ISSN 1751-8229 Volume Five, Number Two

Graduate Special Issue iek & Badiou

Did Somebody Say Islamo !obia"# $% &ssay o% '!e $meri(a% )iberal *%ders'a%di%+ o, -ar.51 a%d '!e 911-&ve%'

Laurie Rodrigues - University of Rhode Island

Among the American academic Left, the polemical works of lavo! "i#ek and Alain $adiou have presented points of conceptual discomfort%a discomfort &rought a&out, perhaps, &y the theorists' communist political orientations( Interestingly, however, for all their politically deviant notoriety, &oth men do en!oy something of a fetishi)ed cele&rity status within the tates%especially "i#ek, who seems to &e regarded as the charming &ad &oy pu&lic intellectual, disarmingly humorous yet dangerously *egelian( +,otic critical cachet aside, though, in the tates, the contemporary +uropean radicalisms of $adiou and "i#ek are not often e,plored with respect to their pertinence to American life- of course, such a claim might easily disintegrate into a de&ate concerning .ultural tudies /and its multivalent, alternatively-signifying counterparts0( *owever, given the respective, fetishi)ed appeals of these theorists, here, I hope to gesture toward a pro&lematic that e,tends through and &eyond contemporary American tudies1 that is, regarding the 1

academic American tendency to keep discussion of contemporary American life2 culture2 politics in the e,clusive hands of American e,perts( .ertainly, the works of $adiou and "i#ek hardly focus upon the United tates, as such- nevertheless, here I plan to put them into conversation /rather than their customary isolation0 toward productively informing American politics, society and life( 3or the United tates, $adiou and "i#ek present pointed in4uiries into those ideas which the American humanities have come to represent and defend%particularly since its rise against the conservative &acklash of the 5678s( ome of $adiou's and "i#ek's most dis4uieting claims include their respective oppositions to li&eral multiculturalism, tolerance discourses and various, particularist ethics concerned with respecting the 9ther( And American discomfort is perhaps understanda&le here, as such dictums form the cornerstones of%not only the academic Left's discourses, &ut%the political Left's position( :his is particularly true in recent li&eral media coverage of the hotly-de&ated Islamic .ultural .enter slated to &e &uilt near the ground )ero of 655 in ;anhattan( In light of the contradictory press surrounding the &uilding of this cultural center at <5 =ark Avenue in Lower ;anhattan, >ew ?ork .ity, I will argue here that the positions of $adiou and "i#ek are e,tremely valua&le toward e,amining the seemingly &enign, tolerant position held &y the American li&eral Left( @ithin this de&ate, the denigration of the conservative American Right has &ecome poplar in the mainstream media, painting them as the e,tremists of the home front%fanatical nationalists, as it were( At first &lush, especially considering their forceful presence in certain media outlets, such indictments of the Right may seem o&vious( @ithin this structure, the tolerant position of the Left is poised to appear as the sole logical, moderate stance to assume within the =ark<5 de&ate( *owever, I argue, this is a very dangerous construction, offering Americans a fallacious notion of choice1 of course, one has the freedom to choose either a Right or Left-side stance with respect to the =ark<5 contention%one need not, necessarily, &e in favor of its &uilding%&ut, one concomitantly risks condemnation if one chooses to stand with the Right( :hrough $adiou and "i#ek, I will argue that this inducement to choose a single camp is precisely what should &e avoided( $y deploying the very controversial stances for which $adiou and "i#ek are known%the very stances, perhaps, which make so many Americans uncomforta&le with their work%I seek to approach the =ark<5 dispute as an o&!ect worthy of thought, and a conception of the American li&eral Left as something other than the image of good that it seems so intent on painting itself( >oting intersections in $adiou's Ethics /A8850 and "i#ek's The Ticklish Subject, 2

/56660 I intend to activate some of the more uncomforta&le controversies that they engage surrounding li&eral multiculturalism and tolerance discourses( I &egin with the assertion that 655 is a $adiouian event1 &reaking with the ordinary situation of American affairs, 655 is divorced from the sum total of America's structural namings, classifications, distri&utions and divisions /$adiou A8851 i,0( 3alling outside of ontology, then, 655 has no o&!ective that can &e proven, its Bhappening' can only &e proclaimed%our only knowledge with respect to the 655-event is that it did, in fact, occur( :he American li&eral media, however, persists in its evaluation of 655, naming the event an a&erration, an act of terrorism( As a $adiouian event, I will suggest that, post-655, the American li&eral media's discourses of tolerance feed a dangerous process of forced choice which redou&les in social reality as Islamopho&ic violence( In so doing, I will argue, the attendant truth of the $adiouian 655event is precluded( @ith respect to the de&ated issue of =ark<5's significance, post-655, fidelity to the 655-event would constitute a truth procedure1 political action /e(g(, intervention0 &eyond the pale of the possi&le, which would de&unk the multiculturalist party line installed in the place of truth, following 655( *owever, &y naming the event as terrorism, activating a chain of sym&oli)ation that links the ;uslim 9ther to the American Left, the Left denies the possi&ility for truth( :hus, although this truth insistently surfaces post-655, as so many inde,ical acts of terrorism within the tates, no instruction or information can come of them within the media's structure of communication- rather, these occurrences of terrorism are merely filed as smaller, a&errant occasions of evil upon American soil( $y translating the post-655 era as a time for increased tolerance for the ;uslim 9ther, the Left strips social reality of its dangerous, &ut necessary, element of antagonism- likewise, &y focusing its stance within the =ark<5 dispute upon a defensiveness of some accepta&ly different 9ther, the Left enacts a forced choice of tolerance( =ost-655, this only preserves the victimi)ed position of America and refuses to acknowledge the a&ysmal2 a&yssal nature of the neigh&or( In this article, I will adapt and e,pand upon $adiou and "i#ek's converging viewpoints in order to fashion an e,amination of American li&eralism's media presence and its self-conception as the force of good within the post-655, Cround Dero ;os4ue, tolerance de&ate( Ultimately, I aim to show how the Left's structure of thought within and around the =ark<5 contention &etrays a fundamental infidelity to the 655-event( .oncluding that the proposed &uilding of an Islamic cultural center near ground )ero represents a new kind of pro&lem that American, li&eral media cannot meet head-on, I 3

propose that we &egin to 4uestion the central role of tolerating the 9ther within discourses concerning American rights( A&out two and one-half &locks from the former location of the @orld :rade .enter in Lower ;anhattan, a new ;uslim-owned, fifteen-story community center is slated for construction( :he pro!ect was first introduced in a front-page article of the New York Times in early Eecem&er of A886, foregrounding the &ridge &uilding am&itions of the .ordo&a *ouse /as the Islamic center is to &e named0- after the article went to press, the proposed community center met with little to no mainstream o&!ection, local or national( i ?et, &y early ;ay, A858, the topic &lossomed into a hotly de&ated issue infused with discourses of tolerance( >ow, following the ninth anniversary of 655, the predominant stances with respect to this de&ate are e4uated with one's position either for or against tolerance( ;eanwhile, the internet &logosphere erupts with anti-Islam sentimentscountless de&ates ignite around televised, print, and internet news pieces( In late August and early eptem&er, mos4ues were &urned in :ennessee while Ramadan services were flagrantly disrupted in .alifornia- in 3lorida, a Foran-&urning event was threatened &y Reverend :erry Gones for the ninth anniversary of 655( @hat is more, =resident 9&ama's support for the =ark<5 founders' rights to worship, voiced during an address given in midAugust of A858, met with incredulous popular criticism%criticisms goaded &y, li&eral media sources suggest, the intense media presence of Right-wing personalities such as arah =alin and >ewt Cingritch( $y and large, the American mainstream li&eral media continues to cite the American Right as the originary source for the fear-mongering and divisive sentiments that now surround the =ark<5 pro!ect /a(k(a(, Cround Dero ;os4ue, a moniker coined &y far-Right &log, creeping sharia, which the Associated =ress urged reporters to forego in a statement issued on August 56, A8580( Interestingly, however, &oth sides heavily tout the importance of tolerance- and of course, &oth Left and Right media sources wager their respective claims of understanding the stakes and future potentials em&edded in the &uilding of =ark<5( >evertheless, ruled &y an antagonistic Left2 Right dialectic, the media's cynicism, paranoia and name-calling only muddy the waters of each sides' interpretive hypotheses1 in this instance, of what, e,actly, should Americans &e tolerantH%racial differenceH 9r, religious differenceH 3or &oth the Left and the Right, a pro&lematic, discursive gap looms large1 an an,ious a&sence regarding the true stakes of Imam Rauf's Islamic .enter( @hat would the &uilding of .ordo&a *ouse mean for America%if anythingH @hat potential, if any, does this &uilding create for America's futureH 4

;uch of America's mainstream media &oldly claims that the Right's flagrant Islamopho&ic attitude conditions an increased risk for future terrorist attacks upon America1 such intolerance toward Imam Rauf, his associates and their planned community center near ground )ero will surely paint America as a country hateful of Islam%and a !ustified target for terrorist retaliation( According to the media, the Right's discourses even risk the endangerment of America's military troops, who, e,perts are 4uick to point out, remain peppered throughout the ;uslim world( *owever, the li&eral media's offensive on the Right's stance concerning the Cround Dero ;os4ue, com&ined with its name-calling of Right-wing pundits and politicians, is a trou&ling issue that has gone une,amined &y either the American mainstream media or the academy( And tragically, as &oth the li&eral and conservative media attempt to domesticate the Cround Dero ;os4ue through so many competitive and socially-operative fields of knowledge, American citi)ens' understanding of the issue's root concern%the growing visi&ility of ;uslims and Islam in America%&ecomes increasingly mired( In light of the American li&eral media's wounded attachment to the 655-event, and its recently-adopted hyper-tolerance of ;uslim 9thers, one is perhaps left to wonder where fear-mongering actually originates( :he li&eral media urges Americans to fear the conse4uences of the conservative Right's e,tremism, &ut not to fear Islam itself( Americans should tolerate the presence of an Islamic .ultural .enter at ground )ero, &ut not the Islamopho&ic attitude of the Right- real danger, according to the Left, lies within the ranks of American politics /on the Right, of course0, &ut not within the Left's politici)ed rendition of ;uslim identity( According to $adiou's Ethics, an event creates the su&!ect1 the su&!ect is induced &y the truth of the event and stands as a locali)ed incidence of the truth procedure /or, politics as intervention0( :his su&!ect, according to $adiou, e,ceeds the individual, or the structurally named, classified actor whose interests only give rise to opinion, representations devoid of truth( *owever, nine years following the 655-event, the function of the American media has precluded the creation of the $adiouian su&!ect( ?et, the Americans' unfaithfulness to the 655-event is not the result of the antagonistic dialectic that has ignited &etween the American Left and Right, as li&eral media might purport( Rather, the pro!ected, politically-interested American cannot &e faithful to the traumatic event, and instead, reacts with a panic-response( :he translation of the parado,ical event /as with the a&yss of the neigh&or vis-I-vis tolerance0 marks a disavowal &y the Left( :hese translations, or interpretations, are nothing more than ontologi)ations of the event into 5

homologi)ed knowledge, a more managea&le and media-friendly form /"i#ek 56661 5J6<80( :herefore, interpretations of 655, as well as reactions to the =ark<5 controversy, are not &orne of any real contest &etween Right and Left- rather, these reactions come from a failure to accept the truth of the event( :he Left's methods for disavowal and sym&oli)ation, then, are more virulent than the Right's, given their &old foreclosure of social antagonism( .onsider how the li&eral Left's current command of tolerance appears almost too well-timed1 this stance seems to leave off attachments to the devastation of 655, in favor of glo&al progress- principled tolerance certainly appears to a&andon rhetoric of American victimi)ation and speak% progressively, yet moderately%from a position advocating glo&al order( *owever, when we then consider the American media's representation of the American li&eral position% the amplified antagonism against the Right and simultaneous disavowal of social antagonism%the effect of this li&eral stance demonstrates e,actly the opposite of what it proposes to &e the state of American affairs( :he Left's derogatory and personally-directed media relation to the Right undermines the anti-essentialist agenda that it seeks to deploy- its recent defensiveness paints a portrait of American arrogance and &igotry that mirrors the accused Right's( .om&ining discourses of tolerance with race relations against the Right, the contemporary current of American li&eralism links itself with victimhood, poised as the protector of vicitimi)ed ;uslims in America( Gu,taposing this stance with the Right's Islamopho&ia, the Left amplifies its own position as a target of the same, intolerant enemy 9ther1 the American conservative Right( *owever, within this structure, the hard lines that li&eralism attempts to draw &etween victim and provocateur2 perpetrator, seem to &lur rather disconcertingly( @hat is more, for all the moralistic, spiritual supplementation provided &y its tolerance discourse, the Left &etrays its own fear of the very difference presented &y the Islamic .ultural .enter /$adiou A8851 AK0( :his is not a racial difference or a religious difference, per se- rather, this is a radically tragic and necessary difference whose very form is parado,%a $adiouian truth%to which America was first properly e,posed with the falling of the @orld :rade .enter :owers on eptem&er 55, A885( ince this event, and particularly in light of the Islamic .ultural .enter set for construction two &locks from ground )ero, the Left has la&ored to disown its truth, seeking to define the disaster as a means &y which America might improve its faculty for tolerance of ;uslim 9thers%a !ustification for a newly-emphasi)ed, institutionali)ed multiculturalism( $y seeking to view 6

655 as nothing more than an a&erration, an effect of terrorism, and simultaneously situating change as merely the necessity of increased American tolerance, the Left has foregone the truth of the event /and some important, inde,ical events, which I will soon e,plore0 in favor of an essentialist view of the contemporary American situation1 an effort that, effectively, seeks to keep things e,actly as they are( :he mos4ue planned for construction near ground )ero presents an insistent return of this persistently disavowed truth( As the force of the 655-event has failed to engender a perspective change in the coordinates of the contemporary American situation% disavowed and ontologi)ed on the Left%=ark<5, in Eeleu)ian terms, presents the eternal return of the past within the present1 a simultaneous short circuit in, and dangerous impetus for, the antagonistic, social2 political dialectic of Left and Right- a force that offers a road to real conceptual creation as political and social change, &ut which concurrently opens up potential for a reinstatement of old dialectics, amplified, perhaps, &y the frustrating return of the discursive gap which haunts the Left's interpretation of the event( In this way, &oth 655 and =ark<5 are cracks in the universe%media-amplified, literali)ed presentations of the a&yss of the neigh&or, an e4ually productive and destructive line of flight( Li&eral multiculturalist efforts to sym&oli)e the Islamic community center do not render the originary 655-event containa&le- such li&eral defenses of =ark<5 do not constitute ade4uate e,planation for 655 or make it any easier for the American pu&lic to digest( Instead, the Left's discourse of tolerant multiculturalism implicitly preserves 655 solely as terror-event( In this way, a virulent ini4uity, &etween interpretation and the truthforce of the event, actually feeds media and social cycles of hatred, fear and confusion for which li&eralism &lames conservatism( :hus, the li&eral media's simultaneous ;uslimtolerant2 Right-intolerant discourses fuel further violent demonstrations of outrage within the American populous%a population of su&!ects supposed to &elieve, as "i#ek might say, &ut possessive of competing &eliefs( :his environment of competing &eliefs and implicit desires risks the eternal return of the force of the originary event%so many situations ignited &y this very dialectic of competing &eliefs, made tragically necessary &y an elementary infidelity to the 655 truth-event( :oward our understanding of this fundamental infidelity, it is perhaps helpful to consider an inde,%namely, the failed car &om& attempt near&y :imes 4uare in ;anhattan, which occurred on ;ay 5st, A858, perpetrated &y =akistani-American, 3aisal hah)ad( =rior to the discovery of hah)ad's identity, the American li&eral news media 7

e,ploded with hypotheses and rumors, alleging that the suspect was a white male in his forties( @ithin the unsure thirty hour period &efore hah)ad's definite identity was released, the news &logosphere erupted with Left-leaning civilian chatter, alleging that the perpetrator was a :eahadi%i(e(, an anti-li&eral-government mem&er of the Repu&lican :ea =arty su&set(ii *owever, solid leads 4uickly &egan to fill in the mystery of the suspect's identity- &eginning with the would-&e car &om&'s Lehicle Identification >um&er and logs associated with hah)ad's mo&ile phone /he had a&andoned his prepaid mo&ile phone inside the vehicle0, hah)ad was 4uickly traced as the attempt's primary suspect( A&out two days following the discovery of the smoking UL, hah)ad was apprehended on&oard a flight &ound for =akistan from >ew ?ork( Little time, interestingly, was given to the media for speculation( hortly thereafter, coverage of the perpetrator's affirmed identity as a naturali)ed American citi)en /with purported ties to =akistan's arm of Al-Maeda0 overtook the American news media, igniting an outrage( :he American Right's suspicions of ;iddle+astern terrorist ties had &een affirmed- the li&eral Left's careful sidestepping of the terrorist 4uestion /and simultaneous, though unofficial, :ea =arty &laming0 had, of course, &een deflated( In the midst of this media storm, mayor of >ew ?ork .ity, ;ichael $loom&erg%a li&eral Eemocrat who has recently claimed Independent status%made a curious statement to the Associated =ress- on ;ay Jth, A858, he is 4uoted, saying1 N@Oe will not tolerate any &ias or &acklash against =akistani or ;uslim >ew ?orkers( iii 9f course, on a simplistic level, $loom&erg's mention of &acklash and &ias can &e read as an inverted call to e,actly that which he proposes to condemn1 intolerance( *owever, given the media sensation surrounding hah)ad's discovered identity, we may come to see something more within the structure of $loom&erg's statement( In an interesting rhetorical sleight, $loom&erg simultaneously cites what he /and, presuma&ly, his law enforcement associates0 condones and condemns1 we will not tolerate &ias or &acklash NPO may, perhaps, &e reconfigured as, we will not tolerate intolerance( In his pu&lic in!unction for tolerance, $loom&erg calls very o&vious, intentional attention to his /and law enforcement's0 own intolerance%&ut, what does this suggestH If his interests resided only with promoting tolerance toward moderate or non-radical ;uslims% differentiating &etween these 9thers and the Radical +vil 9thers%then, why this circuitous articulationH @hat $loom&erg demonstrates here is a compelling attempt to simultaneously morali)e and penali)e particular &ehaviors1 &ehaviors which are &eyond the pale of legislation2 institutionali)ation and are, in fact, protected under America's 8

.onstitutional 3irst Amendment( @hat is more, these &ehaviors, and especially within a melting pot metropolis such as >ew ?ork .ity, are generally understood as given%not standardi)ing, normative regulations, &ut rather%part of the mundane, everyday functioning of ur&an life( $loom&erg's simplistic, yet significant, statement &etrays something more within the act%or even ideaof tolerance- something, perhaps, argua&ly apparent, &ut nevertheless crucial to the structure and function of li&eralism's tolerance of the 9ther( :o speak so openly, in the form of pu&lic in!unction, on this traditionally unspoken topic, is very telling( :he discourse of tolerance that appears in the American li&eral media today is one of mandate%a normative order which tells Americans how to relate to e,plicit, lifeworld e,periences( :his speaks to an em&eddedness of tolerance within &oth the postpolitical, capitalist structure of America and its citi)ens' immediate trust in social reality( :his normative order relies upon a network of informal rules which tell Americans how to relate to e,plicit norms, how to relate to one another( o, much more interesting than whether or not tolerance discourse is actually a call /to the Right0 to enact the very opposite, is the notion that tolerance refers to choice1 one has a choice, to &e tolerant or not, &ut within the American capitalist media's structure of communication2 sym&oli)ation, one is automatically e,pected to make the choice in favor of tolerance( :he structure of this communication directly relates to the desire of the Left as the alleged force of good within the United tates( :he dictates of tolerance are less than legally o&ligatory- tolerance constructs a set of unwritten rules%or, as *egel would call it, an ethical su&stance( :he Left's political correctness, as represented in the media, threatens to penali)e for that which should not &e legislated, undermining the virtual, unsym&oli)ed sphere of simple, good manners( @ith such a move, then, the ultimate result of the American capitalist media's intervention into the =ark<5 de&ate seems to yield the e,act opposite of what it fundamentally seeks to achieve( @ithin the dispute, we are presented with a curious dialectic1 a &asic choice &etween anti-essentialism and essentialism or, tolerance and intolerance( ?et, there need not &e a reductive choice here( :his proposed pro&lem of tolerance, as e,emplified &y $loom&erg, is a false one- there is nothing of depth here that is worthy, as $adiou would say, of &eing an o&!ect of thought( Eifference is, simply, what there is- differences are part and parcel of the American state of affairs /$adiou A8851 AQ0( :hus, appreciating or tolerating difference constitutes anything &ut a progressive agenda for thinking the 9ther( $adiou is a very useful theorist for thinking through the pro&lem of tolerance with 9

respect to NculturalO difference( :olerance's cele&ration of difference, $adiou e,plains in his Ethics, only e,tends as far as the 9ther in 4uestion is recogni)a&le as good( :his good, however, is conditioned upon a similitude, a sameness, of the 9ther with oneself( :hat is to say, for the American li&eral Left, an 9ther may &e considered good under the condition that he2 she is willing to em&race the tates' democratic, pro free-market economy and is also in favor of freedom of opinion, feminism Nand the preservation ofO the environment- &asically, a different 9ther is considered good inasmuch as he2 she is willing to accept differences in the same way that the American li&eral Left does%vis-I-vis discourses of tolerance, respect, and so on /$adiou A8851 AJ0( As with the $loom&erg e,ample, we are confronted here with a mirage of choice1 of course the 9ther is entitled to &e different, &ut positively-configured difference only e,ists insofar as it is practiced and discussed within a particular, functional paradigm( @ithin these integrationist, practical and rhetorical parameters, an 9ther may &e considered good and therefore worthy of inclusion within capitalist media's cele&ration of diversity( :olerance, in this way, &ecomes the morali)ing stance%a force of good, in its own self-conception%to which one turns, panic-stricken, in the face of the ultimate a&yss of the neigh&or( Is it not so much easier to try to understand the 9ther, to contain him2 her, within so many sym&oli)ing formulationsH Is it not easier to claim knowledge where truth seems, essentially, impossi&leH *ere I see a compelling convergence of $adiou with "i#ek1 the American li&eral propensity for tolerance discourse highlights the post-political status of the United tates- which is not to say that the tates' political2 social2 economic system serves to repress the political act /i(e(, intervention0 as such, &ut rather to completely realign it( :he classical, political power-competition &etween parties and2 or classes has &ecome a contest &etween so many e,perts%humanitarian multiculturalists, media analysts, !ournalists, em&edded intelligence agents, and so on /"i#ek 56661 AKQ0( :his reconfiguration of the political process &y way of anti-ideological thought has thus, very &asically, foregrounded the importance of negotiation toward the administration of social matters- in other words, what were once differences divided along ideological and2 or class-oriented lines have &ecome so many /moreR0 differences &etween life-worlds, lifestyles, cultures /etc(0, whose rights are endlessly negotiated in order to serve the needs of market forces within a postmodern, predominantly media-oriented society( *ere, then, the fundamental, pre-political element of antagonism inherent in any social collectivity is dangerously precluded( :he structure of this ultrali&eral post-political situation elides the function of the impossi&le with respect to the political act- in other 10

words, politics has &ecome the deployment of only so many good ideas that are known to work, rather than constituting any actual intervention or system-altering change( As &oth $adiou and "i#ek teach us, this is a rather dangerous structure- eliding social antagonism &y working only within the realm of what is always already conditioned as possi&le, post-political, li&eral American discourses manufacture a precise condition under which the su&!ective political figure cannot remain faithful to the truth of the 655event( @ith respect to the de&ated issue of =ark<5's significance for a post-655 America, fidelity to the event would constitute political action /e(g(, intervention0, &eyond the pale of the possi&le, cracking the foundations of li&eral multiculturalist agendas that have &een instated /as a su&stitute for truth0 following 655( @hether or not the &uilding of =ark<5 would result from such a political action, I cannot say, &ut that de&ate would certainly not find tolerance as its ultimate ethical hori)on( @hat America is encountering with the proposal of the &uilding of a mos4ue and cultural center near the site of ground )ero is a new kind of pro&lem that American, li&eral capitalist media cannot meet head-on( @hile one can hardly argue that the endeavor for tolerance is entirely fruitless and misguided, one might &egin to 4uestion the central role of tolerating the 9ther within discourses concerning American rights( :he conflict regarding anti-essentialism and tolerance that the American Left has created surrounding the =ark<5 de&ate is, 4uite simply, a false conflict%and a false conflict, &y the very domestic antagonisms that it conditions, which presents the ultimate success of its enemy1 the conservative Right( .onsider the American media's coverage of Islamic religious leader, Anwar alAwlaki, through the 5668s and following the 655-event( Al-Awlaki was a well-known Imam of Ear Al-*i!rah, an Islamic cultural center located in Lirginia, an outfit not much unlike Imam Rauf's proposed .ordo&a *ouse( Li&eral-oriented news outlets, such as The Washington ost, >ational =u&lic Radio's online news component, and the New York Times all reported on al-Awlaki and his mos4ue, touting his &ridge-&uilding and moderate interests, his desire to link +ast with @est(iv *owever, &arely two years following 655, al-Awlaki a&ruptly left the United tates for the Ara&ian =eninsula, where he is &elieved to reside today( >ot long after 655, the 3$I &egan investigating al-Awlaki's suspected connection to the event- he was discovered to have provided spiritual guidance to two of the 655 hi!ackers prior to the event( :oday, he is known to have played a similar role in nearly a do)en acts of terrorism within the United tates over the last year% including hah)ad's attempted car &om&ing near :imes 4uare( 11

ince its earlier, misguided reports on al-Awlaki, the New York Times has tried to rectify their originary claims in a piece pu&lished on ;ay 6 th, A858(v :he article's authors state that al-Awlaki simply turned to evil%that he, like so many @estern ;uslims /such as hah)ad0, was simply and ine,plica&ly drawn to violent e,tremism( ?et, the li&eral media's tolerance-interested, decidedly a-political &rand of identity politics, illustrated here in the Times, adamantly refuses to acknowledge its ignorance in the face of the impenetra&le a&yss of another person( 9f course, as the twentieth century has repeatedly shown us, the irrational hatred of the 9ther has effected irreconcila&le atrocities( ?et, has not this very logic, illustrated through the li&eral media's adamant tolerance campaign which persistently follows a good and2 or !ust action, also find resonances within the twentieth century's totalitarian regimesH Eoes not this tolerant party line &etray its own fault-lines in cases such as al-Awlaki's mistakenly-politici)ed identity, there&y !ustifying the allegedly e,tremist paranoia and cautiousness for which the conservative Right is accusedH :he &asic pro&lem for the American Left should not &e one of tolerating differences, as this modus operandi cannot contain the new configuration of fundamental, social antagonism that &u&&les to the surface post-655, particularly when the 4uestion of &uilding a mos4ue near ground )ero arises( 9ne cannot know whether or not all ;uslims har&or anti-American sentiments, as the Right alleges, with any more certainty than one can claim that sanctioning an open doctrine of tolerance /in the a&sence of knowing what it is one claims to tolerate0 is a wise decision( ?es, we should tolerate one another- &ut this tolerance should remain part of the ethical su&stance of civility, out from under the sway of legislation and institutionali)ation( :o introduce the impossi&le to American Left /political2 media0 discourses, it seems that post-655 American does need tolerance, &ut a tolerance without the 9ther%without a defined neigh&or, an a&yss into which one might hurl endless attempts at sym&oli)ation( :aking differences as a given, as $adiou asserts, this 9ther-less tolerance might force post-655 American political thought to function from the standpoint of the true act%that is to say, the act which creates the conditions of its own possi&ility( :his would &e the political act, then, that finds its ground not in opinion, the service of market forces, or policing, &ut in a necessary fidelity to the event, 655( :hroughout this article, I have presumed the categori)ation of 655 as a $adiouian truth-event%&ut what does such an assertion mean for America, especially in light of the =ark<5 controversyH And what is this truth, &y my estimationH @hat I have &een calling the 655-event need not necessarily transform itself into a sta&le movement of followers, all 12

unwearyingly engaged in fidelity( Akin to $adiou's account of ;ay 56Q7, &riefly outlined in the appendi, to Ethics, 655 constitutes an event that continues, perhaps, to produce its truth /$adiou A8851 5AA-5K80( =art of the pro&lem encountered in naming the truth of 655 lies in, precisely, the compulsion to name the event, to call it an act of terrorism, as so many Americans do( Rather, I think, like the a&yssal 9ther /whom tolerance also ardently seeks to name0, an acceptance of the tragic necessity of 655, of its inherently parado,ical form, is re4uired toward encountering its truth( 3urther, &y refusing to put these interpretive systems of Bnaming' under erasure%as they constitute theoretical and interpretive symptomologies that attempt to deny truth%one might &egin to note the outlines of 655's truth process( +vents, such as 655, only &egin to look rational inasmuch as one su&scri&es to li&eralism's facile definitions of tolerance, terrorism and so on- however, the reason that inheres to the logic of American li&eralism constitutes a mere relation &etween irrational elements( As a living form of capital /&oth psychological and physical0, li&eral media%and its appended multiculturalism%will eventually die( Is the reality of post-political, li&eral capitalism's terminal decline the truth that cracked the American universe on eptem&er 55th, A885H Is the impending death of America's freedom, in the form of private property2 free markets /etc(0, the truth that the li&eral media /unwittingly0 elidesH @ill this system collapse upon America, will the nation &e e,ploited &y the very principles that it has sought so fervently to promulgateH Unfortunately, with regard to 655 and the significance of .ordo&a *ouse, I fear that I cannot make an interpretive summa in the name of some system of truths- doing so, after all, would only make of my efforts the same poor cousin of theology that I perceive in li&eral capitalist media's structure of communication /Fristeva 567K1 670( Rather, as $adiou might say, I know only that part of my su&!ectivation was forged in 655, and so my appreciation of the event can strive only for fidelity to it%however o&scure, or incendiary, its truth(

13

i $lumenthal, Ralph S haraf ;ow!ood /A8860 ;uslim =rayers and Renewal >ear Cround Dero, New York
Times, Eec( 61 A5(

ii 3or some e,amples of American li&eral anti-Rightism, see commentary appended to the article availa&le
here1 http122tpmmuckraker(talkingpointsmemo(com2A85828<2theT&otchedTtimesTs4uareT&om&TwhatTdoTweTknow( phpUmore( Also, see far-Right /anti-=ark<50 news &log, Gihad @atch for an interesting, alternative perspective on the Left's :eahadi allegations1 http122www(!ihadwatch(org2A85828<2car-&om&-in-timess4uare-near-comedy-central(html

iii ee Associated =ress1 http122news(yahoo(com2s2ap2A8588<8J2apTonTreTus2usTtimesTs4uareTcarT&om&(

Accessed on Guly A6, A858(

iv 3or my research concerning these earlier reports on al-Awlaki and his mos4ue in Lirginia, I predominantly
consulted Le,is>e,us, an internet research data&ase to which my home institution funds a su&scription( =erhaps due to the li&eral media's reali)ation of the error of its politici)ed, identitarian ways, all of these articles are rather difficult to find as open- source, online pages- through access to an online, su&scription-&ased research data&ase or &y simply contacting certain periodicals for access to their archived materials will yield you the paper trail to which I refer a&ove( ome of the newspapers and the specific issues in which you will find assertions of al-Awlaki's once-&elieved moderate position include /in no particular order01 New York Times, 9ct( 56, A885- !altimore Sun, 9cto&er A7, A885- N ", >ov( 5, A885Washington ost, ;ar( K, 566<- Washington ost, Eec( V, A885- Washington ost, >ov( 57, A885Washington ost, ept( A8, A885(

hane, cott S ouad ;ekhennet /A8580 Imam's =ath from .ondemning :error to =reaching Gihad, New York Times, ;ay 61 A5

/e,ere%(es

$adiou, Alain /A8850 Ethics# $n Essay on the %nderstanding of E&il, >ew ?ork1 Lerso( Fristeva, Gulia /567K0 =sychoanalysis and the =olis, in @(G(:( ;itchell /ed(0 The olitics of 'nterpretation, .hicago1 .hicago U=( "i#ek, lavo! /56660 The Ticklish Subject# The $bsent (entre of olitical )ntology, London1 Lerso(