Thank you very much.
Thanks to all.
I had a very liberal stance
toward "10 minutes".
Despite all, I think that our speakers
were quite absorbing.
They were invited to speak,
and the audience to listen.
So now I will give a chance for you
to reply to each other's statements.
Then I will open the debate for
the audience.
- Does anyone want to make a comment?
Slavoj. Don't be too long. (-Check your watch.)
Just briefly. I agree with everything
the last speaker said, except for the last 5 minutes.
For me the key country is Saudi Arabia
when talking of corruption and tyranny.
Saudi Arabia is so tyrannical that
there is no need for corruption.
Because the entire income
is the property the king.
What the United States cannot afford,
is the democratization of Saudi Arabia.
It would be a catastrophe for them.
There is something else I'd like to point out.
This anti-neoliberalism and so on ...
I have a few problems here.
I doubt there exist any more
a classical individualistic neoliberalism.
Even as a reaction to the financial crisis
of 2008.
I think we are seeing the formation
of a capitalism which is brutally neoliberal,
but at the same time combines in
a very beautiful way, ironically speaking,
with an extremely brutal
state structure, state intervention, etc.
For example, China. Which is neoliberal
and state regulated at the same time.
And when we talk about the periphery,
I would add this. Despite all the criticism of the West,
now that China is almost a superpower,
we should start noticing Chinese neocolonialism.
In Sudan, Zimbabwe,
Myanmar or Burma.
Refugees from there told me that Burma
is now wholly a Chinese colony.
The Chinese sustain it.
Something is happening here.
I am not an economist, but I think
a new post-individualist system is forming,
which will be something very dark.
It will keep the rigidness of neoliberalism,
and combine it with a new kind
of authoritarianism.
How biased we are here in the West.
Just briefly, it may interest someone.
China and India.
Perhaps something will happen there too.
I've been to India.
How unbelievably biased are our media.
Officially, India the largest democracy,
China, bad guys, look what they're doing in Tibet.
The media constantly emphasize repression
where there is none. But. A little anecdote.
Most of you probably saw the movie
Slumdog Millionaire.
Do you remember in the beginning ...
this was not a big political fraud,
just a boy suspected of cheating.
In order to raise his spirits before interrogation
they torture him a bit
with electroshocks.
When I was in India, I asked my
friends about this.
They said, obviously, the police constantly
torture everybody. It is totally normalised.
They told me their bitter joke.
The people demand of their police
to be at least like the Chinese
police in Tibet. That's their ideal. Why?
Because there they torture you
if you're connected to Dalai Lama.
They don't torture little thieves.
Do you know that India has -
I support them, brutally speaking -
one million of so called Naxalites.
Armed maoists who react to horrific new forms
of poverty which is the shady side of India's success.
And this taboo about how many people
die of hunger in India every year.
My problem was the following.
Everything sounds nice,
the morals in Islamic economics etc.
But for me
the principal question is,
what is the real alternative to
capitalism as a global system.
Not these modern alternatives.
Don't centre your attention on a false adversary.
Otherwise we will fall into the fascist trap.
I was shocked by these formulae.
Yes, development, but with balance etc.
This is the formula of fascism.
I can imagine it too,
all these Islamic values realized ...
Every fascist would scream with joy here.
I am intentionally provoking, sorry ...
This was the principal logic of fascism.
Communism wants to destroy individuality,
the liberal West is too individualistic,
we need proper bounds, organic unity,
freedom, but with balance ...
I know there are other potentials, I am for Islam.
I think it has great emancipatory
potential. What?
- I will tell you. Now I will provoke you.
- Be brief. - Yeah, yeah.
Do you remember the "scandalous"
statement of an Australian Mufti or something?
A woman was raped and he sided
with the rapist. It was a big scandal.
He compared a raped woman to ...
He said it like this.
If someone leaves a slice of
unwrapped meat in the street,
and a dog comes by and eats it,
who would you blame?
Probably the owner of the meat,
not the dog. It is the same with rape.
It's her own fault for walking alone etc.
Don't laugh. A feminist potential is hidden here.
Did you notice what utter contempt
for men is implied here?
We men are like dogs.
We see, we seize, we can't help it.
Only the woman is treated
as minimally ethical.
You will say I am delirious. I'm not.
If you now the history of Islam just a bit,
then you know ... how Mohammed
became a prophet.
He thought an evil spirit had appeared
to him. Khadijah, his wife,
had to persuade him
it was a good angel.
As if the authority of a man can only be
affirmed through a woman's judgement.
This is to me much more interesting than
all the nonsense about primordial mother Earth.
Things are very tense here.
I better stop.
It's his turn now, you're next. I will even
allow you to comment on your own statements.
Primoz, you have one third of
the time that Slavoj had.
I don't have the conceit to think that
I am able to compete with a thinker like Zizek.
- Let's be serious. Let's bring it on.
- Perhaps after a day of thinking
I would be able to answer back
coherently and articulately.
I agree that China is disturbing
the separation of the nucleus and periphery.
I'm not saying it's running an
ambivalent politics.
China is becoming the nucleus,
but keeping the rhetoric of the periphery.
It is supposed to lead the periphery
into development.
African countries are saying no
to the western colonialist,
but yes to the Chinese,
because they are different.
That a post-individualist paradigm is forming.
I would be glad if this was true.
Or did you mean the billionaires
who finance philanthropy?
I am not convinced that they are so
determined to work for the good of the community.
Look at the reaction to the 2008 crisis.
The state is intervening more and more.
The state is not disappearing,
on the contrary, it's role is getting larger.
If there is a symbol of individualism,
it is Los Angeles.
My friends, not only leftists, call L.A.
The Socialist Republic of Los Angeles.
Everything is intertwined
with the state. This is what I meant.
I read Joseph Stiglitz about
the "invisible hand".
They want this to happen,
but I don't think it already has.
Stiglitz clearly says that the USA, instead of
investing in public domain, is doing something else.
But the interest of capital is not
to invest into public investments.
- We should finish the discussion
about the state. - May I add something?
About anti-individualism and fascism.
Muslim authors point out that
Islam differs from socialism,
capitalism and fascism.
- In what way? - Fascism leaves to the state
to adjust corporate interests, establishing equity,
while Islam appeals to the individual
Muslim and his ethics.
Nobody may force a Muslim to do good,
instead he should, because of his Muslim ethics,
work for the benefit of the community
and not for his own interest.
Islam differs from socialism too,
by emphasizing this ethical system
which is supposed to persuade the individual
from within to act differently.
Thank you. I think Ervin
wanted to have his say.
Then the Minister must explain
what we really meant.
- No, I will explain what you said.
- You will? - Yes, I'm the moderator.
