ACT WITHOUT DENIAL

Zˇizˇek does not recoil from relating our time to Stalin rather
than to Lenin. Of course, we no longer adhere to Stalinist
doctrines, nor do we suffer under a similar terror, but our
post-modern certainties – those that tell us there are no certainties
– nestle just as much in their own pretensions. Although
it considers every ideological battle over, it nonetheless
shamelessly functions as a real ideology, and holds each every
revolutionary e´lan or truly political act at a great distance.
The consequences are even no less drastic as in Stalinist times,
except that, seated at the rich Western table as we are, we
never feel it that way. We leave that feeling to our fellow
world-citizens in the ‘South’. They personally experience what
it means to live in a so-called post-revolutionary world, freed
from all ideology. In other words, they feel directly how the
one and only dominant capitalist ideology maintains its
totalitarian grip on the whole planet, and how terribly difficult
– if not simply impossible – it is not to become the victim of
its perverse tricks and ruses.

MARC DE KESEL
ACT WITHOUT DENIAL
Slavoj Zˇ izˇek on Totalitarianism, Revolution and Political Act

-----

Consider the issue in relation to contemporary Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF's 'incomprehensible' stance.