FRANKENSTEIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES

Peter Jakubo

Naked State
Pharaon Akhenaton who wanted to change all and establish monotheism

in his so polytheist divided in cast with priviledges world. He wanted to let

to his son future touthenkamon a new world. Current example of

president Ben Ali in tunisia or Mubarak in egypt are different. Both

became head of their countries after struggles and civil war. Both were

militaries general who took over their country.They came to secure

country and remained 30years at the head like pharaons. After 30 years

they monopolized in their new aristocracy or oligarchy or kleptocracy all

their country wealth. For years it remained like that. But now when 70%

of population are under 25yo due to demography something has to

change. New order has to come. The country new energy to make

revolution was possible due to that youth. No hope no choice no future.

Mubarak or Ben Ali wanted to create new dynasty of sovereign, using their

sons. But the revolution wasnt for them. Agamben in his book where is

part related to sovereign power said: „The novelty of modern biopolitics

lies in the fact that the biological given is a such immediately political, and

the political is as such immediately the biological give. Politics that is

giving form to the life of people“ 1. The United States, so far, is essentially

following the usual playbook. I mean, there have been many times when

some favored dictator has lost control or is in danger of losing control.

There's a kind of a standard routine -- Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu,

strongly supported by the United States and Britain, Suharto: keep

supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable

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-- typically, say, if the army shifts sides -- switch 180 degrees, claim to

have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then

make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new

names. That succeeds or fails depending on the circumstances. And I

presume that's what's happening now. They're waiting to see whether

Mubarak can hang on, as it appears he's intending to do, and as long as

he can, say, "Well, we have to support law and order, regular

constitutional change," and so on. More importantly is the role of the

United States, why the U.S. would have any say here, when it comes to

how much it has supported the regime? Obama very carefully didn't say

anything. Mubarak would agree that there should be an orderly transition,

but to what? A new cabinet, some minor rearrangement of the

constitutional order -- it's empty. So he's doing what U.S. leaders

regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a favored dictator is

in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it becomes

impossible, switch sides. The U.S. has an overwhelmingly powerful role

there. Egypt is the second-largest recipient over a long period of U.S.

military and economic aid. Israel is first. Obama himself has been highly

supportive of Mubarak. It's worth remembering that on his way to that

famous speech in Cairo, which was supposed to be a conciliatory speech

towards the Arab world, he was asked by the press -- it was the BBC --

whether he was going to say anything about what they called Mubarak's

authoritarian government. And Obama said, no, he wouldn't. He said, "I

don't like to use labels for folks. Mubarak is a good man. He has done
good things. He has maintained stability. We will continue to support him.

He is a friend." And so on. This is one of the most brutal dictators of the

region, and how anyone could have taken Obama's comments about

human rights seriously after that is a bit of a mystery. But the support has

been very powerful in diplomatic dimensions. Military -- the planes flying

over Tahrir Square are, of course, U.S. planes. The U.S. is the -- has been

the strongest, most solid, most important supporter of the regime. The

protest is sometimes compared with Eastern Europe, but that's not much

of a comparison. For one thing, in this case, there's no counterpart to

Gorbachev among the -- in the United States or other great powers

supporting the dictatorships. That's a huge difference. Another is that in

the case of Eastern Europe, the United States and its allies followed the

timeworn principle that democracy is fine, at least up to a point, if it

accords with strategic and economic objectives, so therefore acceptable in

enemy domains, but not in our own. That's a well-established principle,

and of course that sharply differentiates these two cases. In fact, about

the only moderately reasonable comparison would be to Romania, where

Ceausescu, the most vicious of the dictators of the region, was very

strongly supported by the United States right up 'til the end. And then,

when he -- the last days, when he was overthrown and killed, the first

Bush administration followed the usual rules: postured about being on the

side of the people, opposed to dictatorship, tried to arrange for a

continuation of close relations.But this is completely different. Where it's

going to lead, nobody knows. I mean, the problems that the protesters
are trying to address are extremely deep-seated, and they're not going to

be solved easily. There is a tremendous poverty, repression, a lack of not

just democracy, but serious development. Egypt and other countries of

the region have just been through a neoliberal period, which has led to

growth on paper, but with the usual consequences: high concentration of

extreme wealth and privilege, tremendous impoverishment and dismay for

most of the population. And that's not easily changed. We should also

remember that, as far as the United States is concerned, what's

happening is a very old story. „Facticity does not mean simply being

contingently in a certain way and a certain situation, but rather means

decisively assuming this way and this situation by which what was given

must be transformed into a task“2. Take a look at what's happening in the

Middle East today. There's a campaign of hatred against the United

States, in Tunisia against France, against Britain, for supporting brutal,

harsh dictators, repressive, vicious, imposing poverty and suffering in the

midst of great wealth, blocking democracy and development, and doing so

because of the primary goal, which remains to maintain control over the

energy resources of the region. Right after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal,

to its credit, did a -- ran a poll in the Muslim world, not of the general

population, of the kind of people they are interested in, I think what they

called the moneyed Muslims or some phrase like that -- professionals,

directors of multinational corporations, bankers, people deeply embedded

in the whole U.S.-dominated neoliberal project there -- so not what's

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called anti-American. And it was an interesting poll. There was

tremendous -- there wasn't a campaign of hatred against the U.S. among

these people, but there was tremendous antagonism to U.S. policies. And

the reasons were pretty much the same: the U.S. is blocking democracy

and development; it's supporting dictators. By that time, there were

salient issues that -- some of which didn't exist in 1958. For example,

there was a tremendous opposition in these groups to the murderous

sanctions in Iraq, which didn't arouse much attention here, but they

certainly did in the region. Hundreds of thousands of people were being

killed. The civilian society was being destroyed. The dictator was being

strengthened. And that did cause tremendous anger. And, of course, there

was great anger about U.S. support for Israeli crimes, atrocities, illegal

takeover of occupied territories and so on, settlement programs. Those

were other issues, which also, to a limited extent, existed in '58, but not

like 2001. Now,situation is quite striking, especially in the light of the

WikiLeaks revelations. The most -- the one that won the headlines and

that was -- led to great enthusiasm and euphoria was the revelation,

whether accurate or not -- we don't know -- but the claim, at least, by

diplomats that the Arab dictators were supporting the U.S. in its

confrontation with Iran. And, you know, enthusiastic headlines about how

Arab states support -- the Arabs support the United States. That's very

revealing. What the commentators and the diplomats were saying is the

Arab dictators support U.S, even though the population is overwhelming

opposed, everything's fine, everything's under control, it's quiet, they're

fact, Arab opinion was so antagonistic to the United States in this -- as

revealed in this poll, that a majority of the Arab population, 57 percent,

actually thought the region would be better off if Iran had nuclear

weapons. Nevertheless, the conclusion here, and in England and the

continent, was it's all wonderful. The dictators support U.S. We can

disregard the population, because they're quiet. As long as they're quiet,

who cares? People don't matter. Actually, there's an analog of that

internal to the United States. And it's of course the same policy elsewhere

in the world. All of that reveals a contempt for democracy and for public

opinion which is really profound. And one has to listen with jaws dropping

when Obama, in the clip you ran, talks about how, of course, governments

depend on the people. Our policy is the exact opposite. As long as the

population is passive and obedient, it doesn't matter if there's a campaign

of hatred against U.S. It doesn't matter if they believe that official enemy

can perhaps save them from attacks. In fact, nothing matters, as long as

the dictators support us. That's the general view. Levinas strive for the

spirit`s ascetic liberation „From the bonds of the sensuous and historico-

social situation into which it finds itself thrown, thus ultimately

differentiating, in man and his world,between a realm of reason and

a realm of the body, to which the realm of reason is irreducibly opposed.“ 3

We should remember there's an analog here. I mean, it's not the same, of

course, but the population in the United States is angry, frustrated, full of

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fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street

are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis.

They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out

stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine, as long as the

population is passive. If one-tenth of one percent of the population is

gaining a preponderant amount of the wealth that's produced, while for

the rest there 30 years of stagnation, just fine, as long as everyone's

quiet. That's the scenario that has been unfolding in the Middle East, as

well, just as it did in Central America and other domains. Marwan Muasher

(former jordanian dimpolmat) said, "This is the principle." He said, "There

is nothing wrong. Everything is under control." Meaning, as long as the

population is quiet, acquiescent -- maybe fuming with rage, but doing

nothing about it -- everything's fine, there's nothing wrong, it's all under

control. That's the operative principle. Saudi Arabia is an interesting case.

Saudi Arabia -- the king of Saudi Arabia has been, along with Israel, the

strongest supporter, most outspoken supporter of Mubarak. And the Saudi

Arabian case should remind us of something about the regular

commentary on this issue. The standard line and commentary is that, of

course, we love democracy, but for pragmatic reasons we must

sometimes reluctantly oppose it, in this case because of the threat of

radical Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood. Well, you know, there's maybe

some -- whatever one thinks of that. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. That's

the leading center of radical Islamist ideology. That's been the source of it

for years. The United States has -- it's also the support of Islamic terror,
the source for Islamic terror or the ideology that supports it. That's the

leading U.S. ally, and has been for a long, long time. The U.S. supported

-- U.S. relations, close relations, with Israel, incidentally, after the 1967

war, escalated because Israel had struck a serious blow against secular

Arab nationalism, the real enemy, Nasser's Egypt, and in defense of

radical Islam, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Egypt had been in a proxy

war just before that, and there was a major conflict. And that's quite

typical. You support radical Islamization, and there are consequences. But

the talk about concern about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whatever

its reality, is a little bit ironic, when you observe that the U.S. and we

should say, Britain, as well, have traditionally supported radical Islam, in

part, sometimes as a barrier to secular nationalism.What's the real

concern is not Islam or radicalism; it's independence. Agamben said, „The

police now becomes politics, and the care of life coincides with the fight

against the enemy.“ 4If the radical Islamists are independent, well, they're

an enemy. If secular nationalists are independent, they are an enemy. In

Latin America, for decades, when the Catholic Church, elements of the

Catholic Church, were becoming independent, the liberation theology

movement, they were an enemy. We carried out a major war against the

church. Independence is what's intolerable. Czechoslovakia under Russian

rule, popular movements were calling for freedom, we cheer. On the other

hand, if popular movements in Central America are trying to get rid of

brutal dictatorships, we send -- we arm the military and carry out massive

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terrorist wars to crush it. We will cheer Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia

standing up against the enemy, and at the very same moment, elite

forces, fresh from renewed training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, under

command of the military, blow the brains out of six leading Latin American

intellectuals, Jesuit priests, in El Salvador. That passes in silence. But

those are the -- that's exactly the pattern that we see replicated over and

over again. But the same governing principle applies: as long as the

population is -- accepts what's going on, is directing their anger against

teachers, you know, firemen, policemen, pensions and so on, as long as

they're directing their anger there, and not against us, the rulers,

everything's under control, everything's fine. Until it erupts. Well,

sometimes it hasn't erupted yet, and if it does erupt, it might not be at a

constructive direction, given the nature of what's happening in the country

now. But yes, those Egyptian lessons should be taken to heart. We can

see clearly what people can do under conditions of serious duress and

repression far beyond anything that we face, but they're doing it. If we

don't do it, the outcome could be quite ugly.