If only he'd been a Muslim. posted by Richard Seymour

Some of the American conservatives are irate at what they perceive to be a mainstream media conspiracy to deny Cho Seung-Hui's Islamic connections. You see, if the massacre could be Islammed-up a bit, then it could be described as a 'suicide attack', and a deliberate signal to evildoers all over the world as to what easy prey American youths are. Initially, it was revealed that Cho was an 'Asian' of some kind, and with the customary alacrity, neoconservative and fascist commentators in the media and through the blogosphere thought of the i-word. Then it was revealed that the phrase 'Ismail Ax' was scrawled on his body (although his package to NBC had 'A. Ishmael' written on it), and all hell broke loose on the farm. Doesn't the name alone connect him to something it says in Islam? Doesn't it relate to some Quranic tale or some disagreement Muslims have with Christianity? Why, the evidence is crystal-clear: "[Muslims] believe that Abraham was supposed to go out and attack idols with an axe, and some also attribute the phrase to meaning that Ishmael was supposed to kill Isaac, the father of all Western culture, with an axe. Cho was a South Korean immigrant to the US, but it seems undeniable that his killing spree, at least in part, was motivated by some sort of belief in Islam."

Well, let's look at Cho's statements and see if we can't find some clues in there:

You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.

Or again:

Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled upon on a cross? And left to bleed to death for your amusement? [source]

Did you notice that, right there? Christ and crucifixion, dreams of immortality, hopelessly muddled references to some wider ramifications of the killings. Never mind that, however, and never mind that he chose to commit a crime that is perpetrated by and on Americans every year: it must be energetically removed from that context. Korean-Americans are warned to expect a backlash. Predictably, there has been a great deal of attention to the fact that he was 'Asian' (not Korean, not American, not South-East Asian - Asian, with all its civilisational overtones), and no doubt we can expect the usual sub-anthropological curiosity about 'Asian culture' rather soon. Pat Buchanan has decried 'multiculturalism' as usual, even while noting the all-American pedigree of the crime.

This is all the expected editorial bilge from the right, an effort to override the obvious and elementary considerations that the gun industry should be in some way restrained; that American institutions, especially educational institutions, have to look at how they treat non-white students; that this wave of attacks on school students, whether from adults taking an easy target before killing themselves, or from other students, gives the lie to the myths of comfort, privilege and comity that Americans are encouraged to feel are uniquely their possession. One can't help noticing that it is only after these repeated 'tragedies' (is that the appropriate word?), that this sense of 'community' is materialised in America, either with candle-lit gatherings, emotional sermons or mere politeness on New York streets, as attested to following the carnage in 2001. Every other day is fuck-you day, is it not? America is not unique in that aspect, but it is unique in its emphasis on competitive culture, on the wonders of creative destruction and disintegration. Only by perpetually retooling 'national identity' around war and empire are the inevitably breakdowns, violence, and mayhem temporarily and partially overcome: in a martial America, the class-supremacist and racist aspect of nationalism is subordinated to the primary need to Kick The Other Guy's Ass, whether it is the gook today or Muhammed himself tomorrow. (Of course, as the 'refugees' discovered after Katrina, the 'national' purview cannot be so easily disburdened of its raciological contaminants). Only through the imaginary collective experience of the frontier, and of death, is the individual refused into the social matrix, not as part of a society - nothing so Bolshevik - but as part of a shared national experience known as 'community', (a distinction with its roots in German Kriegsideologie). Since today that 'community' is defined almost primarily by the fact that it ain't Islam (never mind that Muslims are the second largest religious group in America), the cri de coeur of American reactionaries today is that 'there must be an Islamic connection'.

Labels: america, cho seung-hui, islam, islamophobia, muslim, virginia tech

Another one? posted by Richard Seymour

Why do they keep shooting up the students? Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that this can be hyped, and used to justify the transformation of educational institutions into heavily policed camps, or 'profiling' that enables violating students' privacy. What's more, the ideological structures prevalent in American society have permitted these events to be understood in extraordinary ways that enable schools to suspend students or send them to the cop shop for wearing black clothing, issuing threats (however insincere) or using allegedly inappropriate language. Sometimes when the perpetrator is far too young to be held responsible for their actions, they are either tried as adults or they find an adult to try for something. Or when they have been tried as minors, various people have complained that their punishment isn't severe enough, as in the case of the Jonesboro Massacre. Clearly, these are ways to avoid dealing with the problem. For, surely the incidence of this in the US is at the very least way above average. What is more, it is suggested that many more are planned than succeed - for instance, after Columbine, a number of 'copycats' were allegedly attempted. One guy even runs a blog devoted to the topic.

These aren't always sudden outbursts: rather, they are often planned some time in advance, and weapons are accumulated to accomplish the act. There are often social causes involved, such as the destruction of the welfare state, yet the agents are often reasonably well off. I can only too easily fashion an Amisian response: killing is fun, a real kick, and the only wonder is that the civilised facade holds so well for so much of the time. Yet, I don't fancy the idea at all. I can't bring myself to seriously contemplate the idea of killing someone with pleasure, not even Martin Amis. I suppose, aside from the usual nutters blaming it on the teaching of Darwin in schools without an accompanying prayer, we will have to hear from people who think there's a 'culture of violence' - video games, movies, heavy metal and hip hop. To be sure, there is no shortage of cultural output that valorises random killing, but I can't help noticing a few things. Firstly, these complaints are usually tinged with racism (complaining about gritty movies with Fifty Cents and not the sexy ones with Brad Pitt). Secondly, they rarely focus on the involvement of the military-industrial complex in producing such output (video games with advertising that encourage you to 'Command Respect' by wiping out towns and villages, or that envision the overthrow of the Venezuelan government; Hollywood participation in the 'war on terror'). Thirdly, the 'culture of violence' never involves the actual business of strafing communities with bullets, cluster-bombs and daisy-cutters. Finally, of course, plenty of societies are entirely plugged into violent American culture, and generate cultures of violence all on their own, without necessarily having this scale of ongoing murderous assault on the young.

And then there will be the calls for gun restrictions, which would seek to restrain the use of an easily handled and highly effective weapon of death. No bad thing in my view. Yet, as Michael Moore pointed out in Bowling for Columbine, there are plenty of societies where gun ownership is prevalent, and where there isn't the repeated spectacle of classroom massacre. Student alienation in a viciously competitive educational system that prepares children for life in a capitalist society that where forms of social solidarity are embattled and diminished can have its role, perhaps, but then again, many of these shootings have been perpetrated by adults outside of the school system, often exacting some kind of bizarre 'revenge' on the children before committing suicide. Perhaps, then, it is too simple to locate a single cause: rather, a combustible fusion of most of these factors in various ways could produce the necessary circumstances.

Labels: cho seung-hui, guns, massacre, school shootings, virginia tech