Comments on: Friends, enemies, and human connections

By: yaman

yaman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:19:50 +0000

Also, as for ‘that guy’ who talked about civilians and military personnel: you did not clarify, what does that have anything to do with being human? Are civilians human, and military personnel not? Or the other way around? Is claiming your enemy is all military the same as claiming they are not human? This is strange: it seems to me inhumane to claim that a military person is not human.

Are you a psychiatrist? I am surprised by all the diagnoses you feel the need to give me in your comments.

By: yaman

yaman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:17:19 +0000

The only reason you would say that ‘humanity’ is not obvious is if you believe that violence is not possible except against people who are ‘dehumanized’ or ‘non-human.’ Fanon inverts this to say that violence is a tool of reclaiming one’s own humanity. But this ‘humanity’ that he talks about is the concept of humanity in colonial logic, so it is strange that you would abstract it to the point you can apply it to ‘Israeli violence,’ as if Israel is a colonized subject. You are robbing Fanon of the angle that colonialism plays in his thoughts.

That aside, you are clearly not with Fanon on this, so I am not sure why you cite him, since he says violence is a means of regaining one’s humanity in the colonized condition, but you say that “humanity must be actively claimed,” presumably in order to protect one’s self from violence. And I will say it again: this presumes that violence only occurs against people who are thought to be non-human. If you believe this, I am sure that your idea of the human is not simply a Homo sapien. The fact that one must lay a claim to being means you are transforming it into something other than a simple fact about your being, into some sort of justification for one’s existence. Your premise is identical to your conclusion.

By: yael

yael — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:51:43 +0000

yaman,
humanity IS not obvious, the history of the 20th century alone shows that quite well. so your stand that the enemy is human is not as simple as you present it, but an agenda. I agree with you and embrace that.
do you remember the guy who commented on your civilians post, saying all israelis are military and therefore not civilians? his is the common way of thinking about an enemy. I feel you are struggling with this issue, b/c you know that the enemy (and specifically, the israeli) is human, and yet, many times (like in the Khaldi post) you assume it has no other goal but evil (i.e. not quite human.
Franz Fanon’s entire writing on violence, greatly misunderstood, is that violence is a tool that enables dehumanized people to reclaim their humanity. I personally think that both Israeli and palestinian violence have to do with claiming humanity.
– humanity needs to be actively claimed, many times. it is not a given for the enemy.

By: yaman

yaman — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:05:14 +0000

yael, I am referring to Carl Schmitt’s friend/enemy in On the political, where he defines the political as that division which the possibility of war presupposes. He uses the terms “friend” and “enemy” to mark the political’s independence from other possible axes of difference, like religion, ethnicity, etcetera. So “political friendship” has nothing to do with “friendship” in the common sense we refer to.

As for “accepting that the enemy is human,” that is the point, I am actually taking the more ‘humane’ perspective by saying that saying your enemy is human is not a feat and should not be considered as one, since they obviously are. If you consider establishing one’s humanity a project to be undertaken, then you are actually taking a concept of ‘humanity’ that is not obvious, and is implicated with a number of other ideas. Thus to place conditions on one’s humanity is inhumane.

By: yael

yael — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:43:45 +0000

Yaman,
I don’t understand what you try to say… How is friendship/animosity related to political rivalry? Is admitting your political rival is human so difficult? Does it necessarily demand to accept their views? Why can’t one accept their enemy is human, and even (god forbid) likable – and still disagree on political issues and have competing political agendas?
Please explain.
Have a good time in Damascus!

By: Ø¹Ø²ÙŠØ±

Ø¹Ø²ÙŠØ± — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:43:30 +0000

Indeed what bothers me most about comedy tours (not that I don’t enjoy poking fun at some things, whether or not it’s appropriate to do so is another question) is that they try to “humanize” people, or even events, that are inherently human. Of course they could just be assuming that everyone thinks of themselves as gods, in which case being brought down to earth is necessary.