[Marxism] Zizek's blindness

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Answering to:

"[Marxism] Zizek think-piece

    * To: marxmail <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
    * Subject: [Marxism] Zizek think-piece
    * From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
    * Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 13:51:37 -0500
    * Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist 
tradition<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
    * Sender: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the latest LRB, there's a more interesting than usual offering 
from the  celebrated theorist. He addresses the question of why we 
have different attitudes toward Stalinists than Nazis."

I have a very selfish reason.  

All of my mother's family in Europe were wiped out by the Nazis.  
They lived in Lwow or nearby, a few miles to the West of the USSR-
Poland border.  When the Stalin-Ribbentropp agreement, they fell to 
the civilized capitalist Nazis, not to the barbarian bureaucratic 
Stalinists.

My mother's psyche has been dragging along the consequences of such a 
shock for decade after decade, and now, with very old age, she is 
beginning to develop a mild but distinct form of paranoia.  Two of 
her sisters simply did not stand the pressure that their sudden 
realization of the frailty of human life brought to their minds:  
they developed perscution manias themselves, and eventually committed 
suicide.

Other people were luckier:  their families either wisely moved to the 
Soviet-occupied area, or fell under the sinister Stalinist regime and 
were spared their lives.  Yes, of course, they lost property, and 
they were engaged in different kinds of labor -sometimes even forced 
labor- they had never worked at.  But it makes a difference, you 
know, when you are kept alive.  

My mother's family was so thoroughly wiped out from Earth that when 
researching on eventual relatives somewhere in the world I found the 
names of my grandparents on a list of victims of Nazism.  The record 
of their migration to Argentina being lost, their absence was given 
the cursory and obvious interpretation.

Yes:  in the end, there _were_ two systems in struggle. Zizek.  
Equating Stalinism with Nazism stinks of massively burnt human flesh. 
 My own family's flesh, at the very least.

Yes, from time to time I indulge in selfishness.  

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
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