My solution is to read Agamben
The Onion is on the ball yet again. It’s an interesting problem, and one I’ve been thinking about for a while; how can we translate the venality of the American and British governments in general, and the occupation of Iraq in particular, from a general ontological feature of the world into a cause for action? Hence my promised, but never delivered, post based on the Baudrillardian provocation that the occupation of Iraq is not happening. I once saw Alex Callinicos give a lecture about postmodernism. He began frothing at the mouth when he discussed Baudrillard: “Do you have any idea,� he said, “how difficult it is to build a mass movement against a war when intellectuals keep insisting the war isn’t happening?� This presents us with the amusing image of Callinicos canvassing on some high street, being continually rebuffed by people who object to signing a petition against a non-existent war. But also, of course, Callinicos’s complaint isn’t actually a refutation of Baurdrillard, but a confirmation. A hyper-real war, a war that exists somewhere completely other from where we are, is incredibly hard to organise against; that’s why capital’s so keen on them.
This is particularly true of Abu Grahib. The perfect anti-war opportunity: hard evidence of the brutality of occupation for everyone in the West to see. Everyone in the country talking about their outrage at what was going on in Iraq. What response could the anti-war movement muster? A couple of thousand people demonstrating in London, which is, let’s face it, pathetic. But it’s also not surprising: the pictures coming out of Iraq are spectacular, and the essence of the spectacle is to alienate people from any possibility of action.
In fact, I suspect, Abu Grahib marked the death knell of an already moribund anti-war movement, and demonstrated the failure of the tactics pursued by groups like the Stop The War Coalition. As my new facourite ultra-leftist says explicitly, and the Onion article above makes clear, anger is no basis for political activity. Getting pissed off at pictures in the paper just feeds the spectacle. Our response to homo sacer in Iraq needs to be something else.
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