Monday 5 April 2021

Comments and Suggestions are Welcome

“HERE I AM, KILL ME IF YOU WISH” 
 
“Here I am, kill me if you wish.” This chilling yet familiar call does not have the same meaning, nor does it involve the same risk, when voiced by different people and under different circumstances.2 What is this statement? Who utters it, and under which circumstances? What are the material and political conditions that compel people to expose themselves to lethal violence and demand, “kill me if you wish,” rather than hiding from death? What causes members of certain groups of the governed to instigate this threat, this invitation to physical harm, rather than living their slow deaths in the shadow of deferred violence? My assumption is that the answers to these questions are to be found in the theater of impunity imposed by those who would execute them, in which the valorization of the new and the constitution of the past as a realm apart play key roles. This theater consists of the systematic attempts to ruin the material worlds and cultures of the groups to which these people belong, and to use their labor power and skills in building worlds from which they will not benefit and for which they will not be recognized. The origin of a call such as “kill me if you wish” cannot be traced to the individual who utters it or the particular situation in which it is uttered. Under the imperial condition, this is a recurrent call—even as it is itself under structural threat of disappearing under dead bodies—because it is a response to being deprived of a place in a world and of a world in which one could have a place, a place secured among objects and people that one recognizes and where one is recognized as more than a piece of property, a unit of labor power, or a source of tax revenue.3 This call, whenever it erupts, provokes violence that enhances the institutionalized violence that is required to maintain imperial temporal and spatial divides. We don’t have to hear the explicit words of this call in order to discern it in the movement of hundreds of thousands of people presently fleeing their homes for the countries of their ex-colonizers in Europe, and effectively making the latter accountable for their fate, though these same ex-colonizers have done everything they can to relegate their colonial crimes to a distant past. Through this call, one can get a glimpse of the imperial condition, under which such a call, when uttered by members of particular groups of populations, is likely to be answered by an act of killing.4 Though this call erupts without prior warning, it makes apparent a system of imperial violence under which the group to which its utterer belongs has long lived.
 
2. The call is often associated with and celebrated as part of a national revolutionary founding myth. However, in such contexts, when the lives of different groups of populations were not improved but rather made more vulnerable, more exposed to violence than lives of others, the events during which such a call is uttered often remained unreported. 
3. As it will become clear later, it is not exactly the loss of one’s place within a community, as Hannah Arendt argues, in her endeavor to describe the decline of human rights and the association of one’s place in the world with the right to have rights.
4. And there are always different effects such a call has on the community to which the person who utters it belongs. This call was institutionalized as a motto—“liberty or death”—and often used, quite metaphorically, during what have since the eighteenth century been called revolutionary “independence” struggles, even when the people seeking independence have themselves been subordinating others.
 
 
- Azoualay, A. Plunder, the Transcendental Condition of Modern Art and Community of fabri, in Barois De Caevel, E. & Roelandt, E. (eds.), CATPC, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2017.
 
 
This is the first paragraph of a text I've recently read and I was dismayed by its illegibility. 
The writing is full of redundancies, complexly structured sentences and ill-defined terminology. The formatting also doesn't attempt to alleviate the strain put on the reader, as even in the original printing there were no line breaks to be found.
This kind of writing can appear immune from criticism because of its density, but I have nevertheless decided to write an initial commentary on this paragraph. For this commentary I pretended the text was written by a first year undergraduate student. I believe this is a healthy attitude to deal with this kind of obscurantism, as any appeal to the author's authority will immediately fall by the wayside.
 
 
“HERE I AM, KILL ME IF YOU WISH”
“Here I am, kill me if you wish.”
[The text starts with the double assertion of a direct quote. Even in the heading this quote is indicated as a quote by placing it in quotation marks. However, no origin for the quote is given in a footnote.]
This chilling yet familiar call does not have the same meaning, nor does it involve the same risk, when voiced by different people and under different circumstances.
[Why is this call familiar if its origins are not stated? And why is familiarity placed in opposition to its 'chilling' qualities? Do we have to draw the conclusion that familiar things can only be pleasant? 
What are the differences between the different people and circumstances and in what way do those differences change its meaning and its risk?
With regards to the footnote, it is in fact nothing but additional speculation filled with indefinite articles: 'often associated', 'in such contexts', 'different groups of populations', 'lives of others' and 'often remained unreported'.
A keen reader should also notice that although it is the first footnote of the text, it is numbered '2'. Footnote '1' was used on title page to thank Kareem Estefan for the careful editing he did. This isn't something one should use a footnote for.
Footnotes are for referencing other texts or providing additional information, as is done in footnote '3'. However, there the author simply states 'as Hannah Arendt argues', without saying where or even how Arendt does this. I believe the kids call this 'name-dropping'.]
What is this statement? 
[Instead of posing such a question, a scientific text should provide answers to, or clear outlines of, precisely these kind of questions. I understand this is a still an introduction, but I nevertheless would say that providing a context in which the reader should place this quote is a far better idea than simply asking this question out loud.]
Who utters it, and under which circumstances?
[Ibid.]
What are the material and political conditions that compel people to expose themselves to lethal violence and demand, “kill me if you wish,” rather than hiding from death?
[This is a first assertion of the existence of a binary choice between hiding from death and exposing oneself to lethal violence. All the while it has yet not received any other context in which this choice is to be made.]
What causes members of certain groups of the governed to instigate this threat, this invitation to physical harm, rather than living their slow deaths in the shadow of deferred violence? 
[Which certain groups? By who are they governed? What consists of living a slow death? What violence is being referred to and why is it deferred?]
My assumption is that the answers to these questions are to be found in the theater of impunity imposed by those who would execute them, in which the valorization of the new and the constitution of the past as a realm apart play key roles. 
[Texts like these ought to be written to attempt to provide those answers, not making assumptions about where they are to be found.
The impunity spoken of here is implied to be self-imposed by the party normally receiving the impunity. Yet this is not explicitly clear from the text as written here, other than by naming it a 'theater of impunity'. By not making this unambiguous, the sentence reads as an accusation that's disguised as an assertion.
And who are executed, also? It is presumed to be 'the members of certain groups' from the previous sentence, but their identity has not become known between this sentence and the previous one.

In the last part of the sentence 'valorization of the new' and 'the constitution of the past' are defined 'as a realm apart' to 'play key roles'.  I do not know what this means. I can guess at its meaning, to be something along the lines of how an idea of progress and distinct places in a unilateral timeline of development led colonialists to believe that they were justified in placing themselves above others, but this is not stated in the text and thus remains speculation on part of the reader.]
This theater consists of the systematic attempts to ruin the material worlds and cultures of the groups to which these people belong, and to use their labor power and skills in building worlds from which they will not benefit and for which they will not be recognized.
[After being used as a modifier, now 'the theater' is taken to be the main subject. The meaning of those two uses has shifted subtly, but considerably, in these two sentences. In the former it is to undermine the authority and implying the falsehood of a status of impunity, in the latter the term has taken on its own authority and ability to affect the world surrounding it.
For the rest there are again more unnamed articles that could've and should've be named:
Who were it that instigate these systematic attempts? What is meant with the material worlds and cultures? Which are the groups to which these people belong? Who are these people? What are skills in building worlds? Are they physical worlds? Spiritual worlds? Why will those people not benefit and why will they not be recognized?
Again us readers can make educated guesses towards the answers for these questions, but if you are attempting to study something, having the reader guess at what you're studying isn't a good quality.]
The origin of a call such as “kill me if you wish” cannot be traced to the individual who utters it or the particular situation in which it is uttered. 
[If the origin of the call cannot be traced, then don't place it in quotation marks, which implies a direct quotation of an individual or situation. Also it is quite a jarring jump from the previous sentence to this one.]
Under the imperial condition, this is a recurrent call—even as it is itself under structural threat of disappearing under dead bodies—because it is a response to being deprived of a place in a world and of a world in which one could have a place, a place secured among objects and people that one recognizes and where one is recognized as more than a piece of property, a unit of labor power, or a source of tax revenue.3 
[First off, four comma's, four conjunctions and a sidebar in one sentence is simply terrible practice if one attempts to elucidate. Compare and contrast with the following segment, where the words are simply reordered:
'Despite the structural threat of disappearing under dead bodies, this is a recurrent call under the imperial condition because it is a response to being deprived of a place in a world, as well as a world in which one could have a place. A place that is secured among objects and people that one recognizes and where one in turn is recognized as more than a piece of property or a unit of labor power or a source of tax revenue.'
Now we're actually able to follow the sentence, we see that an assertion is made that the call is recurrent, yet not a single direct citation has been given. 
The origin of the call doesn't even have to be verifiable. At this point mere hearsay of events where this call was uttered would be welcome. The claims made here are big; people are at risk of having no freedom at all and are apparently under the constant threat of death, yet who those people might be is still not known.]
This call, whenever it erupts, provokes violence that enhances the institutionalized violence that is required to maintain imperial temporal and spatial divides. 
[Whenever it erupts indicates a certainty of events unfolding. If this is so certain, one ought to be able once again to cite some examples.]
We don’t have to hear the explicit words of this call in order to discern it in the movement of hundreds of thousands of people presently fleeing their homes for the countries of their ex-colonizers in Europe, and effectively making the latter accountable for their fate, though these same ex-colonizers have done everything they can to relegate their colonial crimes to a distant past.
[Here the cry 'Kill me if you wish' is reined in a bit by stating that 'We don't have to hear the explicit words of this call'. We, as readers siding with the author, can simply recognise it in 'the movement of hundreds of thousands of people'. 
It can hardly be argued that from the movement of people itself such a cry can be discerned. If the author is on the other hand suggesting that fleeing one's country from the atrocities that are happening there is akin to a protest march, then I would consider that an oversimplified and somewhat disrespectful sentiment.
Furthermore, in 2015-2016, the people who were 'presently fleeing their homes' for Europe, consisted primarily of Syrians who fled from the civil war raging in their home country. 
Syria was a part of the Ottoman empire for over four centuries, before it was occupied by France after the First World War. The Ottoman empire had joined the side of Germany during that war and after their coalition lost that war, France was given control over Syria in the distribution of territories. This is similar to the way the USA and USSR gained control over Germany after WWII. Syria gained independence shortly after the Second World War, however, and has remained independent since. 
While I'm not claiming 'Europe' had zero influence in the complex history that has led up to the current state of affairs, the author's assertion that 'Europe' as 'ex-colonizers' are outright accountable is equally misguided and this shows how important it is to name names in (con)texts like these. 
Perhaps Syria wasn't to be included in the author's stylistic device, but by not specifying this, she is merely making an emotional appeal to the readers' engagement with then-current affairs, not practicing any kind of scholarship.]
Through this call, one can get a glimpse of the imperial condition, under which such a call, when uttered by members of particular groups of populations, is likely to be answered by an act of killing.
['this call', namely 'killl me if you wish', is revealed a few pages later as a mere hyperbole. The only factual mention of its utterance is described on page 354 of the book as ' "Kill me." '. While again presented in quotation marks, this quotation doesn't contain a footnote. It likely stems from a text that is footnoted three pages earlier, which is a report another scholar has written in 2001, based on archival documents from the Foreign Ministry of Belgium. The author of the present text describes 'Kill me if you wish' as 'the call that I propose to study here' on page 361, but it is a call that is apparently one primarily of her own invention.
In addition, yet even more vague terms are used. A quick google search for 'the imperial condition' only gives clear reference to the author's other texts, while 'members of particular groups of populations' is once again pleonastic and indefinite. 'Likely' in this case isn't a valid assertion without some factual statement of probability or further specification.]
Though this call erupts without prior warning, it makes apparent a system of imperial violence under which the group to which its utterer belongs has long lived.
[As we have shown the disputable origins of the call in the previous comment, it can't be said that 'this call' makes anything apparent other than the emotional appeal of the author, no matter how valid or truthful her statements otherwise are.]


With these 1400 words I've attempted to point out some of the misgivings present in every (!) sentence of this first paragraph. This is but an indication on where improvements could be made to the clarity of the text, without going into the factual research necessary to elucidate, specify and verify the claims of the author. 
The text in its whole is thirty times longer than this first paragraph, but contains similar verbose language throughout. It should therefore go without saying that it is an almost impossible task for any single person reviewing this text to separate fact from fiction. This is seemingly accomplished by design, with the author setting up a 'theater of impunity' for her own views, if we may borrow a phrase.
 
In the introduction to the book this text is featured in, the editors write that 'it was also important to us to widen the discussion by inviting authors whose thinking on some of the questions raised by the existence of the CATPC is crucial: Ariella Azoulay and F.V. offered us deep insights through their contributions.'
Far from providing 'deep insights', the presented text makes an argument through an appeal to emotions and obfuscation of premisses. This is deeply regrettable as it is otherwise a valid and important subject that the author quite clearly has extensive knowledge of.
Now, muddled arguments like these are unfortunately commonplace in art, so normally I wouldn't care all that much. However, in this case the author is a tenured professor at an Ivy League university. 
The standard of writing presented here isn't what one should expect from a student at a community college, let alone a professor at a top university, and I felt that this needed pointing out.