Insurgent Notes - Oct 5, 2013
The current global crisis has once again brought the questions of global struggle and world revolution into a position of importance. The basic questions posed are whether it is possible to build a “global Left” and how to rethink the idea of universal human liberation, which was the utopia once central to the left, and which has perhaps re-emerged once again. The unity of the world is indeed clearest to us in times of crisis. Susan Buck-Morss’s book on the relationship between critical theory and political Islam is an interesting and important contribution to this discussion, as it attempts to create a dialogue between critical thought in the “west” and that within the Islamic world. In keeping with her previous work on Hegel and the Haitian Revolution [Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009), Zahedi is somewhat off in the chronology], she attempts to resurrect and redeem the idea of universality after it had become a bad word among many in the academic activist milieu. Although the book was published some time ago, its relevance has only increased.
The loss of any conception of human
universality, especially as it relates to the political struggle, has
affected the understanding of social revolution. Many events have
occurred since the publication of the book that demonstrate the
importance of returning to the discussion of the world revolution and
the universal subject that is supposed to be the agent of this
revolution. Events such as the “Arab Spring” and the Iranian “Green
Movement,” the riots and strikes against austerity, the unrest in Brazil
in the midst of the World Cup qualifiers, Occupy Wall Street, all
demonstrate some sort of global shift.
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