When you meet with power and resistance and treat those two impostors just the same, and then you’ll be a revolutionary, my comrade.

Slavoj Zizek writes on power and resistance in the current London Review of Books. The piece is a critique of the latest book from the philosopher Simon Critchley, Infinitely Demanding. Critchley argues for a “politics of resistance” operating at a distance from the state “bombarding the state with impossible demands, of denouncing the limitations of state mechanisms”. Zizek then brings out the “superego” to describe Critchley’s “anarchic ethico-political agent” which “bombard[s] the state with demands; and the more the state tries to satisfy these demands, the more guilty it is seen to be. In compliance with this logic, the anarchic agents focus their protest not on open dictatorships, but on the hypocrisy of liberal democracies, who are accused of betraying their own professed principles.” Wow. Liberal democracies aren’t perfect lands of milk and honey. Tell me something new. Sure, it is worth seeking to change the egregious parts of liberal democracies, like the UK’s immigration policies and the USA’s prison system. Leaving critique’s of “open dictatorships” to the people of those countries is like telling those people “I have heard your heart breaking story, now go and annoy someone else”, and washing your hands of their predicament. Whatever happened to solidarity and internationalism?

Zizek then discusses the 2003 demonstrations against the war in Iraq:

Their paradoxical outcome was that both sides were satisfied. The protesters saved their beautiful souls: they made it clear that they don’t agree with the government’s policy on Iraq. Those in power calmly accepted it, even profited from it: not only did the protests in no way prevent the already-made decision to attack Iraq; they also served to legitimise it. Thus George Bush’s reaction to mass demonstrations protesting his visit to London, in effect: ‘You see, this is what we are fighting for, so that what people are doing here – protesting against their government policy – will be possible also in Iraq!’

Finally Zizek argues against “impossiblism”.

… the truly subversive thing is not to insist on ‘infinite’ demands we know those in power cannot fulfil. Since they know that we know it, such an ‘infinitely demanding’ attitude presents no problem for those in power: ‘So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible.’ The thing to do is, on the contrary, to bombard those in power with strategically well-selected, precise, finite demands, which can’t be met with the same excuse.

If these are not possible then what is possible? Make things better.

Just a few days after King Juan Carlos of Spain told the Caracas Gobshite to shut up, two cartoonists have been fined for slandering the Spanish royal family. A sketch drawn by Guillermo Torres and Manel Fontdevila depicting chinless wonder Crown Prince Felipe rogering his equally chinless wife Princess Letizia in the doggy position was published on the front page of the satirical weekly El Jueves’.

Here’s the offending cartoon…

The speech bubbles read: “Do you realise, if you get pregnant this will be the closest thing I’ve done to work in my whole life.” This is a reference to a government plan that would pay Spanish couples €2,500 for each new baby they had.

Denmark goes to the polls today to elect a new parliament. If the psephologists have done their sums right, it looks like the centrist block of Venstre and Konservative will come out on top, though with a reduced majority.

Such a result will ensure that PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen remains in power. I am quite indifferent to the man, but on balance feel that it would be the best outcome in the circumstances. From an international perspective it would be a disaster if the social democrats took over. That would probably result in a speedy Danish withdrawal from Iraq (but not from Afghanistan), and a general turning inwards. As far as Denmark itself is concerned, the social democrats are in a complete mess, and the party hasn’t had an original idea in years.

The current government rules as a formal two-party alliance, but in order to get its legislative programme through the Folketing it relies on the votes of MPs from the right-wing nationalist Dansk Folkeparti. This is a racist organisation, but it is quite unlike the BNP in Britain. DF is mainstream, and commands support among Danes of widely differing backgrounds.

Danish politics have ever been weird, but the current situation is particularly awkward. Since the last election the plates have shifted, and the difference is in the collapse of the Radikale Venstre party. RV is a liberal party with agrarian roots. It is petite bourgeois, pro-individual, pro-market and socially left. In the past few years it has moved significantly leftwards, and generally supports the social democrats in parliament. I voted for RV when I lived in Denmark, though I wore a nose peg to cover up the odour of middle class sanctimony.

RV was until recently the political home of MP Naser Khader, who is known outside Denmark for his intervention in the Mohammed cartoons affair, and setting up the organisation Demokratiske Muslimer. For his troubles Khader now goes everywhere accompanied by police intelligence service bodyguards, and is regularly denounced in mosque sermons as an apostate rat worthy of slaughter.

Divisions within RV recently came to a head and led to a split in the party, with Khader leaving to form the Ny Alliance. I’m not sure of the numbers, but it looks like Khader has taken a considerable part of RV with him, and will back Anders Fogh in negotiations to form a new government. But not only has Khader effectively wrecked RV, this Syrian-born immigrant may end up taking votes from DF, and do so without pandering to racist sentiment. Now that would be an interesting result.

Naser Khader is the man to watch in this election. He is the centre of attention, and domestic media coverage has focused on his words and actions to the point of obsession. That may not be particularly healthy, but current events show that not all is rotten in the state of Denmark.

The Columbia Journalism Review is curious:

I couldn’t remember a single instance of an American paper or magazine bothering to interview any of the leaders of the “awakening” movement, which has turned the Anbar province from a bloody gantlet for American troops into a place where the Marines can sponsor a marathon in the now peaceful streets of Ramadi. So, where are the interviews of these Sunni sheiks who have changed the face of the war so dramatically? And if they don’t exist, what possible explanation can the Baghdad bureaus of major publications have for not digging into this story?