In this report ZA continues from the last one, by presenting a media roundup that focuses on arguments for and against foreign military intervention in Libya. (As usual, the reports are listed in chronological order, starting with the most recent.) Many of the arguments have centered around the imposition of a no flight zone, although frequently the argument for intervention includes proposed air strikes on Libyan government targets. First to be presented are those articles that criticize humanitarian imperialist premises and the (re)turn to validating military humanism, as they tend to be the most cogent and continue to be largely unanswered. Second, a listing of key rebel statements calling for Western intervention, and some articles about the Libyan opposition. Third, articles and essays that promote and justify foreign military intervention. Also, ZA’s top recommendations.
Exodus: Movement of the People Thinking still of Gastón Cordillo’s essays on resonance—“Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution” and “The Speed of Revolutionary Resonance,” and others writing about “The Phenomenology of the Resonance-Reverberation Doublet”—I remember writing to Gastón that the concept of resonance reminded me of “agitation,” which raised other associations of political terms that are… [Read more…]
Whose Responsibility? Beginning with a personal note, as any act of personal interpretation ought to begin: Like many others, when I read reports of how the Gaddafi regime was brutally suppressing nonviolent protests, I wanted to see action to stop the regime. I still want to see Gaddafi face justice, at the hands of his… [Read more…]
In this report, first two maps of social media penetration in the Middle East and North Africa, in relation to ongoing revolts; then, a long overdue catalogue of anthropologists writing online about the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa; then a series of opposing items, those dealing with rejections of any foreign military intervention in Libya (a position best articulated by Fidel Castro), followed by statements by what would otherwise be willing interventionists, in the U.S. government, who find multiple problems with imposing a no-flight-zone, and then those articles and statements that strongly favour intervention, and the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P); finally, we end with notes on empire at work in Afghanistan.
March 17, 2011 by Maximilian Forte
8