Got this via Aaron on Facebook. It's Glenn Beck on Fox News going mental about the Tarnac 9 book, available here (the Beck piece is also transcribed here):

Beck:

This book has not even been released in this country yet. It has been passed hand to hand and via the Internet, much like the pamphleteers in pre-revolution America. Thomas Paine was one of them. He issued a call to arms. I am not doing that. You are an idiot if you start shooting people — all that does is delegitimize the cause. Be like Ghandi, like Martin Luther King.

But people on the extreme left are calling people to arms. I am not calling to ban this book, but you should read it to know what is coming and be ready when it does.

Meanwhile, Tarnac 9 themselves:

When things get serious, the army occupies the terrain. Whether or not it engages in combat is less certain. That would require that the state be committed to a bloodbath, which for now is no more than a threat, a bit like the threat of using nuclear weapons for the last fifty years. Though it has been wounded for a long while, the beast of the state is still dangerous. A massive crowd would be needed to challenge the army, invading its ranks and fraternizing with the soldiers. We need a March 18th 1871. When the army is in the street, we have an insurrectionary situation. Once the army engages, the outcome is precipitated. Everyone finds herself forced to take sides, to choose between anarchy and the fear of anarchy. An insurrection triumphs as a political force. It is not impossible to defeat an army politically.

From an editor who would know:

'The problem with analytic work, I've found, is not that it deals with exclusively with small problem and pulls out the logical pincers to deal with this toothache of a world - it is that the thinking is so godawful bad even on the logical level. It is the inability to go at things from more than one peephole of an angle - and the idea that you 'win' by showing your particular peephole is better than a peephole that was drilled in 'Mind' by some other analytic - that makes these things so damn depressing. And the peephole artists all defend these cliches! If they'd only take a ride on the wild side just once - defend solipsism, or nihilism, or relativism - but it is all just the most tiresome middle class views that await one at the end of the peephole.'

Having just got the translation in the post (though I do have my own very ragged version of the first thirty pages), I have to say: Great cover! A red flag swirls over a backdrop of social housing, s'really quite moving. Good work Ed Marshall!

[Totally irrelevant but rather good picture from robo bandito]

Well Ads might like Sundays, but I bloody hate them. The slight tremor of jouissance that the possibility of post brings is absent, for a start, and a pallor of eventlessness hangs over everywhere like a damp tablecloth that your auntie,in a fit of sexless depression, just washed and hung out to dry. By the time you remember that you're out of bog-roll, the shops have already shut, and public transport (especially out here in Ballard-country) is minimal or non-existent (please, please re-open the Jubilee line on weekends, you're forcing me to stay in bed and read Feuerbach. Admittedly I should be doing that anyway, eternally, but not in bed, it's slatternly).

The odd optimistic bastard pretends to play football in the park, attempting to ward off the ominous day-cloud of Mondayism...but no escape! Even if you go to the pub to pretend it's not happening, the 10.30 last orders will remind you that this is a Victorian country, if you please, and that a grown man (or woman) must not spend his (or her) weekly wage on devil's piss, or else children will grow beards and furniture will start looking sexy.

But what did I do on Sundays in the countryside? I barely remember. My homework, I expect, listened to the charts, had a bath then lay in bed with that truly miserable kind of insomnia exacerbated by the knowledge not only that you have to get up early, but that you'd only be swapping one sort of boredom for another. What a miserable git I was/am! Ha ha ha! Only made happy by writing miserable posts! Ha ha ha! Sulking as catharsis! Ah, Feuerbach, the secret of Sundays is Monday, and the truth of humanity is waiting for the post.

It’s a miracle he’s allowed out, never mind that he dwells happily amid the ponderous, right-on bureaucracies and the archival bowels of the BBC. His entire career consists of telling people that everything they know and think is wrong, that reality is beyond their reach, that everything they touch dissolves on contact.

“So what,” I ask him, pointing at a curious pink pig, about three inches long, on his lapel, “is that?”

“It’s a pig. Sometimes a pig is just a pig.” (from here - thanks Bat).

Perhaps my favourite place in the entire world, other than the soft embrace of pleasant-dream-smothered sleep, is the Chinese restaurant near the Ballardian flat I pay far too much rent for (I realised the other day that despite having worked full-time for three years I currently own £300 pounds, total, hmm, oops). The restaurant sits at the bottom of a chain hotel, and the staff resolutely pretend not to notice you've been in there about 500 times before, which I love. About two years ago I signed up for a loyalty card, and have dutifully collected points every time we go there - which, let's face it, is several times a week. Over the months I amassed about £1900 worth of points, which is certainly a lot of lemon chicken. They have a little card-reading machine by the entrance which tells you how many points you have, then afterwards, persistently, the message 'no redemption is possible at this time'. I adore this message. 'Before the Law! Before the Law!' I think, without fail, each time.

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.”

But alas, the loyalty-card scheme has come to an end, and I got my 'redemption' - £10 off the final meal. Sometimes it's better to remain unredeemed and possibly even irremediable, else you sit there in front of the law, getting all strange about it.

[This piece, not published anywhere else as far as I know, apart from here, was forwarded to me by Ali Alizadeh. It's Zizek, very recently, on Iran]

Slavoj Zizek

When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…

In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now?

There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq.

Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% - can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough - they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left.

Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests.

The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.

There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).

Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.

And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.

The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.

Open letter of support to the demonstrators in Iran
Friday 19 June 2009


This morning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded an end to the massive and forceful demonstrations protesting the controversial result of last week's election. He argued that to make concessions to popular demands and 'illegal' pressure would amount to a form of 'dictatorship', and he warned the protestors that they, rather than the police, would be held responsible for any further violence.

Khamenei's argument sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives. 'No government can justly claim authority', as South Africa's ANC militants put it in their Freedom Charter of 1955, 'unless it is based on the will of all the people.'

Needless to say it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers inspired by the courage of those demonstrating in Iran this past week are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.

Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination.

AGAMBEN, Giorgio, Università IUAV di Venezia, Venice
ALAMDARI, Kazem, California State University, Los Angeles
ALLIEZ, Eric, Middlesex Universtiy, UK
AMSLER, Sarah S., Language and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham
ANDERSON, Kevin B., Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
ASAD, Talal, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BADIOU, Alain, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
BALIBAR, Etienne, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine
BALKAN, Nesecan,Hamilton College
BANUAZIZI, Ali, Professor of Political Science and Director, Program in Islamic Civilization and Societies, Boston College
BAYAT, Asef, Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, Leiden University
BEHROOZ, Maziar, Associate Professor of Middle East History, San Francisco State University
BENHABIB, Seyla, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven
BEYER, Vera, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin
BIENIEK, Adam, Jagiellonian University, Chair of Arab Studies, Institute of Oriental Philology, Cracow, Poland
BOCHENSKA, Joanna, Dept. of Kurdish Studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
BOGDAN, Jolan, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
BOSTEELS, Bruno Bosteels, Cornell University
BRAULT, Pascale-Anne, Professor of French, Dept. of Modern Languages, DePaul University
BRUNO, Michael, Dept. of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
BRUSTAD, Kristen, Associate Chair, Dept. Of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
BURGE, Tyler, University of California, Los Angeles
BURGERS, Jan-Willem, Australian National University
BUTLER, Judith, University of California, Berkeley
BUTT, Gavin, Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader in MPhil / PhD,
CARDIN, Maryam, IUT of the University of Marne-la-vallée
CHOMSKY, Noam, MIT, Cambridge MA USA
COHEN, Joshua, Stanford University
COLE, Juan R. I., Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan
DABASHI, Hamid, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York
DE CARO, Mario, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Rome
DI LUCIA COLLETI, Laura, Conseillor Province of Venice
DOGRAMACI, Sinan, University of Texas at Austin
DOLEZALEK, Isabelle, Freie Universität Berlin
DOMINIAK, Piotr, Chairman of ASK Association in Raciborz, Poland
DORFMAN, Vladimiro Ariel, Duke Universtiy, Durham, North Carolina
DÜTTMANN, Alexander Garcia, Goldsmiths College
EHSANI, Kaveh, Assistant Professor of International Studies, DePaul University
EISENSTEIN, Zillah, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College
ENGELMANN, Stephen, University of Illinois at Chicago
EPSTEIN, Barbara, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz
FALK, Richard, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
FARHI, Farideh, Dept. of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
FARNOODY-ZAHIRI, Nelly, UCLA
FASY, Thomas M., Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City
FATIMA KHAN, Mahruq, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
FIELD, Hartry, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
FORAN, John, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
FRIEDLAND, Roger, Professor of Religiou Studies and Sociology, UCSB
GAJEWSKA, Katarzyna, University of Poland
GANDJBAKHSH, Amirhosseing, Research Director, National Health Institute, Washington DC
GANZ, David, Universität Konstanz, Germany
GARRETT, Don, Dept. of Philosophy, New York University
GASIOROWSKI, Mark, Political Science and International Studies, Louisiana State University
GLOGOWSKI, Aleksander, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
GODMILOW, Jill, University of Notre Dame
GOLE, Nilufer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
HÁJEK, Alan, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
HALLWARD, Peter, Middlesex University, UK
HASHEMI, Nader, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics
HEGASY, Sonja, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
HERRERA, Linda, Institute of Social Studies (The Hague)
HIBBARD, Scott, DePaul University, Chicago
HOEFERT, Almut, University of Basel
HONNETH, Axel, University of Frankfurt, Germany
IVEKOVIC, Rada, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne
JIMENEZ, Maria, Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris IV
KAPLINSKY, Raphael, Professor of International Development, The Open University, UK
KESHAVARZIAN, Arang, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
KHOSROVANI, Sahar, University of Maastricht
KORBEL, Josef, School of International Studies, University of Denver
KOWALIK, Tadeusz, professor of economics and humanities, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
KOWALSKA, Beata, Jagiellonian University, Poland
KOZLOWSKI, Pawel, Professor of economics, Polish Academy of Sciences
KUMAR, Victor, University of Arizona
LARRIVÉE, Pierre, Aston University, Birmingham
LEMISCH, Jesse, Professor Emeritus, History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA
MARTINON, Jean-Paul, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
MASROUR, Farid, Dept. Of Philosophy, New York University
MCFARLAND, Andrew, Political Science Dept., University of Illinois,
Chicago
MCINTYRE, Michael, International Studies, DePaul University, Chicago
MEHDIZADEH, Hamidreza, Illinois Institute of Technology
MEMMI, Paul, Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense
MOALLEM, Minoo, UC Berkeley
MORUZZI, Norma Claire, University of Illinois at Chicago, Political Science, History, Gender and Women's Studies
MOSES, Claire G., Dept. of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland
MOSHTAGHI, Nazgol, University of South Florida
NAST, Heidi, DePaul University, Chicago
NATCHKEBIA, Irina, Tbilisi University
NEGRI, Antonio, Collège International de Philosophie
NESPOULOUS, Jean-Luc, Université de Toulouse, Le Mirail et Institut Universitaire de France
NOYAU, Colette, Dépt des Sciences du langage, CNRS, Université Paris-Ouest
OBDRZALEK, Suzanne, Dept of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
PATTERSON, Ian, Director of Studies in English, Queens’ College Cambridge
PETTIT, Philip, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
PHELPS, Christopher, Dept. of History, The Ohio State University
PIRVELI, Marika, Szczecin University, Poland
POTTER, Robert, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
PRÉVOST, Sophie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
PRINZ, Jesse, Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York
PROUST, Joëlle, Director of Research, Institut Jean-Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure
PSTRUSIŃSKA, Jadwiga, Head of Dept. of Interdisciplinary Eurasiatic Research, Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow
RAKOWIECKA, Karolina, Jagiellonian University, Cracow
RAKOWIECKI, Jacek, Collegium Civitas, Poland
RANCIÈRE, Jacques, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis)
REZAEI ,Ali, Dept. of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada
RIGGLE, Nicholas Alden, Philosophy, New York University
ROMAN, Richard, University of Toronto
ROSENTHAL, David M., Professor of Philosophy, Cognitive Science Concentration Graduate Center, City University of New York
ROSS, Eric B., Visiting Professor of Anthropology and International Development Studies, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
SAHNI, Varun, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Ganeshkhind, Pune
SANBONMATSU, John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dept. Of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA
SCHAEFER, Karin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
SCHELLENBERG, Susanna, Professor of Philosophy, Research School of the Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra
SCHIBECI, Lynn, (retired) Dept. of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
SCHIELKE, Samuli, Centre of Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin
SCHRECKER, Ellen, Professor of American History at Yeshiva University, New York
SCHWABSKY, Barry, Senior Critic in Sculpture (retired), Yale University
SEDGWICK, Sally, University of Illinois, Chicago
SHAHSAVARI, Anousha, Persian Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin
SHEIKHZADEGAN, Amir, University of Freiburg
SIEGEL, Susanna C., Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge
SIMPSON, Dick, Head of the Political Science Dept., University of Illinois, Chicago
SINGPURWALLA, Rachel, University of Maryland, College Park
SOSA, Ernest, Rutgers University Philosophy Department
SPERBER, Dan, Institut Jean Nicod, CRNS, Paris
STEINSEIFER, Martin, Universität Giessen
STUART, Jack, Minneapolis, MN
Tabb, William K., City University of New York
TAVAKOLI-BORAZJANI, Farifteh, Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Iranistik
TAVAKOLI-TARGHI, Mohamad, Professor of History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
TISSBERGER, Martina, Freie Universität Berlin, Dept. of Educational Sciences and Psychology
TOHIDI, Nayereh, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies Dept., California State University, Northridge
TOSCANO, Alberto, Goldsmiths College, UK
UNGER, Peter, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
VAHDAT, Farzin, Vassar College, New York
VAN BLUEMEL, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, MA
VAN BRUINESSEN, Martin, Chair of Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
VICTORRI, Bernard, Directeur de recherché CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
WATZL, Sebastian, Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University
WEINTRAUB, Jeff, University of Pennsylvania
WHITE, Stephen, Dept. of Philosophy, Tufts University
WINANT, Howard, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
ZIAI, Hossein, Director of Iranian Studies, UCLA Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Los Angeles, CA
ŽIŽEK, Slavoj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School
ZUK, Agnieszka, University of Nancy
ZUPANCIC, Alenka, Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Someone sent me an urgent request to think of films about memory. If anyone can add to this list, please email me at infinitethought[at]hotmail.co.uk:

These are already on the list:

India Song,
Memento,
Professione: reporter,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
2046,
Ararat,
Calendar,
La Jetée.
Immemory, Grin without a Cat by Chris Marker
In Search of Lost Time - Ruiz
The Machinist
Citizen Kane
Godard's History of Cinema

UPDATE: Lots of additional suggestions here! Thanks to all.

Travis:
I'd add Last Year in Marienbad+Hiroshima mon amour+Nuit et Brouillard+any other Alain Resnais movie. His memory movies might be my favorite in the class. Another Chris Marker film that might be added is Remembrance of Things to Come, about documentary photographer Denise Bellon and the spectral calm of prewar, peacetime photography when viewed with our 'memory' (or 'post-memory') of what followed. Also, Vertigo??? A mon avis, these could even knock some of the hip indies like Memento and The Machinist off the list--wasn't the whole 'oh shiiiit, that's what was really happening'-ending memory movie already perfected by Hitchcock, sexy male protagonist and all?

Ryan: City of Lost Children
Dark City
Jacob's Ladder

Edwin:
A Time To Live and A Time To Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
In The Heat of The Sun (Jiang Wen)
Balzac and the Little Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
Titanic (James Cameron)

Herbert:
I'm tempted to say, obnoxiously, What film isn't about memory? But this is fun. Below are a few more titles that came to mind quickly
Blade Runner
Le Chagrin et la pitié
Blue [Jarman]
The Decay of Fiction
Eloge de l'amour
Marnie
Mulholland Drive
Paris, Texas
Velvet Goldmine
Waltz with Bashir

Jayne:
Another great film about memory is Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 film "After Life" (Wandafuru raifu).

Andrew:
Last Year at Marienbad
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Muriel

Karim:
Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad
Syberberg, Our Hitler

If you want to extend to television plays, there is also Beckett's 'Eh Joe'.

Kodwo:
Je t'aime Je t'aime
Last Year in Marienbad
Toute la memoire du monde
Solaris
Zorns Lemma
The Man who Lied
The Final Cut
Dark City
Old Boy
Vanilla Sky
Paycheck (you didn't say they had to be good films)

Michael:
Fight Club
Vanilla Sky (and the original Abre los Ojos)
Solaris
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
A Scanner Darkly
Paycheck
Mysterious Skin
Total Recall
Johnny Mnemonic
The Final Cut
Reign Over Me
Hook
Groundhog Day
50 First Dates
The Bourne Identity (and sequels)
The Butterfly Effect (and the even worse sequel)

Mark:
Blow Up

Dave:

I'm assuming you mean personal memory vs. historical memory or cultural memory. There are lots of films that are about memory without being explicitly about memory but I'm trying to stay stricter here. Off the top of my head, since its after 2AM here:

lots of Alain Resnais films, especially these 3:
LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Je t'aime, je t'aime

much of Jonas Mekas's work is explicitly about memory, and the way we keep memories. There's too much to list.

Lynch woks this ground a lot, in his recent work especially:
Mulholland Drive
Inland Empire

Godard's Eloge de l'amour [In Praise of Love]
Marker's Sans Soleil

more amnesia films!
Random Harvest
50 First Dates
The Bourne films (The Bourne Identity most of all)

Abre los ojos [Open Your Eyes] (and the American remake Vanilla Sky)

some docs about personal memory
Of Time and the City
Porto da Minha Infancia [Porto of My Childhood]

John:
Last Year at Marieband, Resnais
Re-released this week for region 1 dvd (and bluray).

UPDATE TWO: Everyone suggests Tarkovsky!

Andrew (again):
Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) - woman haunted by others' memories of her husband's deceased wife
Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950) - four recollections of the one sequence of events
Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973) - man haunted by the memory of his daughter's drowning
Grey Gardens (Mayles & Mayles, 1975) - documentary on a mother and daughter that live almost entirely in the past

Hugo:
By now, you seem to have more than enough, but here are two that
nobody seems to remember: Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, and Tarkovsky’s
Nostalgia.

Nathaniel:
Mirror

Richard:
Couldn't resist adding a favourite...

Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974) - you could include pretty much all of his films under this heading, but this one most of all!

Has anybody seen Chris Marker's CD-ROM, Immemory? (An updated but Mac-only version has just been released)

And to complete the La jetée/Vertigo link, there's Marker's text on the latter - - oh, and Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, of course!

Julian:
For the interweaving and coexistence, not to mention confusion, of present, past and history (amazing archive wartime footage in an otherwise personal film), I would, inevitably, point you to Tarkovsky's 'Mirror'. Also the only film in which the sexy heroism of proofreaders is properly explored.

Arlen:
Persona by Bergman !!!!!!
Nostalgia by Tarkovsky,
The mirror by Takovsky,
Memories of Undervelopment by Tomas Gutierrez Alea.

Wayne:
A History Of Violence
Spellbound
Point Blank
The Man Who Fell To Earth
Spider
Once Upon A Time In America
All That Jazz
Synecdoche New York
Primer
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte
Event Horizon
Rashomon
Sixth Sense
Birth
Amarcord
The Offence
Little Big Man
The Conformist
Time Regained
Two For The Road (?)
Sleepers
Cinema Paradiso
Remember My Name
Laura
Citizen Kane
The Killers
The Life And Death Of Colenel Blimp
Groundhog Day (oblique, but highly influential in the past decade's vogue for rearranged time/memory erasure)

Ted:
Ok, not technically a "film" but both "The Singing Detective" and
"Karaoke," Dennis Potter's mini-series are great essays on memory and
how we reshape them to form narratives to justify our current behavior.

BTW, the Japan manga "20th Century Boys" is on a level with the
Dennis Potter work. The not-so-great film adaptations do not really
carry over this thread that makes the comic sooooo good.

Giovanni:
Strange Days
Until the End of the World
eXistenZ
Impostor (on the established basis that they don't have to be good)
Minority Report (ditto)
The Forgotten
Wintersleepers
The Lives of Others (I hated this, but hey)
The Conversation
...so long as Cinema Paradiso is there, I'd add Decasia, which is like the antidote.

Wayne:
Suture
Peggy Sue Got Married
Robocop
The Machinist
Total Recall
Seconds
Out Of The Past
Reds
Bad Timing
Anatomy Of A Murder
The English Patient
Land And Freedom
Hulk (Ang Lee version)
Batman Begins
Man Of The West
Crossfire
Detour
Shoot The Pianist
Pursued (Raoul Walsh)
Most Terrence Davies films

WHERE IS MY VOTE

To join this academic appeal send your name and affiliation at vincent.danos[at]gmail.com

We are actively trying to get the appeal in the press (as of June 21).

June 20, 2009

A week ago, Friday June 12, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the Iranian presidential election. Immediately after, all other candidates, Moussavi, Karroubi, and even the conservative Rezaei, disputed the official results. So did some people who started several demonstrations to express their anger. More news fueled the suspicion of fraud at an unprecendented scale. On Monday June 15, and to the amazement of the world, millions of people – of all ages, classes, and backgrounds – were in the streets of Tehran demanding another election in what was the biggest demonstration since the revolution in 1979. A week later, despite the threats and beatings issued and ordered by the government, millions of people are still demonstrating, and the movement is growing and spreading to other cities.

Observers might find the situation confusing, since Iran has long been an isolated country and the everyday Iranian is unknown to the outside world. One cannot even prove that there was a fraud. There remains the fact that millions of people are protesting in the streets of Iran. These are traditional, religious, modern, young, old, rich and poor, academics – some of them our colleagues – going out in the streets and risking their lives with a form of innocence in their aims and tactics. Some of them may stand on their roofs at night shouting “God is great” to keep the movement alive. They are braving the power because they insist that the Islamic republic is a republic.

The government is imposing a ban on the foreign press, shutting down all means of communication within their reach, arresting hundreds of prominent activists, politicians and religious figures opposing the results, and terrorising demonstrators. Every day fewer videos and reports escape from Iran. The state media is depicting the protests as incited by the West, accusing the movement of being a party of hooligans and traitors. After a week of uncertainty, the head of the state, Khamenei, just issued yesterday strong and explicit threats against participants in the protests and rallies.

This text is an urgent request to academics to fight the misrepresentation of this movement. This is not only about showing support to the courage and determination of people on the streets of Iran. It also means reaching for the many people in Iran who would like to participate but are frightened or know of the movement only through the state media. It means informing these people of the scale and nature of the movement, and thus widen its support within Iran. To all academics, please sign this appeal to support this movement in its call for a new election and oppose any violent intervention on protesters.

Dr. S. Aaronson (MIT) – Prof. S. Abramsky (University of Oxford) – Prof. L. Aceto (Reykjavik University) – Dr. G. Alfano (Brunel University) – Dr. R. Alléaume (Télécom Paris Tech) – Dr. E. Andersson (Heriot-Watt University) – Prof. W. Arendt (University of Ulm) – Dr. P. Arrighi (Université de Grenoble) – Dr. S. van Bakel (Imperial College London) – Dr. A. Baltag (University of Oxford) – Dr. K. Banaszek (Nicolaus Copernicus University) – Dr. E. Barker (University of Oxford) – Prof. A. Bar-Hen (Université Paris Descartes) – Prof. S. M. Barnett (University of Strathclyde) – Dr. G. Batt (INRIA) – Dr. A. Bayat (University College London) – Prof. P. Bellot (Télécom Paris Tech) – Dr. S. Bliudze (CEA) – Dr. S. Bouzarovski (University of Birmingham) – Prof. T. Brandes (Technische Universitt Berlin) – Dr. D. Browne (University College London) – Dr. M. di Bucchianico (London School of Economics) – Dr. S. Buhmann (Imperial College London) – Prof. A. Bundy (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. P. Buneman (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. F. Buscemi (Cambridge University) – Prof. V. Buzek (Slovak Academy of Sciences) – Prof. L. Cable (University at Albany) – Prof. A. Cabello (Universidad de Sevilla) – Prof. T. Calarco (University of Ulm) – Dr. A. del Campo (Imperial College London) – Dr. N. Cannata (Università di Camerino) – Prof. A. Carbone (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) – Prof. P. Carbone (Università IULM) – Prof. S. Carroll (Caltech) – Dr. D. Cavalcanti (ICFO - Barcelon) – Prof. B. Chandrasekaran (Ohio State University) – Dr. K. Chatzikokolakis (Technical University of Eindhoven) – Prof. C. W. Clark (University of Maryland) – Dr. S. R. Clark (National University of Singapore) – Dr. B. Coecke (University of Oxford) – Prof. S. B. Cooper (University of Leeds) – Prof. D. W. Corne (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. M. Cramer (Imperial College London) – Dr. P. Crépieux (CNRS) – Prof. W. van Dam (University of California) – Prof. V. Danos (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. G. M. D’Ariano (University of Pavia) – Dr. N. Datta (University of Cambridge) – Dr. O. Dahlsten (ETH Zurich) – Dr. J. Degorre (CNRS) – Dr. J. Desharnais (Université Laval) – Prof. M. Dezani-Ciancaglini (Università di Torino) – Prof. E. E. Doberkat (Technische Universität Dortmund) – Dr. T. Douglas (University of Oxford) – Prof. D. Dubhashi (Chalmers University) – Dr. P. Dumais (Université de Montréal) – Dr. R. Duncan (Oxford University) – Prof. J. Eisert (University of Potsdam) – Prof. H. Emamirad (Poitiers University) – Dr. M. Ericsson (Uppsala University) – Dr. K. Etessami (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. B. Farzad (Brock University) – Prof. R. Fazio (Scuola Normale Superiore) – Dr. A. Farjudian (Aston University) – Dr. J. Feret (INRIA) – Dr. A. Feito (Imperial College London) – Prof. F. Ferreira (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. J. Fitzsimons (University of Oxford) – Prof. W. Fontana (Harvard University) – Prof. B. Foroughi (St. Francis Xavier University) – Dr. I. Fuentes-Schuller (University of Hertfordshire) – Prof. E. Fox Keller (MIT) – Dr. E. F. Galvão (University of Federal Fluminense) – Prof. J. Gauntlett (Imperial College London) – Dr. J. George (University of Toronto) – Dr. G. Giuli (Università di Camerino) – Dr. D. Green (The City University of New York) – Dr. D Gross (University of Hannover) – Dr. G. Gualdi (Università di Camerino) – Dr. A. R. Hadaegh (California State University San Marcos) – Prof. S. Hanneton (Paris Descartes University) – Dr. R. Harmer (CNRS) – Prof. M. Hartmann (Technische Universität München) – Prof. J. M. Henderson (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. L. Hendren (McGill University) – Dr. W. K. Hensinger (University of Sussex) – Prof. J. Hillston (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Hirschowitz (CEA) – Dr. S. Hym (Université Lille 1) – Dr. M. Huth (Imperial College London) – Prof. J. Hutnyk (Goldsmiths) – Prof. M. Ivanov (Imperial College London) – Dr. A. Iwasiewicz-Wabnig (University of Oxford) – Dr. K. Jacobs, (University of Massachusetts) – Prof. H. J. Jensen (Imperial College London) – Prof. P. Jorrand (CNRS) – Prof. J.-P. Jouannaud (INRIA) – Prof. R. Jozsa (University of Bristol) – Dr. E. Kashefi (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. S. Kedad-Sidhoum (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) – Dr. A. Kent (Cambridge University) – Dr. I. Kerenidis (CNRS) – Prof. D. Kesner (Université Paris Diderot) – Prof. F. Képes (CNRS) – Dr. H. Koeppl (EPFL) – Dr. P. Kok (University of Sheffield) – Dr. J. Krivine (IHES) – Prof. R. Laflamme (University of Waterloo) – Dr. M. Laforest (Delft University of Technology) – Dr. F. Laviolette (Université Laval) – Prof. B. Leimkuhler (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. M. Lein (University of Hannover) – Prof. G. Leuchs (Universität Erlangen-Nuernberg) – Prof. L. Libkin (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. G. Longo (CNRS) – Dr. P. van Loock (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light) Prof. N. Lütkenhaus (University of Waterloo) – Dr. D. Markham (CNRS) – Prof. H. Mairson (Brandeis University) – Dr. R. Mardare (Università di Trento) – Dr. D. Mazza (CNRS) – Dr. P.-A. Mellies (CNRS) – Prof. M. Mislove (Tulane University) – Prof. E. Mjolsness (University of California) – Prof. C. Moore (University of New Mexico) – Prof. M. Mosca (University of Waterloo) – Prof. M. Murao (University of Tokyo) – Dr. A. Murawski (University of Oxford) – Dr. R. Nagarajan (University of Warwick) – Dr. M. Navascues (Imperial College London) – Prof. B. Nordstrom (Chalmers University) – Dr. P. Ohberg (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. A. Olaya-Castro (University College London) – Prof. C.-H. L. Ong (University of Oxford) – Dr. N. Oury (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Owari (Imperial College London) – Prof. C. Palamidessi (INRIA) – Prof. P. Panangaden (McGill University) – Dr. D. Pavlovic (University of Oxford) – Dr. M. Pedicini (CNR) – Prof. O. Penrose (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. M. Planat (Université de Franche-Comté) – Prof. M. B. Plenio (Imperial College London) – Prof. G. Plotkin (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. O. Radulescu (University of Rennes 1) – Dr. R. Rahimi Darabad (Kinki University) – Prof. D. V. G. L. N. Rao (University of Massachusetts Boston) – Prof. L. Regnier (Université de la Méditerranée) – Dr. D. Reitter (Carnegie Mellon University) – Prof. L. Roversi (Università di Torino) – Dr. T. Rudolph(Imperial College London) – Prof. P. Y. A. Ryan (University of Luxembourg) – Dr. M. Sadrzadeh (University of Oxford) – Prof. B. Sanders (University of Calgary) – Dr. R. Santhanam (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Santos (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) – Prof. W. Schleich (University of Ulm) – Prof. P. Selinger (Dalhousie University) – Dr. A. Serafini (University College London) – Dr. P. Series (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. S. Severini (University of Waterloo) – Dr. M. P. da Silva (Université de Sherbrooke) – Prof. L. Smolin (Perimeter Institute) – Dr. P. Sobocinski (University of Southampton) – Dr. R. Spekkens (Perimeter Institute) – Prof. A. Steinberg (University of Toronto) – Dr. K. Szacilowski (Jagiellonian University) – Prof. F. Taddei (Université Paris Descartes) – Prof. A. Tapp (Université de Montréal) – Prof. A. Thiele (Newcastle University) – Dr. L. Tortora de Falco (Università Roma Tre) – Dr. F. Valckenborgh (Macquarie University) – Dr. D. Varacca (Université Paris Diderot) – Dr. M. G. Vigliotti (Imperial College London) – Dr. S. Virmani (University of Strathclyde) – Prof. N. Vitanov (Sofia University) – Prof. P. Wadler (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. B. Werner (INRIA) – Prof. R. F. Werner (Technical University of Braunschweig) – Dr. M. Zoli (Università di Camerino) – Prof. E. Zucca (Università di Genova)

Morad Farhadpour and Omid Mehrgan [translators and philosophers based in Tehran]

This piece is copyright-free. Please distribute widely.

In the past two weeks, the majority of people in Tehran and other cities in Iran (including Shiraz, Ahwaz, Tabriz, Isfihan) have been on the streets, protesting against the theft of the presidential election by a handful of state’s agents at the top level. It was not a rigging in the usual western sense, no added votes or replaced ballot boxes, the election went on properly, the votes were taken and probably even counted, the figures transmitted to the ministry of interior, and it was there that they were totally disregarded and replaced by totally fictitious figures. That is why all the opposition forces (Sazman-e-Mojahedin-e-Enghelab, Mosharekat party...) together with people called it a coup d’état.

Global public opinion and, especially, the body of (leftist) intellectuals, Inspired by recent events in the middle Asia and east Europe, mostly regard this Iranian mass protest as another version of the well-known, newly invented, neo-liberal, U.S.-sponsored, colour-coded revolutions, as in Georgia and Ukraine. But is it the case in Iran? This article intends to clarify the issue, to reveal the properly political essence of current mass movement, and to demonstrate that this movement has the potentiality of a self-transcendence, of surpassing its actual demands, of traversing its current phantasy. To do this, we shall first examine the contemporary tradition of radical politics in Iran. Without these references, the current movement, which truly deserves this title, can not be understood correctly.

People, whether consciously or not, are frequently recollecting the 1979 Revolution and the 1997 Reform Movement. Many of their slogans are transformed slogans of the '79 Revolution. The paths of demonstrations are symbolically significantly, the same as those against Shah. But this does not mean that people are imitating the '79 Revolution: there are many new possibilities and creativities, many formal and thematic inventions. As for the 1997 Reform Movement, and its aftermath (the crushing of student protest in 1999), the affinities are even more obvious. Khatami, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi, is one of the most significant leaders and supporters of the protest. It is as if people are trying to redeem the 2nd of Khordad (May 23, 1997), to revive the unfinished hopes and dreams of those days. But this time, the protest is by no means limited to students and intellectuals. Although Khatami in 1997 was elected with 20 million votes from the most varied sections of the nation, the movement was characterized by the political and cultural demands of the middle-class, of students and educated people. But, apart from this, what is the true significance of the 2nd of Khordad Front for politics in Iran?

On the 2nd of Khordad, for the first time since Iranian Revolution, we were encountering a dichotomy between the state and the total system of Islamic Republic of Iran, known as Nezam (System, which is based on the principle of Velayat-e-Faghih, the supreme authority of high-ranked Mullahs). This duality was partly due to the fact that the leader of the opposition, Khatami, was at the same time the chief of the state. It was the only occasion where this duality, which is, in a sense, one between the development of productive forces and cultural, political backwardness, between secular democracy and religious fanaticism, could be revealed. Before and after that period, the state and Nezam have been basically in accordance, as it had been in the Shah's Regime. One of the reasons, if not the main reason, why elections in Iran are of such importance for democratic movements, despite trends to boycott them, lies precisely in the significance of this very duality. Seen from a classical-Marxist perspective, in order to pave the way for the development of productive forces, in order to accomplish the ‘civilizing mission’ of capitalism, there must emerge a bourgeois state capable of carrying out the process of democratization and modernization. Whenever the state has been in full accordance with Nezam, this process fails to go on. Besides this, we deal with yet another duality, one between the capital and the state, the former as the means of development (with all its discontents, aptly and righteously exposed by the Marxist tradition), and the latter as the organ of regression and anti-modernism. So, the progressive and socialist opposition in Iran are faced with the unprecedented, hard task of fighting in two fronts: against religious fanaticism and the authoritarian factions in a semi-democratic government, and simultaneously against global capitalism and its hegemony by means of the production of wars. In a sense, intelligentsia in Iran are very similar to that of Russia and Germany of 19th century. We are a handful of schizophrenics who are, at one and the same time, against and for progress, development, capitalism, state management and so on. In other words, for us, the Faustian problematic, his tragedy, is formulated in a typically Hamletian way. This ambivalent attitude (to western civilization) can be characterized by the dialectic of state and politics. We are neither dealing with a pure politics a la Alain Badiou, nor with a classical Marxist politics, exhausted in class struggles, nor with the liberal-democratic politics of human rights, which was, by the way, the dominant discourse of opposition in Iran before Mousavi. Our supposedly radical politics consists of every one of these elements, but is not reducible to any of them. To deploy Agamben’s terminology, it is a politics of people against People, i.e. voiceless, suppressed people, against People officially constructed by the state. The current movement materializes, in many respects, this very politics.

But the question, which has confused the western (left) intelligentsia and has caused the most varied misunderstandings regarding Iran, is whether Ahmadinejad is a leftist, anti-imperialist, anti-privatization, anti-globalization figure. The common answer is a positive one. That is why certain misguided western leftists tend to regard the current mass movement in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi and against Ahmadinejad as the struggle of liberalism against anti-imperialism, of privatization, liberal-democracy against the enemies of global hegemony of America. The main aim of this article is to expose, to expel this widespread illusion. As regards the other confused camp, the Western, more or less, Islamophobic liberals, who are inclined to identify Ahmadinjad with Al-Qaeda, who refer to Mousavi, because of his Islamic-Republican career in 80’s, as another version of Islamic, anti-democratic Ideology, one could say that they too are caught up in an illusion based on easy Euro-centrist generalizations and lack of familiarity with the Iranian historical context. We should thus answer the simple question: what is actually at the stake? Apart from the triad of French Revolution, the triad of modern emancipatory politics, liberty, equality, fraternity, one could maintain that the main bone of contention in this struggle is precisely politics itself, its life and survival. Our government is called the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now the republican moment, which has always been downgraded by the conservatives, is presently being annihilated. It is precisely through this very outlet that any popular politics, from social movement of dissent and class politics to the defence of human rights, might survive.

Another common approach, no matter how radical, supportive, or conservative, to mass protest in Iran is the following: it is a youth movement, at its best, similar to 68’s student protests. New young generation in Iran, armed with Internet, socialized by social networking sites, tired of Islamic ideology, has awakened, claiming its own way of life, and so on. According to this attitude, which is evoked by a number of journalists, it is only the middle-class intellectuals, students, feminists, and other educated people in large cities who are rallying on the streets, communicating with each other thanks to the internet. What is striking is that the state discourse in Iran widely promotes this very attitude. The ruling elite, based on a populist rhetoric, tends to single out a certain section of the nation and call it the People. The state television, Seda-va-Sima, is the main place where this People is represented, indeed constructed, mostly through the usual populist tactic of one nation versus the evil external enemy who is the cause of all trouble. It presents a unified, pure, integrated image of People, all devoting themselves to Nezam, all law-abiding, religious, etc. This image of People is daily imposed on the masses and inscribed onto the body politic. Against this formally constructed People, with the state as its formal face, there has come out another people, a subaltern, muted people, claiming its own place, its own part in the political scene. June 2009 Election was a decisive opportunity for this people to declare itself, in the figure of Mousavi, who from the beginning insisted on people’s dignity as a true political right. But why him? Why not, say, Karroubi, the other reformist candidate? Has Mousvai, now the leader of the mass movement, appeared on the scene in a purely contingent way? Has he by mere chance, by force of circumstances, as it were, become the leading figure, the reform-freedom-democracy incarnate? The answer is positively negative. To elucidate this, we have to draw attention to the tradition from which he has emerged and to which he has repeatedly referred during his electoral campaign. As we said before, this tradition is rooted in 1979 Revolution and has been revived in the 2th of Khordad Movement -- whereas, Karroubi’s ‘politics’ was based on a subjectless process in which different identity groups would present their demands to the almighty state and act as its passive, divided, depoliticized supporters. In fact, Karroubi’s campaign, with its appeal to Western media, using the word ‘change’ in English, and profiting from celebrity figures, was the one that could be called a Western liberal human-rights-loving, even pro-capitalist movement. The fact that millions transcending their identity and immediate interests joined a typically universal militant politics by risking their lives in defence of Mousavi and their dignity, should be enough to cast out all doubts or misguided pseudo-leftist dogmas.

(Italian TV photo from The Brennanator)

'Nicolò Ghedini, Berlusconi's chief legal adviser, defended his client over the D'Addario affair by describing his client as a mere "end user" of the women, who was not therefore at risk in the Bari investigation. For good measure, he added that "Berlusconi could have them [women] in large numbers for free".

The prime minister himself, although clearly rattled, is still trying to banter his way though the storm, using the brazen style that has gone down well in the past with many voters. On Friday, he spotted a female journalist whose sweater had slipped slightly off one shoulder. "Are you trying to get invited to one of my dinners?" he asked. "I used to do one a month, now I need to organise three or four a week"' (From here).

The delightfully named René Wolf from Backdoor Broadcasting sent me a link to podcasts/downloads of the whole of Zizek's recent Birkbeck series. That's a whole ten hours of excitability for you.

The Guardian's reader-mobilising investigate your MP's expenses is genius. Having uploaded something like half a million expense claims, they are asking readers to sift through all the documents to find anomalous/inaccurate/obviously piss-taking entries. Obviously it's no substitute for a structural analysis of corruption, but nevertheless, heh heh heh.

Seeing as I am on another Dr-imposed alcohol ban, whilst the slightly-menacingly-mechanically-named 'proton pump inhibitors' do their work on my snarling insides, it becomes clear once again that London is a city most unkind to those not happily lolling in one of the 7,000 or so public houses that dot the city like beacons of hope to the terminally over-worked, over-commuted and, in lots of cases, just over. Of course it is technically possible to sit in a pub sipping still water (nothing fizzy for me either), but it's a bit like being in a library and realising all the books are simply spines glued together for effect (actually, it's nothing like that, the image just came to mind. Ho-hum). Anyway, it's not very fun, and people start shouting the same thing at you about fifty times and unfunny things get funny for everyone else while you sit there like a lemon, often sucking a piece of the same for want of some - any - stimulation. Bah, look at the self-pity on this one, put it out of its misery already...

But there is a more serious point here involving...gross social and urban hypocrisy! On the one hand, you've got a government desperate to push 'responsible drinking' as the NHS bills mount up, and on the other, you've got a country in which doing anything else after 4pm is almost completely impossible. Unless you're willing to pay £12 or so to see a film, or however much it costs to go to the theatre, there is nowhere to go, even if you've swallowed up a couple of hours already by, erm, eating. It's as if they want everyone not in a pub to simply stay at home, watch Sky TV, bid on ebay and go to bed early so not everyone tries to catch the twenty-to-nine buses and tubes in the mornings. Imagine.



So it's 9pm, let's say. Cafes (minus a few over-crowded ones in Soho) closed five hours ago. Some McDonalds are open, wearing their grim late Nu-Labour upgraded lime-green swivel chairs and hint-of-sauna wood panelling. You'd have more fun building a model Eiffel Tower out of the hundreds of swirling Metros, thelondonpapers and London Lites, so you don't go in. A few of those Tesco Express things are open. You could buy scratchcards and doughnuts. But where to sit? The parks and graveyards are tempting, but often shut or a little bit too dark for comfort. So you look for little squares and plazas, forgetting that we never put any in for fear of public assembly, revolution and that strange game with metal balls that elderly Frenchman play in the evenings.

If you want a piss you're in trouble. Absolutely nobody wants to deal with your effluence, and pubs only do so because they can't get around the fact that they contribute so much to its production. Even when open, sandwich bars and cafes are rubbish at providing bogs, presumably fearing business-folk shooting up in the stalls on their lunch-hours in between bites of avocado and crayfish baguette. All roads lead to the pub. All roads have a bloody pub, practically...I miss the New Piccadilly. Tax breaks for late-night caffs now! Late-night alternatives for the sober minority! More bogs for human beings! There's nothing you can do to stop them weeing, you know!

What a wretched damn metropolis this is, despicable to those it exploits, hostile to those it makes sick and even more miserable to those who are trying to get better. Bah.

Afterthought: and more booths, we want them. Diners where you can just order a drink instead of a frivolous expensive retro-burger. Why are we so horrible to ourselves?! The other side of a protestant work ethic is a protestant play ethic in which 'fun' is getting loaded on liquid anti-depressants whilst CCTV cameras stop you doing anything that the big other might deem joyful in any way. That's it...I'M MOVING TO GREENLAND. I bet they do brilliant things like seal-tipping and ice-carving in the evenings whilst playing three thousand piece Scrabble. Even Marx couldn't think of anything else to do past tea-time: criticise after dinner...? But where, man, where...The bench is covered with pigeon-poo and the tube is already shutting.

Here.

Like the Roehampton protest recently against the presence of Shell on campus, the SOAS action draws on the contradictions between official University policy (sorry, 'vision') and practice:

In the SOAS strategy and Vision document management state that they are

'poised to become the University of the 21st century: it is concerned with the regions that matter and the issues that matter (such as human rights, poverty reduction and globalisation).' (“SOAS 2016: A Vision and Strategy for the Centennial”, p5 )

That the directorate is disturbed by the possible role that ISS played in this raid demonstrates to us that the school are committed to upholding their further Centennial Goals of

“maintain[ing] the highest ethical standards in all of its dealings and foster the values of openness, honesty, tolerance, fairness and responsibility in all areas.” (SOAS 2016: A Vision and Strategy for the Centennial, p9)

We will work hard to ensure that this sentiment is translated into concrete action which ensures that cleaning is brought in-house and management never again facilitate an immigration raid on campus.

Alberto points out that 'Even the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has recognised the extent to which London's economy depends on the labour of immigrant and undocumented workers and has proposed an amnesty.' When the Tory mayor of London is more reasonable than Universities which are supposed to be bastions of internationalism and human rights, then something is seriously amiss in the academy.

As my colleague pointed out yesterday, the raids at SOAS are the tip of the iceberg - many undocumented workers all over the city are being quietly spirited out of the country.

Within the academy, there are other, newer problems to contend with. As Alberto notes, 'if the government has its way, universities will become extensions of the border control, with lecturers and administrators effectively required by law to monitor their students on behalf of the Home Office.' The government proposal is that lecturers constantly monitor their international students, and send attendance sheets to the government: academics are to become ultra-suspicious border guards.

[The following is a guest post from Ali Alizadeh, Researcher at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University]

This piece is copyright-free. Please distribute widely.

Iran is currently in the grip of a new and strong political movement. While this movement proves that Ahmadinejad’s populist techniques of deception no longer work inside Iran, it seems they are still effective outside the country. This is mainly due to thirty years of isolation and mutual mistrust between Iran and the West which has turned my country into a mysterious phenomenon for outsiders. In this piece I will try to confront some of the mystifications and misunderstandings produced by the international media in the last week.

In the first scenario the international media, claiming impartiality, insisted that the reformists provide hard objective evidence in support of their claim that the June 12 election has been rigged. But despite their empiricist attitude, the media missed obvious facts due to their lack of familiarity with the socio-historical context. Although the reformists could not possibly offer any figures or documents, because the whole show was single-handedly run by Ahmadinejad’s ministry of interior, anyone familiar with Iran’s recent history could easily see what was wrong with this picture.

It was the government who reversed the conventional and logical procedure by announcing a fictitious total figure first – in four stages – and then fabricating figures for each polling station, something that is still going on. This led to many absurdities: Musavi got less votes in his hometown (Tabriz) than Ahmadinejad; Karroubi’s total vote was less than the number of people active in his campaign; Rezaee’s votes were reduced by a hundred thousand between the third and fourth stages of announcement; blank votes were totally forgotten and only hastily added to the count when reformists pointed this out; and finally the ratio between all candidates’ votes remained almost constant in all these four stages of announcement (63, 33, 2 and 1 percent respectively).

Moreover, as in any other country, the increase in turnout in Iran’s elections has always benefitted the opposition and not the incumbent, because it is rational to assume that those who usually don’t vote, i.e. the silent majority, only come out when they want to change the status quo. Yet in this election Ahmadinejad, the representative of the status quo, allegedly received 10 million votes more than what he got in the previous election.

Finally, Ahmadinejad’s nervous reaction after his so-called victory is the best proof for rigging: closing down SMS network and the whole of country’s mobile phone network, arresting more than 100 leading political activists, blocking access to Musavi’s and many other reformists’ websites and unleashing violence in the streets...But if all this is not enough, the bodies of more than 17 people who were shot dead and immediately buried in unknown graves should persuade all those “objective-minded” observers.

In the second scenario, gradually unfolding in the last few days, the international media implicitly shifted its attention to the role of internet and its social networking (twitter, facebook, youtube, etc). This implied that millions of illiterate conservative villagers have voted for Ahmadinejad and the political movement is mostly limited to educated middle classes in North Tehran. While this simplified image is more compatible with media’s comfortable position towards Iran in the last 30 years, it is far from reality. The recent political history of Iran does not confirm this image. For example, Khatami’s victory in 1997, despite his absolute lack of any economic promises and his focus instead on liberal civic demands, was made possible by the polarization of society into people and state. Khatami could win only by embracing people from all different classes and groups, villagers and urban people alike.

There is no doubt that new media and technologies have been playing an important role in the movement, but it seems that the cause and the effect are being reversed in the picture painted by the media. First of all, it is the existence of a strong political determination, combined with people becoming deprived of basic means of communication, which has led the movement to creatively test every other channel and method. Musavi’s paper was shut down on the night of election, his frequent request to talk to people on the state TV has been rejected, his official website is often blocked and his physical contact with his supporters has been kept minimum by keeping him in house arrest (with the exception of his appearance on the over a million march on June 15).

Second, due to the heavy pressure on foreign journalists inside Iran, these technological tools have come to play a significant role in sending the messages and images of the movement to the outside world. However, the creative self-organization of the movement is using a manifold of methods and channels, many of them simple and traditional, depending on their availability: shouting ‘death to dictator’ from rooftops, calling landlines, at the end of one rally chanting the time and place of the next one, and by jeopardizing oneself by physically standing on streets and distributing news to every passing car. The appearance of the movement which is being sold by the media to the western gaze – the cyber-fantasy of the western societies which has already labelled our movement a twitter revolution, seems to have completely missed the reality of those bodies which are shot dead, injured or ready to be endangered by non-virtual bullets.

What is more surprising in the midst of this media frenzy is the blindness of the western left to the political dynamism and energy of our movement. The causes of this blindness oscillate between the misgivings about Islam (or the Islamophobia of hyper-secular left) and the confusion made by Ahmadinjead’s fake anti-imperialist rhetoric (his alliance with Chavez perhaps, who after all was the first to congratulate him). It needs to be emphasized that Ahmadinejad’s economic policies are to the right of the IMF: cutting subsidies in a radical way, more privatization than any other post-79 government (by selling the country to the Revolutionary Guards) and an inflation and unemployment rate which have brought the low-income sections of the society to their knees. It is in this regard that Musavi’s politics needs to be understood in contradistinction from both Ahmadinejad and also the other reformist candidate, i.e. Karroubi.

While Karroubi went for the liberal option of differentiating people into identity groups with different demands (women, students, intellectuals, ethnicities, religious minorities, etc), Musavi emphasized the universal demands of ‘people’ who wanted to be heard and counted as political subjects. This subjectivity, emphasized by Musavi during his campaign and fully incarnated in the rallies of the past few days, is constituted by political intuition, creativity and recollection of the ‘79 revolution (no wonder that people so quickly reached an unexpected maturity, best manifested in the abstention from violence in their silent demonstrations). Musavi’s ‘people’ is also easily, but strongly, distinguished from Ahmadinejad’s anonymous masses dependent on state charity. Musavi’s people, as the collective appearing in the rallies, is made of religious women covered in chador walking hand in hand with westernized young women who are usually prosecuted for their appearance; veterans of war in wheelchairs next to young boys for whom the Iran-Iraq war is only an anecdote; and working class who have sacrificed their daily salary to participate in the rally next to the middle classes. This story is not limited to Tehran. Shiraz (two confirmed dead), Isfahan (one confirmed dead), Tabriz, Oroomiye are also part of this movement and other cities are joining with a predictable delay (as it was the case in 79 revolution).

History will prove who the real participants of this movement are but once again we are faced with a new, non-classical and unfamiliar radical politics. Will the Western left get it right this time?

* The title is a reference to Michel Foucault’s 1978 writing on Iran’s revolution: “What are the Iranians dreaming about?”

Ali on RTE (37.00-41.50).

This interview is extremely useful: putting social networking in context and how Ahmadinejad must be understood in the context of diminishing support among rival hardline groups.

Alberto on the recent injustices at SOAS:
Turning Universities into Borders: The Case of the SOAS Cleaners.

UPDATE: And the Comment is Free Guardian version.

Held off writing about Iran, cos Ali said he'd send me something (hope he still does). You can in the meantime see him here on Newsnight from last night (probably only for the next few hours, I can't find a lasting link) around 8-9 mins in.

Suffice it to say that those speaking about Iran in terms of 'rural' support for Ahmadinejad vs. middle-class Tehrani Twitterers would do well to remember that by far the majority of Iranians live in cities and that not everyone who lives in the countryside is an ignorant religious conservative.