bcbm
8th March 2011, 02:20
"The Great Springtime of the Arab Peoples; "revolution on the march"; "democratic transition; "end of dictatorship." The great discourse machines have been switched on, and theyve got to be kept working full-time in order to present the overthrow of the pro-western regimes of the Maghreb as new victories for the West, as an unexpected victory for its values.
The revolutionary fervor that has recently overtaken the most prudent of editorialists first of all shows the intense immune-system reaction that the events have brought about within the dominant discourse. A violent paroxysm of pro-orientalism has popped up now, to put a kind of containment zone between us and the uprisings taking place as quickly as possible; and people marvel at these revolutions, so as to all the better sidestep the obvious facts they bring up so plainly so as to all the better dissolve the unrest they stir in us.
Whatever illusions theyre trying to preserve must be pretty important to them for them to go making apologies about the insurrection as much as they have, glorifying the non-violence of a movement that burned 60% of Egypts police stations. What a nice surprise the primary information channels are apparently now being run by friends of the people!
When the insurgents on the other side of the Mediterranean say: "Before, we were like the living dead; now we have awakened," that means that we, who do not rise up in revolt ourselves are the living dead; we ourselves are asleep. When they say: "Before, we lived like animals, we lived in fear. Now we have rediscovered our confidence in ourselves, in our strength, in our intelligence," that means that we ourselves are living like animals, we who are so obviously governed by our fears.
Those who today paint the pitiless dictatorship of the atrocious Ben Ali in such dark and gloomy colors found him to be quite pleasant company just yesterday. They were lying then and theyre lying now. Michle Alliot-Maries mistake is right there: in a few sentences spoken at the National Assembly she revealed that behind all their schoolboy dissertations about the difference between their dictatorships and our democracies, is hidden the continuity of police power through all the regimes; its just that some are certainly more expert at it and less rough about it.
continued:
http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/14177
The revolutionary fervor that has recently overtaken the most prudent of editorialists first of all shows the intense immune-system reaction that the events have brought about within the dominant discourse. A violent paroxysm of pro-orientalism has popped up now, to put a kind of containment zone between us and the uprisings taking place as quickly as possible; and people marvel at these revolutions, so as to all the better sidestep the obvious facts they bring up so plainly so as to all the better dissolve the unrest they stir in us.
Whatever illusions theyre trying to preserve must be pretty important to them for them to go making apologies about the insurrection as much as they have, glorifying the non-violence of a movement that burned 60% of Egypts police stations. What a nice surprise the primary information channels are apparently now being run by friends of the people!
When the insurgents on the other side of the Mediterranean say: "Before, we were like the living dead; now we have awakened," that means that we, who do not rise up in revolt ourselves are the living dead; we ourselves are asleep. When they say: "Before, we lived like animals, we lived in fear. Now we have rediscovered our confidence in ourselves, in our strength, in our intelligence," that means that we ourselves are living like animals, we who are so obviously governed by our fears.
Those who today paint the pitiless dictatorship of the atrocious Ben Ali in such dark and gloomy colors found him to be quite pleasant company just yesterday. They were lying then and theyre lying now. Michle Alliot-Maries mistake is right there: in a few sentences spoken at the National Assembly she revealed that behind all their schoolboy dissertations about the difference between their dictatorships and our democracies, is hidden the continuity of police power through all the regimes; its just that some are certainly more expert at it and less rough about it.
continued:
http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/14177