The revolutionary chants on the streets of Egypt have resonated around the world, but with a popular uprising without a clear direction and an unpopular leader refusing to concede, Egypt's future hangs in the balance. Riz Khan talks to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about the power of popular dissent, the limits of peaceful protest and the future of Egyptian politics.
Comments :
Loved this Zizek quote What affected me tremendously when I was not only looking at the general picture of Cairo but listening to interviews with participants/protesters there, is how cheap/irrelevant all this multicultural talk becomes. There where we are fighting a tyrant, we are all universalistic, we are immediately solitary with each other. That's how you build universal solidarity, not with some stupid UNESCO multicultural respect we respect your culture, you ours. the struggle for freedom.
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The central question you should be asking is whether the US stands for democracy at all, or are they actually an existential threat to the sovereignty of other countries. It's sad nobody catches that this "leader of the free world" crap is nothing but a marketing slogan.
Thanks for posting. This interview, aside from the live coverage coming out of Tahrir and Egypt more generally, has been for me the best moment of the past 10 days. Unadulterated wisdom which also made me laugh. Getting to watch and hear Slavoj Zizek, the Philosopher-Poet-Stand up Comic of the Universe, making completely poignant references to Tom and Jerry cartoons - even making a new verb out of it - and cracking up Tariq Ramadan in the process, what could be better. AND he mentioned Egypt!