THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY TWO CENTURIES ON PAGE 8

MAY 2006

Silent thought

BY IGNACIO RAMONET

‘WITHDRAW, MOVE ON AND RAMPAGE’

Iraq’s resistance evolves

ONCE again, during the recent revolt against the First Employment

Contract, the enthusiasm and dynamism evident on French

streets were in marked contrast with the disconcerting silence of French thinkers

and writers. The same was true during the November riots in the banlieues. There was

a lot of chattering, but few, other than such rare figures as Jean Baudrillard and John

Berger, were able to read the events, uncover their deeper significance and suggest what

they might portend. With no relevant or encouraging diagnosis forthcoming, society

was left in the dark about its symptoms and in danger of succumbing to further crises.

In France an intellectuel is defi ned as someone who uses a reputation in science, the arts

or culture to mobilise public opinion in support of causes that he or she regards as just.

In modern states, it has been the role of the intellectual for two centuries to make sense of

social trends, illuminating the path towards greater liberty and less alienation. What the recent crises have demonstrated is how much we miss the analytical intelligence

of Pierre Bourdieu, Cornelius Castoriadis and Jacques Derrida, to name three great thinkers

no longer with us. A sense of loss has inspired us to examine the current war of ideas. Are

there any real thinkers left, or has the media explosion shattered their authority? Why (as

if the hatred of fascists and the aversion of the American right were not enough) do such

writers as Bernard-Henri Lévy indulge in exhibitionist self-destructiveness? There is a

central issue here — the way in which, in publishing and the universities, private interests

are enlisting prestigious thinkers as allies in an ideological struggle.

Here are a few thoughts on the subject from some major thinkers in the past. First, Michel

Foucault (1): “For a long time, ‘leftwing’ intellectuals spoke out as masters of truth and jus

tice . . . They were heard, or claimed the right to be heard, as representatives of the univer

sal. To be an intellectual was to be, to a degree, the conscience of all. But it is many years since

intellectuals were called upon to fulfi l this role. Intellectuals became used to operating,

not within the universal, the exemplary, the just-and-true-for-all, but in given sectors, in

the specifi c contexts where their own working or living conditions situated them . . . Work

ing in such situations undoubtedly gave them a far more concrete and immediate awareness

of struggle. And there they encountered problems that were specifi c, not universal, and

often diff erent from those of the proletariat. I would argue that this brought them closer

to the masses, since these were real, material, everyday struggles in the course of which

they often encountered, albeit in a diff erent form, the same enemy (the multinationals, the

police and legal machines, property specula

GALLERIE LO UIS CARRÉ ET CIE

HENRI CUECO: Divers (1947)

tion) as the urban and rural proletariat. That

is what I mean by ‘specifi c’, as opposed to the ‘universal’, intellectual.”

Then there is Gilles Deleuze on what to do with ideas (2): “A theory is exactly like a tool

box. It must serve some purpose. It must work, and not just for its own sake. If there is no one

to use it, starting with the theorist, who thus becomes a practitioner, it is either worthless

or its time has not yet come. You do not go back to a theory, you make others and there

are always more to be made.” Pierre Bourdieu (3) proposes a new and

radical thinktank: “Many historians have highlighted the role played by thinktanks in

the production and imposition of the neoliberal ideology that now rules the world.

To counter the work of these expert groups, appointed by our rulers, we need the help of

critical networks . . . They should form autonomous intellectual collectives, capable of defi n

ing their own objectives and the limits to their agenda and action.

“Groups should start with negative criticism, producing and disseminating tools

to defend us against symbolic domination, increasingly backed by the authority of

science. Drawing on the strength aff orded by their collective skills and authority, such

groups can subject the dominant message to logical criticism, targeting its vocabulary, also

its arguments. They may subject it to sociological criticism by highlighting the factors infl u

encing the people who produce the dominant message, starting with journalists. They may

counter the supposedly scientifi c claims of experts, particularly in the fi eld of economics.

“The whole structure of critical thought for political purposes needs rebuilding. This

cannot be the work of just one great thinker, locked in solitary thought, or the appointed

spokesperson of some body, speaking on behalf of all those deprived of the means to

speak. On the contrary, intellectual collectives can play an essential role, helping to lay the

foundations in society for the collective production of realistic utopias.”

TRANSLATED BY DONALD HOUNAM

AND HARRY FORSTER

(1) Dits et écrits II, 1976-88 , Gallimard, Paris, 2001.

(2) “Les Intellectuels et le pouvoir,” Arc , no 49, Aix-en

Provence, May 1972.

(3) Contre-feux 2 , Raisons d’Agir, Paris, 2001.

Iraq is simultaneously descending into both a civil war and a war of resistance against foreign occupation. The United States has been hoping to exploit the divide between Iraqi patriots and global jihadists, but the Sunni opposition is growing more structured and unifi ed as it adapts to changing conditions, and may transcend those divisions.

BY MATHIEU GUIDÈRE AND PETER HARLING

DESCRIPTIONS of Iraq’s armed

opposition often divide it into a set of wholly independent categories

which apparently do not have much in common. The categories include the

patriotic former army officers, the foreign terrorists, the Sunni Arabs determined to

regain power, the Muslims opposed to any kind of foreign occupation, the tribal factions

pursuing their own specific vendettas, the die-hard Ba’athists — and the “pissed-off”

Iraqis (in coalition soldier jargon, POIs) who are simply sick of the foreign forces

occupying their country. While a few key fi gures have emerged, such

as the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the former Saddam acolyte Izzat Ibrahim

al-Douri, they do not appear as uncontested leaders. The armed opposition has not set up

any kind of civilian political representation, as the Northern Irish republicans did with Sinn

Fein, for example. Nor have they published a specifi c political programme. So the dominant

image remains that of a diff use and largely anonymous multitude. But though that per

ception may have been accurate in 2003, the opposition has come a long way since then.

Broadly speaking, the change can be seen as a form of stabilisation. At fi rst the opposi

tion was multi-confessional and represented a cross-section of Iraqi society as a whole. But

it has grown more focused as the political landscape has polarised, and it is now almost

exclusively Sunni Arab. A number of large, easily recognisable groups have emerged,

further simplifying the situation. The most

important of these are the Islamic army, Tanzim al- Qaida fi balad al-rafi dein (the

organisation of alQaida in the land of the two rivers); the Army of the Partisans of the Tradi

tion of the Prophet; and the Army of Muhammad. There are others (1). Increasingly, each

of these groups dominates certain specifi c, clearly defi ned geographical areas. There

are still pockets of confusion as to who has the upper hand where (one example is in the

Diyala governorate near Baghdad) but these are now exceptions.

One area where the opposition is particularly settled is the al-Anbar governorate in

northwestern Iraq. Here Iraqi aid workers negotiate safe passages with opposition leaders

via what is almost an institutional process. A formal procedure is in place for lorry drivers

to pay an insurance fee that allows them to cross the governorate, as long as they are not

supplying the enemy. Each insurgent group has its own business

identity, cultivated through sophisticated communications techniques that use both

audiovisual and printed materials easily recognisable by their logos and standardised

presentation. No group is ever short of things to say about its own aims, analysis of the con

fl ict, military performance or tactical recommendations.

An analysis of recent communications production reveals another form of stabilisation.

Continued on page 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Syria: the West doesn’t want it to be a genuine democracy page 3

Peak oil: our enormous problems of global energy security page 4

Algeria: where the slogan is ‘Do business not politics’ page 6

United States: television’s soft sell for the terror of torture page 6

Chechnya: normal life will not come back any time soon page 10

United States: marketing big pharma to healthy people page 12

France: the graduate underclass scrabbles for a living page 13

Why science wasn’t the invention of the western world page 14

Courtesy of Islam, the spectacle of the extremely small page 14

Sheikh Imam, still the musical sound of Arab defi ance page 16