<underfire> the very idea of Peace

Thu Nov 9 14:31:31 EST 2006

Iain Boal, of Retort, here, barging in...
Just catching up now I'm back from the opening of the Seville Biennial,  
  where Retort has an installation, related to our Afflicted Powers:  
Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of  War. That text emerged from our  
2003 broadsheet "Neither Their War Nor Their Peace", produced for the  
large manifestations on the eve of invasion.  We were unwilling to  
march beneath the sign of "Peace", which under current conditions is  
war by other means, as suggested by others in this exchange. Randolph  
Bourne understood as long ago as 1917 that, in a militarized society  
with a standing army, the state only requires minimal support for its  
warmaking, and maybe not even that - in order for it to be able to  
prosecute empire. Peace on these terms is, as we phrased it, "the peace  
of cemeteries, the peace of 'sanctions' and 'containment', the peace of  
the 'peace process' ".  As Tacitus indelibly put it, "They make a  
desert and call it peace."  -  peace as pacification.  At best, then,  
in a world of savage injustice, peace is only armistice, complicit with  
the status quo ante. To say this, of course, is in no way to criticize  
from a relatively safe place the profound longing of those living under  
fire for a cessation to summary death from the air, and for relief from  
the constant, exhausting wash of adrenalin in conditions of violence.  
The bitter fact is, to quote Bourne again, that "War is the health of  
the state." And the same goes for Terror.

Iain

On Nov 9, 2006, at 8:56 AM, Mary Keller wrote:

My desires lately as I have reimmersed myself in Gandhi's history and  
theory for active resistance to violence, is that a Palestinian Gandhi  
would emerge as the face of Peace in the 21st century. For all the  
reasons that Gandhi had to coin a new word, satyagraha, in order to  
represent the "truth" of his insight into violence, the Palestinian  
Gandhi would develop a hybrid concept that could drive a new,  
regionalized version of activist humanity.

Other crazy fantasies: a global movement in which people from each  
region who desire peace congregate in their regional capitals on the  
holiday best suited for a major symbolic act to take over that capital  
for a day, demonstrating the strength of their numbers and the  
integrity of their political theory and the effectiveness of their  
organizing skills.

women in America take away all military guns from their houses and tell  
the men of America that in 20 years they can have their guns back after  
they have proved they are no longer vulnerable to the violent impulses  
that have left school children, particularly girls,  dead.

Mary Keller, Ph. D.
Adjunct, African American Studies Program and Religious Studies Program
University of Wyoming
Independent Researcher
Research Associate, Buffalo Bill Historical Center

1025 Cody Ave.
Cody, WY 82414
ph 307 587 5312

> From: Wolfgang Sützl <wolfgang at t0.or.at>
> Reply-To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> Subject: Re: <underfire> re fluid borders, structured chaos, weak  
> discipline
> Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:24:33 +0100
>
> Sarah, Bracha, Ryan,
>
> in response to your postings, may I offer some more thoughts on the
> possibility of an "originary event of peace" -
>
> I have long been concerned with the question of peace as a historical
> reaity beyond the prevailing understanding of it as the negation of  
> war.
> That negating thing invariably bears the traces of what it seeks to
> negate, and peace born out of war only lives as peace that goes back to
> war. Brecht writes in his "German War Primer" "THOSE AT THE TOP SAY:
> PEACE AND WAR Are of different substance. But their peace and their war
> Are like wind and storm. War grows from their peace Like son from his
> mother He bears Her frightful features. Their war kills Whatever their
> peace Has left over."
>
> If peace is to be peaceful, it could not be a mere opposite of war. So
> the question of the originary event of peace - peace ocurring, without  
> a
> presupposed violent reality that it negates - would be a "postive"
> peace, but also a much more fragile, time- and place-bound, pluralist
> conception of it. As such, it is different from the metaphysical,
> solemn, out-of-this world, awakward notions of the "big peace" that we
> have inherited from traditions (and which, with its symbolism of
> solemnity, matches the war agenda, which is the one that gets "down to
> business"). However, such a "eventual" peace can never be "secured"
> without ceasing to be what it is. It can only be constantly  
> re-creataed.
>
> I agree with Ryan that this opens epistemological questions. And I add  
> -
> we cannot address these questions from within the existing
> epistemological parameters, but, I would suggest, only through a  
> radical
> questioniong of these parameters, as it happens in experimental art. I
> am not so clear about the withheld thought. If the eventual peace is  
> one
> that can historically manifest, it would be interesting to see the
> significance of latency in it.
>
> Bracha,
>
>  >> The originary event of peace is compassion.
>
> I love the nobility of this (communicated!) thought. There are people,
> including Vattimo, who have suggested understandings of the "eventual"
> peace as "caritas" (lat.), which survives in "charity" (engl.) or
> "caridad"(esp.). It has the root of the verb "to care" in it.  
> Compassion
> is near to that, isn't it? But does it not presuppose a suffering, a
> "passion"? And would that mean if there is no suffering, than peace
> cannot occur? What would be your understanding of this? "Without care"
> is "se cura" in latin, and the root of "security". Nowadays we tend to
> understand care as "worry", something we want to be free from
> (carefree), and we tend to forget the meaning of care as "caring for".
> Is caring not an art?
>
> Kate, your suggestion of
> > peace is a relationship.
>
> Would correspond to the notion of caring/compassion, but how does a
> relationship occur? To what kind of actions does it give rise that  
> would
> be historically "real". This lead me back to the epistemological
> question. If radical and experimental art is the place whre we might
> look for an "event of peace", than perhaps that event of peace might
> include transforming modes of perception, storage, archivation and
> distribution of works. It would be a matter of radically re-inventing
> media.
>
> Wolfgang
>
>
>
> Southworth, Kate schrieb:
> > Dear Bracha,
> >
> > Thank you for your words 'the originary event of peace is
> > compassion'.  They are beautifully simple words, that seem to mean
> > just what they say, but which also seem to refer to your ideas of
> > compassionate hospitality.  Your writing on compassionate hospitality
> > suggests, to me, that peace is a relationship.
> >
> > If it is appropriate, I would be very grateful if you could share
> > with us here on this list some of your ideas about compassion and
> > peace.  For me, it is only through attempting to understand the
> > supplementary space that you articulate in your work that it is
> > possible to imagine peace.
> >
> > warmest regards,
> >
> > Kate
> >
> >> ---------- From: 	underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org on behalf
> >> of bracha L. Ettinger Reply To: 	underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> >> Sent: 	Saturday, November 4, 2006 6:29 PM To:
> >> underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org Subject: 	Re: <underfire> re fluid
> >> borders, structured chaos, weak discipline
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Ryan replicates Wolfgand's question What would be an originary
> >> event of peace and his reply is a thought.
> >>
> >>
> >> For me there is no doubt about this. And I do not stop writing
> >> this, again and again.
> >>
>
> >>
> >> Bracha L. Ettinger
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________ Under Fire
> >> http://underfire.eyebeam.org 16 October - 10 December 2006
> >> International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville all writings
> >> copyright individual authors no commercial use without permission
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> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________ Under Fire
> > http://underfire.eyebeam.org 16 October - 10 December 2006
> > International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville all writings
> > copyright individual authors no commercial use without permission to
> > post a message, send an email to: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org to
> > unsubscribe, send an email to: underfire-leave at underfire.eyebeam.org
> _______________________________________________
> Under Fire  http://underfire.eyebeam.org
> 16 October - 10 December 2006
> International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville
> all writings copyright individual authors
> no commercial use without permission
> to post a message, send an email to:
> underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
> to unsubscribe, send an email to:
> underfire-leave at underfire.eyebeam.org

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