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A review by raoul_g
Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours by Slavoj Žižek
5.0
"So, what to do with hundreds of thousands of people who, desperate to escape war and hunger, wait in north Africa or on the shores of Syria, trying to cross the Mediterranean to find refuge in Europe? Two main answers present themselves, two versions of ideological blackmail, which make us irreparably guilty. Left liberals, expressing their outrage at how Europe is allowing thousands to drown in the Mediterranean, state that Europe should show solidarity, should open its doors widely. Anti-immigrant populists, on the other hand, claim that we should protect our way of life, pull up the drawbridge and let Africans or Arabs solve their own problems. Both solutions are bad, but which is worse? To paraphrase Stalin, they are both worse."
This book of Žižek is an important contribution to the discussion surrounding tolerance, refugees and terrorism. He dismisses the 'double blackmail', namely the solutions proposed by the political extremes (right and left). His lucid criticism of them takes up the main part of the book and is backed by insights from psychoanalysis and persuasive interpretations of (recent) historical events (Rotherham, Cologne sex attacks, Paris bombings, etc.).
Everyone interested in these topics should be confronted with the insights Žižek offers here.
In the last chapter he proposes some concrete alternative solutions and, because the root cause for the problems discussed in the book is of course global capitalism, some less concrete solutions: new levels of global cooperation, radical economic change that abolishes the conditions that create refugees and global solidarity.
"Maybe such global solidarity is a utopia. But if we don’t engage in it, then we are really lost. And we will deserve to be lost."
This book of Žižek is an important contribution to the discussion surrounding tolerance, refugees and terrorism. He dismisses the 'double blackmail', namely the solutions proposed by the political extremes (right and left). His lucid criticism of them takes up the main part of the book and is backed by insights from psychoanalysis and persuasive interpretations of (recent) historical events (Rotherham, Cologne sex attacks, Paris bombings, etc.).
Everyone interested in these topics should be confronted with the insights Žižek offers here.
In the last chapter he proposes some concrete alternative solutions and, because the root cause for the problems discussed in the book is of course global capitalism, some less concrete solutions: new levels of global cooperation, radical economic change that abolishes the conditions that create refugees and global solidarity.
"Maybe such global solidarity is a utopia. But if we don’t engage in it, then we are really lost. And we will deserve to be lost."