The memories of 9/11 are fresh with us. George W. Bush, the then militarist republican US president, found the event useful. The ensuing campaign on fear of terrorism, Islam and the “Axis of Evil” gave him legitimacy for a witch hunt, and an escalated repression at home, while abroad, his “coalition of the willing” of which Slovenia was a member enabled the American military adventures in the Near East.
Seven years later, with the fall of the Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the greatest crisis of capitalism post WWII, there was briefly the impression that change is in the air. The class contradictions of capitalism were clearer than ever, the slogan of the day were the 99 per cent against the 1 per cent, the economic crisis morphed into a political crisis, the Occupy and the uprisings happened, the political and the intellectual left were reborn. It looked like the days of the 1 per cent were numbered.
Seven more years later, in 2015, we find ourselves amidst yet another turnaround. The spirit of 2001 is rising again to defeat the spirit of 2008. Bush’s 9/11 came to Europe, literally so, and twice in a row. First with the thousands of refugees in direct consequence of Bush’s interventions in the Near East. And second, as was the case with the original 9/11, the European equivalent made room for the rehabilitation of the old political elites, their renewed hold on power, and the legitimation of repression and surveillance.
Except in Europe, we did not even need an ‘event’. No World Trade Center needed be brought down; it was enough to merely stir the imagination, to paint the suffering people at the borders as “Islamist, Asiatic hordes,” and the 9/11 scenario unfolded. Overnight, everything deemed inadmissible and unimaginable only yesterday became urgent and indispensable for the security of the state, like changing a constitutional category in order to bring the army permanently into the realm of interior affairs. Or having local officials, like the mayor of Zavrč on the Slovenian-Croat border, Miran Vuk, turned heroes on account of their racist rants. Only a few weeks ago, this particular makeshift hero was under investigation for a financial fraud involving 17 million euros of taxpayer money transferred to private accounts. The “crisis” whitewashed the politicians most responsible for the gaping deficit in the state-owned banks: suddenly, in the face of the alleged grave refugee danger, they repapered as ‘statesmen’.
So swiftly the tables turn. Effortlessly, the 1 per cent is regaining their legitimacy in the eyes of the public as soon as an external enemy is brought into the political discourse. The phantom Other, the refugees, thus serve not merely to repatriate the true Other, the elites, straight back among Us, but also to strengthen their grip on power, even as only yesterday, we knew precisely who are those most responsible for 80 per cent of public debt, the miserable wages, the growing precariat, the increasingly inaccessible housing, the plummeting pensions, the endless cases of corruption.”
Before the refugee crisis reached the Slovenian borders, the United Left refuted the government’s contingent plan to accommodate 500 refugees as unrealistic. Instead, we urged the government to work towards an EU-level agreement, given that the past counter-productive EU politics, Slovenia included, towards Iraq and Syria contributed to the core of the crisis. Ultimately, the United Left called upon the Slovenian government to pass an intervention act that would cover all the relevant dimensions of the problem: logistic, humanitarian, security, etc. Instead, the government opted for a permanent reconceptualization of state defence that is both ad hoc and dangerous, on top of unable to solve the problem at hand.
