Against Exceptionalism

Author:

Zalloua Zahi1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA

Abstract

In this article, I question the logic informing paradigms of trauma that ontologize and essentialize events, such as the Holocaust and chattel slavery, making them unique, incomparable exceptions that encapsulate or inaugurate the violence of Western modernity, while standing outside and above the order they found. In an effort to avoid the urge to rank that follows almost effortlessly from such ontologization, I mobilize the appeal to the universal undergirding the works of Slavoj Žižek and that of Frantz Fanon. Both Fanon and Žižek read racial trauma and racist violence in light of the eviscerating ontological effects of an imperialist capitalism that divides the world and segregates its peoples. Rather than opting for identity politics, however, these thinkers argue against ontologizing and exceptionalizing victims, in favor of elaborating a politics based on their concrete universality.

Publisher

MDPI AG

Reference87 articles.

1. Amnesty International (2024, March 11). Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity. Available online: https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/MDE1551412022ENGLISH.pdf.

2. (2021). Palestine Between German Memory Politics and (De-)ColonialThought. Journal of Genocide Research, 23, 374–82.

3. B’Tselem (2024, March 11). A Regime of Jewish Supremacy From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid. Available online: https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid.

4. Baker, Peter (2024, March 11). Biden Sharpens Criticism of Israel, Calling Its Gaza Response ‘Over the Top’. Available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/us/politics/biden-israel-gaza.html.

5. Balibar, Étienne (2024, March 11). A Complex Urgent Universal Political Cause. Address Before the Conference of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP). Université Libre de Bruxelles. Available online: https://users.resist.ca/~elkilombo/documents/%20BalibarBrusseBD480.pdf.

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