Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution wrong+arithmetic

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wrong+arithmetic
Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution
by Jonathon Collerson
N.B. This is a rough translation of Daniel Fischers transcription of the 19 January 2011 session of Alain Badious seminar What does change the world mean? (http://www.entretemps.asso.fr/Badiou/10-11.htm). It is not something Badiou has written out. Nevertheless, it gets across his, apparently, impromptu comments on Tunisia, riots and revolution. It appears that Badiou correctly places the riot at the gateway of revolution and, in calling Tunisia the weakest link (Lenin re. Russia 1917), correctly notes the beginning of massive change in the Middle East. Daniel Fischers excellent notes (http://www.entretemps.asso.fr/Badiou/seminaire.htm) are great resource on Badious developing thought. Thanks to Charles T. Wolfe for help with the translation. *** Today Ill talk to you about the riots in Tunisia. We wont leave the subject of this years seminar What does change the world mean? an expression whose ambiguous character Ive already described to you. If by riots we mean the street actions of people who want to overthrow the government by means of varying levels of violence, we must at once emphasise what makes these Tunisian riots rare: they have been victorious. A regime seemed securely in place for 23 years and here it is overturned by a popular action which, ipso facto, retroactively establishes it as the the weakest link. Why should we analyse this phenomenon, when we could just let ourselves rejoice? A vague uneasiness makes itself felt in the requisitely contented character, lets call it a consensual character, that must be displayed in spite of the inherent illegality of the events concerned. Today it isnt easy to declare: I love Ben Ali, Im truly heartbroken that he must leave power. When one says that, one nds oneself in a very bad position. The reason we must pay tribute to minister Alliot-Marie, who publicly regretted her delay in putting the know-how of the French police force at the service of Ben Ali, is that she expressed aloud what her political colleagues only whispered. Next to her, Sarkozy is a hypocrite and a coward. Just as everyone, Right and Left, who, in only a few weeks, were congratulating themselves on having Ben Ali as a solid bulwark against Islamism and an excellent pupil of the West, are today forced, because of a consensus of opinion, to pretend to rejoice in his departure, tail between
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Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution wrong+arithmetic

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legs. Once again: a government overthrown by popular violence (and in particular by the young, who spearheaded it) is a rare event for which you must go back thirty years if you want to nd a comparable precedent, namely to the Iranian Revolution (1979)*. Thirty years during which the dominant conviction was that such events were no longer really possible. The thesis of the end of history made this claim. That thesis obviously didnt mean that nothing more would happen: the end of history meant the end of events in history [l'vnementialit historique], the end of a moment where the organisation of power could be overthrown in favour of, as Trotsky said, the masses entering on the stage of history. The normal course of things was the alliance of the market economy and parliamentary democracy, an alliance that was the only tenable norm of the general subjectivity. Such is the meaning of the term globalisation: this subjectivity became global subjectivity. Furthermore, this wasnt incompatible with punitive wars (Iraq, Afghanistan), civil wars (in dysfunctional African states), repression of the Palestinian Intifada, &c. So what is fascinating above all else in the Tunisian events is their historicity, they demonstrate that the capacity to create new forms of collective organisation is intact. The ensemble formed by the market economy and parliamentary democracy, an ensemble given as an insuperable norm, I propose to name: the West and this is what it calls itself. Among the other names in circulation, we note international community, civilisation (where it is opposed to, as its right, the diverse forms of barbarism, cf. the expression clash of civilisations), Western powers Remember that more than thirty years ago the only group who claimed this name Occident as their standard was a small group of fascists weilding iron bars (http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/History_of_far-right_movements_in_France#Party_of_New_Forces) (with whom I had to deal in my youth). That a names referent can change so dramatically can only mean that the world itself has changed. The world no longer has the same transcendental (http://abahlali.org/les/hallward_order_and_event.pdf) [pdf]. Are we in a time of riots? You could think that, seeing recent events in Greece, Iceland, England, Thailand (the coloured shirts), the hunger riots in Africa, the considerable workers riots in China. Also in France, there is something like a pre-riot tension; through phenomena like the factory occupations, people are on the verge of accepting riots. As an explanation, there is of course the systemic crisis of capitalism that became visible two or three years ago (and is far from nished) with its procession of social impasse, poverty, and the growing feeling that the system is not viable nor as magnicent as was previously said; the vacuity of political regimes has become manifest, service to the economic system is their only purpose (the save the banks episode was particularly demonstrative), which contributes greatly to their discrediting. In the same period, and precisely because they are the operators of systemic survival, states have taken dramatically reactionary measures in more and more areas (railways, post, schools, hospitals). Id like to try and locate these phenomena in the framework of a historical periodisation.

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In my opinion, the rioters disposition arises in interval periods [priodes intervallaires]. What is an interval period? There is a sequence in which revolutionary logic is claried and where it explicitly presents itself as an alternative, succeeded by an interval period where the revolutionary idea has not been passed on to anyone [dshrence], and in which it hasnt yet been taken up, a new alternative disposition has not yet been formed. During such periods the reactionaries can say, precisely because the alternative is impaired, that things have returned to their natural course. Characteristically, this is what happened in 1815 with the restorers of the Holy Alliance (http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Holy_Alliance). In interval periods, discontent exists but it cant be structured because it is unable to draw its force from a shared idea. Its power is essentially negative (make them go away). This is why the form of mass collective action in an interval period is the riot. Take the period 1820-1850: it was a grand period of riots (1830, 1848, the revolt of the Canuts of Lyon); but it doesnt mean they were sterile, they were haphazard [aveugle] but very fertile. The great global political orientations that were the hinge [vertbr] of the next century emerge from that period. Marx says it well: the French workers movement was one of the sources of his thought (beside German philosophy and English political economy). What are the criterion for evaluating riots? The particular problem of the riot, in as much as it calls state power into question, is that it exposes the state to political change (the possibility of its collapse), but it doesnt embody this change: what is going to change in the state is not pregured in the riot. This is the major difference with a revolution, which in itself proposes an alternative. That is the reason why, invariably, rioters have complained that a new regime is identical to an old one (its model, after the fall of Napoleon III, is the constitution on 4 September of a regime made up of the old political staff). Notice that the party, of the type [concept] that was created by the RSDLP then by the Bolsheviks, is a structure explicitly designed to constitute itself as an alternative power in place of the state. When the gure of the rioter becomes a political gure, i.e. when it has in itself the political body that it needs and recourse to an inveterate politics [aux vieux chevaux de la politique] becomes useless, we can say that that moment there is the end of the interval period. To return to the Tunisian riot, it is very likely that it is itself going to continue and divide itself by proclaiming that the gure of power that will be in place is so disconnected from the popular movement that it doesnt want it either. On what criteria, then, can we evaluate the riot? In the rst place, one must have a denite empathy towards the riot, this is an absolutely necessary condition. Another criterion is the recognition of its negative power, the hated power collapses at least symbolically. But what is afrmed? The Western press has already responded by saying that what was expressed there was a desire for the West. What we can afrm is that a desire for liberty is involved and that such a desire is without debate a legitimate desire under a regime both despotic and corrupt as was that of Ben Ali. How this desire as is a desire for the West is very uncertain. It must be remembered that the West as a power has so far given no proof that it cares in any way at all about organising liberty in the places where it intervenes. The account of the West is: are you walking with me or not?, giving the expression walk with me a
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signication internal to the market economy,** if necessary in collaboration with counterrevolutionary police. Friendly countries like Egypt or Pakistan are just as despotic and corrupt as was Tunisia under Ben Ali, but weve heard little expressed about it from those who have appeared, on the occasion of the Tunisian events, as ardent defenders of liberty. How can we dene a popular movement as reducible to a desire for the West? We could say, and this denition applies to any country, that it involves a movement that realises itself in the gure of the anti-despotic rioter whose negative and popular power takes the form of the crowd and whose afrmative power has no other norm than those the West invokes. A popular movement meeting this denition has every chance of ending in elections and there is no reason for another political perspective to develop. I claim that at the end of such a process, we will have witnessed the phenomena of Western inclusion. For what we call the Western press, this phenomena is the ineluctable result of the riots development. If it is true that, as Marx predicted, the space where emancipatory ideas are realised is a global space (which, incidentally, wasnt the case with the revolutions of the Twentieth Century), then the phenomena of Western inclusion cannot be part of genuine change. What would genuine change be? It would be a break with the west, a dewesternisation, and would take the form of an exclusion. A dream, you are thinking; but it is precisely a dream typical of an interval period like ours. If there were a different evolution than the evolution toward Western inclusion, what could that attest to? No formal response can be given here. We can simply say there is nothing in the analysis of the states process which, through long and torturous necessity, will eventually result in elections. What is required is a patient and careful inquiry among the people, in search of that which, after an inevitable process of division (because it is always the Two that carries a truth, and not the One), will be carried by a fraction of the movement, namely: declarations [des noncs]. What is stated can by no means be resolved within Western inclusion. If they are there, these declarations, they will be easily recognisable. It is under the condition of these new declarations that the development of the organisation of gures of collective action can be conceived. We return, to conclude, to empathy. The lesson to draw from the Tunisian events, the minimal lesson, is that what appears as unfailing stable can itself in the end collapse. And that is reassuring [plaisir], very reassuring [plaisir]. A. B. ended the lecture with a poem by B. Brecht In Praise of Dialectics, a poem with the nal line: And never will become before the day is out. * The fall of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe 20 years ago is not comparable. They fell with the consent of the USSR, this was symbolised in a meeting between the East German leader Honecker and his Russian guardians: when he asked their permission to re on the crowd (a necessary step for him), he was refused this permission. Change to the communist power structure was made by the same apparatchiks who installed themselves at the head of what remained of their system before it imploded.

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** [trans.] The French verb to walk is marcher and the French for Market Economy is lconomie de march; Badiou is playing on marcher and march here. Published: February 2, 2011 (2011-02-02T21:45:28+1000) Filed Under: Badiou, Alain, Politics, Translation

16 Responses to Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution

1. why egypt might in fact fail | m a n y f e s t o says: February 3, 2011 at 9:18 pm [...] Alain Badiou, 19 January 2011 [...] Reply 2. Realist Social Science, and Other News Speculative Heresy says: February 4, 2011 at 1:35 am [...] Alain Badiou, On Tunisia, Riots, and Revolution [...] Reply 3. Aindriu Macfehin says: February 4, 2011 at 1:48 pm Thanks for this. A Reply 4. Egypt says: February 4, 2011 at 8:29 pm Thank you for this translation. Reply 5. sumanasiri liyanage says: February 6, 2011 at 1:05 am it is brilliant and helps understanding the later events in the Arab World. Reply 6. Stateless society and the uprising in Egypt. says: February 6, 2011 at 11:45 am [...] have been reading the French philosopher Alain Badious recent talk Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution. As usual, this monumental thinker claries a lot of things in my opinion. Just reading his talk [...] Reply 7. Stateless society and the uprising in Egypt. Re: The People says: February 6, 2011 at 11:46 am [...] have been reading the French philosopher Alain Badious recent talk Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution. As usual, this monumental thinker claries a

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lot of things in my opinion. Just reading his talk [...] Reply 8. Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots and revolution radical africa says: February 7, 2011 at 4:12 pm [...] wrong + arithmetic [...] Reply 9. P2P Foundation Blog Archive Understanding the logic of intervallic periods, i.e. periods with riots, not revolutions says: February 8, 2011 at 3:05 pm [...] Alain Badiou (transcription excerpts): [...] Reply 10. estenfuertes.blogspot.com says: February 8, 2011 at 11:30 pm As Marx, and all the following ideolgists based on the x idea of the needs of capital, materials and state, had never felt or lived the reality of a person how is completly free of materials capital or resguard of the state. In the instant moment that you feel the weight of the machine thats the state, completly unnecesary when you are suffering or have a real human need. A person how grows surrended of the idea of materialsm and capital would never be able to cencibt a real free life, maybe yes picture it but this persons roots and aducation over all his life would be stronguer would be always an utpia, as its in all the capitalist till they suffer this despittment that I described. As Fisher described Bolsheviks, is a structure explicitly designed to constitute itself as an alternative power in place of the state. When the gure of the rioter becomes a political gure, i.e. when it has in itself the political body that it needs and recourse to an inveterate politics [aux vieux chevaux de la politique] becomes useless, we can say that that moment there is the end of the interval period. No utpia REALITY is possible and is much more easy than marx, evolution is anarchy. Reply 11. Badiou on the Revolution in the Arab World Kasama says: February 8, 2011 at 11:50 pm [...] Posted by tellnolies on February 8, 2011 from wrong+arithmetic [...] Reply 12. diagonal thoughts Blog Archive Change the World says: February 11, 2011 at 10:03 am [...] seminar Que signie changer le monde ? (What does change the world mean?), as found on Jonathon Collersons blog. It is not something Badiou has written out. Nevertheless, it gets across his, apparently, [...] Reply 13. Bad Boy Badiou Kapirasong Kritika says: February 15, 2011 at 1:29 am

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Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots & revolution wrong+arithmetic

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[...] kanyang pananalita tungkol sa kakatapos na pag-aalsang masa sa Tunisia, pinaksa ni Alain Badiou, pilosopong Pranses na [...] Reply 14. Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots and revolution (via wrong+arithmetic) Minimal ve Maksimal Yazlar says: February 25, 2011 at 12:55 am [...] Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots and revolution (via wrong+arithmetic) By Cengiz Erdem N.B. This is a rough translation of Daniel Fischer's transcription of the 19 January 2011 session of Alain Badiou's seminar What does "change the world" mean?. It is not something Badiou has written out. Nevertheless, it gets across his, apparently, impromptu comments on Tunisia, riots and revolution. It appears that Badiou correctly places the riot at the gateway of revolution and, in calling Tunisia "the weakest link" (Lenin re. Russia 1917), c Read More [...] Reply 15. R.A.Verlinden says: May 27, 2011 at 7:53 am Frapper frapper toujours 1848 Human duties instead of human rights. That means the fundamental duties of 1848 what is synonym to the fundamental rights of 1848. That means the duties of the kings and queens of Europe have to become daylight. With other words we dont have to speak in Brussels but with the invisible political powers in Strasbourg. The principles and the duties of the fundamental rights of 1848, should retrace our awareness and being incorporated into The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reply 16. Twitted by Rolpp says: September 5, 2011 at 11:39 am [...] This post was Twitted by Rolpp [...] Reply

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