Archive of Jean-Luc Nancy
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Full Communism
There are Reds under the bed. Or in the academies. Or worse: about to spill into the streets. So warns Alan Johnson in World Affairs, the esteemed Washington-based international affairs journal. Tracing the rising profile of a group of authors such as Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels and Slavoj Žižek and the popularity of their books, the columnist outlines what he sees as a nascent threat lurking in the incendiary words of Terry Eagleton and Toni Negri.
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An open letter from Alain Badiou to Jean-Luc Nancy
Alain Badiou responds to Jean-Luc Nancy's Libération article "What the Arab peoples signify to us":
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 a single example of these in Libya, not even in Benghazi. One very striking fact about the Libyan ‘rebels', which I'm surprised you didn't note, is that you don't see a single woman, whereas in Tunisia and Egypt women are very visible. Didn't you know that the French and British secret services have been organising the fall of Gaddafi since last autumn? Aren't you amazed that, in contrast to all the other Arab uprisings, weapons of unknown origin emerged in Libya? That bands of young people immediately began firing volleys in the air, something inconceivable elsewhere? Weren't you struck by the emergence of a supposed ‘revolutionary council' led by a former accomplice of Gaddafi, whereas nowhere else was there any question of the masses who had risen up appointing some people as a replacement government?
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"What the Arab peoples signify to us" by Jean-Luc Nancy
Jean-Luc Nancy's Libération article on intervention in Libya:
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.