supreme Court has declined 
>>> to hear
>>> > the petition of the corporations and banks. The matter can now go 
>>> ahead and
>>> > will be sent to the District Court. The effect hereof is that the 2nd
>>> > Circuit Court of Appeal's decision stands.
>>
>>
>>
>> Patrick Bond wrote:
>>
>>> (Had missed this one last month. It's a good lineup of Bush's elite 
>>> corporate friends, v. the masses: "The governments of Britain, 
>>> Germany, Switzerland, and post-apartheid South Africa".)
>>>
>>> 12 Feb
>>>
>>> Dismiss apartheid suits, White House urges Supreme Court
>>>
>>> From Bill Mears
>>> CNN
>>>
>>> WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A series of lawsuits against companies that did 
>>> business with the former apartheid regime of South Africa should be 
>>> dismissed, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court Tuesday.
>>>
>>> The White House wants lawsuits against companies that did business 
>>> with Apartheid South Africa dismissed.
>>>
>>> The suits argue more than four dozen U.S. and foreign companies 
>>> should be ordered to pay as much as $400 billion to South African 
>>> blacks and others who suffered under that country's official policy 
>>> of oppressive separation of the races between 1948 and 1994.
>>>
>>> A federal court in October allowed the group of some 10 class-action 
>>> lawsuits to proceed. The administration argues the appeals court was 
>>> wrong to allow the "unprecedented and sprawling" suits to move forward.
>>>
>>> The governments of Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and post-apartheid 
>>> South Africa filed supporting memos.
>>>
>>> The private suits were filed under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 
>>> which allows foreigners access to American courts when they allege 
>>> U.S. laws or treaties were violated. The Comprehensive 
>>> Anti-Apartheid Act -- passed in 1986 over President Ronald Reagan's 
>>> veto -- banned U.S. companies from establishing new trade and 
>>> business with South Africa. Other nations had similar laws.
>>>
>>> Among the key plaintiffs is Lungisile Ntsebeza, a sociology 
>>> professor at the University of Cape Town. He was arrested by the 
>>> South African government in 1976 and spent nearly six years in 
>>> prison for his anti-apartheid activism. He said he was beaten and 
>>> tortured while in custody, and later was banished for six years in a 
>>> remote part of the country.
>>>
>>> In his lawsuit, Ntsebeza's lawyers say companies that continued to 
>>> do business in his homeland provided "resources, such as technology, 
>>> money and oil to the South African government," which in turn used 
>>> it "to further its policies of oppression and persecution of the 
>>> African majority."
>>>
>>> The lawsuit is part of a years-long global effort to hold a range of 
>>> parties accountable for decades of human rights violations in South 
>>> Africa.
>>>
>>> South Africa's current black-majority government opposes the 
>>> lawsuit, saying it would hurt its ongoing efforts to foster 
>>> reconciliation and improve the economic security of all its citizens.
>>>
>>> The Bush administration, in its brief, said, "Litigation such as 
>>> this would also interfere with the ability of the U.S. government to 
>>> employ the full range of foreign policy options when interacting 
>>> with regimes the United States would like to influence. ... Such 
>>> policies would be greatly undermined if the corporations that invest 
>>> or operate in a foreign country are subjected to lawsuits under the 
>>> ATS."
>>>
>>> The Justice Department argued the Alien Tort Statute allows lawsuits 
>>> only against the South African government, not companies that 
>>> allegedly "aided and abetted" repressive polices.
>>>
>>> The Supreme Court is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to 
>>> accept the case for review. If it does, oral arguments would be held 
>>> in the fall.
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> DEBATE mailing list
>> DEBATE at debate.kabissa.org
>> http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/debate
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> [DEBATE] : Zizek on Democracy Now!
> From:
> Sean Jacobs <tintinyana at gmail.com>
> Date:
> Mon, 12 May 2008 19:43:24 -0400
> To:
> debate at debate.kabissa.org
>
> To:
> debate at debate.kabissa.org
>
>
> May 12, 2008
> Zizekweb
> World Renowned Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq War, the Bush 
> Presidency, the War on Terror & More
>
> Part two of our wide-ranging discussion with Slavoj Zizek, the 
> philosopher, psychoanalyst and cultural theorist. He has been called 
> the "Elvis of cultural theory" and is widely considered to be one of 
> Europe's leading intellectuals. He has written more than fifty books 
> and speaks to sold-out audiences around the world. [includes rush 
> transcript]
>
>
>     * "Everybody in the World Except US Citizens Should Be Allowed to 
> Vote and Elect the American Government"--Leading Intellectual Slavoj 
> Z(iz(ek (3/11/2008)
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend a half of the broadcast with renowned 
> philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek. He has been called "the 
> Elvis of cultural theory," widely considered one of Europe's leading 
> intellectuals. Born in Slovenia, he has written more than fifty books, 
> is well known for building on the work of the influential French 
> psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He speaks to sold-out audiences around 
> the world and is the subject of an art installation called "Slavoj 
> Zizek Does Not Exist." He's the star of two films. He was also 
> politically active in Slovenia, campaigned for president in 1990, when 
> it became the first Yugoslav republic to hold a free election. His 
> latest book came out earlier this year. It's called In Defense of Lost 
> Causes.
>
> I recently interviewed Slavoj Zizek here in the firehouse studio, just 
> before he spoke at the Left Forum in New York. I began by asking 
> Slavoj Zizek to talk about how he saw the dynamic between President 
> Bush and Osama bin Laden.
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: I think that this is a deeper problem, in the 
> sense that, of course, it would be easy to say they need each other, 
> and I agree, at some level of ideological functioning. If you were to 
> ask me to do a simple caricature for a journal, I would do it---you 
> know that famous Escher paradoxical drawing of one hand drawing---two 
> hands drawing each other? Know? One hand is drawing another person 
> whose hand is again drawing---I think there definitely is, in this 
> sense of a relationship between the two of them, in a way structurally 
> they, the two, need each other.
>
>       So---but there is a different problem here, which is I think 
> this deadlock of American politics, foreign politics. Again, I'm now 
> not talking about anti-American---quite on the contrary, you know? I 
> think I mentioned it in my yesterday's talk, namely the problem is, 
> what is it in the United States politics that they achieve exactly the 
> opposite of what they want? As they put it---as we sometimes put it, 
> they win the war---they win the battle, but lose the war.
>
>       For example, let's take, again, Iraq. This is my supreme 
> example. They went there to do what? (a) To defundamentalize the 
> country, to introduce their---some kind of a secular democracy, which 
> would then serve as a model for the others; (b) to contain Iran. Now, 
> three, four years later, what's the result? (a) Almost two million, 
> all the educated, secular, middle classes, majority of them left the 
> country. The country is more religiously fundamentalist than ever. (b) 
> We know that among the Shia political elite, the orientation is 
> fundamentally pro-Iranian. So isn't this a nice paradox that the 
> ultimate result in Iraq of the US intervention is the exact opposite? 
> It's really a little bit like Oedipus's story, you know? The parents 
> were told, your son will kill you, blah, blah. They acted to prevent 
> it, and in this very way they realized it. So something is obviously 
> wrong here.
>
>       And although I don't have too many big hopes about---because I'm 
> naturally a pessimist---about Barack, I think that here he has, if he 
> will be elected, some space to do---to do things, you know, small 
> symbolic gestures, but which are not only small symbolic gestures, 
> like---I don't know---a [inaudible] tribunal to clarify all this 
> Guantanamo waterboarding stuff, repair relations with Latin America, 
> open relations with Cuba, and so on. I think that in this tense 
> situation, he has some---
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Why he? Why do you not see that for Hillary Clinton?
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: Well, from what I know---maybe I'm too primitively 
> old-line leftist here, maybe I'm wrong, OK, but from what I know, 
> didn't Hillary make a little bit too many compromises with the 
> establishment? I don't think she has the guts, or rather that this is 
> her type of acting. I don't see her as doing this. I think she's too 
> much into politics.
>
>       But because---you know what you should---you know what's the 
> mystery of true politics? We have something which appears possible, 
> and then a truly great politician does something which appears crazy 
> impossible, like in this case: simply against all the majority, maybe, 
> of the public opinion, you totally open relations with Cuba. And then, 
> all of a sudden, people notice that what they perceived as impossible 
> is possible itself. You may---politics, it's not the art of the 
> possible. True politics is the art of the impossible.
>
>       And I don't mean here only some crazy leftist moves. Let's take, 
> my god, Nixon. I remember. I was there. I'm old enough. Nixon in 
> China. Everybody thought, OK, we talk with Soviets; Chinese are crazy, 
> Mao. He did it. It worked. A simple gesture. You have to risk. To put 
> it in more theoretical terms, if I may indulge for ten seconds in my 
> philosophical jargon, it's that a true act creates the conditions of 
> its own possibility. That is to say, it appears impossible, you do it, 
> and the whole field changes: it's possible.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: What about the lead-up to the war, 2003, something 
> that wasn't just on a theoretical realm, to say the least? Where were 
> you? And what did you see the mechanism---what was happening all over 
> the world?
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: You mean the Iraq war, you mean.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: What it means about this war is not simply that 
> it's a wrong war. Of course, I condemned it. But it's a wrong war in a 
> much more fundamental way. It's a [inaudible] conflict, it's a wrong 
> conflict. This is also my basic view about the entire Middle East 
> Arab-Israeli conflict, that it's a wrong conflict. There shouldn't 
> have been that kind of a conflict. Now, of course, we have to deal 
> with it. But this, I think, is the true triumph of the enemy, not that 
> the bad guys win, but that the very conflict you are dealing with is a 
> wrong conflict. If I'm told, "You have to choose Jews or Arabs," 
> sorry, no, I refuse to choose. I only---the only thing I can do is 
> honestly to criticize both sides.
>
>       And I succeeded. If there is a thing I am proud of, it's that my 
> book about September 11th and its aftermath, Welcome to the Desert of 
> the Real, I can proudly tell you that in Israeli media---friends send 
> me clips---it was accused of supporting terror, Arab terror. In 
> Al-Ahram, it was accused to be a Zionist book. So maybe this is a good 
> sign, that I'm moving in the right direction. First, of course, I have 
> all my sympathies for Palestinians and so on, and maybe what the 
> American public---because I visited Ramallah and all those 
> places---doesn't know enough is, you know, you only get news here of 
> terror and so on.
>
>       You know what was for me the most devastating, frustrating 
> thing? Not the big terror. There, one has to admit it. OK, they have 
> their dirty side, but I mean, let's face it: Israelis, they are not 
> Nazis. It's ridiculous. I mean, no, it's---all this idea, a new 
> holocaust, it's ridiculous. Israelis are nonetheless relatively 
> civilized and so on. These comparisons are tasteless. But what is 
> really breathtaking---again, if you really visit ordinary Arab 
> villages on the West Bank---it's these---how should I call 
> it?---micro-political everyday, legal and other annoyances to make 
> life difficult.
>
>       Just to give you an example, do you know that if you are a 
> farmer, Jewish or Palestinian, on the West Bank, as a Palestinian 
> farmer, you are allowed to dig a hole for water only three inches 
> deep---if you are Jewish, you can do whatever you want---claiming 
> the---I don't know what's even the idea, that you will dig some 
> tunnels for terrorists or whatever? Or you know that on the West Bank 
> the big problem is water. As a Jewish farmer, you get seven times more 
> water per capita, because this has to be distributed to [inaudible]. 
> So this is so frustrating about Palestinians. They admit it, my god. 
> This is not Nazism. They are not just picking us up on the street and 
> shooting, but they're trying on this micro level to make things so 
> frustrating, impossible to live.
>
>       On the other hand, I think that the problem I have, not so much 
> with Palestinians---they are much better---is with Arabs who support 
> them. It's---I always find it suspicious when you focus on one 
> problem, Israel, and made it the big cause, which of course, everybody 
> knows this, then allows other Arab states to obfuscate their own 
> problems, like I would much prefer Arabs to say, "OK, Israel, fine, 
> we'll deal with it later. What about corruption in Saudi Arabia? What 
> about"---and so on and so on, you know?
>
>       So that's---here is what I see, if I may add, Amy, my duty, even 
> as an intellectual. That's crucial, because people today, I don't know 
> what they expect of intellectuals. If I'm honest, at least as a 
> philosopher, I don't have answers. We intellectuals do not have 
> answers. If you ask me what to do about ecology, bah, what do I know? 
> What we can do is change the very questions. We can show to what 
> extent the very way we approach a problem, which is a very real 
> problem, is part of that problem.
>
>       We can show where the problem---for example, maybe you know it. 
> I'll briefly repeat it, my ultimate example: Racism. Racism, and so 
> on, sexism, this is a problem. But are we aware that it's not 
> self-evident? The way we approach today this problem, we automatically 
> read it, interpret it as a problem of tolerance. Wait a minute. Racism 
> is not in itself a problem of tolerance. I [inaudible]---look at 
> Martin Luther King's speeches, you know? He almost doesn't use the 
> term "tolerance." For him, racism is a problem of legislation, laws, 
> economic exploitation, and so on and so on. I mean, it would be 
> ridiculous for his dignity of Martin Luther King to say "We blacks 
> want more tolerance from the whites," in the same way as---you know 
> this as a woman---it would be a ridiculous [inaudible] thing to say 
> "We women want more tolerance from men," or whatever. It's not that.
>
>       So where we can enter, philosophers, is to say, "Wait a minute. 
> Racism is a real problem, or sexism or whatever. Why? Why do we treat 
> it as a problem of tolerance?" And here, I have an answer, 
> old-fashioned Marxist one. It has to do with this breakdown of this 
> great leftist politics, social welfare, and so on. We live in, what 
> I'm tempted to claim, post-political universe, where politics is more 
> and more a matter of expert administration and so on. So all conflicts 
> which remain are then translated into cultural problems, problems of 
> lifestyle, and so on, but then all that remains is to play the problem 
> of tolerance and so on.
>
>       The same as with, for example, ecology. What to do? Is global 
> warming clearly a threat? I don't know. What I know is that while 
> ecology is definitely a serious problem, maybe even the problem which 
> threatens us, the way it is formulated, it's a big field for 
> ideological investment, you know, all that stuff of Gaia, Mother 
> Earth, like our spontaneous confrontation of ecology is that there was 
> a kind of a natural balance, homeostasis, we evil humans disrupted it, 
> now we have to repair it. An entire mythology is there. And I think 
> that---so, my paradoxical solution is that we need ecology without 
> nature, that without nature, if we understand, is nature, a kind of a 
> primordial, innocent, balanced mechanism. Nature is crazy. Nature is 
> one big catastrophe. Oil, our main source of energy---can you even 
> imagine what kind of ultra-unthinkable ecological catastrophe must 
> have happened on earth in order that we have these reserves of oil? So 
> let's first clarify things with nature. Nature is not Mother Earth, a 
> big balanced universe where we humans raped her, and so on and so on. 
> Nature is imbalanced, crazy mechanism, which for---it's much more 
> complex. So, you see, here, I'm, in a way, much more modest. No, we 
> intellectuals, we are really like Socratic intellectual, who---we 
> don't have answers, we can just clarify the questions.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Back to that question about before the invasion---
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: Yes.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: ---you look at the protest, you look at the 
> invasion, you look at the occupation, you look at war, and you say 
> it's all of a piece, one reinforces the other. Can you talk about that?
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: No, it's not so much that I was against the 
> protests. I myself participated in protests. I just do not share the 
> enthusiasm of some of even big European intellectuals, like Jacques 
> Derrida, Jurgen Habermas, who saw in that widespread movement of 
> protest almost a birth of the new civil society movement in Europe. 
> What bothered me is the way the protest was in a way parasitic 
> upon---upon---OK, the other guys, those in power who wanted the war, 
> how they legitimized each other.
>
>       For me, that protest was part of what I see as the main failure. 
> But it's not a subjective failure. It's in the situation of modern 
> left, which all too often for me adopts this rather comfortable 
> moralizing position of we condemn, we criticize, but like we can't do 
> anything more, so this safe moralizing position, which is why, as I 
> like to emphasize, I was in Great Britain, in United Kingdom in that 
> point. And what did strike me is how, after the big protests, both 
> sides appeared satisfied in a strange way. The organizers of 
> demonstrators made their point: you see the majority is behind us, 
> people oppose war, we made our point. But silently, they knew they 
> didn't stop the war, nothing. Blair government, the other side, was 
> also satisfied. You see what an open society is: even when a country 
> goes to war, we can---and again, the best answer, I think, was 
> provided unintentionally by George Bush when he visited at that time 
> UK. I remember, when asked by journalists, "How do you comment on big 
> protests against you?" he said, "I totally support them, because, you 
> see, that's why we are going to Iraq, so that things like this, 
> massive protest against the government, so that things like this could 
> happen only---will happen also in Iraq." So, of course, this was 
> either a bad joke or hypocrisy or whatever you want. But there is a 
> truth in it. Everyone, in a way, all the sides, felt satisfied. And 
> this is what often worries me, this---how should I put it?---secret, 
> symbiotic relationship. Those in power like a certain type of 
> moralistic protest, which does nothing.
>
>       And again, I think that even---of course, everybody likes them 
> Zapatistas in Mexico---that even Zapatistas fell a little bit into 
> that trap. At the beginning, they were a little bit of a serious 
> threat. Then when their---this famous anonymous leader, Subcomandante 
> Marcos, then he made the choice of playing this, how should I call it, 
> moral authority, you know, and at that point making comments on what 
> is wrong in Mexican society. From that point on, everybody loves him 
> now, you know? Everybody---oh, yes, he's our moral consciousness, and 
> so on and so on.
>
>       But again, I'm not simply reproaching the left for it, because, 
> how to put it, of course now then there is the cruel question: but 
> what can the left do? What can you effectively do? So I'm not saying 
> we shouldn't be doing this. I'm just saying---what I'm saying is 
> basically one simple thing. I repeat it in all my talks, and so on. 
> It's fashionable to make fun of Fukuyama, End of History, but even the 
> majority of today's left is effectively, if I may make an adverb, 
> Fukuyamaists. Basically, isn't it that most of us leftists silently 
> believe capitalism is here to stay, parliamentary democracy is what we 
> [inaudible], so the problem is simply how to make it work better? Our 
> ultimate horizon is, again, in the same way as we were talking about 
> socialism with a human face, global capitalist democracy with a human 
> face. And for me, the key question is, is this enough?
>
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Slavoj Zizek is the author of many books. His, latest, 
> just out now, is called In Defense of Lost Causes. We'll be back to 
> continue our conversation in a minute.
>
> [break]
>
> AMY GOODMAN: We continue our conversation with Slavoj Zizek. In 
> Defense of Lost Causes is his latest book.
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: If you read Marx, no, he says, late capitalism is 
> already the age of decay of capitalism. Then Lenin said imperialism, 
> last stage. Then Mao said in the '40s that after World War II, 
> American imperialism is the absolutely rotting lower stage, but the 
> more it is rotting, the more it's disintegrating, the better it 
> functions, no? That's is the miracle of capitalism. It's really 
> something unique. It's really a unique world historical event. 
> Capitalism is the first social formation which thrives on its 
> instability---how shall I put it, no?
>
>       And I have here no illusions. I don't believe that simply some 
> external, external to capitalist, mechanisms, economic---sorry, 
> ecological or whatever crisis will ruin it. Imagine now a 
> mega-catastrophe: I don't know, even the ice melting, New York is 
> submerged, we have to move to Antarctica. I think this would be 
> immediately incorporated as a---you know, can you even only imagine 
> real estate having their multiple orgasms, the biggest real estate 
> deals in the history and so on? Don't underestimate this level 
> capitalism, of how it achieves incorporating what appears an obstacle. 
> And so only in this sense, it's indestructible.
>
>       But what I nonetheless think is that---for a whole series of 
> reasons---that the limit is becoming clear. I see it in ecology, not 
> that it will directly ruin capitalism, but I don't think it can deal 
> it with. Why not? Because I'm not an idealist here. I'm well aware 
> that, if anything, state socialism was even worse for ecology. Those 
> countries are countries with the worst ecological record. But 
> nonetheless, there is something interesting. It's that, of course, at 
> a certain level, the capitalists market ways to deal with ecological 
> problems, no? You include, if you can assess, the ecological damage 
> into the price of the product and all that stuff. It works. But I 
> think it doesn't work with the threat of really large catastrophes, 
> all this pushing towards Kyoto deal or whatever.
>
>       Are we aware what is happening here? It is that in the last 
> twenty years, the idea of a large collective act was kind of a phobic 
> object. Everyone was afraid of it, like isn't it the lesson of the 
> catastrophe of real socialism that we don't need large concentrated 
> power decisions but this---and you can use all the poetic 
> expressions---this organic interaction, all the poetic interaction, 
> not command claim and so on. So the idea is that we should have a more 
> dispersed, open capitalism, antiauthoritarian and so on. If there is 
> anything becoming clear today for me, it's that we need to 
> rehabilitate the notion of big, large, collective acts.
>
>       Here then, even---for example, intellectual property---I mean, I 
> even spoke with some conservative economists, who considered the point 
> that intellectual property is---if I may put it in slightly ironic 
> terms---is inherently communist, in the sense that it resents---it 
> rebels against being treated as private property, which is why with 
> some new software products, you know, that companies spend more money 
> on how to prevent its free circulation of a product than on the 
> product itself. I mean, I have nothing personally against Bill Gates, 
> but as a nice [inaudible] conservative economist---sorry, I forgot his 
> name---at some debate put it, that the fact that a guy who was thirty 
> years ago nothing can be now---OK, he's no longer---now he's third, 
> but he was the richest man in the world, this shows that intellectual 
> property is a topic which cannot be properly value represented of the 
> market. You get two crazy vibrations. Like he put it, with a normal 
> commodity, material, of course, prices go up and down. It's like a 
> normal EKG when you fear you have an attack, no? But with intellectual 
> property, it's like a heart attack, you know? It oscillates too 
> wildly, like, you---there is a problem. I think that the 
> dynamic---social economic dynamic itself will force us to socialize it 
> more and more, that it doesn't work, intellectual property. Then, of 
> course, the entire problem of not only ecology, then there is 
> the---all this biogenetic debate and so on.
>
>       It's very interesting how Fukuyama himself---and I appreciate 
> him---OK, he's a little bit simplistic as a philosopher, but where I 
> appreciate him is that he's an intelligent, skeptical conservative. I, 
> as a Marxist, I much prefer skeptical conservatives to naïve 
> progressive liberals. Why? Because skeptical conservatives are ready 
> to admit a deadlock. And he did this in his--not End of History 
> thesis, but in his later book on biogenetics, Our Posthuman Future, or 
> whatever. He had to admit that his model of The End of History liberal 
> society is not able to cope with this, that we need stronger state 
> control, collective decisions and so on and so on.
>
>       So, you see, that's how I approach it. I'm not a naïve Marxist: 
> oh, we need a new revolution. I see problems. That's my duty today, to 
> show to the people that we are approaching antagonisms, which not only 
> capitalism will not be able to confront, but which will lead to a much 
> more radical choice. I'm not fighting today's capitalism---how I 
> should I put it---I'm fighting what this capitalism is slowly leading 
> to if we don't counteract it.
>
>       I think capitalism will---the way we know it---will destroy 
> itself, in a way. And it's already doing it. For example, all the 
> human rights and so on, now we are talking about torture. Wait what we 
> will be talking in ten years, and so on and so on. I think we are 
> already going into another direction. Or we speak about global world? 
> Yes, commodities can circulate, but more and more we are moving 
> towards gated communities and so on, and we should be very clear here. 
> Here, I will even propose a conservative topic, which is that if you 
> don't have a basic patriotic identification---not nationalism, but in 
> the sense of "we are all members of the same nation and so on"---then 
> democracy doesn't function. You cannot have a living democracy in this 
> pure multiculturalist liberal dream: we have just different lifestyle 
> and a totally neutral legal framework, which allows them to interact. 
> No, you need more. That more is threatened, not by leftist 
> multiculturalists, but by capitalist development itself. I think we 
> are more and more approaching new forms of gated communities.
>
>       For example, one of the books that I like as a description is 
> Mike Davis talking about slums, his book about slums, because he 
> shows, my god, are we aware what's going on here? Over one billion 
> people already live in slums. That is to say, new and new territories 
> are emerging from which, although they are part of a state, states are 
> withdrawing from it. And this is a crucial moment, which is why 
> incidentally I, in spite of all my problems with him, I admire Chavez 
> nonetheless. I don't know of any other politician, with the exception 
> maybe of Morales---he's trying to do it---who effectively tried to 
> incorporate into sociopolitical life those excluded in favelas, in slums.
>
>       If we don't do it, we will be approaching--and this is a serious 
> perspective, some French sociologist warn---a kind of a subdued, not 
> all the times active, but nonetheless, always in the background, civil 
> war in all developed countries, like what's happening now in Paris, 
> you know. Everybody knows, again and again, car burnings, all this 
> permanent civil unrest. And they are a wonderful phenomenon to 
> analyze, these car burnings. You know why? Here, you have the limit of 
> standard leftist analogies. When those in the suburbs start to burn 
> cars, the soldiers came looking for explanations, but they were not, 
> as people feared, some Muslim fundamentalists. No, the fist thing they 
> were burning were their own mosques and so on. It was a kind of 
> a---how shall I call it---pure protest signaling presence. It's a 
> political equivalent of what in linguistics we call fatic 
> communication, "Hi, I'm here, yes," you know, this---when you give a 
> message which doesn't deliver a certain content, but just signals that 
> you are here. It was like a big fatic "Hey, here we are. Note us." 
> That was the message, no?
>
>       So, again, all these problems, we---here, we should act again, 
> not---I'm not this kind of fanatical anti-capitalist who worries, "My 
> god, capitalism is thriving. How will we arouse the people?" What 
> worries me is not that capitalism will go on forever. No, I'm here as 
> a Marxist. Quite honest.
>
>       Listen, let's be frank. I don't know what to say about the 
> United States. But if we take Western Europe in the last fifty years, 
> let's be frank. One should give to the devil what belongs to the 
> devil. OK, we can say this was because of economic exploitation of 
> third world, but nonetheless, I don't think there was, in the entire 
> history of humanity, an era where so many people lived comparatively, 
> in comparative way, such---in such relative welfare and freedom that's 
> there. One should admit this, honestly, not to engage into the 
> Stalinist statistics proving that they are not doing so well. The 
> problem is, I think, it cannot last. The new divisions are getting 
> visible on and on. And so, again, the problem is not---my fear is not 
> that capitalism will not last forever. The struggle is beginning today 
> for what will replace it. There, we will have to make tough decisions.
>
>       If we don't act, I can see quite well the possibility---some 
> Western version of the Chinese option, what they poetically call Asian 
> values capitalism, which is really capitalism with authoritarian 
> structure. Here, I see a world historical meaning of what goes on in 
> China. Until now, liberals were saying, OK, maybe in the beginning you 
> need a little bit of authoritarian push to create conditions for 
> capitalism, like Pinochet, Chile, South Korea. But they claim, sooner 
> or later, capitalism always brings then democracy. I doubt if this 
> holds. I think---my hopes are---our hopes are vain if we expect the 
> same in China. I think they are a model where capitalism and democracy 
> are dissociated, and capitalism, if anything, works even better. This 
> is the sign of the future.
>
>       I've spoken too long, sorry. But now you know at least why 
> friends call me Fidel. You know, like---
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Slavoj, your new book is called In Defense of Lost 
> Causes.
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: Yes.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Why?
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: First, of course, I like to provoke and so on. No, 
> these lost causes are of course communism, terror and so on, no? But 
> what I really try to do---it's a very critical book, especially 
> critical towards the left---it's to analyze brutally the failures of 
> the left and hint at least how to totally reinvent these old lost 
> causes, because, as we all know, the left, around thirty years ago, 
> simply stopped to ask certain questions. I remember when I was young, 
> we were still debating: will capitalism last? Will the state go on? 
> Now, we accept all this. Maybe it is---the time is coming to start 
> asking these fundamental, tough questions again, but, of course, fully 
> learning the lesson of the past.
>
>       Since I often like to use Stalinist metaphors and so on, for 
> example, people almost suspect me of being some kind of a closet 
> Stalinist. No, OK, my first reaction is to provoke even more and to 
> say, "Why closet Stalinist?" But what I really think is that I think 
> that Stalinism was---that's why I am obsessed with it---was such a 
> tragedy, much more difficult to explain than fascism. It's for me the 
> singular greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century, precisely 
> because it wasn't simply communist totalitarianism. What's difficult 
> to think is the authentic emancipatory explosion of October Revolution 
> and then how this turned into Stalinism. So, it's not that we 
> should---we, the left, should behave with bad conscience, like, you 
> know, "Oh, but you also had your problems, Nazism." We should do the 
> job of analyzing Stalinism better than the anti-communist right is 
> doing it.
>
>       That's what I see as one of my tasks. I'm returning---
>       so I'm going through all of this, Stalinism, structure of 
> fascism, today's ideology, different modalities of the left. I mean, I 
> almost give at a certain point a simple catalog of what the left is 
> doing today: either the third way left---that is to say, we accept the 
> capitalist game; we will just try to make capitalism better, more 
> human and so on---then this, the one I was attacking yesterday, the 
> resisting left---you can do, you just resist, criticize from 
> outside---then this utopian Toni Negri left, that like revolution is 
> around the corner but a totally different one for this new multitude 
> stuff and so on. I simply try to ask the hard questions. And I don't 
> give great answers; my answers are very modest.
>
>       But I think it's really a matter of survival of the left to 
> break out this deadlock. It's always a fatal deadlock of either 
> pragmatism or abstract moralism. They are like, you know, like 
> horrible. Again, you see, I succumb to my Stalinist adaptation. Like 
> Stalin said, social democracy and fascism are the left and the right 
> hand of capitalism, stupidity, but I think that this conformist third 
> way, pragmatic social democracy---basically, Clinton here, Blair in 
> the UK and so on---and this moralistic radical left, politically 
> correct all the time, are like twin phenomena, the one is 
> parasitic---how to break out of this deadlock? I mean, I don't---I'm 
> not saying I have a clear answer, but the problem is to be confronted.
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Last words to leave our audience with here in the 
> United States and, well, all over in Latin America, in Europe, Africa, 
> Eastern Europe?
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: From me?
>
>       AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
>
>       SLAVOJ ZIZEK: It will be simply---OK, maybe, the point that I 
> always like to repeat: don't beat---don't get caught into a fake 
> discourse of humanitarian emergency. Remember that when somebody is 
> telling you, "You're doing your theory. You are dreaming. But people 
> are starving out there and so on. Let's do something," this is the 
> threat. This is the threat.
>
>       Today's hegemonic ideology is this kind of state of emergency 
> ideology. What we need is to withdraw---don't be afraid to withdraw 
> and think. You know, Marx thesis eleven: philosophers have only 
> interpreted the world; the time is, we have now to change it. Maybe, 
> as good Marxists, we should turn it around. Maybe we are trying to 
> change it too much. It's time to redraw and to interpret it again, 
> because do we really know what is going on today?
>
>       What is going on today? There are old fashion theories, either 
> Marxist or liberals who claim the same capitalism is going on. Then 
> there is a whole set of fashionable terms like post-industrial 
> society, post-whatever, information society, which I think don't do 
> the job. We even don't have what my friend Fred Jameson likes to call 
> "cognitive mapping," you know, that you get an idea what's going on. 
> We need theory more than ever. Don't be---don't feel guilty for 
> withdrawing from immediate engagement and for trying to understand 
> what's going on.
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Slavoj Zizek it the author of In Defense of Lost Causes.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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