Series: Philosophers at War

The Derridian Performative & the Foundation of the Interim Transitional National Committee for Libya

By
1
10 October 2011
Libyan flag above the communications tower in Al Bayda, Libya 2011-07-17

In March of this year Jean-​Luc Nancy pub­lished an art­icle entitled “What the Arab Peoples Sig­nify to Us” in the Libéra­tion news­pa­per. The art­icle sup­por­ted the NATO lead mil­it­ary inter­ven­tion in Libya. Alain Badiou penned an acerbic response, claim­ing that Nancy had mis­read the situ­ation in Libya entirely. The upris­ing in Libya was not at all like the events we saw weeks earlier in Egypt and Tunisia: there were no mass protests or pro­longed occu­pa­tions; very few women were involved and hardly any ban­ners or flags of protest at the ral­lies; sud­denly weapons were cir­cu­lated amongst the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion; and very quickly a “rebel coun­cil” had emerged that claimed to rep­res­ent the anti-​Gaddafi move­ment. For Badiou, Nancy’s sup­port of the ...
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The End of Sovereignty, in North Africa, in the World

By
6
19 April 2011
Map used by Columbus

Spare a thought for Alain Badiou. He must be busy tend­ing to the sens­it­ive instru­ments of his evento-​graph. As with the seis­mo­graphs of late – all ‘revolu­tion­ary event’ detect­ors have had a busy time. The anti­cip­a­tion must also be dif­fi­cult to bear. Syria is unrav­el­ing. The Road to Dam­as­cus might soon yield another Paul, or indeed a Muhammad, and prefer­ably a Leila, as long as she is hold­ing aloft a ban­ner to which the European philo­sopher can show fidelity. In this blog and else­where the philo­soph­ers of Europe are hav­ing a fraternal spat. What is to be done, they won­der, in this mul­ti­polar world in dis­ar­ray about how to respond to ‘events’ that might become ‘ours’? They spec­u­late earn­estly about whether Arab states are truly sov­er­eign or ...
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Philosophers at War

By
3
11 April 2011
Libya Prayers

In times of con­front­a­tions between expli­citly mater­ial interests, and in the absence of any real pub­lic debate involving the Italian Gov­ern­ment (busy pro­tect­ing the orgy of power), what could be bet­ter than a proper exchange between internationally-​renowned philo­soph­ers, on the alleged neces­sity of a mil­it­ary inter­ven­tion in Libya? In an art­icle pub­lished on the 28th of March on Libéra­tion, Jean-​Luc Nancy defends the West­ern oper­a­tion. Bengazi insur­gents, he explains, are ask­ing us to defeat the ‘vile mur­derer’ Gad­dafi, and the West is called upon to assume the polit­ical respons­ib­il­ity for that desired change. Nancy believes that the non-​interventionists’ argu­ments – the poten­tial col­lat­eral risks of the oper­a­tion, the sus­pi­cions about the real interests at stake, the prin­ciple of non-​interference in the reserved domain ...
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Alain Badiou, Jean-​Luc Nancy, France, Libya and Me

By
1
5 April 2011
Libya oil soldier

In Alain Badiou’s open reply to Jean-​Luc Nancy, he chides Nancy for fall­ing into the trap that the NATO attacks on Libya were in any way designed to res­cue the insur­gents of Benghazi. Badiou is amazed that someone so informed about geo­pol­it­ics, and the cov­ert agenda of the French gov­ern­ment along with the other NATO allies should appear so naïve: How can you of all people fall into this trap? How can you accept any kind of ‘res­cue’ mis­sion being entrus­ted to those very people for whom the old situ­ation was the good one, and who abso­lutely want to get back into the game, by for­cible means, from motiv­a­tions of oil and hege­mony? Can you simply accept the ‘human­it­arian’ umbrella, ...
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Alain Badiou’s reply to Jean-​Luc Nancy

By
13
4 April 2011
Libya Prayers

The fol­low­ing is Alain Badiou’s full reply to Jean-​Luc Nancy’s “What the Arab peoples sig­nify to us”. With many thanks to Verso Books UK. Yes, dear Jean-​Luc, the pos­i­tion you adopt in favour of ‘West­ern’ inter­ven­tion in Libya was indeed a sorry sur­prise for me. Didn’t you notice right from the start the palp­able dif­fer­ence between what is hap­pen­ing in Libya and what is hap­pen­ing else­where? How in both Tunisia and Egypt we really did see massive pop­u­lar gath­er­ings, whereas in Libya there is noth­ing of the kind? An Arabist friend of mind has con­cen­trated in the last few weeks on trans­lat­ing the plac­ards, ban­ners, posters and flags that were such a fea­ture of the Tunisian and Egyp­tian demon­stra­tions: he couldn’t find ...
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What the Arab peoples signify to us

By
15
31 March 2011
Libya Prayers

The Arab peoples are sig­ni­fy­ing to us that res­ist­ance and revolt are with us once again, and that his­tory is mov­ing bey­ond His­tory. They are doing it, as is appro­pri­ate, with all the for­tune and mis­for­tune that it involves. At the very least they have sent an irre­vers­ible sig­nal whose effects we can expect to see across Africa and in the odi­ous per­petu­ation of the drama on Canaan’s ancient land. In one of the places where we least expec­ted this revolt to occur, a leader of the gang (offi­cially, of the State) crushes it, ready to liquid­ate who­ever neces­sary of his sup­posed people. Mean­while, other States strike at their own rebels quite force­fully, some­times with the help of a power­ful Arab ...
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