{"id":65599,"date":"2003-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-05-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/05\/05\/le-laisser-faire-contre-la-memoire\/"},"modified":"2003-05-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-05-05T00:00:00","slug":"le-laisser-faire-contre-la-memoire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/05\/05\/le-laisser-faire-contre-la-memoire\/","title":{"rendered":"Le \u201claisser-faire\u201d contre la m\u00e9moire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Le \u00ab\u00a0laisser-faire\u00a0\u00bb contre la m\u00e9moire<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Cette analyse de Gabriel Ash, publi\u00e9e par YellowTimes.org<\/a>, est int\u00e9ressante, aussi bien dans son aspect objectif que dans son aspect pol\u00e9mique. Elle concerne le sac du Mus\u00e9e National de Bagdad, qu’elle pr\u00e9sente comme une action tacitement voulue par les Am\u00e9ricains. Elle pr\u00e9sente cette action comme une action contre la m\u00e9moire historique de l’Irak, contre l’identit\u00e9 de l’Irak. C’est-\u00e0-dire qu’elle donne \u00e0 la guerre contre l’Irak une radicalit\u00e9 qui r\u00e9pond \u00e0 certaines ambitions th\u00e9oriques de certains des th\u00e9oriciens de cette guerre, notamment les id\u00e9ologues n\u00e9o-conservateurs qui veulent une restructuration de la r\u00e9gion selon le mod\u00e8le d\u00e9mocratique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

L’id\u00e9e, si elle est bien loin d’\u00eatre absurde, contraste avec les conditions de la guerre : la guerre est bien loin de repr\u00e9senter les destructions radicales qui devraient accompagner un tel projet et les psychologies irakiennes sont bien loin d’avoir subi le choc qui devrait \u00e9galement accompagner un tel projet. (Ce cas est important, qui diff\u00e9rencie de fa\u00e7on d\u00e9cisive le \u00ab\u00a0projet irakien\u00a0\u00bb des cas allemand et japonais de la Deuxi\u00e8me Guerre mondiale, qui furent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9s comme inspirateurs.) En fait, il y a un contraste saisissant entre les ambitions th\u00e9oriques am\u00e9ricaines et les modalit\u00e9s d’application, qui sont r\u00e9duites aux dimensions des modalit\u00e9s d’intervention US actuelles, interdisant effectivement qu’on retrouve les conditions de la Deuxi\u00e8me Guerre.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

D’autre part, une chose doit, selon nous, \u00eatre mise en cause dans la d\u00e9marche de Ash : le parall\u00e9lisme entre le comportement am\u00e9ricain et le comportement de tous les conqu\u00e9rants. C’est une chose de faire figurer des richesses de la m\u00e9moire et des arts d’autres pays (conquis ou pas) dans des mus\u00e9es comme le British National et le Louvre, c’en est une autre de livrer ces richesses \u00e0 la rapacit\u00e9 nihiliste et \u00e0 la pauvret\u00e9 intellectuelle des \u00ab\u00a0lois du march\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb. Cette \u00e9quivalence n’est pas, \u00e0 notre sens, acceptable. Le comportement US, s’il y a eu effectivement pr\u00e9m\u00e9ditation pour le pillage du Mus\u00e9e National de Bagdad, ressort d’une forme postmoderne d’un comportement bien connu, qui est celui de la barbarie, c’est-\u00e0-dire quelque chose qui est en-dehors de l’histoire et qui nie la sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9 de l’histoire (\u00e9ventuellement pour la transformer en quelque chose d’autre, comme on l’a vu plus haut).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ces r\u00e9serves \u00e9tant \u00e0 l’esprit, on est d’autant plus \u00e0 l’aise pour consid\u00e9rer avec un r\u00e9el int\u00e9r\u00eat l’analyse que fait Ash de l’aversion \u00e9vidente, quasiment \u00ab\u00a0naturelle\u00a0\u00bb, des Am\u00e9ricains pour la m\u00e9moire, — ou, plut\u00f4t, des dirigeants du syst\u00e8me am\u00e9ricaniste. C’est l\u00e0 un point qui leur est compl\u00e8tement sp\u00e9cifique, qui tient \u00e0 leur conception du monde, \u00e0 leur place \u00e9galement tr\u00e8s sp\u00e9cifique dans l’histoire, — ou leur refus d’occuper une place dans l’histoire justement. Ce qu’on dira \u00e9galement est que la m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 de l’actuelle \u00e9quipe au pouvoir, qui n’est pas un accident mais qui correspond effectivement \u00e0 un certain degr\u00e9 de d\u00e9cadence, voire de subversion de la puissance US, rend tr\u00e8s difficile l’accomplissement du projet implicitement d\u00e9crit dans toute sa radicalit\u00e9. Le r\u00e9sultat pourrait donc \u00eatre, effectivement, qu’en voulant supprimer la m\u00e9moire irakienne pour mieux remodeler ce pays \u00e0 l’image a-historique que con\u00e7oit l’Am\u00e9rique, on ait fait une certaine \u00ab\u00a0place nette\u00a0\u00bb pour le retour de forces (religieuses notamment) qui s’appuient compl\u00e8tement sur cette m\u00e9moire, mais plus dans sa dimension religieuse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Cette m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 de l’\u00e9quipe dirigeante se retrouve chez divers commentateurs qui la soutiennent. C’est le cas, ici, de la commentatrice ultra-conservatrice Ann Coulter, qui, dans un de ses textes critiquant les lib\u00e9raux,<\/a> \u00e9crit incidemment \u00e0 propos du sac du Mus\u00e9e de Bagdad. On appr\u00e9ciera \u00e9galement l’esprit historique de l’analogie avec la lib\u00e9ration de Paris, avec l’affirmation qu’enfin au moins les Am\u00e9ricains « came in and imposed democracy on them<\/em> » (Coulter parle des Fran\u00e7ais apr\u00e8s août 1944). Coulter \u00ab\u00a0d\u00e9rape\u00a0\u00bb sans doute lorsqu’elle ridiculise les quelques \u00ab\u00a0poteries\u00a0\u00bb irakiennes vol\u00e9es dans le Mus\u00e9e National, en pr\u00e9cisant qu’il ne s’agit tout de m\u00eame pas d’oeuvres de Rodin (« We’re not talking about Rodins here<\/em> »). Puisque Rodin a l’air d’\u00eatre pour elle une r\u00e9f\u00e9rence de la supr\u00eame qualit\u00e9 artistique en mati\u00e8re de sculpture, il serait temps qu’elle s’aper\u00e7oive qu’il est Fran\u00e7ais. Dans tous les cas, il s’agit effectivement, devant une telle m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 des connaissances et du jugement, de constater que l’entreprise d’\u00e9radication de la m\u00e9moire des Am\u00e9ricains que d\u00e9crit Ash est, paradoxalement mais heureusement limit\u00e9e par cette extraordinaire m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 et cette extraordinaire petitesse des esprits qu’on voit ainsi se manifester.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

« Now the biggest mishap liberals can seize on is that some figurines from an Iraqi museum were broken – a relief to college students everywhere who have ever been forced to gaze upon Mesopotamian pottery. We’re not talking about Rodins here. So the Iraqis looted. Oh well. Wars are messy. Liberalism is part of a religious disorder that demands a belief that life is controllable.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» At least we finally got liberals on the record against looting. It seems the looting in Iraq compared unfavorably with the \u00a0\u00bbrebellion\u00a0\u00bb in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. When \u00a0\u00bbrebels\u00a0\u00bb in Los Angeles began looting, liberals said it was a sign of frustration – they were poor and hungry. As someone noted at the time, apparently they were thirsty as well, since they hit a lot of liquor stores. Meanwhile, the Iraqis were pretty careful about targeting the precise source of their oppression. Their looting concentrated on Saddam’s palace, official government buildings – and the French cultural center.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» However many precious pots were stolen, it has to be said: The Iraqi people behaved considerably better than the French did after Americans liberated Paris. Thousands of Frenchmen were killed by other Frenchmen on allegations of collaboration with the Nazis. Subsequent scholarship has shown that charges of \u00a0\u00bbcollaboration\u00a0\u00bb were often nothing more than a settling of personal grudges and family feuds. This was made simple by the fact that so many Frenchmen really did collaborate with the Nazis. The French didn’t seem to resent the Nazi occupation very much. Nazi occupation is their default position. They began squirming only after Americans came in and imposed democracy on them.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

_______________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Laisser-loot\u00a0\u00bb<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

By Gabriel Ash, YellowTimes.org, 1 May, 2003<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

When Titus destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 71 A.D., he took back to Rome its treasures, including the most famous one, the Menorah. His proud brother had the image of the plunder carved on a triumphal arc. Empires have always punctuated conquests with triumphalist looting. The British Museum and the Louvre are no less commemorations of Western civilization as of Western empires plundering the riches of their subjugated peoples.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Looting the culture of the enemy is symbolic of victory, a kind of \u00a0\u00bbconsummation\u00a0\u00bb of the new imperial relation of domination. Conquest requires the assent of the conquered, who must therefore be humiliated. Seeing the victor in possession of the symbols of one’s former pride and sovereignty is supposed to send a message to the conquered: the gods have forsaken them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In ancient Mesopotamia, wars were always between gods. Victory was always the victory of one god over another. That was also the logic of Titus when he plundered and burned the Jewish Temple. Things have superficially changed since back then. But wars are still not settled until the \u00a0\u00bbgod\u00a0\u00bb of the victor wins the obedience of the defeated, whatever that god is now called.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Seen in this light, the looting of Baghdad’s National Museum was almost de rigueur. True to its god, the U.S. empire didn’t send its soldiers to loot the museum. It adopted a \u00a0\u00bblaissez-faire\u00a0\u00bb attitude. The forces of the state stood by as the looting was conducted by \u00a0\u00bbprivate enterprise.\u00a0\u00bb Iraq’s heritage was not crated to the Metropolitan Museum. Instead, it ended up in the possession of Washington’s supreme god — the market.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Was it planned? It depends on what one means by planning. The Pentagon, we know, discussed the likelihood of the museum’s looting and chose to take no preventive steps. The local commanders were told about the looting in progress and also ignored it. It is clear the decision makers didn’t mind the plunder. This wasn’t oversight, just as reducing the budget for terrorism prevention before September 11 wasn’t an oversight. In both cases, there were documented warnings that were willfully ignored.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Conspiracy theories are bound to surface. I am, however, more inclined toward seeing the looting of the museum as the product of ingrained attitudes that mesh fortuitously with the ideology of Washington.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The National Museum of Baghdad had to go. The institute represented too many things that Washington would rather forget. The museum represented the antiquity of civilization in Baghdad. It was an institutional place that belied Washington’s patronizing attitudes toward Arab culture. Moreover, as holder of documents and artifacts from the oldest cities in the world, Baghdad’s museum represented the unity of world civilization. It had to be a prime target for those who wanted to fancy themselves in a \u00a0\u00bbclash of civilizations,\u00a0\u00bb or better still, a clash between civilization and the desert. Above all, the museum was a place of collective memory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Gore Vidal called the U.S., \u00a0\u00bbthe United States of Amnesia.\u00a0\u00bb The makers of U.S. culture are averse to memory. Memory brings pain, imposes obligations, and makes political manipulation more difficult. \u00a0\u00bbHistory is bunk,\u00a0\u00bb Henry Ford told America in a fit of wishful thinking. In truth, collective memory is necessary for effective resistance. Without it, one cannot have political goals and desires; one cannot have a political identity; therefore, one cannot resist. Without memory, one is reduced to desiring only that which has just popped up into consciousness. Without the memory of past struggles, victories and frustrations, one can only be an obedient worker-consumer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Iraq has a lot to forget in order to become a well-mannered U.S. protectorate. Iraq must forget how the U.S. helped the Baath party take control. It must forget how the U.S. drove Saddam Hussein to militarize and supported him in the war against Iran in order to punish Iranians for throwing off the U.S. puppet regime of the Shah in 1979. Iraq must forget how good the relations between Saddam and the White House were before 1991. It must forget how the U.S. allowed Saddam to massacre the rebelling Shiites in 1991. It must forget a decade of murderous sanctions and half a million children who could have been alive today but for U.S. foreign policy. It must forget the thousands who died from U.S. bombs. It must forget it is a country that was already a victim of colonialism before.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Is it surprising that the plan to reshape Iraq along American lines would begin with an attack on its collective memory? On the contrary, if it were at all possible, the Pentagon would have completely outlawed the use of the past tense in Arabic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This did not require a conspiracy. All it required was that all those who mattered share a set of cultural understandings and idioms:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

First, for the American conquerors, the past is always a \u00a0\u00bbminefield,\u00a0\u00bb a \u00a0\u00bbcan of worms,\u00a0\u00bb an impediment to \u00a0\u00bbpragmatism\u00a0\u00bb (i.e. going along with the powers that be), etc. Americans watched in horror at the masses of blood- covered Shiites commemorating the death of Imam Husseyin in Karbala. This is what collective memory looks like. Scary!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Second, preserving the past is a waste of money, a way of encouraging \u00a0\u00bbbureaucracy\u00a0\u00bb and something that matters only to academics who are, anyway, \u00a0\u00bbanti-American.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Third, this is Arab culture and past, i.e., in contemporary Americanese, \u00a0\u00bbterrorist\u00a0\u00bb culture. Why spend resources on protecting that?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And so, Iraq’s past was \u00a0\u00bbprivatized.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

If the U.S. gets its way, everything else Iraq has, and in particular oil, will also be privatized soon. That is at least the plan. It is described as creating a strong system of \u00a0\u00bbprivate property.\u00a0\u00bb But Iraqis don’t have the money to buy their own natural wealth from the U.S.. It will go to either foreigners or thieves (or both). The major impediment to this planned looting of Iraq’s oil and water (sorry, \u00a0\u00bbprivatization,\u00a0\u00bb c.f. the \u00a0\u00bbprivatization\u00a0\u00bb of Russia, Argentina, etc.) is Iraq’s various pools of collective memory. The U.S. will face growing opposition by Iraqis who refuse to forget the many good reasons not to trust U.S. goodwill.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

There are, however, two contradictions at the heart of the American occupation of Iraq that will contribute to its unraveling.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

First, cost: Forgetting is expensive. The same Henry Ford who said history is bunk invented high-wage consumer capitalism. It is doubtful that the U.S. is capable of exporting high wage capitalism to Iraq. Not only is every dollar that goes to Iraq a liability for Bush’s tax-cutting domestic plans, but the corporate contractors who will get that money will try to leave as little as possible of it in the hands of Iraqis. Privatization has yet to produce a single example of generating a widespread boost in wealth. It would be a true miracle if Iraq becomes that first example.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Second, the state: The neo-cons who masterminded the war believe in a minimal \u00a0\u00bblaissez-faire\u00a0\u00bb state. Yet it might take a Saddam-style tyranny to suppress opposition to a U.S. puppet regime. Rather than ushering Iraq into a neo-liberal nirvana, the weakness of the state is bolstering alternative collective memories that are potentially just as hostile to the U.S. Already, the Shiite religious community is emerging as a major network of resistance to the occupation. The old-school Machiavellians, who used to run U.S. foreign policy, were free from too strong ideological commitments. Bush I had remorselessly allowed Saddam to quash the Shiite rebellion in 1991. Bush I also ridiculed the anti-statist economic theories of the right as \u00a0\u00bbVoodoo economics.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The neo-cons, on the other hand, will have to overcome opposition from pragmatists and prove that they can win in Iraq on their own neo-liberal terms. They will have to create a system that is repressive enough to protect international capital from Iraqis, yet open enough to convince the world that Iraqis love being free and poor. And they will have to do it on the cheap.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What if neo-con fantasies prove impossible to implement? Evil tongues have lashed out saying the Pentagon has no exit strategy. That is simply not true, and Afghanistan provides the model. The U.S. army can perhaps fight two wars at the same time, but the U.S. media cannot. The Pentagon exit strategy from Iraq is, therefore, war with Syria and\/or Iran.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

[Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel. He is an unabashed \u00a0\u00bbopssimist.\u00a0\u00bb He writes his columns because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword – and sometimes not. He lives in the United States. Gabriel Ash encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org]<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http:\/\/www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http:\/\/www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le \u00ab\u00a0laisser-faire\u00a0\u00bb contre la m\u00e9moire Cette analyse de Gabriel Ash, publi\u00e9e par YellowTimes.org, est int\u00e9ressante, aussi bien dans son aspect objectif que dans son aspect pol\u00e9mique. Elle concerne le sac du Mus\u00e9e National de Bagdad, qu’elle pr\u00e9sente comme une action tacitement voulue par les Am\u00e9ricains. Elle pr\u00e9sente cette action comme une action contre la m\u00e9moire… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3908,3989,2687,3990],"class_list":["post-65599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analyse","tag-barbare","tag-coulter","tag-france","tag-rodin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}