Symbolic Violence? Pt 3

Genocide

Language does violence, we are told. The Other in all its imponderability deserves our unconditional respect, says the Levinasian. Thinking is violent when it chooses a single path and ignores the indeterminate flux, says Ned. Meanwhile, over at the UN, a discussion has been going on about how to respond to the crisis in Darfur. It seems that before a response can be properly planned a judgment needs to be made about what exactly is going on there. Some call it genocide but others (apparently) maintain it is simply an expression of ancient ethnic hatreds. This is not an idle terminological issue because if it is genocide then the UN is obliged to actively intervene, whereas if it is just a matter of ancient ethnic hatreds there is no such obligation, according to the official mandate of the organisation.

The problem at the UN has got nothing to do with the influence of Zizek, Levinas or Ned, but that difficult and absolutely necessary judgment is a test case for the people in question. Surely there should be no hesitation in calling the events in that east African hell hole "genocide". Do we show more respect to the alterity of the victims by saying: "It could be genocide, but then again it might just be ancient ethnic hatreds, and I suspect that seen from the perspective of the Tuareg, for instance, it is neither one nor the other - no, to be honest the issue is undecidable." Fuck, no!! It is genocide. The judgment must be made and something must be done. Thinking must take a very single path in this instance. And while we are at it, we need more cognition - more thinking and investigation - perhaps even a little science, to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes made in Ethiopia in '84 when the goodhearted Bob Geldof (who thankfully is not a Levinasian) unwittingly ended up helping the forced removal of entire populations from their homelands by the government.

It may be that even more investigation (more thinking!!) needs to be done in order to understand the wider context and avoid ignoring the underlying causes.

Judgments like the one about events in Darfur are frequently (perhaps always?) contentious and so open to dispute, but they have to be made. The discourse - the jargon - of indeterminacy, Alterity, flux, symbolic violence, etc, etc have a tendency to put a brake not only on thinking but also on action. There can seem to be little point investigating anything in depth if every category is suspect, partial, relative and violent - tainted with totalitarian intentions, and a definite judgment ends up being deferred and the spur to action is lost in the midst of a warm soup of indeterminacy. And in the meantime the genocide - the genocide, dammit! - goes on.