A good link from a friend

Sent to me from Brad Baranowski:

This is a section from (philosopher) Zizek's Living in the End Times about the French debate over banning the veil. I think he made some good points (and was pretty fair overall) and figured you might like to read it (just the parts about the law, that is):

Problems, however, begin with Sarkozy's statement that veils are "not welcome" because, in a secular country like France, they intimidates and alienate non-Muslims . . . one cannot but note how the allegedly universalist attack on the burqa on behalf of human rights and women's dignity ends up as a defense of the particular French way of life. It is, however, not enough to submit this law to pragmatic criticism, such as the claim that, if implemented, it will only increase the oppression of Muslim women, since they will simply not be allowed to leave home and thus be even more cut off from society, exposed to harsh treatment within forced marriages, etc. (Furthermore, the fine will exacerbate the problems of poverty and joblessness: it will punish the very women who are least likely to have control over their own money.) The problem is a more fundamental one--what makes the whole debate symptomatics is, first, the marginal status of the problem: the whole nation talks about it, while the total number of women wearing both types of full-body veil in France is around 2,000, out of a French population of adult Muslim women of about 1,500,000. (And, incidently, most of those women who wear full-length veils are below the age of thirty, with a substantial proportion of them being French women who have converted.) The next curious feature is the ambiguity of the critique of the burqua: it moves at two levels. First, it is presented as a defense of the dignity and freedom of oppressed Muslim women--it is unacceptable that, in a secular France, any woman has to live a hidden life secluded from public space, subordinated to brutal patriarchal authority, and so on. Secondly, however, as a rule the argument then shifts towards the anxieties of non-Muslim French people: faces covered by the burqua do not fit with the coordinates of French culture and identity, they "intimidate and alienate non-Muslims" . . .

Zizek goes on to apply a more in-depth psychoanalytical critique but this was the part that mostly interested me (and was the shortest in terms of typing . . .).

And my response:

Yeah, that's about right, and I was glad to understand what he was talking about... I know from looking at your Zizek books in Europe that sometimes he can difficult to decipher... but yes, the proposed burqa ban and the current veil ban in public schools do, more often than not, end up being a defense of the French way of life. One of the things I've found out, is that if you had to describe the French government and the French "system" 's dominant ideology, it would be pragmatism. Rationality. Empiricism. But also traditions. It's a curious mix, one that borrows conservative ideas (reliance on tradition, history, using symbolic language, a la Burke, etc) as well as forward thinking and practical liberal ideas (like a quasi socialist state, like nuclear energy programs)... in this regard, it is very difficult to indeed to compares theirs with ours... we tend to sacrifice forward thinking and pragmatism for our founding fathers, for our beloved Constitution, our system that turns out rather daft politicians... but what I think he misses, and perhaps he gets into this but I would suspect not, is the political advantage there is to leading a debate on national identity. Though the conservative UMP party has effectively done nothing to quell the economic crisis, is facing serious governmental scandals new and old, they have the burqa a "big deal" because it is, politically, a good move. When you are facing such troubles, distracting people from the main drama with big scary words like "immigrant," "terrorism," "oppression," "end of our way of life," "threat to France," etc. has a tendency to get people talking and get people behind the ones defending the French state.

When I watched debates on the burqa in Parliament two weeks ago, the debate centered not on the burqa itself and the social effects of such a ban (as Zizek pondors here), but rather how the burqa's existence on French soil harms the French way of life... it threatens secularism, it is not egalitarian, it leaves society open to terrorist attacks, etc. I found that very interesting... and I think the reason for that is politically if you can lead these discussions in what is already a very patriotic country, you have a tendency to be viewed as the more French party and the more French president and you more often than not come out on top in elections and such... I had one professor in France tell me that the UMP will definitely hold on to the presidency and the majority in the Parliament, even with current approval ratings in the 20s....

And his response:

I believe you are correct in the tactical political sense here in that this is defiantly a cynical play by the UMP to tap into an ongoing tradition/tension. I might even sum up your already succinct (and well put) characterization of the French political logic as: progressive politics as a means to serve traditional values. This would, of course, allow for the usual "invented traditions" and mystifications that go along with modernity.

As for Zizek, I think he is pointing to something behind even the veil and more global than just French. Apropos the UMP, the shift to the veil discussion is precisely the opposite of Politics as such. Tactically, and by the low standards we are today surrounded by, this may seem like a typical political move, but in a setting not so long lost where people could put space between them and the constant feed of information in order to pass judgement (I think we once called this odd act "being critical"), we might have merely deemed the UMP's actions cycnical. As for the political, it always strive to redefine the coordinates in which we think--to redraw the lines of good/bad, friend/enemy.

Indeed, the very fact that a crucial site of political potentiality--the fast dissolving neoliberal carnival of the '90s and the apparent end times we are approaching--is staring us (veiled or not) in the face and the UMP has decided to fight for its own survival rather than commit an act in the truest sense of that word the essence of the negation of politics. For whenever a people should shy away from taking that crucial leap that is the commitment to a political cause (possibly the most beautiful and tragic forms of belief), we should not label their methods as "good" or even "practical" (unless we do so in the dismissive sense that a philosopher might); it is better to just to be honest: they are rats. Sarkozy is the Rat Man par excellence. His job is not to make difficult decisions; he must only survive.

Zizek understands full well, however, that the French are doing this out of a collective obsession; that the president is not constitutive but merely emblematic (and how wonderfully so!) of this cultural neurosis--and that obsession is their own lack. Zizek's proposition of the effects of its most recent manifestations (this pitiful and lamentable law) are merely rhetorical tools (as he alludes to when phrasing it with the derogative term "pragmatic"--the most ideological of words) that he uses in order to get at the heart of the issue: the deep desire to know what the Other--History possibly?--wants and thus, avoid the traumatic realization that such assurances do not exist; the decision to act politically is truly ours.

In other words, under the guise of the "utilitarian liberalism," the notion of Universal political Ideas have been whored out to such an extent that we are today (French or not) faced with a situation where only those who blatantly trod on Justice's skirt (recall, as you of all people have no need of "remembering," Sarkozy's quaint nickname for impoverished immigrants who dared to assert their right to be included in the commons, or his equally questionable standing in relation to labor) can claim to be the last defenders of enlightened universality while its traditional proponents--that ephemeral force we once called the "Left"--is now happy with the table scraps that pass as "multiculturalism" or "human rights." I think it is this larger tension--typified by the ban--that Zizek is trying to speak to, not just the possible ramifications for French Muslims in the future.

But, it would seem that I have over-extended my own perimeters for this message far beyond the scant lines from Slavoj that I provided you; such is the risk of spending too much time NOT in Europe. :)