Pernilla Ouis artikel i senaste Axess om ”halal-hippiens paradox” är intressant.
Den mest djupgående och fundamentala ideologiska paradox jag stött på är nog att Michel Foucault stödde den islamiska revolutionen i Iran. Jag kan inte nog understryka min förundran över detta. [. . .]
[Han stödde] den islamiska revolutionen och Khomeini, som praktiserade exakt det han kritiserade så briljant: det våldsamma utövandet av makt mot dem som skiljer sig från normen. [. . .]
Jag kallar Foucaults arv för halal-hippiens paradox. I sin iver att kritiskt ifrågasätta det västerländska moderna projektet, kolonialismens historia och förtrycket av ”den Andre”, är halal-hippien angelägen om att omfamna denna Andre med hull och hår, utan att uppfatta att just denna omhuldade Andre kan utöva precis samma mekanismer av förtryck, fast då inom sin egen grupp.
Hur ska man förstå denna typ av fenomen? Hur kunde Foucault hylla mullorna i Iran? Hur tänker Andreas Malm när han stödjer Hizbollah? Ett möjligt sätt att försöka förstå mekanismerna bakom är att läsa Svante Nordins Nittonhundratalet: En biografi, en i mitt tycke superb bok. Men nu vill jag framförallt uppmärksamma George Orwells ‘Notes on Nationalism‘ (1945). (Jag har tidigare citerat Orwells skeptiska hållning gentemot Andreas Malm . . .)
Vad Orwell där beskriver är inte nationalism i vanlig mening, utan helt enkelt en osund identifikation med en viss rörelse, klass, grupp, land eller institution i största allmänhet (Orwells främsta exempel är kommunismen samt politisk katolicism). Han beskriver där några mentala drag som är typiska för människor med ett ”nationalistiskt” mindset: Obsession, Instability (of object of loyalty), Indifference to Reality.
Den som mest har bäring på Foucault och Malm gäller instability, mer specifikt: ”transference of loyalty”. Exemplet är Chesterton vars katolicism fick honom att ständigt hylla Frankrike och Italien:
In home politics he was a Little Englander, a true hater of jingoism and imperialism, and according to his lights a true friend of democracy. Yet when he looked outwards into the international field, he could forsake his principles without even noticing he was doing so. Thus, his almost mystical belief in the virtues of democracy did not prevent him from admiring Mussolini. Mussolini had destroyed the representative government and the freedom of the press for which Chesterton had struggled so hard at home, but Mussolini was an Italian and had made Italy strong, and that settled the matter. Nor did Chesterton ever find a word to say about imperialism and the conquest of coloured races when they were practised by Italians or Frenchmen. His hold on reality, his literary taste, and even to some extent his moral sense, were dislocated as soon as his nationalistic loyalties were involved.
Lite senare i texten återkommer Orwell till samma fenomen och då med en psykologisk förklaring av det.
[For] an intellectual, transference [of loyalty] has an important function which I have already mentioned shortly in connection with Chesterton. It makes it possible for him to be much more nationalistic — more vulgar, more silly, more malignant, more dishonest — than he could ever be on behalf of his native country, or any unit of which he had real knowledge. When one sees the slavish or boastful rubbish that is written about Stalin, the Red Army, etc. by fairly intelligent and sensitive people, one realises that this is only possible because some kind of dislocation has taken place. In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion — that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware — will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are sceptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice: in that case he will have abandoned the form of nationalism that lies nearest to hand without getting any closer to a genuinely internationalist outlook. He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack — all the overthrown idols can reappear under different names, and because they are not recognised for what they are they can be worshipped with a good conscience.
Björn Östbring 