Slavoj Zizek: 'Denazification Should Begin At Home, In Russia'
Žižek: "In Russia, they are dangerously approaching a new version of Nazism. ... The dogma of the left is, whoever you are, no matter how brutal the dictatorship, if NATO is against you, there must be ultimately something not totally bad in you. NATO is the automatic opponent. And I find all this reasoning so stupid…. This is exactly the abstract pacifism that German propaganda was playing on in Europe just before World War II -- they [called] it…anti-imperialism. French, English, American imperialism tries to dominate Europe, we will provide Europe [with] autonomy, we will save Europe and so on and so on. ..."
Did you notice that now they don't only talk about denazification, but already about de-Satanization? Putin was proclaimed chief exorcist not only of Ukraine but basically the entire Western Europe. And here things get really worrying for me.
Zizek: I read a recent statement by Sahra Wagenknecht, the German leftist [parliamentary deputy] of Die Linke (The Left party), and she quite openly says: Why should we lose energy, money, and so on, putting ourselves in danger, fighting for some war far away…endangering our welfare, the welfare, as she puts it, of our working people?
So here, her idea is basically: Let Ukraine perish so that we don't have to pay higher prices for electricity or whatever. And this is pure egotism. Beneath there is still deep distrust of -- more than the United States – NATO. The dogma of the left is, whoever you are, no matter how brutal the dictatorship, if NATO is against you, there must be ultimately something not totally bad in you. NATO is the automatic opponent. And I find all this reasoning so stupid….
This is exactly the abstract pacifism that German propaganda was playing on in Europe just before World War II -- they [called] it…anti-imperialism. French, English, American imperialism tries to dominate Europe, we will provide Europe [with] autonomy, we will save Europe and so on and so on. And the paradox is that Chomsky, who proclaims himself politically an anarchist, ended up not supporting Russia. The popular term today is "understanding Russia."
And what de facto happens is…while still helping Ukraine hopefully, we are putting pressure on Ukraine, [saying] don't provoke Russia too much. What I find so sad here is that the pacifists are not even ready to admit one thing – now, the pacificists say, the front is more or less stabilized, let's push for peace negotiations, give Russia part of Ukraine. But are these pacifists aware that we arrived at this stage of relative stabilization of the front precisely because of the immense Western help in Ukraine?....
That's the paradox that they are not ready to accept, that the Western intervention [has] opened up the chance for peace. Without Western intervention helping Ukraine, [the country] would probably be occupied and then you can probably go on, to Moldova, the Baltic states, pressure on Finland and so on and so on.
In a wide-ranging interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek speaks about Russia's folly in its war against Ukraine, the deep divisions in Russian society, and why we shouldn't boycott Russian culture.
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