Trouble in Paradise by Slavoj Zizek

Author:Slavoj Zizek [Zizek, Slavoj]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-61219-445-5
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2015-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE FASCINATION OF SUFFERING

One way to resolve (or neutralize, at least) these confusions is by means of a direct reference to human suffering: surely we can intervene to alleviate it? However, all that is false in the idea and practice of humanitarian interventions was laid bare when it came to the example of Syria. There is a bad dictator who is using poisonous gases against his own people—but who is opposing his regime? It seems that whatever remained of the democratic-secular resistance is now more or less drowned in the mess of fundamentalist Islamist groups supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with a strong presence of al-Qaida in the shadows. (Recall that, a year ago, a top Saudi cleric urged Muslim girls to go to Syria and support the rebels by offering themselves to be gang raped, since the rebels lacked sexual satisfaction!)

As for Assad, his Syria at least pretended to be a secular state, so no wonder that Christian and other minorities now tend to take his side against Sunni rebels. In short, we are dealing with an obscure conflict, vaguely resembling the Libyan revolt against Gaddafi—there are no clear political stakes, no signs of a broad emancipatory-democratic coalition, just a complex network of religious and ethnic alliances overdetermined by the influence of superpowers (the US and Western Europe on the one side, Russia and China on the other). In such conditions, any direct military intervention means political madness with incalculable risks. What if radical Islamists take over after Assad’s fall? Will the US repeat their Afghanistan mistake of arming the future al-Qaida and Taliban cadres?

In such a messy situation, military intervention can only be justified by short-term, self-destructive opportunism. The moral outrage that could provide a rational cover for the compulsion to intervene (‘We cannot allow the use of poisonous gases on civilians!’) is fake and obviously doesn’t even take itself seriously. (As we now know, the US more than tolerated the use of poisonous gases against the Iranian army by Saddam Hussein, providing him with satellite shots of the enemies to help him—where were moral concerns then?) Faced with the weird ethics that justifies taking the side of one fundamentalist criminal group against another, one cannot but sympathize with Ron Paul’s reaction to John McCain’s advocacy of strong intervention: ‘With politicians like these, who needs terrorists?’121

The struggle in Syria is thus ultimately a false one, a conflict towards which one should remain indifferent. The only thing to keep in mind is that this pseudo-struggle thrives because of the absent Third, a strong radical-emancipatory opposition, whose elements were clearly perceptible in Egypt. Nothing really special is going on in Syria, except that China is one step closer to becoming the world’s new superpower while her competitors are eagerly weakening each other.

But, again, what about the humanitarian aspect, the suffering of millions? Often, one cannot but be shocked by the excessive indifference towards suffering, even and especially when this suffering is widely reported in the media and condemned, as if it is the very outrage at suffering which turns us into its immobilized, fascinated spectators.

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