Denne artikel analyserer arabiske marxistiske intellektuelles læsninger af de arabiske opstande siden 2011 og introducerer til arabisk postmarxisme forstået som social teori, der baserer sig på hele den brede familie af marxistiske teorier og traditioner men forholder sig kritisk til den. Artiklen trækker på Alain Badious undersøgelse af begivenhed, situation og spor. For rigtigt at forstå en begivenhed som de arabiske opstandes betydning, må nogen engagere sig i at undersøge dette spor kritisk. Jeg argumenterer, at arabisk postmarxisme repræsenterer en kritisk undersøgelse af et Badiousk spor, der viser tilbage til uafklarede begivenheder i fortiden. Sporet går i retning af tidligere arabiske revolutioner, og de arabiske marxisters deltagelse i dem samt deres tidligere læsninger af forholdet mellem stat, samfund og intellektuelle. Deres erindringsarbejde er således også et politisk arbejde, der søger at forklare, hvordan de arabiske opstande blev muliggjort, og hvordan de adskiller sig fra tidligere revolutionære øjeblikke. Denne analyse viser yderligere, at ikke-vestlige samfunds egne læsninger og intellektuelle traditioner skal tages alvorligt i sammenlignende studier af revolution. Postmarxistisk teori er relevant for revolutioner, fordi den giver redskaber til at analysere det revolutionære subjekt, som Skocpol og andre ignorerede, men som revolutionsteori i dag har indset er af afgørende betydning for forståelsen af sociale revolutioner.
ENGELSK ABSTRACT:
Sune Haugbølle: The Other Revolution: The Arab Uprisings in Light of Arab Post-Marxism
This article analyzes Arab Marxist intellectuals and their readings of the Arab uprisings since 2011. In addition, it introduces Arab post-Marxism, or social theory drawing often critically on the broad family of Marxist theory and traditions. The article draws on Alain Badiou’s concepts of situation, event and trace. In order to understand events such as the Arab uprisings, someone must be engaged in examining the trace critically. I argue that Arab post-Marxism represents a critical examination of Badiou’s trace referring back to undigested events in the past. The trace points to earlier Arab revolutions, to the participation of Arab Marxists in them, and to their earlier readings of the relation between state, society and intellectuals. In this way, their memory work constitutes political work seeking to clarify how the Arab uprisings were made possible and how they are different from earlier revolutionary moments. On a general level, this analysis shows that intellectual traditions of non-Western societies and the way they engage their past must be taken seriously in comparative studies of revolution. Post-Marxist theory is relevant for revolutions because it provides tools to analyze the revolutionary subject, which Skocpol and others have largely ignored, but which, as most theorists of revolution theory acknowledge, is crucial for our understanding of social and political revolutions.
Keywords: revolution, Arab uprisings, post-Marxism, collective memory, Badiou.
Nostalgic Constitutional Identity
