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In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the relationship between politics and aesthetics and, in particular, to the political power of aesthetics. This book makes a claim for what comes before any political decision is made and action taken; for what precedes the need for the subject to take a specific stance and adopt a particular (political) attitude. It interprets the "in-between space of aesthetics" (Erika Fischer-Lichte), where production and reception have traditionally met, as a topos within which "action itself is called into question" (Joseph Vogl). This is a space where aesthetics and ethics converge to trouble affirmations and beliefs, and to challenge the subject. By looking at recent theatrical performances and workshops put on mainly in Athens, Greece, and/or created by Greek artists (Nova Melancholia, Rimini Protokoll, Michael Marmarinos, Theodoros Terzopoulos etc.), this book explores the conditions in which it is possible or necessary for the ethical to emerge in aesthetic contexts. It tracks down the metamorphoses of the ethical and its manifestations in situations of aesthetic unsettling, and reveals hidden ethical paradigms in aesthetic articulations. Furthermore, it focuses on the specific way in which the position of the (ethico-political) subject is articulated within those conditions, arguing that it is impossible for the subject to remain intact once it has entered the ethico-aesthetic space. It asserts that a catastrophe is required, the loss and the vanishing of the subject, in order to reinstate responsibility, to respect the ethicality of time, and to obtain justice; and advocates for the rise of the object, allowing for an unfamiliar political discourse to take the stage.
What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devji contends, Al-Qaeda, with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action, actually has more in common with multinational corporations, antiglobalization activists, and environmentalist and social justice organizations. Bin Laden and his lieutenants view their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions faced by the Muslim world rather than an Islamist attempt to build states.Al-Qaeda culls diverse symbols and fragments from Islam's past in order to legitimize its global war against the "metaphysical evil" emanating from the West. The most salient example of this assemblage, Devji argues, is the concept of jihad itself, which Al-Qaeda defines as an "individual duty" incumbent on all Muslims, like prayer. Although medieval Islamic thought provides precedent for this interpretation, Al-Qaeda has deftly separated the stipulation from its institutional moorings and turned jihad into a weapon of spiritual conflict. Al-Qaeda and its jihad, Devji suggests, are only the most visible manifestations of wider changes in the Muslim world. Such changes include the fragmentation of traditional as well as fundamentalist forms of authority. In the author's view, Al-Qaeda represents a new way of organizing Muslim belief and practice within a global landscape and does not require ideological or institutional unity.Offering a compelling explanation for the central purpose of Al-Qaeda's jihad against the West, the meaning of its strategies and tactics, and its moral and aesthetic dimensions, Landscapes of the Jihad is at once a sophisticated work of historical and cultural analysis and an invaluable guide to the world's most prominent terrorist movement.
This book documents and highlights the Deobandi dimension of extremism and its implications for faith-based violence and terrorism. This dimension of radical Islam remains largely ignored or misunderstood in mainstream media and academic scholarship. The book addresses this gap. It also covers the Deobandi diaspora in the West and other countries and the role of its radical elements in transnational incidents of violence and terrorism. The specific identification of the radical Deobandi and Salafi identity of militants is useful to isolate them from the majority of peaceful Sunni and Shia Muslims. Such identification provides direction to governmental resources so they focus on those outfits, mosques, madrassas, charities, media and social medial channels that are associated with these ideologies. This book comes along at a time when there is a dire need for alternative and contextual discourses on terrorism.
"Absolutely what we need in these days of spreading gloom." —John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism "A guide to a fulfilling militant life." —Michael Hardt, co-author of Assembly "Rigid radicalism" is the congealed and debilitating practices that suck life and inspiration from the fight for a better world. Joyful Militancy investigates how fear, self-righteousness, and moralism infiltrate and take root within liberation movements, what to do about them, and ultimately how tenderness and vulnerability can thrive alongside fierce militant commitment. Carla Bergman co-edited Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook For Youth. Nick Montgomery is an organizer and writer currently at Queen's University.
Islamist militants based in Pakistan have played a major role in terrorism around the world and pose a significant threat to regional and international security. Although the Pakistan-militant connection has received widespread attention only in recent years, it is not a new phenomenon. Pakistan has, since its inception in the wake of World War II, used Islamist militants to wage jihad in order to compensate for severe political and material weakness. This use of militancy has become so important that it is now a central component of Pakistani grand strategy; supporting jihad is one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state seeks to produce security for itself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the strategy has not been wholly disastrous. It has achieved important domestic and international successes, enabling Pakistan to confront stronger adversaries and shape its strategic environment without the costs and risks of direct combat, and to help promote internal cohesion to compensate for its weak domestic political foundations. Recently, however, these successes of Pakistan's militant strategy have given way to serious problems. The militant organizations that Pakistan nurtured over the decades are increasingly exceeding its control; continued support for jihad diverts scarce resources from pressing domestic projects, impeding the country's internal development; and the militant campaign's repeated provocations have led India to adopt a more aggressive conventional military posture. As Paul Kapur shows in Jihad as Grand Strategy, these developments significantly undermine Pakistani interests, threatening to leave it less politically cohesive and externally secure than it was before. Thus, despite its past benefits, the strategy has outlived its utility, and Pakistan will have to abandon it in order to avoid catastrophe. This will require not simply a change of policy, but a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the Pakistani state.
In Masters Not Friends, Mubbashir Rizvi lends a historical and ethnographic perspective to the rise of one of the largest, most successful land rights movements in South Asia, the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (AMP), who, against all odds, successfully resisted the Pakistani military and made a case for their moral right to farmland. The case of AMP provides a unique lens through which to examine state and society relations in Pakistan, and bridge literatures from subaltern studies, military power, colonial technology and governance, and the language of claim-making. More broadly, Rizvi offers a glimpse of Pakistan that contrasts with its standard framing as a hub of radical militancy and terrorism.
When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.
Militant Islam provides a sociological framework for understanding the rise and character of recent Islamic militancy. It takes a systematic approach to the phenomenon and includes analysis of cases from around the world, comparisons with militancy in other religions, and their causes and consequences. The sociological concepts and theories examined in the book include those associated with social closure, social movements, nationalism, risk, fear and ‘de-civilising’. These are applied within three main themes; characteristics of militant Islam, multi-layered causes and the consequences of militancy, in particular Western reactions within the ‘war on terror’. Interrelationships between religious and secular behaviour, ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’, popular support and opposition are explored. Through the examination of examples from across Muslim societies and communities, the analysis challenges the popular tendency to concentrate upon ‘al-Qa’ida’ and the Middle East. This book will be of interest to students of Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, in particular those taking courses on Islam, religion, terrorism, political violence and related regional studies.
A practical guide for policy makers, military officers, students, and anyone else interested in asymmetric conflicts.
The question of migration has come to dominate the news agenda in many countries, but what does the word ‘migrant’ really mean today and how should we respond to those who are labelled ‘migrants’? In this short book Alain Badiou argues that our way of thinking about migration should be governed both by an ethical duty to welcome the migrant in the name of hospitality and also by the urgent need to put an end to the global capitalist oligarchy that has produced the migrant as a figure of contemporary crisis. For the ‘migrant,’ argues Badiou, is in fact a nomadic proletarian. Today, our homeland is the world, and any meaningful politics must include those who come to us and who represent the universal nomadic proletariat. Writing with the rigor, clarity, and polemical flair that have made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers, and drawing on a rich body of material including contemporary poetry and the words of an anonymous migrant, Badiou develops a powerful riposte to those who have stoked the fear of migrants and exploited the migration question for political ends.