<span>From: <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/10/the-year-2011-marks-the-end-of-the-end-of-history/" target="_blank">http://roarmag.org/2011/10/the-year-2011-marks-the-end-of-the-end-of-history/</a></span><br><div class="gmail_quote">
<div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"><div><div><h1>The year 2011 marks the end of the End of History</h1><div>by <span>Jérôme E. Roos</span> on <abbr title="2011-10-23">October 23, 2011</abbr></div>
<div><br><abbr title="2011-10-23"></abbr></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>When the system forces ordinary
people to become revolutionaries, you know you’re no longer at the End
of History. You’re at the very edge of it.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></div><div><i><br></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The
Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. The Arab Spring. The looming Greek
default. The increasingly likely breakup of the eurozone. The second
coming of the global financial crisis. The return with a vengeance of
the systemic critique of capitalism. The resounding worldwide call for <i>real</i>
democracy. The dramatic rallies against austerity, inequality and
neoliberalism in Spain, Greece, Chile and Israel. The riots in Athens,
London and Rome. The occupation of Wall Street and the spreading of the
movement throughout the US. The <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/10/global-revolution-mass-protests-in-1000-cities-in-videos/" target="_blank">mass protests</a> by millions of people in 1,000 cities and 80 countries on October 15. Even the death of Muammar Gaddafi.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">All of it points in the direction of a simple but unmistakable truth: 2011 marks the End of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_history" target="_blank">End of History</a>. Beyond
the flat horizon of liberal democracy and global capitalism, the events
of this year have not only opened up a whole new chapter in the
unfolding saga of mankind, but they have laid the very foundation for an
endless procession of chapters beyond that. What is being shattered is
not so much the democratic capitalist system as such, but rather the
Utopian belief that this system is the only way to organize social life
in the eternal pursuit of freedom, equality and happiness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Egyptian-Revolution-Tahrir-aerial.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="" alt="" title="Egyptian Revolution Tahrir aerial" width="500" height="333"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Almost
twenty years ago, following the total collapse of the Soviet Union and
the final discrediting of state communism, the American political
scientist Francis Fukuyama conjectured that “we may be witnessing … not
just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of
post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point
of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western
liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Two decades
after the publication of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man" target="_blank">The End of History and the Last Man</a></i>, Fukuyama’s thesis seems more shaky than ever before.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">This is not to repeat the endless Leftist cliché that neoliberalism is dead — as Slavoj Žižek <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/First_as_tragedy_then_as_farce.html?id=HRX4DSJuGtUC" target="_blank">pointed out</a>,
the ideology already died two deaths, first as tragedy following the
9/11 terror attacks, and then as farce following the global financial
collapse of 2008 — but rather to point out that neoliberalism as such
has finally been revealed for what it always already was: a zombie
ideology wrapped around the face of humanity, just like Matt Taibbi’s
famous <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405" target="_blank">vampire squid</a>, “relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Neoliberal Emperor Has No Clothes</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While
2001 and 2008 marked, respectively, the political and economic deaths
of neoliberalism, 2011 marks the End of the End of History. For it is
only now becoming clear to the people of the world that, for the past
twenty years, we have simply been <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/09/eurozone-endgame-all-that-is-solid-melts-into-air/" target="_blank">living a lie</a>. Indeed,
the implicit popular consent that once legitimized democratic
capitalism now appears to be coming unraveled faster than the financial
Ponzi scheme that sustained the illusion of its moral superiority. After
twenty years of stagnant wages, rapidly growing inequality, rampant
youth unemployment and widespread social alienation, the bursting of the
global credit bubble has finally laid bare the naked essence of the
system.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Democratic free-market
capitalism is not what we were told it was: as recent years have amply
demonstrated, it is neither free nor democratic. Wars have been waged in
the name of Big Oil despite overwhelming popular opposition. Tax cuts
have been made in the name of Big Money despite an overwhelming budget
deficit. And now, failing banks are being <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/10/more-bank-bailouts-coming-what-are-we-fucking-stupid/" target="_blank">rescued</a> and draconian budget cuts pushed through in the name of Big Finance, despite both overwhelming popular opposition <i>and</i>
incontrovertible evidence that it is only making the deficit worse. The
system has ceased to make sense. Its internal contradictions are eating
it up from within. And humanity is finally waking up to this reality.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Wall-Street-bailout.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="" title="Wall Street bailout" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">So
today, an entire generation of young people, deprived of hope and
opportunity, is rising up to contest the absurd notion that this <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/08/could-this-be-the-terminal-crisis-of-western-capitalism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29&utm_content=Twitter" target="_blank">disastrous state of affairs</a>
somehow constitutes the culmination of “mankind’s ideological
evolution.” Is this really the best we can do? Is this the Utopian world
order that Fukuyama envisioned when he decried the eternal victory of
liberal democracy and global capitalism over its invisible enemies? With
failing banks, bankrupt states and runaway private debt, Fukuyama’s
ideal world has certainly started to look a lot more bland now that the
credit-fueled consumption spree that underpinned it has crashed headlong
into its own inevitable finality.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magic is gone. The spell is broken. And what the people of the world are trying to make clear to those in power is that <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/09/why-we-are-marching-in-paris-on-september-17/" target="_blank">we know</a>. We <i>know</i> that the system is rotten at the core. We <i>know</i> that its alleged successes do not hold up to scrutiny. We <i>know</i>
that most of its grand achievements — from global capital markets to
the European single currency — were built on financial and institutional
quicksand. And we <i>know </i>the whole damn thing is about to
collapse like a house of cards. From Tahrir to Times Square, from Madrid
to Madison, from Santiago to Syntagma, we <i>know </i>that the neoliberal emperor has no clothes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Gaddafi and Fukuyama: On the Wrong Side of History</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">One
of the most graphic portrayals of the end of the End of History is the
bloody demise of Muammar Gaddafi. While skeptics are entirely right to
be disgusted by NATO’s <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201132472924305721.html" target="_blank">imperial campaign</a>
in Libya, many on the Left still fail to see the enormous symbolism
behind the fall of the Brother Leader. Gaddafi, in a way, was the
ultimate embodiment of the End of History. Having come to power as a
pan-Arab socialist revolutionary in the late 1960s, he ended up as one
of the world’s most successful capitalists. While he continued to
rhetorically lament the evils of Western imperialism, he appeared more
than willing to offer his country’s spoils to the same neo-colonial
powers he so avidly derided.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to a 2008 <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ba59235a-7849-11dd-acc3-0000779fd18c.html#axzz1bMgn89du" target="_blank">report</a> in the <i>Financial Times</i>,
Gaddafi “extolled the virtues of capitalist reforms”. Treating Libya
like his family business, he cozied up to Big Oil, doling out lucrative
contracts to Western corporations like Eni and Shell. He then let the
profits accumulate into his privately-owned “sovereign” wealth fund
while enlisting Wall Street to recycle this capital surplus for
additional profit. In the process, while the Libyan people remained
crippled by chronic underdevelopment, Gaddafi siphoned $168 billion of
the nation’s riches abroad. No wonder the West was suddenly so happy to
be his friend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Gaddafi-Blair.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="" title="Gaddafi Blair" alt="" width="500" height="338"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Yet
what is most revealing about Gaddafi is not his sudden conversion from
socialist liberator to capitalist oppressor, nor his close ties with the
neoliberal establishment of the West. What is most telling is his <i>personal </i>connection
with Francis Fukuyama. Back in 2006-’08, Fukuyama was part of a select
group of world-leading intellectuals who were enlisted — and generously
paid — by the Monitor Group, a US-based PR firm advised by former <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/04/mark-allen-mi6-libya-profile" target="_blank">MI6 and CIA</a>
directors, to help polish Gaddafi’s image in the West as part of a
massive charm offensive designed to help legitimize Libya’s foray into
the End of History. According to <a href="http://libya-nclo.com/Portals/0/pdf%20files/Monitor%203.pdf" target="_blank">secret documents</a> leaked by former Libyan officials, “Fukuyama made two visits to Libya (14-17 August 2006 and 12-14 January 2007).”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He
delivered a lecture at the Greek Book Centre in Tripoli and taught a
class on Libya at Johns Hopkins University. He also offered a lecture,
entitled “My Conversations with the Leader”, which marked “the first
time that The Green Book has been required reading for students at one
of the leading public policy schools in the world.” Apparently, not just
us, but Fukuyama <i>himself </i>believed Gaddafi to be the embodiment of the End of History. His <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/20111022132758300219.html" target="_blank">overthrow</a>,
therefore, even if it would never have succeeded without the military
might of the imperial West, completely undermines Fukuyama’s thesis.
After all, if we had truly arrived at the End of History, how could the
author of this thesis so blatantly end up on the wrong side of History
himself?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Collapse of the Eurozone as the End of the End</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But
Gaddafi was not Fukuyama’s only historical “mistake”. In response to
allegations that the End of History was a purely Americentric argument,
Fukuyama in 2007 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/apr/03/thehistoryattheendofhist" target="_blank">wrote an article</a> for the <i>Guardian</i>
retroactively claiming that “The End of History was never linked to a
specifically American model of social or political organisation … I
believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world
will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United
States.” Judging from the fate of the European Union, it turns out that
Fukuyama, ironically, ended up being right in the wrong way.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the <i>New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/world/europe/euro-meant-to-unite-europe-seems-to-be-dividing-it.html?_r=1&ref=global-home" target="_blank">wrote</a>
the other day, “the euro was a political project meant to unite Europe
after the Soviet collapse in a sphere of collective prosperity that
would lead to greater federalism. Instead, the euro seems to be pulling
Europe apart … [t]here is a tension in the political system and doubt
about democratic institutions that we have not experienced since the
fall of the Soviet Union.” Europe’s deep economic integration, fully in
line with the End of History philosophy, produced a situation so
crisis-ridden that the future of the world economy now hinges on the
fate of a single EU member state — one that only makes up 2 percent of
the Union’s total GDP: Greece.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/48-hour-strike-Greece-crop-09.png" target="_blank"><img src="" title="48 hour strike Greece crop 09" alt="" width="500" height="291"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">But
Greece is only the canary in the coalmine. It is a symptom, not the
cause, of Europe’s crisis. When Greece defaults, it will only be a
matter of time before investors lose faith in Italy and Spain. Both are
considered too big to fail — but also too big to bail. The European
rescue fund is not big enough to save them, and Germany and France are
stuck in a deadlock over how to enlarge it. At the same time, Europe’s <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/293882-insolvent-banks-the-real-threat-facing-the-eurozone" target="_blank">insolvent banking system</a>
is on the verge of collapse. A Greek default will tip countless banks
into bankruptcy, forcing the governments of the core to dole out massive
bailouts once again. This, in turn, will further aggravate their
sovereign debt levels and hence their credit ratings, bringing the
“Greek” debt crisis right into the very heartland of European
capitalism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The bottomline, in other
words, is that there is no easy way out of this crisis – not even the
oft-lauded eurobonds, as Martin Wolf recently <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d09c8910-f972-11e0-bf8f-00144feab49a.html#axzz1bG2FUZjL" target="_blank">pointed out</a> for the <i>Financial Times</i>.
The euro, that grand elite project that was meant to be the very
pinnacle of European integration, is faltering. In the process, the EU’s
post-ideological technocratic institutions have lost the last shreds of
legitimacy they had left. The edifice is falling apart, and frankly
speaking, our leaders do not even have a clue what to do about it.
Europe’s crisis, at the end of the day, is the world’s crisis. And it is
far from a merely economic one: at rock bottom, we are facing what
Joseph Stiglitz has called the <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/07/stiglitz-on-the-ideological-crisis-of-western-capitalism/" target="_blank">ideological crisis of capitalism</a>. This is obviously a far cry from the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution”.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Crisis of Capitalism and the Return of the Repressed</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It
is no surprise, therefore, that 2011 has seen the comeback — with a
vengeance — of the systemic critique of capitalism. In recent weeks,
leading free-market publications like the <i><a href="http://online.wsj.com/video/nouriel-roubini-karl-marx-was-right/68EE8F89-EC24-42F8-9B9D-47B510E473B0.html" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a></i>, the <i><a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/08/22/659001/finance-more-progressive-than-policy/" target="_blank">Financial Times</a></i>, <i><a href="http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-19/news/30020289_1_political-economy-karl-marx-eurozone" target="_blank">Business Insider</a> </i>and <i><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2011/08/15/u-k-riots-global-class-war/" target="_blank">Fortune</a></i>
have all admitted that Karl Marx might actually have been right about
capitalism’s tendency to self-destruct. The reason for this sudden
revival of the Marxian critique of political economy is twofold: first,
the dawning realization among elites that we are about to spiral into
another Great Depression. And second, the systematic repression of the
radical imagination that Fukuyama’s post-ideological world brought
about.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this respect, a direct line can be drawn from Margaret Thatcher’s conversation-killing slogan, “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative" target="_blank">there is no alternative</a>“,
to the neoliberal policy response to the financial crisis. While the
bankers have been doling out record bonuses, the rest of the population
is being told that there simply is <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201106290827dowjonesdjonline000311&title=greek-finance-minister-no-alternative-to-austerity-plan" target="_blank">no alternative to draconian austerity measures</a>. The
ideological narrative is the same everywhere: “we’re all in this
together; we all need to tighten our belts,” but the implicit message is
really: “do not dare to imagine an alternative.” Yet as Matt Taibbi
recently <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012" target="_blank">pointed out</a>,
a tiny 0.1 percent tax on all trades in stocks and bonds and a 0.01
percent tax on all trades of derivatives could pay for the entire US
bailouts, rendering much the “necessary” belt-tightening unnecessary.
That is a credible alternative right there. Why is it not being
discussed?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://robinhoodtax.org/" target="_blank"><img src="" title="Robin Hood Tax" alt="" width="500" height="328"></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back in 2009, Fukuyama published an article in <i>Newsweek</i> with the triumphant title “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/12/06/history-is-still-over.html" target="_blank">History is still over</a>“,
in which he asserted that, despite the fact that “the crisis began on
Wall Street – the heart of global capitalism — … the legitimacy of the
global system may have been bruised, [but] it did not
break.” Fast-forward two years and witness the burning streets of
London, Rome and Athens; the peaceful occupation of Wall Street, Puerta
del Sol, Syntagma, and hundreds of other squares around the world; the
unprecedented global day of action on October 15, with protests in
almost 1,000 cities in over 80 countries. Witness the anger. The
frustration. The indignation. It is here. The legitimacy is breaking.
Fukuyama, it appears, was cheering just a wee bit too soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a Freudian sense, we are witnessing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_repression" target="_blank">return of the repressed</a>.
If you tell people for two decades that there is no alternative to the
world in which they live, and if in the meantime you take away their
income, their rights, their public services, and their last-remaining
shreds of dignity, you can expect that psychological repression of
revolutionary potential to come out in some other form sooner or later.
If you repress the coherent emancipatory ideology of the masses, as the
End of History was meant to do, you literally end up with the incoherent
and a-political <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/08/london-calling-a-haunting-glimpse-into-our-future/" target="_blank">London riots</a>.
In this respect, the most important thing the Tunisian and Egyptian
revolutions could have done was to help remind humanity that
there actually <i>is</i> an alternative to the status quo — that there does exist some “outside” to unfettered global capitalism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Rise of the Indignant and the Crisis of Democracy</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">The
Arab revolutions emboldened the alienated youth of Europe and America
to start dreaming again, to reclaim their radical imagination in the
face of one of the greatest legitimation crises in the history of
liberal democracy. As a critical consciousness makes its way back into
the mainstream discourse, the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism finds
itself under threat anew. The first signs of this emergent critical
consciousness began to appear in Madrid on May 15. A few days later, the
BBC reported that an <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/05/egypt-spain-tahrir-madrid-m-15/" target="_blank">Egypt-style rally</a>
was growing in Spain. Over the next couple of weeks, hundreds of
thousands of people from all walks of life rallied on a nightly basis
around the country as the <i>indignados </i>movement <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/08/london-calling-a-haunting-glimpse-into-our-future/" target="_blank">spread throughout Europe</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On
September 17, the Spanish 15-M movement culminated into a global day of
action against the banks and the occupation of Wall Street, called for
by the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine <i><a href="http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet" target="_blank">Adbusters</a>. </i>The
Wall Street protest subsequently helped catalyze the next global day of
action, called for by the Spanish protesters on October 15. Under the
common banner “united for global change”, the worldwide resistance grew
to truly unprecedented proportions, with simultaneous protests taking
place in 1,000 cities in over 80 countries. With his naive declaration
that “the legitimacy of the global system did not break,” Fukuyama once
again finds himself on the wrong side of history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Puerta-del-Sol-indignados.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="" title="Puerta del Sol indignadoshttp://roarmag.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=6830&action=edit&message=10#" alt="" width="500" height="334"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">After
all, if liberal democracy is really the culmination of human
ideological evolution, how come millions of people are taking to the
streets all over the world demanding something different? If
representative democracy is the very pinnacle, why are these young
people chanting “they do not represent us!”, and why do they cry out for
a <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115267575844603.html" target="_blank">real democracy</a>
instead? As the massive movements in Israel and Chile demonstrate, the
phenomenon cannot be reduced to the crisis alone, for even their booming
economies could not stop the tide of indignation from flooding into its
streets. In truth, the problem runs much deeper. As the <i>indignados</i> like to chant, “it’s not the crisis, it’s the system.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zygmunt Bauman <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/sep/01/zygmunt-bauman-terrorism-video" target="_blank">put his finger</a>
on the crux of the problem: while politics has remained national, power
has all but evaporated into global flows. Technological change and
neoliberal reforms have conspired to create a situation where
democratically elected governments no longer have the power to transform
their promises into policies. We end up with a situation where voting
is no longer about what policies our governments should put into
practice, but rather about who should put into practice the policies
demanded by the financial sector. To call that democracy seems
preposterous. The rise of the indignant is nothing but the collective
realization that liberal representative democracy, under the conditions
of deep economic integration, is not really liberal or representative at
all. The End of History, rather than solidifying democracy as the final
form of human government, has completely undermined it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Edge of History and the Return of Contentious Politics</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
The
End of the End of History is not the same as the end of neoliberalism.
As we saw before, zombie ideologies have their way of roaming about
beyond their expiry date. As long as there are capitalists (or wanna-be
capitalists), there will always be one form or another of capitalist
philosophy. The End of the End of History is not so much about
eradicating capitalism’s individualist worldview, which is impossible
without resorting to the type of repressive state tactics we are trying
to overcome, as it is about the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contentious_politics" target="_blank">return of contentious politics</a> </i>as
the defining feature of social life. In other words, the End of the End
of History is not so much about overcoming political struggle as about
the realization that we can, by definition, <i>never</i> overcome
political struggle. As long as there is injustice, there will be
struggle — and since there will always be injustice, there will always
be struggle.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The End of History,
therefore, is neither possible nor desirable. The longing for a final
stage of institutional and ideological development, in which
disagreement and conflict have been banished from the realm of social
reality, is either purely totalitarian or purely Utopian. While certain
Utopian longings may inspire us to soar to ever greater heights as a
species, we always have to remember that no social order is given
forever. Our Utopia must forever remain the spiritual desire that
propels us to action, but we have to embrace the fact that it can never
become a reality. History simply never ends. As the neo-Gramscian
scholar Stephen Gill <a href="http://www3.sympatico.ca/marcus.pistor/MPistorAgencyStructureandEuropeanIntegration.pdf" target="_blank">put it</a>,
“history is always in the making, in a complex and dialectical
interplay between agency, structure, consciousness and action.” Or, as
Subcomandante Marcos <a href="http://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Subcomandante_Marcos" target="_blank">worded</a> it slightly more poetically, “the struggle is like a circle: you can start anywhere, but it never stops.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://roarmag.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Wall-Street-End-of-History.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="" alt="" title="Wall Street End of History" width="500" height="332"></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
In an excellent op-ed in the <i>Guardian </i>the other day, Jonathan Jones looked at a picture of Occupy Wall Street and makes a striking <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/18/occupy-times-square-global-consensus#" target="_blank">observation</a>:</div>
<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">This
is a photograph of a turning point in history, not because the Occupy
movement will necessarily succeed (whatever success might be) but
because it has revealed the profoundly new possibilities of debate in a
world that so recently seemed to agree about economic fundamentals.
Occupy Wall Street and the global movement it is inspiring may yet prove
to be an effective call for change, or a flash in the pan. That is not
the point. Nor does it even matter if the protest is right or wrong.
What matters is that unfettered capitalism, a force for economic
dynamism that seemed unassailable, beyond reproach or reform, a monster
we learned to be grateful for, suddenly finds its ugliness widely
commented on, exposed among the lights of Times Square. The emperor of
economics has no clothes.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">“This
is an unbelievable moment,” he continues. “Pinch yourself.” For 2011,
with all its crises and revolutions, marks what Slavoj Žižek, in his <a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/10/zizek-at-wall-street-protest-dont-fall-in-love-with-yourself/" target="_blank">speech</a>
in Zuccotti Park, called “the awakening from a dream that is turning
into a nightmare.” It marks the return of contentious politics. And, as
such, it marks the End of the End of History. Not that History ever
stopped — we just got confused for a while by the collapse of
capitalism’s arch-nemesis, and thought it did. But the fact that History
is still in-the-making is being captured in newspapers headlines, in
powerful photographs, and in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/europe/protesters-gather-in-athens-on-second-day-of-strike.html?ref=global-home" target="_blank">words</a>
of a simple middle-class lady in Greece during the 48-hour strike of
October: “I have never been a leftist,” she said, “but they’ve pushed us
to become extremists.” When the system forces ordinary people to become
revolutionaries, you know you’re no longer at the End of History.
You’re at the very edge of it.</div></div></div> <br>
</div></div></div>