Saturday, June 4th, 11.45 – 12.30, at Università di Verona, Room 1.1
Keynote 4: " Non-violence as a Strategy in Palestine/Israel ", Nouraddin Shehaddah and Ricki Levi, Combatants for Peace, Palestine/Israel
http://cfpeace.org
WHO ARE WE?
The “Combatants for Peace” movement was started jointly by Palestinians and Israelis, who have taken an active part in the cycle of violence; Israelis as soldiers in the Israeli army (IDF) and Palestinians as part of the violent struggle for Palestinian freedom. After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only through weapon sights, we have decided to put down our guns, and to fight for peace.
Visualizzazione post con etichetta 4 June 2011. Mostra tutti i post
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23. Il/legitimacy and Power, Kia Lindroos
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.1
Abstract:
”It is the time when the negative falls silent and when in place of men comes the infinite calm (the effervescence) which does not embody itself or make itself intelligible.”
(Blanchot 1995 , The Writing of the Disaster”: 40)
Violence is a matter of senses as much as it is matter of physical or political life. Threat of violence emerges from experiences violent actions. Torture, an extreme form of experienced violence, does leaves its victim even if the physical torture is over. The stress caused by torture is something that cannot be ‘turned off’, after physical suffering is over. This experience is also shared by various other forms of violence. Global representations violence have been visible in recent years, for instance through internet-sites and shared experiences by the tortured[1]. This has made it a highly political matter.
One specific day in London, 26.10.2009, encountered the ‘world’ by two main news. The one was about another bomb in Iraq: suicide attacks killed ca. 147 people and more than 600 were injured (news 26.10.2009). The two car bombs blasted in Baghdad, leaving the streets full of bodies in the morning, as the people were going for work 10.30 am on the first day of Muslim week. This is only one day in the growing net of several consequent days of insane circle of violent activities.
On that same day, the next page represented images of “thriller night”, in which 22.000 fans of Michael Jackson around the world celebrating. People masked themselves as fantasy figures from the horror movies or bloody victims of violent activities. This was an aesthetic undertaking, as the masses in their peculiar outfits were dancing in the memory of the late Michael Jackson. Fiction, fantasy and reality seem to exist more and more often side-by-side, whenever the violence and death is portrayed. This is not a novelty, especially since the images and video clips form 9/11 terrorist attacks or the above mentioned images of torture, position the reality and fiction side by side to each other. Different images of vilence often seem like different parts of the same coin. News photographs look like bad representations of the fictional events portrayed in movies, or in contemporary photography.
In the background of this paper is my manuscript ‘Senses of Violence’, in which I will be looking at different ways to conceptualise and represent violence. The question in the background is in flexible limits between violence, represented as political action and violence represented in fantasy and fiction.
I will start with looking at the German term ‘Gewalt’ (state-power) – that has a central position in works by thinkers, such as Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt or Walter Benjamin (to name only a few). Gewalt is also being used as a synonym for ‘power’ or ‘pouvoir’. One problematic consequence of this it that the simple translation, (Gewalt into power or Gewalt into violence), creates the problem of distinguishing between power and violence. The Gewalt, as political theorists certainly know, is mainly by Max Weber’s discussion on state power. Here it is the state that holds the legitimate monopoly to also use physical power when needed.
Despite the larger work in which different connotations of power has been discussed and differences have been drawn in between power and violence[2], I will launch a self-made concept of power/violence in which the separation vanishes. As Walter Benjamin wrote in his Critique of Violence, the process of establishing law (Recht) is comparable to establishing the (historical form of) power (Gewalt). I am thus using a concept of power / violence, in order to reflect on modern legal system and institutional power. I will point out ways in which legislative process means also a possibility to establish new kind of power/violence -relations. As the law-founding process is immanently a question of power /violence, it is also a political process.
Thus, the first focus of this presentation is conceptual. I will look at this complex bond between power and legitimation in terms of violence. The intimate bond between law and power/violence leads also to abstract authorization of the use of power. This has consequences in understanding the so-called paradox of sovereignty (Foucault), and I claim that we are in the state of need to redescribing the political understanding of sovereign. For instance in the situations in which the use of power/ violence is practiced by non-states, the praxis might lead to the unauthorized use of sovereign Gewalt. The core of the problem of sovereignty is also tied to the understanding of legitimacy of political power.
The aesthetic reflection emerges from the problem of ‘legitimating’ power/ violence. As is seen in the visual representations from the contemporary conflict zones there is always at least two parts that are facing the praxis of state violence – however, the theoretical viewpoint is usually limited to one perspective above the others. I join the theoretical discussion with specific photographic work by Louie Palu. What strikes me in his photographs is the strong individual presence, both in sides of aesthetic observer of the situation, plus the chosen focus of the different shots that bring up the individual, human face from the sites that are filled with military and civil violence. In a way, the object and subject of violence are both portrayed. In some of his images, the subject and object of violence are portrayed, even if they are absent.
This characterizes aspects of the senses of the political as well as moments of experiencing and representing power/violence. In the everyday commentaries, it is quite common to oversee the paradoxical and omnipresent forms of power/violence that is structuring the contemporary political, cultural, and human experience. Violence extends to forms of torture or biological warfare. I claim that it is harder to look at the images of war than to rationalize and read about it. The experience is also characterized by different threats of violence that are both clearly related to global violence but also to the individual experiences, consequences and traces left for generations of victims of political violence.
[2] Including works by Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon, Hans Morgenthau , Johan Galtung.
Abstract:
”It is the time when the negative falls silent and when in place of men comes the infinite calm (the effervescence) which does not embody itself or make itself intelligible.”
(Blanchot 1995 , The Writing of the Disaster”: 40)
Violence is a matter of senses as much as it is matter of physical or political life. Threat of violence emerges from experiences violent actions. Torture, an extreme form of experienced violence, does leaves its victim even if the physical torture is over. The stress caused by torture is something that cannot be ‘turned off’, after physical suffering is over. This experience is also shared by various other forms of violence. Global representations violence have been visible in recent years, for instance through internet-sites and shared experiences by the tortured[1]. This has made it a highly political matter.
One specific day in London, 26.10.2009, encountered the ‘world’ by two main news. The one was about another bomb in Iraq: suicide attacks killed ca. 147 people and more than 600 were injured (news 26.10.2009). The two car bombs blasted in Baghdad, leaving the streets full of bodies in the morning, as the people were going for work 10.30 am on the first day of Muslim week. This is only one day in the growing net of several consequent days of insane circle of violent activities.
On that same day, the next page represented images of “thriller night”, in which 22.000 fans of Michael Jackson around the world celebrating. People masked themselves as fantasy figures from the horror movies or bloody victims of violent activities. This was an aesthetic undertaking, as the masses in their peculiar outfits were dancing in the memory of the late Michael Jackson. Fiction, fantasy and reality seem to exist more and more often side-by-side, whenever the violence and death is portrayed. This is not a novelty, especially since the images and video clips form 9/11 terrorist attacks or the above mentioned images of torture, position the reality and fiction side by side to each other. Different images of vilence often seem like different parts of the same coin. News photographs look like bad representations of the fictional events portrayed in movies, or in contemporary photography.
In the background of this paper is my manuscript ‘Senses of Violence’, in which I will be looking at different ways to conceptualise and represent violence. The question in the background is in flexible limits between violence, represented as political action and violence represented in fantasy and fiction.
I will start with looking at the German term ‘Gewalt’ (state-power) – that has a central position in works by thinkers, such as Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt or Walter Benjamin (to name only a few). Gewalt is also being used as a synonym for ‘power’ or ‘pouvoir’. One problematic consequence of this it that the simple translation, (Gewalt into power or Gewalt into violence), creates the problem of distinguishing between power and violence. The Gewalt, as political theorists certainly know, is mainly by Max Weber’s discussion on state power. Here it is the state that holds the legitimate monopoly to also use physical power when needed.
Despite the larger work in which different connotations of power has been discussed and differences have been drawn in between power and violence[2], I will launch a self-made concept of power/violence in which the separation vanishes. As Walter Benjamin wrote in his Critique of Violence, the process of establishing law (Recht) is comparable to establishing the (historical form of) power (Gewalt). I am thus using a concept of power / violence, in order to reflect on modern legal system and institutional power. I will point out ways in which legislative process means also a possibility to establish new kind of power/violence -relations. As the law-founding process is immanently a question of power /violence, it is also a political process.
Thus, the first focus of this presentation is conceptual. I will look at this complex bond between power and legitimation in terms of violence. The intimate bond between law and power/violence leads also to abstract authorization of the use of power. This has consequences in understanding the so-called paradox of sovereignty (Foucault), and I claim that we are in the state of need to redescribing the political understanding of sovereign. For instance in the situations in which the use of power/ violence is practiced by non-states, the praxis might lead to the unauthorized use of sovereign Gewalt. The core of the problem of sovereignty is also tied to the understanding of legitimacy of political power.
The aesthetic reflection emerges from the problem of ‘legitimating’ power/ violence. As is seen in the visual representations from the contemporary conflict zones there is always at least two parts that are facing the praxis of state violence – however, the theoretical viewpoint is usually limited to one perspective above the others. I join the theoretical discussion with specific photographic work by Louie Palu. What strikes me in his photographs is the strong individual presence, both in sides of aesthetic observer of the situation, plus the chosen focus of the different shots that bring up the individual, human face from the sites that are filled with military and civil violence. In a way, the object and subject of violence are both portrayed. In some of his images, the subject and object of violence are portrayed, even if they are absent.
This characterizes aspects of the senses of the political as well as moments of experiencing and representing power/violence. In the everyday commentaries, it is quite common to oversee the paradoxical and omnipresent forms of power/violence that is structuring the contemporary political, cultural, and human experience. Violence extends to forms of torture or biological warfare. I claim that it is harder to look at the images of war than to rationalize and read about it. The experience is also characterized by different threats of violence that are both clearly related to global violence but also to the individual experiences, consequences and traces left for generations of victims of political violence.
[2] Including works by Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon, Hans Morgenthau , Johan Galtung.
24. The Vulnerability of the Body and the Non-violent Acceptance of the Other’s Violence in the Intimate Sphere, Ignazia Bartholini
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.1
Abstract:
Violence is traditionally a mode of action, refers, in the public sphere, to the dyad Friend/Foe (Schmitt 1927). Today it is instead an ever more worrisome in the dynamics of inner life and redefines the boundaries of each other’s identity and the weights that social actors have in their private life.
It 's just dyad inimicus / hostis to have been turned upside down as unexpected effect of a global culture that is also marked by an increase in violence in the private sphere. The more the hostis (political enemy) refers to a symbolic enemy, the inimicus (the personnel enemy) delays the proximity of the 'other person who is a dangerous polarity within relationship. This polarity threatens the same boundaries of my individuality that is defined through the marks of sex, gender, age, status and role. The relationship with the private enemy - husband, companion, partner - regress into a barbarism aim at restoring the contour of identity of those who, through violence on the other, demands a ransom that unfolds within an intimate relationship, in a violence performance. Violence becomes a category of the relationship but the same matter of relationship (Corradi 2008), in which to do and to suffer the violence are two sides of one relation.
Paradoxically, however, the violent action cannot be fully realized without the non violent acceptance of those who suffer the violence of other. However, you can question the very possibility that non violet action cannot not more and not only a master key, but a detonator of violence against the other? And what are the cases where it occurs?. Question on these issues involves an analysis of the possibilities through which to translate the subordination and liabilities of those who suffer violence in autenthic non-violent effective actvism.
25. On the Ambiguity of the Other: Politics of Spectatorship in Merleau-Ponty, Saara Hacklin
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.1
Abstract:
Traditionally, political art has been considered to follow a pattern, in which it aims in superseding the hegemonic imagery with its own, “more truthful”, images. It presupposes an audience that is ignorant of the ”truth”. However, as Jacques Rancière has pointed out in The Emancipated Spectator (2009), this model only repeats the existing pattern: by replacing the hegemonic imagery with another imagery, it aims in emancipating the audience, but fails to change the system. In short, the traditional political art relies on a certain model of “violence”, where only one “truth” is allowed. In my paper, I will look into the possibilities to approach the problem of political art from another angle. I will will take on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of art and in particular his concept of ”seeing with” in order to elaborate a new understanding of the spectator–artwork -relation. From the Merleau-Pontian perspective, the artwork is not set to “reveal” a pre-set truth for the ignorant “pupil”, but the work engages the spectator in a reciprocal relation. In my paper, I will demonstrate the Merleau-Pontian approach also with examples from the field of contemporary art.
26. The Politics of Nonviolence in Israel-Palestine, Nada Ghandour-Demiri
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 2.2
Abstract:
Until the recent uprisings in the Middle East, nonviolence was rarely a term associated with this part of the world in the Western media. Nevertheless, the effective nonviolent protests confirmed the power and relevance of civil disobedience in the Arab world. This paper focuses on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). It examines the ways in which nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation is conducted and to what extent it is able to counter sophisticated mechanisms of oppression used by the Israeli state.
Through an analysis of specific nonviolent direct actions, such as the weekly demonstrations against the Wall, it aims to show the effectiveness of this form of political action, together with its complexities. Furthermore, nonviolence, apart from a resistance strategy (as perceived by Palestinians), seems to have become an almost cliché concept (similar to ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’) advocated by Western-funded non-governmental organizations in the OPT. Many NGOs impose nonviolence (rather than ‘nonviolent resistance’) as a condition for funding. The analysis presented is based on research fieldwork conducted in Israel and the OPT by the author.
27. Late Modern Subjects of Colonial Occupation: the Politics of Aesthetics in Palestine, Laura Junka-Aikio
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 2.2
Abstract:
Instead of representing collective political empowerment, the second Palestinian uprising, the al Aqsa Intifada, generally foregrounds the fragmentation of the Palestinian national movement and the de-democratisation and militarisation of Palestinian resistance. This paper, which draws on the conclusions of my PhD thesis, argues that rather than being seen as a crisis of Palestinian political subjectivity and nationalism per se, the al Aqsa Intifada needs to be understood as a crisis of representation, one calling for new ways of understanding, conceptualising and representing politics and political subjectivity in Palestine. The paper shows that since the first Intifada, political life in Palestine has moved increasingly towards modes and spaces that can not find adequate representation within the dominant discourses of Nationalism and Islamic militancy. In order to understand the problematic and, even more importantly, the political potential of these ‘subaltern’ aspects of Palestinian resistance, the thesis suggests an alternative analytical approach that explores the crisis of the al Aqsa Intifada in relation to the wider political problematic of postcolonial late modernity and centres on a notion of the late modern subject of colonial occupation. In so doing, the paper concludes that the potential and promise of the Palestinians' struggle might currently be understood best in terms of non-violent and non-militant forms of action whose aesthetics are closer to struggles for radical democracy than to the aesthetics of a nationalist liberation movement.
28. Queer Nation and Politics of Parody, Jacek Kornak
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 2.2
Abstract:
In 1987 ACT UP and in 1990 Queer Nation were established in New York City. These two organizations of activists, fighting stigmatization of people with AIDS and homophobia in general, shook the scene of gay and lesbian activism in the US and internationally. They were not centralized organizations with clear structures and except lobbing and advocacy, common method for most of LGBT organization of that time, they offered direct actions: demonstrations and street performances. These were the activist that first time started using the term “queer” in their political struggle. In my paper I look how “queer” appeared as a peculiar political concept, the concept that mobilized parody as a tool for political contestation. In their actions parody became a method to combat violence against sexual minorities. Their non-violence politics of parody was based on exaggerated use of aggressive discourses of religious fundamentalists, nationalists or far-right politicians. The parodist use of these discourses marked the new departure for non-violence political direct action.
“Queer” was in many cases a call to redefine the LGBT communities. Many manifestos and leaflets of Queer Nation suggest that “queer” was used as a mark of a new more inclusive and difference sensitive community. It marked some ideal of “the community-to-come.” Interestingly these aims were expressed not through a typical discourse of rights or traditional arguments based on identity politics. “Queer” marked a call to redefine terms of political debates and a call to search for new ways of thinking about minorities and their relation to the society. Queer Nation was publishing leaflets that had language of popular adverts; they were organizing little theatrical performances in public spaces; they used in a parodist way the language that in itself was violent but in non-violent parodist use it was mobilized to reveal paradoxes and contradictions on which contemporary politics is based.
My paper is based on a research I made in Chicano Research Library at UCLA and Gay Centre, NYC and NYC Public Library Archives. I analyse selected materials produced by ACT UP and Queer Nation from the period 1990 – 1993. I also confront them with selected commentators writing from the perspective of queer theory.
29. On Violent and Non-Violent Resistance, Yahya R. Haidar
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 2.2
Abstract:
This paper develops a study of the hermeneutics of violent and non-violent resistance. Non-violence as a mode of thought is defined to be potentially fostering, in post-colonial contexts, of a kind of nativism or primitivism; a back-to-nature approach to life along the lines of which nationalist and religious sentiments are revivified. Closely reading Mahatma Gandhi's writings on non-violence, such "nativism" appears to parallel the concept of nationhood, whereby the discourse of non-violence draws the bounds of the nation-state. In essence, to be truly non-violent is to be authentically nationalist; authenticism here connotes shared common "sacred" histories of conflict with the non-nationalist Other. On the other hand, violent resistance in the context of the nation-state necessitates a dichotomy between nativism and terrorism, whereby the former is non-violent, and the latter violent resistance. Being "inside" the nation-state must come with ongoing non-violence, and those professing any form of resistence are necessarily "outsiders", non-nationalists, others even if it is for a national struggle. In this logic, conceptualizations of non-conflict tend to imply complete absence of resistance in all forms. Thus, as much as conflict analysis is necessary, this paper attempts to show that resistance analysis should be placed at an equal level of importance.
30. Regaining the Discourse: Using Public Authorship for Moving to an Aesthetic of Non-Violence, Swenja Granzow and Saskia Mestern
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.4
Abstract:
We propose a paper that discusses the potential of public art to deal with the crisis of democracy. This crisis has caused an aggressive (non-)discourse that characterises the disconnect between citizens and their political representatives as well as the growing gap between societal groups. While the advantaged groups air their demands publicly, the disadvantaged are verbally abused and retreat from the public sphere.
It is our hypothesis that public art that is the product of public authorship can be a counterforce to this crisis and the violence because the shared artistic process can create new ground for working together to deal with difference.
In testing this hypothesis we are lead by two questions: How much democratisation can be achieved through public authorship of art? And, what increases the positive influence of processes of public art? These questions guide us in comparing Jochen Gerz’s Future Monument and Public Bench (Coventry, England, 2004) and Pedro Reyes’ Palas por Pistolas (“Shovels for Guns”) (Culiacán, Mexico, 2008). We come to the conclusion that public authorship brings out the positive potential of difference for moving toward an aesthetic of non-violence in a democratising society as political positions are again brought into an inclusive discourse.
31. La Plaza de las Madres: Collective Mourning and Public Space in Argentina, Ludmila Bazzoni
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.4
Abstract:
32. Nathan’s Tolerance: an Exercise in Nonviolence, Paola Coppi
Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.4
Abstract:
In 1779 Lessing published Nathan der Weise, a very precious text in reference to the historical and philosophical understanding of the idea of tolerance. The shepherd’s son of Kamenz is among the most remarkable and sturdy voices of the german Enlightenment. To Lessing must be recognized the ability to embrace and discuss of extensive problems ranging from philology to theater, anthropology, physics, until theology. In Nathan, with the religious theme, is developed another theme dear to the author: that of tolerance. Made of five acts, was set in 1187, in the Jerusalem newly conquered from Saladin, Nathan put the reader inside what history normally calls the Third Crusade. The tale is very interesting from the beginning since interweaves, with continuous twists, not just deep and vital ties between characters that are in addition of three different religions (Jew, Muslim and Christian), but, above all, because invites the reader to think over the concept of tolerance as foundation for a possible religious politic of no-violence. The famous history of the three rings , that Nathan quotes to the Sultan, is an example. According to Lessing the Truth not only exists, but has to be attempted, and most of all, in her name can’t be sacrified the tolerance.
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