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Although [[Timothy Garton Ash]] is my [[political ]] opponent, I’ve always admired his wealth of precise observations and found him a reliable source on the vicissitudes of post-[[Communist]] [[Eastern Europe]]. In his new book, <i>The Free [[World]]: America, [[Europe ]] and the Suprising [[Future ]] of the West</i>, [[Ash]] applies his signature bitterly witty approach to the growing tensions between key [[Western Europe]]an [[state]]s and the [[United States]]. His aperçus [[about ]] the relations among the [[United Kingdom]], [[France]] and [[Germany]] [[recall ]] the gentle irony of a novel of manners, giving a new twist to the old topic of “[[European trinity]].”

[[Hegel]] was among the first to [[interpret ]] the geographic [[triad]] of [[Germany]]-[[France]]-[[England]] as expressing [[three ]] existential attitudes: [[German]] reflective thoroughness, [[French]] [[revolution]]ary hastiness and [[English]] moderate [[pragmatism]]. In [[terms ]] of political stances, this triad can be read as [[German]] [[conservatism]], [[French]] [[radicalism]] and [[English]] [[liberalism]]. In terms of a predominating [[social ]] sphere, it is [[German]] [[culture]] versus [[French]] [[politics]] versus [[English]] [[economy]]. [[Ash]] observes that today this trinity has undergone a strange [[displacement]]: The French are preoccupied with [[culture]] (How to save their legacy from vulgar [[Americanization]]); the English focus on political dilemmas (Should they join the European Monetary Union?); the Germans worry about the sad inertia of their [[economy]].

A desired [[goal ]] might be a further shift: The English focused on [[culture]] (their [[cultural ]] [[tolerance ]] and [[lack ]] of pretence could serve as an antidote to French arrogant elitism and German excessive seriousness). The French focused on [[economy]] (which, against all expectations, theirs has been doing rather well). And — surprise! — Germans on politics (where their [[recent ]] political [[life ]] has served as a [[model ]] of reasonable debate that avoids blind passions).

So far, so [[good]]. However, in the second half of <i>The Free World</i>, when [[Ash]] diagnoses the [[threats ]] to [[freedom]] in the post-[[Cold War]], he becomes [[dogma]]tic and simplistic, his proposed solutions hopelessly naïve and declaratory. [[True]], here and there, one finds insights surprising for a man of Ash’s political [[position ]] (like his unambiguous attack on the trade agreements that are pushing the poorer countries toward ruin). Yet his positive proposals lack any foundation in a detailed [[analysis ]] of the [[global ]] [[situation]]. First, he [[identifies ]] four “new Red Armies” (sic!) as forces of [[Evil]] (or historical [[processes]]) that pose or will pose a [[threat ]] to [[democracy]] in the future: 1) the Near East situation (the unresolved [[Israel]]i-[[Palestine|Palestinian]] [[conflict ]] and the rise of [[Muslim fundamentalism]]); 2) the Far East situation (what will [[China]] develop into with [[regard ]] to [[democracy]]?); 3) the gap between the rich North and poor South; and 4) the oncoming [[environment]]al catastrophe. </p>

Here, [[Ash]] simply enumerates four domains that [[cause ]] worry. Consequently, his proposed solutions read less like a plan for [[action ]] grounded in serious analysis of the global constellation and more like a [[list ]] of desiderata (the developed countries should abide by the rules of fair [[market ]] competition they impose on the underdeveloped ones; they should make a more serious effort to thwart ecological disaster; only a combined U.S.-E.U. alliance can solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, etc.). Indeed, how can one respond to this platitude: “If we [[want ]] to be able to look ourselves in the face every morning, anyone who earns more than the average wage in a rich country should aim to give 1 percent of his or her annual income to charities with a good track record in the developing world. We can afford it.”

The European publishers of <i>The Free World</i> [[chose ]] a far more intriguing subtitle for the book, hinting that [[Ash]] would explain: “Why A Crisis Of The West Reveals The Opportunity Of Our [[Time]].” But the book fails to live up to the expectations aroused by this subtitle, namely, that the post-[[Cold War]] world, though it generates new problems, also could provide a unique [[chance ]] to confront [[them]]. My own [[perception ]] of these problems is hopelessly tinted by “outmoded” [[Marxism]]: The four trouble spots [[Ash]] identifies are clearly grounded in the dynamics of today’s [[global capitalism]]. This link is [[self]]-evident in the [[case ]] of [[environment]]al collapse and the North-South [[poverty]] gap. As for [[Islamic fundamentalism]], does it not arise through the [[refusal ]] of [[Muslim]] [[civilizatio]] to integrate the social dynamics of [[capitalism]]? And doesn’t [[China]]’s strange [[economic ]] [[dynamic ]] stem from the fact that it is a [[Communist]] state that fully endorses [[capitalist]] [[economy]]?

The question should therefore be put at a more general level: Where do we stand regarding [[global capitalism]]? Are these troubling spots [[symptom]]s of a [[structural ]] flaw inscribed in the very core of the capitalist [[machine]], or are they accidents that could be kept under [[control]], if not resolved?

This does not mean one should reject [[Ash]]’s [[diagnosis]] and proposals with the crude [[Marxist]] retort: “He fails to take into account the [[dialectic]]al [[totality]] of the situation.” But [[Ash]] would do well to go back and read [[Jonathan Alter]]’s column in Newsweek written directly following [[9/11]]. After [[stating ]] that “we can’t legalize [[physical ]] [[torture]]; it’s contrary to American values,” Alter nonetheless concludes that “we’ll have to [[think ]] about transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies, even if that’s hypocritical. Nobody said this was going to be pretty.” This is how [[First World]] [[democracies]] increasingly function: by [[outsourcing ]] their dirty [[work ]] (be it [[torture]] or [[material ]] [[production]]) to [[other ]] countries. [[Ash]] is unable to see how the features he condemns (ruthless disregard for the [[environment]], the hypocritical [[double ]] standards of [[free trade]] practices, etc.) are products of the very social dynamic that sustains the [[First World]]’s [[role ]] as exporters of [[democracy]] and guardians of [[universal]] [[human rights]].

It is true one can only be shocked by the excessive [[indifference]] toward [[suffering]], even when this suffering is widely reported and condemned in the [[media]]. [[Sudan]] offers a current example, but recall the three-year-long siege of [[Sarajevo]], when the population was starving and exposed to permanent shelling and sniper fire. The enigma here is why, although the [[media]] was continually covering the crisis, was neither the [[U.N.]] forces, [[NATO]] nor the [[United States]] willing to impose a corridor in Sarajevo through which [[people ]] and provisions could circulate freely? The only answer to this enigma was proposed by Rory Brauman, who, on behalf of the [[Red Cross]], coordinated the [[help ]] to [[Sarajevo]]: The very presentation of the crisis of Sarajevo as “[[humanitarian]],” the recasting of a political-military conflict into humanitarian terms, was sustained by a political choice, that of taking the side of [[Serbia]].

Indeed, such a depoliticizing of “[[Human Rights]]” too often serves as the [[ideology]] of military interventionism in support of specific economic-political purposes. For example, the [[U.S.]] overthrow of [[Saddam Hussein]], legitimized in the terms of ending the suffering of the [[Iraq]]i people, was clearly not only motivated by economic [[self-interest ]] ([[oil]]), but by the [[idea ]] that only certain political and economic conditions—[[West]]ern [[liberal democracy]], [[guarantee ]] of [[private property]], the inclusion into the [[global market]] [[economy]], etc. — could bring [[freedom]] to the Iraqi people. In [[Iraq]], the [[humanitarian]] anti-politics of only preventing suffering implicitly prohibited a positive collective [[project ]] for social and political transformation.

What, then, happens to [[Human Rights]] when they are reduced to the rights of those excluded from the political [[process ]] — i.e, when they become useless, since they are the rights of those who, precisely, have no rights? [[Jacques Ranciere]], the [[French]] [[philosopher]], recently gave this answer:

<blockquote>They become humanitarian rights, the rights of those who cannot enact them, the victims of the absolute [[denial ]] of [[right]]. For all this, they are not [[void]], Political names and political places never become merely void. The void is filled by somebody or something else. … If those who suffer inhuman [[repression ]] are unable to enact [[Human ]] Rights that are their last recourse, then somebody else has to inherit their rights in [[order ]] to enact them in their [[place]]. This is what is called the “right to humanitarian interference”—a right that some nations assume to the supposed benefit of the victimized populations, and very often against the advice of humanitarian organizations themselves. The “right to humanitarian interference” might be described as a sort of “return “[[return]] to sender:” the disused right that had been sent to the rightless are sent back to the senders.</blockquote>

Thus, in the reigning [[discourse ]] of [[humanitarian]] [[intervention]], the developed [[West]] is effectively getting back from the victimized [[Third World]] its own [[message ]] in its true [[form]]. This is also where we should look for candidates to fill the position of “[[universal individual]],” a [[particular ]] group whose fate stands for the injustice of today’s world: [[Palestine|Palestinians]], [[Guantánamo]] prisoners, etc. [[Palestine]] today presents us with the “opportunity” of [[Ash]]’s subtitle because all of the standard “pragmatic” solutions to the “[[Middle East]] crisis” have repeatedly failed, which suggests that a [[utopian]] invention of a radical new [[space ]] may be the only “realistic” [[choice]].

But there is a better example of today’s “[[universal individual]]”: the [[slum]] dwellers of the new megalopolises. The explosive growth of slums in the last decades, from [[Mexico]] City and other [[Latin America]]n capitals through [[Africa]] to [[India]], [[China]] and [[Indonesia]], is perhaps the crucial geopolitical [[event ]] of our time. Take the case of Lagos, [[Nigeria]]. According to Mike Davis, “No one even [[knows ]] the size of its population—officially it is 6 million, but most experts estimate it at 10 million.” Very soon (or perhaps, given the imprecision of [[Third World]] censuses, already) the urban population of the earth will outnumber the rural population. And [[slum]] inhabitants will compose the majority of this urban population. So we are in no way dealing with a marginal phenomenon, but rather the fast growth of a population [[outside ]] [[state]] control, [[living ]] in [[conditions ]] half outside the [[law]], in terrible [[need ]] of the minimal forms of self-organization. Slum dwellers—marginalized laborers, superfluous civil servants and ex-peasants — are still incorporated into the [[global economy]] in numerous ways, many of them [[working ]] as informal [[wage]] [[workers]] or self-employed entrepreneurs, with no adequate health or [[social security]] coverage. Slums have mushroomed because of the [[Third World]]’s inclusion into the [[global economy]]. Cheap food imports from the [[First World]] have destroyed local agriculture forcing millions to flee the countryside. Their [[existence ]] is the true “[[symptom]]” of slogans like “[[Development]],” “[[Modernization]],” and “[[World Market]].”</p>

While one should resist the temptation to elevate and idealize the slum dwellers into a new [[revolution]]ary [[class]], it is extremely surprising how many of their features fit the old [[Marxist]] definition of the [[proletarian]] [[revolution]]ary [[class]]. Even more than the classic [[proletariat]], they are “free” in the double [[meaning ]] of the [[word ]] — “freed” from all substantial ties and dwelling in a free space outside [[state]] and [[police]] regulations. They are large collectives, forcibly thrown into a situation where they must invent some mode of [[being]]-together, while simultaneously deprived of any inherited [[ethnic]] and [[religious]] [[tradition]]s.

[[Slum]] dwellers are the counter-class to the other newly emerging class, the so-called “[[symbolic class]]” (managers, journalists, [[academics]], [[art]]ists, etc.) that is also uprooted and that perceives itself as directly [[universal]]. (A [[New York]] academic has more in common with me, a [[Slovene]] [[academic]], than with the [[black]]s in Harlem half a mile from his campus.) Is this the new axis of [[class struggle]]? Or is the “[[symbolic class]]” inherently [[split]], enabling us to make an emancipatory wager on a coalition between the slum dwellers and the “progressives” of the [[symbolic ]] class?

This brings us back to the title — and underlying project — of [[Ash]]’s book: Our main hope for a truly “[[free world]]” lies in the desolate [[universe ]] of the [[slums]]. We should be watching the slum collectives for [[signs ]] of new forms of social [[awareness]]: They will be the seeds of the future.

* [[The Free World ... of Slums]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. September 23, 2004. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1090/>. Also listed on ''[[Lacan]].com''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizekslums.htm>.