Ghassan Hage began by
confessing his ambivalence about giving the talk because after many
years of speaking about the Arab-Israel conflict he had found he always
ended up in spaces where he doesn't want to end up.
He explained why he
finds it difficult to speak about Gaza AS AN ACADEMIC, because he
believes the priority of an academic is to say something that makes a
difference.
The job of an academic
is not to provide intellectual ammunition to one side or the other, it
is rather to provide ANOTHER view – “a view that comes from nowhere”.
(And in general he prefers the “safety” of writing, where people can
“wriggle” about his views in the privacy of their own homes.)
He also has serious
doubts about whether it’s possible to communicate at all on the subject
of Gaza. “Some topics are structurally uncommunicable.”
He wants to speak in a
way that subscribes to an academic, and not a political logic. “The
political in this domain is such an incredible colonising machine” – it
takes everything and makes it a slave of itself. Whereas he doesn’t
want to speak in a way that allows a partisan of one side or the other
to say, triumphally, “He’s mine!”
The political is the
logic of friend and enemy and the academic is not a logic of friend and
enemy. He wants to get beyond the kind of talk where a listener simply
says the lecturer is a good person because he agrees with what the
listener already knows. The capacity to challenge is important.
He criticises
“confirmationist intellectuals”,
those who get their kudos by confirming "common sense", ie what their
target audience already knows, where the audience says, “You're good
because you say what I believe and you say it so well”.
Sometimes unsubtle
things need to be said and he wants to say an unsubtle thing.
Gaza is a permanent
state of criminality.
It is not what happens
in Gaza, not the invasion of Gaza, not an event in Gaza, not something
abnormal between two polarities of normality, but Gaza itself is a
permanent state of criminality. “I cannot be more subtle about it. To
attempt more subtlety would be to diminish my humanity and I don’t want
to diminish my humanity”.
Furthermore, even
discussing whether the invasion was moral or justified or not -- that
itself is also a western form of self-indulgence. He cannot relate to
a discussion as to whether the Israeli attack on Gaza was ethical or
not.
"To me, it's so
beyond—beyond the bloody obvious" That's what he means by not subtle.
What happened in Gaza is unacceptable "by any standards of our
humanity".
Self indulgence also
because of what he called "post exterminatory existential angst". This
angst that white people -- not 'white' in terms of colour but as he
defines it in his book White Nation, see
http://bit.ly/gQ38yw -- 'white' as a cultural attitude:
this existential angst that comes after the killing has become itself a
modality of racial distinction.
Once westerners claimed
they didn't do massacres but "third world" peoples did, today westerners
say: We do massacres, the difference is we suffer existential angst
afterwards. "We bombed the shit out of Iraq, and then we can have
investigations -- we're good at having investigations, after the
killings. The "third world" people "suffer from a lack of investigatory
impulse that produces existential angst".
He discusses the
limitations of such a view by referencing the Israeli film Waltz with
Bashir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir
; also see
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185616/
; and through the story of a Lebanese colleague who suffered, and
overcame, psychological trauma as a result of participating in the
killing at Sabra and Shatila.
“We are talking about a
situation that is going to haunt us.”
Not just about an
event. "When I say Gaza is a criminal state of affairs, I'm not just
describing something: I am saying 'And it will haunt us' just
like the Holocaust haunts us, and let me immediately rush to say that I
am NOT comparing Gaza to the Holocaust, I am saying it will function [in
a similar way], I am definitely not saying anything comparative
in this sense. I am not saying the Israelis are committing atrocities
in Gaza similar to the atrocities that happened in the Holocaust. And I
don't want to say it, not just to be polite, I don't want to say it
because I don't think it is correct empirically to say it".
How is something like
Gaza produced? "I don't believe there are nasty people, I am a
seriously naive person like this." For example he can't agree with
those who think and say that the Palestinians, or Hamas specifically,
are "evil". He looks at them and sees people struggling to make sense,
to help, to do politics.
He can't think of
anyone whose politics are further removed from his own than Netanyahu’s,
which are everything Hage doesn't like, nevertheless he can't relate to
people who think that Netanyahu is evil. "He's just a guy struggling to
come up with something in a situation that he's in"
Hage “can't find his
way through accusatory politics” to answer the question what makes Gaza
possible. He wants to be as analytical as he can.
He starts with,
"Gaza is the product of two impossibilities and two dead ends".
It is the product of
the impossibility of a Zionist state as a normal state, that is, the
impossibility of its ever becoming "just a normal state" -- without its
struggling for -- "something". And it is the product of the
impossibility of anti-colonial politics, of Palestinian politics.
"The two share together
the yearning for a nation-state, and I'd like to advance that what we
are seeing there is basically the end of the road for the nation-state,
it is the limit of the nation-state, it is where the nation-state can go
nowhere, it failed."
Zionists are
nationalists, people who are struggling to create "a homely space"
in Israel. "They have
historical arguments to make themselves feel at home, they have
practices that they engage in to feel at home ... they're trying to feel
at home. The problem is of course that when you're trying to feel at
home in a nation-state, you remove unhomely things. I don't have to
essentialize Zionists as racists, I don't think that Zionists are
different from any other nationalists.
Zionism is a form of
nationalism, full stop -- operating in specific conditions. And
whatever Zionists do is whatever any nationalist would do [in a similar
situation].
At this point Hage
projected on the screen the following quotation from Herzl:
National Domestication
‘... if we wish to
found a State today, we shall not do it in the way which would have been
the only possible one a thousand years ago. It is foolish to revert to
old stages of civilization, as many Zionists would like to do.
Supposing, for example,
we were obliged to clear a country of wild beasts, we should not set
about the business in the fashion of Europeans of the fifth century. We
should not take spear and lance and go about singly in pursuit of bears;
we should organize a large and active hunting party, drive the animals
together, and throw a melinite bomb in their midst.’
— Theodor Herzl,
The Jewish State
Hage continued
"Remember, I'm not interested in scoring, in saying Look at the
baddy”. He is saying that this is the picture, the form of ANY
nationalism that you will find. But he adds, “It is a very interesting
quote, historically because when Herzl wrote it ... he was not sure
where this state would be". Possibilities included Latin America,
Uganda ...
What is also
interesting at this period of Zionism is that Zionists are
"practical-theoretical nationalists", ie not simply sitting theorising
as other nationalists were at the time. Zionists wanted a practical
outcome. What did they need for this to happen?
Why would someone about
to imagine a nation think about rounding up and blowing up bears,
beasts? "What is it about the nationalist imagination which makes
ANYONE who dreams about a nation, not just Zionists, anyone, say "So how
am I going to get rid of the wolf, the beasts? What are these beasts?"
His conclusion (and the
major part of Hage's work has had to do with nationalism) is that "nationalism
is inherently politicidal", using the terminology of the late
Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling. 'Politicide' is killing the
political will of a group. It's not about genocide or ethnocide, it's
to do with killing the political will.
"The 'beast' is not the
presence of the group, but a *Will* that can be hostile to your
Will within the nation, it is that hostile Will of the Other that might
stop you from feeling at home in your nation-state, and you want to
eradicate it. What I'm saying is that ALL nationalisms are inherently
politicidal, they cannot allow a political will other than the national
will, these are the 'beasts' that nationalists always have to
eradicate."
So nationalism is
always narcissistic in the sense that it always involves a cutting-off
of relations with the Other.
"Me!" -- "this 'me'
modality of thinking", always a part of nationalistic thinking, became
part of colonialism, but also part of ANTI-colonialism.
It wasn't simply that
colonial projects failed, anti-colonial projects failed too. He refers
to countries that "popped out" in the struggle against colonialism and
"ended up being such majestic flops".
He cites the example of
Algeria and quotes those impeccably ardent nationalists who nevertheless
now ask such questions as, "Would we have been historically better off
not to have engaged in an anti-colonial struggle [against France]?"
Genuine nationalists who seriously ask this question must say something
about the limitations of a history of anti-colonialism.
This is a history that
says, "I am a victim, I have been oppressed, I have been disempowered,
and the aim is for me to re-empower myself again. The aim is me. I was
weak, I want to become strong.
"I call it narcissism
because ... colonialism is a relation, and a bad relation ... and I
would have preferred anti-colonialism to have been about making a bad
relation into a good relation, not about making disempowered people
powerful". The problem, as Hage sees it, with such empowering projects
is that "it avoids the relation".
What is important
becomes not how to develop a better relation, but the declaration "I'm
not gonna be messed again with, mate!" -- "I'm not going to let a
situation happen where I am not in control of myself". This is the
anti-racism related to the nationalist narcissism of which he's talking.
He finds it "aflame" in
Israel today and in Palestine.
Israeli nationalism is
a hybrid of both colonial narcissism and anti-colonial narcissism.
He doesn't subscribe to
the view that Zionism is colonialism -- and he makes rather a subtle
distinction. The Zionist project was not itself inherently colonial,
although it could not have been implemented without a pre-existing
mechanics of colonialism. You can sit and dream about having a state,
but actually implementing the dream requires a mechanism.
The ideology of Zionism
realised itself through the mechanism that creates colonialism but was
not itself inherently colonial -- it did not have fantasies of
colonising people, or of having supremacy in the way that traditional
colonialism had: Zionism was, "I want to be at home in this space,
that's it".
"It's one thing to make
yourself believe credibly that you're going to have a Nation-STATE where
you ruled the land 2000 years ago -- and another thing to bring such
dreams into reality." The mechanics of power needed for this is a
colonial mechanics.
Zionism has carried the
narcissism which is part of every nationalism, but also what he has just
described, the anti-racist narcissism "with a vengeance"
-- "I'm not going to be messed with again". "I am not going to be in a
situation again where I am made an object in the way the racists made
me: I am going to have a space where I control my destiny” ... and so
on. Such formulations are a part of all anti-colonial dreams.
This is the interesting
narcissistic hybrid that Zionism represents.
And it is always
interesting how along with such narcissistic dreamings come fantasies of
omnipotence.
He refers to
psychoanalytic theories on this link between narcissistic fantasies and
fantasies of omnipotence -- "I am not going to be weak, I am going to be
ALL-powerful".
The history of this
fantasy of omnipotence in Israel has been crucial, because no people
have ever come close to, as it were, "caressing" their fantasies of
omnipotence as much as the Israelis have. No-one else (Hage says)
comes close to thinking that omnipotence is possible -- they keep
thinking of it as something which "can happen"—somewhere … in the future
...
But Israel had a taste
of omnipotence in 1967 - during and after that year’s war, they had a
sense that omnipotence was a real possibility, and this has become part
of the way Israeli governments legitimise themselves to their
populations. People began believing that this IS the function of Israel
-- "I am here because the government of Israel is going to give me
omnipotence".
The necessity for
feelings of omnipotence, the need to commit politicide, mean that there
is an inability to live with another who constitutes even a minimum of
danger to me. He gives this hypothetical example: as an Australian,
I have to live with the possibility that China, or that Indonesia, might
constitute a danger to me. I can live with that, I adapt to danger, I
don't say (belligerently), "I am not going to rest until I can look at
eg China etc and know that no danger emanates from there at all". "I
live with the danger, it might be true it might be not, it's me who is
imagining the possibility."
It's THE UNCERTAINTY OF
THE OTHER, "can I live with the uncertainty of the Other", and
narcissism is precisely this inability to live with the uncertainty of
the Other.
Some examples of
Israeli political rhetoric, illustrative of how this kind of thinking
and the language of power came out during the war on Gaza:
"Wiping Hamas out".
The idea of "wiping" ... You might hear or read this and think not much
of it, but the idea that someone can think this way, can speak like
this, what kind of imagination lies behind such rhetoric?
For Israel "the first
task is smashing Hamas" -- "to smash" -- this is the language of power.
Hage quotes from
Nietzsche, saying it is important to distinguish Will to Power, and
Sense of Power.
"Sense of power" is my
subjective feeling of what power I have, an evaluation of my power -- I
do not have an objective evaluation of it.
I can have an amount of
power, x, and may feel that my power is rising: in such a circumstance,
says Nietzsche, I can "deploy power magnanimously".
That is to say, perhaps
some small inconsequential thing is irritating me, but because I am
feeling my strength, even that my power is increasing, I can act
magnanimously towards this silly little thing.
However I can have
exactly the same amount of power, objectively, yet feel subjectively
that my power is declining, and then I don't act in the same way in the
face of the same source of irritation -- it no longer feels trivial, it
no longer even, through its insignificance, contributes to my sense of
power, it has become a threat.
So it's not the amount
of power I have, but my sense of that power. Relate this to Israel. A
lot of Israelis have put their trust in Netanyahu to make sure that
Israel becomes omnipotent again. The political gain for Netanyahu is
how he can make people think that Israel is going to be unbreakably
secure.
The crisis of
omnipotence in Israel, which led to the invasion of Gaza, is connected
partly and importantly to what happened in South Lebanon, and with the
Israeli discourse of "regaining the Israeli deterrence capacity".
He quotes a
representative of Israeli National Security: "There has been a nagging
sense of uncertainty in the last couple of years as to whether anyone is
really afraid of Israel any more". The idea is, How can we exist if
they are not afraid of us?
The State of Israel
throughout the Gaza crisis tried to represent itself as "a normal
state", for example: "Would any normal state accept having this kind of
stuff on its border?" Hage says, "The talk of 'normality' is
constantly introduced".
This is the pathology:
because "what should go without saying does not go without saying, you
know that it doesn't go without saying!" When the announcement was
recently made, "You must recognise Israel as a Jewish state", who
seriously believed that if people agreed to say that, the problems would
be all over?
There are indeed
countries that dispossessed others, but they don't go around asking
others to recognise them. For example the Australian state doesn't say
to the indigenous peoples that they'll stop healthcare and wont deal
with any of their problems until they recognise that Australia exists.
"It goes without saying that Australia exists: it goes without saying."
"And it seems to me
that the tragedy of the Israeli state is that its existence does not go
without saying. This is what I mean by its impossibility. It has
reached its limit as a modality of becoming a nation-state. And it's
not anybody's fault."
You could do an
historical study and say maybe the implementation of the project started
too late in the history of nation-states, "you might say it's done in a
bad region for God's sake, why couldn't you find somewhere where there's
less Arabs around you ... you could argue many things about why this
project has reached a dead end".
“My point is not just
that the Israelis are in a dead end, my point is that the Palestinians
just as much as the Israelis embody, today, the dead end of the national
project. The Palestinians embody the dead end of the anti-colonial
project as it has been perceived, as it has been dreamt, as a
narcissistic attempt to regain power -- the idea that ‘We need a nation,
in order to feel good again’.”
"Who bloody needs
another nation in the middle east, I'm not sure. Why the hell do we
need another nation in the middle east, you will need to convince me."
"Two narcissisms are
not going to take us anywhere. And that's where I feel that the job of
intellectuals is to think from somewhere else. But we are talking about
seriously radicalising our thinking about the whole nation-state regime,
what does it mean?”
“I know that the
nation-state has been fantastic and has done a lot of good things, I'm
not being ironic. But I also accept the empirical reality that there
are many places where it has reached its limits, and we have to think
beyond it, and to me what is important is the relational imperative,
that is, how do you made bad relations good relations?”
"I look at Israel,
Palestine, and I say this is a group of Israelis having a bad relation
with a group of Palestinians. I am no longer interested in helping
either the Israelis or the Palestinians to feel secure, or empowered, or
fight anti-colonialism ... [The fact is] they are stuck with each other
and [I want to ask] how can we make a bad relation a good relation?"
"Thinking relationally,
not thinking in terms of entities."
----------------
Transcribed and
extracts selected by Brian Robinson
ASKE
