A Left that Dares to Speak Its Name by Slavoj Zizek

Author:Slavoj Zizek [Žižek, Slavoj]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509541195
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2020-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

13

Soyons Réalistes, Demandons l’Impossible!

The protests of the “yellow vests” (gilets jaunes) in France have been going on for months. They began as a grassroots movement that grew out of widespread discontent with a new eco-tax on petrol and diesel, seen as hitting hardest those living and working outside metropolitan areas, where there is no public transport. More recently, the movement has grown to include a panoply of demands, including “Frexit” (the exit of France from the EU), lower taxes, higher pensions, and an improvement in ordinary French people’s spending power. The movement offers an exemplary case of Leftist populism, of the explosion of people’s wrath with all its inconsistencies: lower taxes and more money for education and healthcare; cheaper petrol and ecological struggle. Although the new petrol tax was obviously an excuse or, rather, a pretext – not what the protests are “really about” – it is significant to note that what triggered them was a measure intended to act against global warming. No wonder Trump enthusiastically supported the yellow vests (even claiming that some of the protesters were shouting “We want Trump!”), noting that one among the demands was for France to step away from the Paris agreement. In a hotel room, you can hang a sign on the door saying either “Please clean the room!” or “Please do not disturb!” Whenever I see this sign, I imagine a sign saying: “Please do not disturb while cleaning the room!” Are the demands of yellow vests not a similar combination of contradictory demands? “Please protect our environment while providing cheaper fuel!”

The yellow vest protests embody the weird reversal that characterizes today’s global situation. The old antagonism between “ordinary people” and the financial capitalist elites is back with a vengeance, with “ordinary people” exploding in protests against the elites accused of being blind to their suffering and demands; however, what is new is that the populist Right proved to be much more adept than the Left in channeling these explosions in its direction. Alain Badiou was thus fully justified to say apropos the yellow vests: “Tout ce qui bouge n’est pas rouge” – all that moves (leads to unrest) is not red. Today’s populist Right participates in the long tradition of popular protests which were predominantly Leftist. Yes, tout ce qui bouge n’est pas rouge, but even when it is Right populism that bouges, the Left should learn to ruthlessly exploit the crack opened up in the edifice of the existing ideological hegemony by the unrest to promote its own cause.

The yellow vest movement fits the specific French Left tradition of large public protests targeting political elites (more than business or financial elites). However, in contrast to the protests of 1968, the yellow vests are much more characteristic of a movement from la France profonde, a revolt against big metropolitan areas, which means that its Leftist orientation is much more blurred. (Both Marine le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon support the protests.) As expected, commentators are asking which political force will appropriate

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.