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Srecko Horvat is a philosopher and author of several books, including What Does Europe Want? Co-written with Slavaj Zizek. He has written for the Guardian Al, Hazearn and the New York Times. Igor tiks has won numerous awards and been translated into a dozen European languages. His novel A Castle in visa mer Romagna was the first of his books to be published in English. visa färre

Inkluderar namnen: Srecko Horvat, Srećko Horvat

Foto taget av: Credit: Petar Marković

Verk av Srećko Horvat

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Först som tragedi, sedan som fars (2009) — Översättare, vissa utgåvor777 exemplar
Granta 149: Europe: Strangers in the Land (2019) — Bidragsgivare — 40 exemplar

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Recall the infamous poster issued by KFOR, depicting a dog and a cat followed by the message: if they can do it - so can you. This stands as a pure example of interventionist racism par excellence.

When we were first in Reading, England last week, I thought I would brave the rain and walk to the city center. My wife's brother lives off of Bath Road and the plan was to follow that to Russell Street, take that down to Oxford Street and then, as some say, Bob's your uncle. Well, arriving at Oxford Street I went left when I should've went right. I walked for a mile before turning around and I am not sure I heard English but a handful of times. It was was largely Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and other languages of the European diaspora. I found that discovery remarkable in contrast to our last lengthy visit in 2004.

The Serbian elections are next week, I believe. The commercials for the canfidates always run sequentially, fair play I assume. I have not asked anyone about the platforms of the two men. I am guessing the one with glasses is a progressive as he affects Obama and appears to like wearing jeans at informal events. The other fellow growls.

The uniting aspect of these essays in welcome to the Desert is the notion of transition. These unruly nations must clear out their socialist baggage, forget about their messy wars and nationalism and start behaving like proper Europeans. This message from Brussels is hard and heavy, especially since the Western banks extended lines of credit just before the Great Recession. Unemployment is over 20 percent here. Prices have went up almost a third in the last three years. What can the future bring? Well, it brought refugees. Many Syrians and Iraqis are living in parks in downtown Belgrade, waiting for documentation to be processed. I think this is one a set of solutions for Serbia and Europe. There will be hush money of sorts, allowing the wretched of the earth to live here, just out of sight. Serbia will be rewarded for that patience, eventually. In the interim 10 people own 30 percent of the wealth here. Deindustrialization and a dismantling of the social safety net continue apace.

Maria Todorova is my new hero. It is fitting that the one essay devoted to feminism is the penultimate one. It remains isolated and understated.There are fascinating approaches to the Titostalgia and cult of the Yugo as well as towards Kosovo, which always appears to be interrupted in regional conversations. This is is a fascinating and invaluable text.
… (mer)
 
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jonfaith | Feb 22, 2019 |
The State as jealous lover

The radicality of revolution is found in true love – and vice versa. To be a revolutionary is to be a romantic, and the whole revolution must be grounded in love. These are the unusual premises Horvat poses in The Radicality of Love. He takes us on a whirlwind tour of revolutions in Iran, the USSR, Cuba, and Cambodia to prove the points. He is not the first. Engels said “With every great revolutionary movement the question of free love comes in to the foreground.”

The irony is that while revolutionaries are passionate about love, their movements are all about controlling and suppressing it. The Soviets tried to abolish it in favor of communal living. The Khmer Rouge instituted forced, loveless marriages to ruin it. The Iranians suppressed women to the point of making them unknowable and unappealing. Love was a distraction; everyone’s focus had to be 100% on the state. State before family, state before love, and no energy wasted on such distractions from the holy State. That could include drink, song, dance, stage and screen – anything that could lead to people hooking up and thinking of someone else.

The meat of the book covers Lenin and Guevara, who were both hugely conflicted over love. While they recognized the power of love in a revolution, they also resented it as minimizing the potential to hate (Guevara) or the power to maintain the revolutionary zeal (Lenin). To Lenin, love was a slippery slope.

The final chapter ties it all together cogently and completely. The true radicality of love is the ability to do justice to both revolution and spouse. No mean feat, as exemplified by Che Guevara’s utter devotion to both his family that he shielded, and the revolution, for which he had no problem dying, under the “loving caress” of bullets.

The book is a remarkable accomplishment: thorough and convincing in a rapidly moving, spare 164 pages. It instructs us to look at political movements and their agents differently going forward. It is a pleasure to be able to come at such a radical approach and be converted by it so effectively and efficiently. Had this book been written by anyone else, it would surely have been 600 pages and less convincing.

It’s not hard to extrapolate from this to see how ISIS recruits the disaffected, bored, petty criminals of the underemployed and discriminated. Their revolution is pure and focused and gives its adherents a rush of adrenaline unavailable anywhere else in a loveless life. Forget facebook recruiting; revolution is a lifeforce attraction.

David Wineberg
… (mer)
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DavidWineberg | Dec 8, 2015 |

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Verk
17
Även av
2
Medlemmar
146
Popularitet
#141,736
Betyg
½ 3.6
Recensioner
2
ISBN
40
Språk
11

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