Spectres of Marcos (a harebrained note)

The thought of Jacques Derrida is the foundation of Gayatri Spivak’s ‘impossible necessity of unlearning privilege’.  Subcomandante Marcos, as un mestizo norteño, regularly describes his own process of simultaneously being required to unlearn his privilege (‘when I first came to the jungle, I had to let go of my revolutionary ideals and shut up and listen’) as well as to own it (‘I am asked to be the translator, the bridge between worlds’).

I imagine them in dialogue, laying bare a ground zero of global justice movement: the ‘new international’ (Derrida) that ‘comes from below’ (Marcos).

‘The New International’, writes Derrida in Specters of Marx, ‘is … a link of affinity, … an untimely link, without title, and without name.’

The Zapatistas and their supporters are all ‘human beings … who are yearning and working for a better world, one where all worlds fit’. We have our own time: ‘calendars of births and deaths, calendars of payments, calendars of national celebrations, calendars of trips by officials, calendars of government sessions. As if there were no other calendars. For example: the calendar of resistance. Or perhaps that one is not spoken of because it demands a great deal and does not look like much.’

Australia: past to present

KEVIN RUDD: I think anyone who’s mindful of Australia’s immigration history knows that there are always times in our history when some of these frictions bubble to the surface and then they are dealt with often within our uniquely Australian way, often round a barbecue. The early days of settlement, the English were very suspicious of the Irish. Your mob came here, the O’Briens.

KERRY O’BRIEN: I think the O’Briens came voluntarily, but go on.

KEVIN RUDD: Oh, well, unlike our mob who didn’t. But, the English were suspicious of the Irish. You roll on a century, you come to the post-War migration boom. The Anglo-Celtic block were concerned about those coming from southern Europe – the Greeks and the Italians. That all sorted itself out within a generation. Come the ‘70, and ’80s, the European block were concerned about the arrival of those from South-East Asia, and more recently from East Asia and South Asia. That’s sorting itself through and by and large has sorted itself through. You see, this has happened at various points of our history. And in all settlement countries around the world – the United States, the great melting pot, Canada, New Zealand – we have it within our wit and wisdom and historical experience to do this well and I believe we’ll continue to do so in the future.

Discussion of activism/fetishism

Interlocution on the pamphlet I distro’d in December, reproduced below:

Pat: I think your analysis is spot on about the utility of ironic fetishiation in activism. (…) However I’m not actually sure that the fetishization you identify in contemporary activism is actually being performed ironically. For example, I think that the sign “footy fans against injustice” may well have been a serious attempt to engage in media management and intervene in discourses around democracy and protest. And I love the tranny cops, but I think you could apply to them post-marxist theories of pop-music and get a long way towards explaining why they do what they do. (there was a Marxist theory of pop on JJJ yesterday, go GFC!). I think also that the references to the carnivalesque dynamics of ’68 are a reflection of fetishization of performace activism. Throughout Eastern Europe and Latin America- where these movements were most powerful- the cultural dynamics were downplayed if favour of political economy- the same can even be said of the situationalists if you take into account their rational for their spectacular actions.

Ana Australiana: … I think it’s true and importantly so that activism à la footy fans and tranny cops is not necessarily performed with irony in mind. It’s just my reading of it, within the theoretical framework of ‘activism as fetishism’ that I’ve attempted to generate. Hopefully my use of this framework allows for other readings of these actions (especially from the viewpoint of the ‘actors’ themselves), and that it remains robust enough whilst doing so.

Global city

“With the increasing magnetism of the city for capital and culture, groups who cannot afford to participate, such as the unemployed, the poor and the homeless, are forced into increasingly marginal spaces, unable to secure refuges or permanence as the city turns itself inside out, filling every derelict or under-used site with high-rise apartment buildings. Once the crucible for the modernist dream of unassimilated togetherness, of encounters with strangers and the frisson of disorder, the city is now an increasingly purified and fortified space – a landscape of insiders and outsiders.”

- Fiona Allon, Renovation Nation, p.176

Credit in the straight world*

“I’m OK looking; in fact, if you put, say, Mel Gibson on one end of the looks spectrum and say, Berky Edmonds from school, whoe grotesque ugliness was legendary on the other, then I reckon I’d be on Mel’s side, just….

I’m average height, not slim, not fat, no unsightly facial hair, I keep myself clean, wear jeans and T-shirts and a leather jacket more or less all the time apart from in the summer, when I leave the leather jacket at home. I vote Labour. I have a pile of classic comedy videos – Python, Fawlty Towers, Cheers and so on. I can see what feminists are on about, most of the time, but not the radical ones.

My genius, if I can call it that, is to combine a whole load of averageness into one compact frame. I’d say that there were millions like me, but there aren’t, really: lots of blokes have impeccable music taste but don’t read, lots of blokes read but are really fat, lots of blokes are sympathetic to feminism but have stupid beards, lots of blokes have a Woody Allen sense of humour but look like Woody Allen. Lots of blokes drink too much, lots of blokes behave stupidly when they drive cars, lots of blokes get into fights, or show off about money, or take drugs. I don’t do any of these things, really; if I do OK with women it’s not because of the virtues I have, but because of the shadows I don’t have.”

- Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

*with thanks to Courtney Love.

Mercantilist holiday reading

“Old Monsieur de la Bertellière used to call investments ‘throwing money away’, finding more profit in the contemplation of his gold than in any interest on a loan. The town of Saumur, therefore, assessed the value of the estate according to an estimate of the amount that could have been saved of the yearly income, and Monsieur Grandet found himself the possessor of a new title to nobility, and one that our present passion for equality will never abolish – he paid more taxes than anyone else in the whole district.” – Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac, 1834 (trans. M.A Crawford 1974).

Activism as fetishism

The little pamphlet is read/y. Merry Christmas comrades.

Randwick: giving in Struggletown

I had to go to to the big shopping centre in Randwick today (and not because there’s a library inside).  At about once every metre I was advised that giving is both pure and feelgood:

That sign behind the glass door is for this here vet surgery:

An open letter to Jarvis Cocker

Dear Jarvis,

I went to your gig in Sydney on Monday night at the Metro. It’s forty-eight hours later and well, I can’t stop thinking about you.

For the bookish teenage girl who discovered you whilst doing work experience at the newspaper, this would have meant something far more innocent.

But now that I am pushing thirty and – good grief – have a PhD in gender and cultural studies, there’s ever so much more to consider than your sexy voice, your way with words, your dreamy optometry and how isn’t it funny that you look a bit like my boyfriend. (Well, you didn’t then, because I didn’t have a boyfriend then. But you catch my drift).

His name’s Dave. He was at the gig too. Afterwards, we held hands in bed and reflected on our night with you and a good few hundred other fans.

Jarvis, what’s up with your audience? Were they always like that; always more Glastonbury laddish lout than T-in-the-Park library lass? Dave thinks it’s inevitable, and reminded me that different audience members are going to connect differently to the words and pictures as they flipbook on stage.

Parramatta Road

“… what is a dream about space but a dream about who we might be? What is a city, if not the aspirations of the people who live in it?” (On the Lower Frequencies, 112)