No need to introduce Judith Butler, professor at Berkeley: reputed to be the creator of "gender theory" (although she denies that it is a theory, which is readily granted to her), she is also a valued reference in postcolonial studies 1.
Now, a week after the Hamas attack in Israel, she was due to give a lecture at the invitation of the Centre Pompidou in coordination with the École Normale Supérieure. Her past praise of Hamas put the Centre Pompidou in a delicate position, and a few days before she published in the journal AOC an article titled No to violence, which assured her peace of mind. And in fact Cécile Daumas, in Libération of October 14, under the title, "Judith Butler, of the human race" (sic), could write: "The American philosopher admired by LGBT+ people refuses to be an icon and continues to think about the present, from non-violence to the vulnerability of lives" specifying: "More than 800 people, gays, lesbians, trans, straight, non-binary, came to listen to Judith Butler like a quasi-oracle."
1/ Let’s take a step back. Judith Butler explained in 2006 that “it is extremely important to consider Hamas and Hezbollah as progressive social movements, which are on the left and part of a global left 2"They would even be part of the international revolutionary cause, as Hardt and Negri assured in 2000: "The postmodernity of fundamentalism is recognized by its refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony - in this respect, Islamic fundamentalism represents a paradigmatic example 3"We will have understood that these pro-Iranian postmodernists and these jihadists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood were deconstructors and not destroyers, left-wing progressives and not fanatical killers.
2/ In 2014, Butler added a further contribution to deconstruction in his contribution to the book Deconstructing Zionism 4. The co-director of this collective, Gianni Vattimo, an international figure of deconstruction, pedagogically entitled “How to Become an Anti-Zionist 5", after mentioning Ahmadinejad (then still Prime Minister), insinuated this: "As for the idea of making the State of Israel "disappear" from the map - one of the regular themes of the Iranian "threat" - it does not seem to be completely unreasonable. 6» He concluded, in the same mode of euphemistic concession: "To speak of Israel as an 'unforgivable sin' is therefore not so excessive." With this category of political theology, we find here the theme of the damned, even satanic Jews. However, if the Jews are in sin 7, a State cannot be: this deconstructed anti-Zionism is therefore only a cover for the most traditional anti-Semitism.
To turn the Jewish tradition against the Jews, a "cultural" anti-Semitism is then developed. For example, Vattimo concludes with an insane persiflage: "The precious richness and depth of the Jewish tradition is so putrid, a suffocating air from which one must free oneself to avoid shedding blood for Rachel's tomb. […] 8" He thus returns to the Jewish tradition an immemorial attribute of anti-Semitic propaganda, the stench which reveals the connivance of the Jews with the infernal world. We also understand better why Žižek, another contributor to the same collective, finds that "Hitler did not go far enough 9" Deconstruction, as understood by the authors of the collective Deconstructing Zionism, must also eradicate Judaism, in short complete the "self-annihilation" that Heidegger calls for with regard to the extermination of the Jews 10.
3/ At the time of the mass Islamist attacks in November 2017, Judith Butler also distinguished herself with remarks that strangely cast doubt: published in English in To, they were translated on November 19, 2017 in Libération, under the title “A freedom attacked by the enemy and restricted by the State”. After finding the attack "shocking" (shocking), Butler casts doubt on the claim by Daesh in two ways. On the one hand, she writes, "experts were certain they knew who the enemy was even before ISIS [Daesh] claimed responsibility for the attacks": this would lend credence, as it did on 11/XNUMX, to the theory of a conspiracy. The conspiracy theme is recurrent in this movement, and for example the Hamas charter calmly refers to the Protocol of the Elders of Zion, this fake from the tsarist police which is authoritative in his eyes 11.
On the other hand, the ISIS statement speaks of “perversity,” which Butler says is foreign to Islamic language: “Their choice of a rock concert as their target—an ideal place for a massacre, in fact—was explained as a venue for ‘idolatry’ and ‘a feast of perversity.’ I wonder how they know the term ‘perversity.’ It seems as if they have readings that are foreign to their field of expertise.”field). » Professor Butler will probably have inadvertently neglected surahs 3, 5, 6, 9 (notably verses 49-54), 32 and 59 of the Koran, where perversity is healthily condemned, as is proper in self-respecting religions.
If the real perpetrators of the massacre thus remain in the shadows, Butler clearly denounces the French State: it is led by a buffoon (buffoon), he proclaims a state of emergency and infringes on freedoms12, and he is waging a "nationalist war against migrants 13" Finally, Butler goes beyond the French framework to put the victims in competition: "The mourning seems strictly limited to the national framework. The nearly fifty deaths of the day before in Beirut are barely mentioned, and we pass over in silence the one hundred and eleven killed in Palestine in recent weeks, or the victims in Ankara. 14"The indictment of the West and Western states, the casting doubt on the instigators of the attacks, all this exerts pressure on public opinion and can even influence the qualification of the crimes.
4/ We are now better able to appreciate the article of AOC about the Hamas attack. The title Condemn violence sets the tone. Are the perpetrators, intentions, methods, and consequences truly specified? "I want to talk here about violence, present violence, and the history of violence, in all its forms."
True, Butler writes, “I condemn the violence of Hamas,” without specifying its purpose (the destruction of the State of Israel), nor its genocidal intent illustrated by the murder of young children, but to move on immediately: “Let’s be clear. The violence committed by Israel against the Palestinians is massive: incessant bombing, murder of people of all ages in their homes and in the streets, torture in Israeli prisons, starvation techniques in Gaza, radical and continuous expropriation of land and housing. And this violence, in all its forms, is committed against a people who are subjected to a colonial regime and apartheid, and who, deprived of a State, are stateless.” In short, she takes up “the Palestinians are forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.”
After recalling "the equal tearfulness of all lives 15", she intends to sow fear by asking "if Netanyahu's genocidal speech will materialize into a nuclear option."
In Butler's texts and those of his school of thought, absent words mean all the more than present words, such as violence, accumulate in repetitions. Among these absences, we note: Iran, Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood, Islam, Islamism, terrorism. On the other hand, the word c and its derivative colonialism come back ten times, as in "the question of whether the Israeli military yoke over the region is colonialism or racial apartheid", or when it comes to "overthrowing the colonial system 16».
The conclusion deserves special attention: "The world I desire is a world that opposes normalization of the Israeli colonial regime (...). And yet, some of us must cling fiercely to this hope, and refuse to believe that the structures that exist today will always exist. And for that, we need our poets, our dreamers, our untamed madmen, all those who know how to mobilize" (my emphasis).
What are these mysterious “structures”? Could it be the State of Israel? The pathos about dreamers legitimizes the irrational, that about poets diverts attention, a favorite device of authors like Heidegger and Derrida: but “all those who know” have understood. Who are these untamed madmen? Could they be the “madmen of God”? The wish to destroy Israel remains at the foundation of Hamas’s political theology.
In accordance with the principle that the end does not justify the means, Butler condemns the means, but not the objective, and simply asks "what other means can be used to overthrow the colonial system." Under the guise of condemning violence, Butler thus reiterates her support in principle for Hamas without, moreover, returning to the "left" label that she had previously attributed to it.
One might be surprised that an "idol" of the LGBT communities supports an Islamist movement, when the fifteen countries that still criminalize homosexuality are all Islamic countries, or Islamist movements like Daesh and Hamas.17. Besides, we have not heard the postfeminists express their indignation that in Saudi Arabia "witches" are still being beheaded with swords.
Regardless, intersectional ideology already plays a geopolitical role. Post-socialist dictatorships were fighting Islamism, as evidenced by the Russian wars in Afghanistan, then in Chechnya, and recently the Chinese state of siege and repression in Sinkiang. Now, a union that one dares not call sacred is emerging through various rapprochements. On the one hand, the rapprochement between Shiite and Sunni Islamism, as evidenced for example by Iran's political and military support for Hamas; on the other hand, the rapprochement of Islamic countries with post-socialist dictatorships: for example, the BRICS, dominated by Russia and China, will welcome Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in January 2024. A global bloc of tyrannies is emerging, to attack the rule of law, democracy, human rights, in the name of the fight against an essentialized West, all the more paradoxical as it includes Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
Finally, the bloc of tyrannies finds valuable relays in academic and cultural circles to weaken democratic values from within, as attested by decolonial and intersectional intellectuals, of whom Butler remains an eminent figure.
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APPENDIX: To contextualize Judith Butler's position, here is a recent anthology that testifies to the support of Hamas from postfeminists and LGBT people:
“Feminist and LGBTQI+ organizations and activists, today we reaffirm our support for the Palestinian people and echo the call made in May 2021 by the Palestinian Feminist Collective: “Palestine is a feminist issue. We affirm life and implore feminists everywhere to speak out, organize, and join the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
"Figures of anti-racist feminism have spoken out in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people, like Françoise Vergès who described " On one side a colonial occupation with its systemic violence, its structural racism, its illusion of democracy, the theft of land, torture, on the other a legitimate fight for liberation. Nothing else. »
"The anti-racist and environmental activist Fatima Ouassak [a personality supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, Editor's note] has also took a stand : " in the war between colonists and colonized, we must support (without trembling) the camp of the colonized ».
Feminist journalist Mona Chollet said: shocked by the violence of the process of dehumanization that was unleashed against the Palestinians: " It is now clear that they have been (at least in the West) expelled from humanity once and for all. It is never, and probably never will be, the time for their right to life, liberty and security. Their suffering will never be allowed to exist. I confess that this realization came as a huge shock to me. ».
"The collective Les Inverti-es has published a press release stating: " Trans, fags, dykes support Palestine! LGBT+ liberation requires the liberation of the Palestinian people. ».
Finally, it would be necessary to denounce the pinkwashing of Israel, which would like to attract LGBT tourism to satisfy an atavistic taste for lucre, in short "loudly denounce Israel's attempts to pass itself off as an ally of women and LGBTI people. The queer researcher Jasbir Puar et Sarah Schulman, a former Act Up New York activist, have in fact documented Israel's attempts since at least 2005 to remake its international image (sic) by instrumentalizing the rights of women and LGBT people.”
"To end the apartheid regime, it is urgent to defend the perspective of a massive struggle of the entire Palestinian people, alongside workers, youth and women from all the countries of the region who are rising up as seen recently in Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini ».
While the Iranian regime is politically and militarily helping Hamas, the instrumentalization of the death of Mahsa Amini, one of its major crimes, speaks volumes about the cynicism of Islamist "feminists."
François Rastier is an honorary research director at the CNRS. Latest work: Little mystic of the genre, Paris, Intervalles, 2023.
