Just Finished Reading: The Rebirth of History – Times of Riots and Uprisings by Alain Badiou (FP: 2011)

I need to pull back. Racing ahead, basically attempting to run before I can walk unassisted isn’t really doing me any favours. Or is it, so it seems sometimes, that I am trying to scale the peaks of political discourse without the benefit of oxygen. Yet again I feel that I need to both widen and deepen my political knowledge and understanding before I read books such as this. Doing so would mean that I’d get a great deal more out of it and reading such books wouldn’t take so much effort and concentration. Luckily I read this on holiday so I was fairly chilled and had the time, quiet and energy to read, and often re-read, the sometimes convoluted and dense arguments presented within. I don’t think my difficulties originated in the translation from French into English. No, the translation was very good – indeed I think it must have been borderline excellent as it’s difficult enough to understand in English never mind in its native language! I think it was just that I wasn’t really prepared for that amount of often very technical Marxist conceptual language.

But I persevered. One thing in my favour was the books brevity – a mere 120 pages including two appendices. The other thing was that, when I did fully understand what he was saying, I agreed with many of the points he was trying to make. His statement that what we see around us is not ‘late’ Capitalism or ‘post’ Capitalism but simple, naked, raw Capitalism in all its horrific splendour rings true to me. I did enjoy his comparison of Capitalism with Organised Crime and its many commonalities did make me chuckle to myself. It took a little longer to get my head around the idea of inexistent people but it finally sank in and most of the highly technical language – the ‘fictive indentarian object’ being one of my favourite terms in the whole book – I managed to initially grasp because of the context and later because of the authors detailed explanations using both historical and contemporary examples. It did appear that a passing knowledge of French history came in handy – the French Revolution, Student unrest in 1968 and the Paris Commune of 1871 all feature – but again much can be gained through context and a general knowledge – or at least a nodding acquaintance with such events.

Of course as you might expect much of the focus of this slim volume is the still on-going social unrest in much of the Middle East. The author’s ‘take’ on these events is something I certainly haven’t heard from the media outlets in the UK. Rather, as we are led to believe, a demand for more democracy and freedom (AKA Capitalism) the underlying demand is for the Capitalist West, who remember supported the brutal regimes they are in the process of deposing, to leave them alone to make their own way. Of course even with the passing of two years since its publication it is far too early to say what the effect of these uprisings will be and how far they will spread. The author clearly hopes that this could be a turning point in the fight against Global Capitalism in all its exploitative guises. I’m cynical enough, and remember enough historical uprisings which only succeeded in temporarily changing one set of repressive tyrants for another set, not to get my hopes up too soon. Bringing down the Capitalist colossus is going to take a great deal more time and effort than we’ve seen so far – but little acorns and all that.

I cannot say that this book is an easy read because, for many reasons, it certainly is not. However it’s the kind of book you can return to after 6 months or a year of further reading around the subject and each time get something more from it. Once I increase my, presently pitiful, understanding of political theory and delve much deeper into political history and even political biography I intend to pick this book up again and have another go at it. From what little I gleaned the first time I think a return visit will be well worth it.