Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.05.2009, Page 27

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08
The authors of this article are the organis-
ers of the lecture series in question, so you
should definitely read the above with that in
mind.27
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 5 — 2009
Article | Nýhil
The Commies Are A-Coming
Radical academics will soon be storming Iceland with some
serious outside-the-box thinking about politics
Iceland’s problems are not the result of
inefficiency. Nor are they result of un-
ethical behaviour. They cannot be traced
back to the instability of the króna, to
Davíð Oddsson’s erratic behaviour, or to
Geir Haarde’s mishandling of telephone
conversations with Alistair Darling. The
Icelandic problems – yes, all of them –
are failures that result from the system
that governs the world: capitalism.
Bust-and-boom cycles are part and
parcel of capitalist development, not
some rarely heard of anomaly. This has
been well known for almost two centu-
ries, so why is everyone so surprised?
This is perhaps because when public
opinion turned against Soviet commu-
nism in the late 20th century, it acciden-
tally (or intentionally, depending on your
viewpoint) also dumped the insightful
theories of one of the greatest econo-
mists of all times: Karl Marx.
“The Communist Manifesto of the
21st Century”
Marxism in the humanities, however,
has been a f lourishing discipline for
decades and regularly breeds innova-
tive ideas. Iceland will now have the
chance to benefit from the teachings of
four distinguished Marxists: Antonio
Negri, Michael Hardt, Chantal Mouffe,
and Peter Hallward. They will give open
lectures in Reykjavík this month and the
next, and are likely to have something to
say about Iceland’s current debacle. The
lecture series is brought to you by Nýhil,
a collective of young entrepreneurs, un-
til now most famous for its avant-garde
poetry publications and annual interna-
tional poetry festival.
Antonio Negri is probably the best-
known of the four visitors, having ac-
quired martyrdom in the late eighties
when he was wrongly convicted by Ital-
ian authorities of bearing responsibility
for the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro,
Italy’s prime minister. Negri was then
already a well known figure in Italy’s co-
lourful Left, having founded the Autono-
mista movement in the early sixties.
In 2000, Negri rose to stardom again
with his academic blockbuster Empire,
co-written by his younger colleague,
Michael Hardt. Empire has been hailed
by the alter-globalisation movement,
and was called “the Communist Mani-
festo of the 21st century” by The New
York Times. Hardt and Negri have since
published the follow-up Multitude, and
continue to develop their ideas in close
proximity with protest movements on
the Left.
Left strategy: defence or offense?
Definitely the latter
Chantal Mouffe has since the early nine-
ties been a leading voice in Marxist self-
criticism, not least with the publication
of her seminal work Hegemony and
Socialist Strategy. Mouffe and her col-
league, Ernesto Laclau, have urged the
Left to disband a fixation with class in
favour of the inclusion of gay and lesbian
activists, environmentalists, feminists
and other groups that rose to promi-
nence during the years of the ‘New Left’.
Mouffe has since turned her criti-
cal attention to the political theories of
mainstream liberalism, severely criticis-
ing them for their homogenising and
moralistic vision of society. Democracy,
Mouffe argues, is all about conflict
and incongruence, not consensus and
‘shared values’. As a keen political ana-
lyst, Mouffe has tried to describe the
Left’s strategical opportunities. From
being on the offensive during the sixties
and seventies, the Left was forced into a
defensive position following neo-liberal-
ism’s victory march in the 90s.
Power to the people!
Peter Hallward is the youngest of the
radical scholars visiting Iceland, but
has already made a name for himself
as a highly original and sharp thinker.
While translating and introducing con-
temporary French theory to his British
countrymen, Hallward has himself writ-
ten a celebrated book about modern day
French and American neo-colonialism
in Haiti, a critique of postcolonial theory
and literature, and is currently conduct-
ing research on political and popular
will.
While these thinkers have much in
common, they also have their differ-
ences. In her lecture, Chantal Mouffe
will contrast her own ideas with those
of Negri, and Hallward has also been a
vocal critic of some of the philosophical
tenets behind Hardt and Negri’s theory.
Hallward is in many ways a highly un-
usual thinker compared with others
on the Left. The notion of political and
popular will has not been prominent on
the agenda of radical movements, while
according to Hallward the reworking of
notions – perhaps best expressed with
the slogan ‘Power to the People!’ – are
crucial to the viability of a future radical
left.
We are broke on ideas, let’s admit it
Academia has sometimes been a breed-
ing ground for progressive, democratic
and egalitarian ideas, but for many de-
cades it has hardly brought us anything
other than sheepish economists, char-
latan gurus of ‘management’, cultural
studies cynics. Marxism, with its idea
of the unity of theory and praxis, has
always been about joining scientific re-
search and social consciousness.
This winter’s popular uprising has
now entered a hiatus, waiting to see how
far the current Left-wing government
can take us. But truly revolutionary
politics are never the product of politi-
cians; it needs the active participation
of ordinary people. In order to continue
the revolution, Icelandic revolutionaries
are going to need more than political
perseverance. We are not “only broke on
money”. We need revolutionary ideas!
This month and the next, some of
the world’s most radical think-
ers will be giving talks in Iceland.
They could well turn out to be the
inspiration needed to continue
the kitchenware revolution of this
winter.
Words
Viðar Thorsteinsson
and Magnús Þór Snæbjörnsson
The Program:
Tuesday May 26 @ 8PM / Hall 102 at
Háskólatorg (University Square, Univer-
sity of Iceland Campus)
» Michael Hardt:
The Common in Communism
» Antonio Negri: Some Reflections
on the Concept and Practice of
Communism
Thursday June 11 @ 17PM / Hall 101
at Oddi (University of Iceland Campus)
» Peter Hallward:
What is Political Will?
Saturday June 13 @ 14PM / Hall 102
at Háskólatorg (University Square,
University of Iceland Campus)
» Chantal Mouffe:
Radical Politics Today
The lecture series is organised by Nýhil
with the support of the European ‘Youth
in Action’ Program, the Humanities
Division and the Philosophical Insti-
tute of the University of Iceland, The
Philosophical Society and the Iceland
Academy of The Arts.