Wednesday 29 June 2016

Corbyn and the Sound of Future


While most of us are still going through some sort of Brexit-shock the Labour party embarks onto the process of a leadership contest and an inner-party conflict from which it might not return. Corbyn, the current leader of Labour, might or might not be criticized for his leadership strategy, but he is certainly not to be blamed for the general crisis Labour, the country and neoliberal democracies more generally are going through at the moment. If he can be blamed for anything then that he represents people who were trying to find progressive ways out of this crisis. The overwhelming problem is, however, that this is a crisis which it might not be possible to solve within the political and economical structure that is currently to our disposition – more generally due to the relation between politics and the economical structure in neoliberal democracies and more particularly due to the electoral system in the UK which makes it difficult for the big parties to split up and form coalitions.

Whoever will be elected as next Labour leader will have the option to either adjust to the rhetorics and politics of the conservatives by trying to soften their language and by referring to ideals of social justice without being able to implement them. Or he or she will try to find a different language, one which aims at recreating a left-wing discourse which does not only react passively to the program of the conservative party and profit-driven market tendencies but one which contains the vision of a better future for everyone together. But let's face it - in the first case Labour will not be more likely to win elections than before its members voted for Corbyn since the neo-liberal discourse of the Conservatives will always sound more coherent and convincing when presented from a right-wing perspective – even when it takes on fascist, populist tones. On the other hand, if it moves towards the second option it will very likely be smashed by inner-party conflicts, like at the moment, since any radical progressive approach will seem to threaten potential short-term successes the party still believes it could gain.

In this situation, the revolt against Corbyn seems to me rather a way of denying the gravity of the crisis Labour and left-wing politics are in; a crisis that has not been created by the Brexit but which must have been haunting the party since a long time. Corbyn's leadership has been treated from the very beginning by many party members but also by public media as a mistake rather than as a symptom that once identified and understood could direct the way to a cure. With cure I don't mean a process of healing which would restore the old strength of the workers' Labour party neither the popularity of its reformed version as New Labour. What I mean is rather a process which would trigger profound reconstruction of a political strategy for the Left. It is not that, like in the case of the referendum, for example, people who voted for Corbyn had been deluded or seduced by some simple, populist rhetorics - even though many might argue that this was exactly the case. But I think it was rather the opposite – the election of Corbyn was a sign for the need for a more profound hence non-populist) and more radical left-wing party politics. One that does not prioritize the media-popularity of professional leader figures but which aims at politicizing the people. Corbynmania, I therefore argue, was an event that had seen a majority of Labour members hearing something in the way how this wing part of the party spoke that is otherwise missing in the established jargon of a Left trying to be the more social version of the right. The euphoria of this manic phase which seems now in the process of turning into another depression or return to established forms of party politics, was an expression of a sense of hope and a desire for something new – and hence a profoundly left-wing moment. It captured an imagination of some kind of future politics which would not be based on the ability of politicians to seduce their voters but which would be based on a political culture that would take people and their situation seriously and support them in becoming political agents rather than mere consumers – it was, if you want, a utopian moment in the midst of a growing disaster.

Now seeing and fixing this not-yet-existent form of future politics as incarnated in the figure of Corbyn is a problem, because it forces him to become a type of leader as which he has not been elected. But his team has, I think, tried to conserve and implement parts of the momentum that had let to his election. Had I decided to take part in the election of the new Labour party leader I would have not voted for him. Too much did he represent to me a male leftwing politics of the last century. But now, after having experienced Corbyn's presence and strategy through what I have read in the news (I hence cannot comment on inner-party issues related to his leadership style), I started recognizing a different tone/sound in politics that could actually bring Labour or whatever left-wing party there might be in the future closer to the realities of the working and middle class (and the two of them together) – closer than any leader who will try to be on the safe side by making concessions in regards to the racist anti-immigration arguments (like Cooper did) or by emphatically embracing the European Union instead of signaling space for an absolutely justified critique of it as in the 7-out-of-ten comment for which Corbyn has been and is being criticized widely. Also the argument that his team rejected a common action where Blair and Corbyn would have fought on one side for remaining in the EU is to my mind weak because it dramatically simplifies the complexity and gravity of the Brexit-vote – suggesting that if Corbyn and Blair had rallied together we wouldn't be in the dreadful and dangerous mess we are in at the moment.

So what convinced me in the way how Corbyn and his team approached left-wing politics was their emphasis on a rational and sophisticated, hence complex, dialogue with the voters. Although often slow, which probably was not only a result of the time some arguments or statements need in order to be developed but also caused by the constant resistance he was facing within his own party, his contributions to the debate around the referendum were political in the sense that they were arguments that would help workers and middle-class people understand what voting remain meant and why it was in their interest to vote for remaining in the EU even if this would not solve all the issues people are struggling with today. Now tday he is mainly criticized for being too complex, too rational and too much a man of principle. But this critique, to my mind, challenges exactly those moves that could have potentially sparked off (in future … and slowly) new forms of left-wing politics. A politics which can not be won by focusing on the choice of a correct, charismatic and euphoric leader figure but would require Labour or left-wing politicians who enter into a serious, radical and complex dialogue with their voters more generally. How dangerous but all the more necessary such a type of politics has become can be seen in the tragic case of Jo Cox.

This is the potential I see in Corbyn's attempt to change the speech of left-wing politics. The bad news however is that this type of politics will indeed not win any elections in the short-term. But even worse is that if Labour doesn't face the fundamental crisis of its current political non-existence then it will not win any elections ever again (to put it drastically). In this respect, I see in the current run against Corbyn a projection of a profound crisis onto someone who cannot be blamed for it. To my mind the current outrage against Corbyn even resembles dangerously what is happening on the right in regards to immigrants. Both, Corbyn representing a different type of politics, as well as the immigrants who are being seen as the personified other are blamed for the dead ends created by the crisis of neoliberal democracies. It might be correct that Corbyn as a person is not the right one to lead this party. But forcing him to step down while criticizing him for having tried to step out of a crisis, will quite certainly close down the little gap for a profound reform of Labour and its ability to create a better future that – maybe - opened in the course of Corbynmania and co. If Tony Blair says, as he did in relation to Bernie Sanders' popularity in the US, that he stopped understanding today's politics then this could potentially be a hopeful thing – however, it will turn into a total catastrophe, potentially the biggest that the world has ever seen, if it is only the right in the form of Trumps, Farages or Johnsons which tries to find ways of securing its power within the current political vacuum.

My constant attempts to return to where I believe I come from

(I wrote this last summer 2015 ... wasn't brave enough to publish)

After years of having successfully ignored any sort of social media, platform or any other virtual communication tool (apart from emails, of course), I am brave enough to return to my shabby blogger account and start another post.

I wrote my first and only post some time after having submitted my MA dissertation in 2011. The writing process of my dissertation had triggered a desire to continue writing about my personal struggle with politics and life, but unfortunately this desire got somehow swallowed up by the disillusioning development of my everyday life as working adult. I write working adult, because this is how I feel - at least sometimes - empty as this category, determined by the developments and fantasies of the market - nothing more and nothing less. But at the same time, the depressing words I started this paragraph with echo from the privileged position of someone who has been lucky enough and who got the opportunity to write a PhD on a really weird and personal project which made me resurrect this virtual site. So to keep a rather unspectacular story short, I first continued working for my old job which had stopped challenging me. Then something really great happened. I became a mother and got literally a second chance in life and on top of that a new life growing and shining next to me. It is crazy what this process of becoming a parent does to oneself. Though first everything seems to go on as normal, suddenly one starts realizing how the parameters that used to structure one's identity start shifting or shaking and it must have been from within such a subtle rearrangement of the pillars of my life that I managed to set out for a PhD on the meaning of the idea of communism in post-communist times.

So what is my project about and why have I returned to this blog? Broadly speaking, I am trying to read and interpret selected post-communist artworks as a critique of contemporary Western society (obviously following my passion for Adorno's art theory) and by doing so ask what these artworks may tell us about the other side or 'the beyond' the state they try to withdraw from. Call it communism, death or radically different future, I want to investigate what we can know of this state if we try to reflect on it mediated by the experience of post-communist artworks from former Eastern Europe - or particularly 'Poland'. And this is where this project reveals its very personal and extremely problematic site: I am trying to fill a gap, namely to answer a question which I have been renounced from asking. I have never experienced Soviet-type communism consciously, though, I have lived my whole life in its shadow. My family could have stayed in Poland instead of emigrating in 1983 to Germany and I would have been in the position to know who we are and from which place we come from - and maybe my fragmented self would have even felt more complete? I will return to these strange and big thoughts, but for now I just want to briefly explain what I am doing right now. At the moment, we, Alecs and my little daughter Theo are in Poland. We have been for one week in Sasino, together with my parents, and will be staying for the next two and a half weeks somewhere between Gdansk and Warsaw. Though I don't plan to do a formal field research, I try to collect impressions during this trip that will make me understand better what I am doing. The rest I will have to explain another time.


Sunday 16 October 2011

Critique yes, but not at 7.30 am and not like that...


It doesn't happen very often that I check my facebook account but sometimes I do, scrolling through the different posts and moods of the small group of friends I have. Now and then I find something interesting and think that I actually should come here more often in order to keep myself up-to-date and see what is going on in the world and the lives of my friends. But usually the actual gain of knowledge remains unsatisfactory and is being overshadowed by the frustrating feeling that I do not know or do not feel comfortable with writing something in this tiny little line which provokingly demands from me to express my mind's thoughts. I have never posted anything on Facebook. Today I almost would have done so but what I wanted to say was again too long to fit in this claustrophobic space reserved for amputated thoughts. Hence, I decided to post my comment where I have a little more space to play around, risking that no one else will read it. 
This morning, thanks to one of my friends on Facebook, I followed a link to a video-cast of Zizek's speech at the Wall Street occupation. After having been woken up by our stupid fire alarm at 7.30am on a Sunday morning my sensitive mood got even worse when listening to Zizek's contribution to the global day of protest against capitalism and the financial crisis.  I only managed to digest one third of this horrible performance which, on the one hand, was totally meaningless but on the other too meaningful to just ignore it completely – meaningful, however, not in terms of its content but in terms of its form. His statements were, likethis friend already mentioned on facebook, a composition of some of his standard anecdotes and thus quite boring. However, whereas I usually just enjoy being entertained by his characteristic temper and sarcasm this speech was just too much. It showed him playing his role as prophet of communism preaching in front of an audience which - for which reason ever - submissively repeated every single word and sentence Zizek was presenting! Seriously, I haven't seen any clip of Rick Perry's mass gatherings but I imagine they must be similar to this painful performance at the Wall Street - with one major difference: Rick Perry talks about stuff I find reactionary and stupid while Zizek and his followers pretend to perform a critique which I personally find extremely important but, as this scene just showed, at a current stage almost impossible to realize.
My sleepy mood did not immediately turn into anger. I first was actually positively surprised and found it funny how clearly this clip represented my doubts towards the current hype of Marxism and the movement against 'global greed'. I must admit that I only read about the global action day out of coincidence whilst doing my routine check of the guardian website. Like so often in such moments, when confronted with reports on anti-capitalist demonstrations, I, as a person who regards a critique of capitalism as necessary and Marx's analysis as a helpful tool, felt a kind of mixture between a bad conscience for not joining the revolution and a deep disgust against these political actions which I found, revolutionary or not, were not seeking for what I thought would be a desirable alternative. In that sense, watching Zizek's embarrassing performance and the audience's horrible reaction seemed at first like an encouraging treat for not having supported any of those mass gatherings. But after a while this feeling changed and I started to be angry with those mindless freaks who would once again turn Marx's ideas into moments of obedience and group ecstasy - and I was angry also with myself for not being able to communicate what I actually thought of this aspect of today's anti-capitalist movements. So, I decided to create this little blog in order to spread yet another message into the virtual world of free communication. I can see my tiny message remaining one of the many insignificant and isolated entries which will quickly disappear behind the tough wall or interconnected accounts and re-tweets. But, frankly, I don't care and maybe will go on at some point soon.