EXCERPT
Learning how to navigate in the (dis)order of the multipolar world.
The 7th of October 2023, like the 22nd of February 2022 or the 9th of March 2020, are moments we are unlikely to forget. These dates represent moments in which history has once again been set into motion. Like the outbreak of COVID-19, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’s latest attack on Israel has left us speechless, especially considering Israel’s genocidal targeting of the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian population has been decimated for over three months. The atrocities of the bombings and the perpetrated violence of the Israeli military forces have claimed more than 25,000 lives and displaced nearly 2 million people.
We are horrified by the brutality of the attacks on civilians in Gaza, the repression of Palestinian citizens in Israel and in the West Bank, the context of dehumanization suffered by Arabs and Muslims’ lives in Palestine, caused by the colonial and nationalist project of Zionism. The ruthless violence of the Israeli assault cannot be justified as a legitimate reaction to the attack. Therefore, we stand with Palestinian people and with all voices calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The historical phase we are approaching is new, there are state (and non-state) actors claiming millennial or divinely elected cultural identities, old nation-states, empires, and multinationals. This is also why the discourse can not be reduced to concepts such as bi-polarity, or to simplified categories such as “North-South” or “East-West”. In our view, this argument needs to be applied to all the ongoing wars. Different sub-systems are emerging, and none of the major players in the international arena wants to be left outside the dynamics of power appropriation. Each sub-system competes to “earn” its position within financial command algorithms. The overall dispute is situated in a hybrid dimension of technologies, involving the use of satellites, artificial intelligence, quantum computers, drones, and nanotechnology. However, wars break out also beyond the technological power one holds. Just bear in mind the homemade, but innovative techniques used by Hamas to launch the attacks on the 7th of October, or the assaults with drones and missiles of Yemen’s Ansar Allah in the Red Sea.
In the fragmented societies we live in, the outbreak of crises only polarizes the political positions of those who already have – revealed truths and the subsequent pursuit of their political purposes. Hence, this dynamic may encourage an analysis based on emotional evaluations that often end up in supporting and justifying excesses, if committed by friendly ‘factions’.
This way of thinking is counter-revolutionary since it risks overshadowing our society’s goal of emancipation. Moreover, it makes us lose sight of the materiality of suffering and the brutality of those who produce it. Therefore, we need to track down both a heretical thought, that free ourselves from eternal truths, and an ethical one, to not indiscriminately tolerate what is happening.
One of the aims is to find a way to orient in the continuous turning points of history, and to develop new categories of analysis from below, useful to support those who fight for a democratic society, freed from all forms of exploitation and oppression.
Source:
https://municipiozero.it/en/heretical-thoughts/