councilor.org
| Source | Louis Proyect |
| Date | 11/04/23/13:10 |
| This just showed up as a comment on my blog article on the Battle of
Misurata: THERE'S SOMETHING UTTERLY cynical about this insistence on the level of life quality in Libya, of course; as others have noted above, it’s what used to be said of the USSR and the former Eastern Bloc countries. (What’s more, it’s an argument I will sometimes use myself, but never implying things there used to be otherwise “good.” Just to point out the obvious, that many there are now worse off materially even than they used to be. And so have been left in the cold by the “West” over the course of their supposed “liberation.”) 1) It’s a truism to say that “the left” has a tendency to be more sensitive to some people’s liberation struggles or efforts that suit a certain pattern and agenda, less so to others. I used to hang out with friends in the former GDR, in the years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Wall. They were part of what you might call the punk/underground/countercultural scene there (yes, not widely known perhaps to many, there existed such a thing, and quite lively if otherwise of necessity pretty well-hidden too. The subject has been well-documented since, I know for instance Amsterdam’s book shop Het Fort van Sjakoo http://www.sjakoo.nl/ stocks a number of interesting titles on it, many of them of course in German.) While largely goofy and innocent, the way punk rockers and assorted counterculturalists worldwide perhaps will tend to be — or perhaps precisely because of it –, it is hard to fathom just how precarious their position was. The constant threat to your existence, to your physical freedom and integrity, precisely because of not doing anything much at all. Other than having a bit of fun, perhaps, and yes, of course being somewhat “against the system.” Feeling the breath of the omnipresent Stasi always in your neck — whilst never knowing for sure who might be working for them, of course. Moreover, the overwhelming sense of this life never leading anywhere; of things never being about to change. There was always someone who knew some horrifying stories of people landing up in jail (my own girlfriend at the time, East German herself, had a few to tell); people were aware of the more political resistance (e.g. that centered around East Berlin’s Gethsemane Church) and sympathized, though I’m not aware of many who were directly involved; they were just different scenes, the way you have in the West. (There was some natural overlap, so that some of these bands might sometimes play in these churches, and such.) I guess what I’m saying is that perhaps, and with all due sense for perspective, maybe whether we live to age fifty or sixty-five is immaterial even compared to having at least the notion of a modicum of being one’s own agent; of autonomy, of freedom of expression, of thought (of movement, certainly! Etc.)* In the here-and-now, if you will. Yes, these people had guaranteed affordable housing, health care, public transport, more or less a guaranteed job even (and no matter how otherwise daft and mind-numbing, utterly pointless even. Being a slacker was certainly made into an art form by no few of these friends of mine, and the very system seemed to lend itself well to it. If, of course, you found yourself lucky enough not to be some factory worker or so. And the situation in the countryside, by-the-by, being far less rosy than in the cities, in terms of just the basest of life necessities. Yes, there was hunger, and there was poverty. And even in a city like Berlin, that stereotype of having the choice between rows and rows of the same jam in the supermarkets was very real. In the countryside however even those rows tended to be lacking, save for people lining up outside, that was all very true.) But were they happy? No, they were not. And how could one be, under the circumstances. * Of course, we may argue and debate to what extent such agency or autonomy in our own, Western, lives has any real substance, or is rather illusory. I’d say that in light of life in the former GDR or Poland etc. and what I imagine to be Libya today, such considerations are largely abstractions. Entertaining coffee-table talk for those who don’t have to immediately fear for their lives, or shall we say their physical and mental integrity, and little more. 2) During the very fall of the wall, I had the misfortune to witness what was by-and-large the reception of these people by their counterparts in West Berlin — let’s say roughly the autonomist/squatter’s/indeed punk and countercultural scene there. The politically active, and radical leftist moreover, yes sir, ma’am. Now that these folks could finally and suddenly cross over the border — ah, just imagine that however short-lived elation, the up till just a day before seemingly impossible! You really would have needed to be there to sense the feeling in the air. That feeling, no matter how brief and obviously doomed, that all was out in the open. But no, by and large again, these people were treated by what should have really been their Western autonomist comrades as a bit silly, daft, naive, politically unaware (strange, isn’t it, having just emerged from four decades of utter repression, of being deprived of information, of being literally kept down) — as stupid “Ossies” (easterlings, a half-jesting, half-disparaging term. In earnest, the reverse term of “Wessie,” or westerling, has become equally current.) Hailing from that Western scene myself, I found it all pretty disgusting and embarrassing. The overwhelming feeling one got was people were just uncomfortable with these folks who didn’t quite fit into the current discourse. That more shameful of course, since this their eastern mirror image had been taking place right next door for all that time, with just a wall in between indeed. Now that they showed up, people just didn’t know what to do with it, it seemed. Something of a painful echo perhaps of the way mainstream society was soon to go “oh, well, that’s all well and good, but we don’t want all these fortune-seekers coming in here.” 3) I’m not sure if I got my point across just now. Maybe take it by means of illustration, you can do with it what you will. I’ve been meaning to write a piece entitled “The Arab Spring and the Left’s Impotence,” but not really being much of a writer, I’m not getting around to it. “The Arab Spring and the Left’s Utter Moral Failure” is meanwhile starting to look like a more befitting title. Tho’ I guess soon there won’t be any point left in writing it anyway. Inasmuch as we’re being overtaken by events as we speak. A feeling meanwhile and with regards to the current situation I’ve been getting is what we witness (if we hadn’t already) is the utter failure of this idea of some “internet liberation” — all info accessible to all, and all at the click of a button, & each a journalist (or analyst, or whatever) unto their own. But once again, you see this backfiring, to a point of sheer information overload, with all that info being seemingly “equal,” even though obviously it isn’t. There’s this disturbing tendency on the left, that’s becoming clearer by the day if not the minute, to veer over into all-encompassing conspiracy thinking — and the web clearly isn’t helping it. Sure, now every Joe, Jill & Jane can pass judgement on this or that situation — but what good is that judgement, what is it based on. (What is surely telling is how suddenly supposed leftists may dig up proof of the Libyan rebels being CIA or Al-Qaida or what have you from such luminaries of the free press as the UK’s Daily Telegraph and whatnot. Right, guys, so since when did we take those to be credible sources, never to be subjected to some careful scrutiny?) What we seem to be in dire need of is some reputable sources, preferably those on the ground, preferably those of some recognized standing even among their adversaries — but I’ve so far largely found myself looking with a candle in the dark. 4) Finally, it seems to me that the whole socialist project, and including its many derivatives — if I must and if anything, I’d consider myself an anarchist, perhaps more by nature than as a matter of ideology — has become (and if again it hadn’t been clear yet) more of a burden than a useful tool, or model. And one that we need to get rid of, in order to build up something new. What that will be, I can’t be sure of. Moreover, it has become such a burden that I don’t hold my hopes up of this disappearing any time soon. That is to say that for probably, say, a century or two to come, any liberational effort will always seek to find expression in those terms. Or we will seek to make it so. But those terms clearly scarcely apply to what is happening, say, in North Africa and the Middle East now. We need to invent a whole new language. (Moreover and has been pointed out above, but my feeling is it ought to be said much more often and much louder, people seem to completely overlook how the likes of Gaddafi have been using and abusing socialist rhetoric for decades now. You wouldn’t seriously expect his subjects — as, indeed, Eastern Europeans before them — when they rise up to express themselves in those terms, now would you?) As has been noted, at least by lending the rebels in various countries our unconditional support now, maybe the participants will stand a chance of being alive to sort out the details as they arise. And who knows, maybe instead of giving them directions, we may learn something from them. (Ah, and then as for this strange and silly notion that “If people don’t support Gaddafi, how come they haven’t overthrown him yet?,” I simply have no words for it. What fictional Hollywood or otherwise utterly autistic or isolationist world do we live in that leads us to believe this is the way things work? Sure, folks, all it takes for you is to be against something for it to go away of its own accord.) -Comment by whatever- |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho