Slavoj Žižek on Refugees, Conservatism, and Cultural Incompatibility | Big Think

We who try to be decent people are bombarded by some kind of moral political pressure from two sides: First, there is the worst one, of course, this anti-immigrant populous side like why should we even allow refugees in; it's their fault; third world travel and so on, there are enough poor people here; they come from another civilization; it means conflict and so on and so on.

So there is all the time this pressure of we are defending our way of life; refugees are disturbing it. And it's interesting how in some radical right-wing circles we really have already new conspiracy theories, which always fascinate me in their madness. A couple of weeks ago, the main Slovenia—I'm coming from Slovenia—right-wing weekly journal, something like Slovene Time Magazine, published a comment by a guy, which was a ferocious attack on George Soros, the humanitarian billionaire, claiming that he's the most disgusting, despicable, and dangerous person today in the world because he's a Jew who is organizing a Muslim invasion into Europe.

The guy uses totally open brutal terms like "Negroid Islamist hoards are invading Europe." Claiming that the Jewish plan is to destroy Christian Europe and they're using Muslims to do it. Why do I like—I mean, don't misunderstand me, I'm horrified at it—but why do I "like" this fantasy? Because it goes to the end and it brings together two different levels of conspiracy theory. One is the Muslim invasion of Europe, and the other is anti-Semitism.

Usually, we think that there is some kind of a conflict in the Middle East between Palestinians or Muslims and Jews. This theory claims this is an appeared conflict to dilute us. In reality, even the Muslim terrorists, all of them, ISIS, it's a Zionist creation to ruin Europe. In the good old-fashioned or Stalinist way, you know how fascists spoke about a plutocratic Bolshevik plot, you bring the opposites together; they're doing this.

So, not to get lost—this is one blackmail. But then now things get much more problematic for some liberal leftists. Then there is the other blackmail, the humanitarian blackmail like poor, suffering immigrants coming to Europe desperate; is Europe still Europe? Is it using its heart? How can we see all those people suffering and so on and so on?

I basically, of course, agreed with this second position. I none the less think there is something terribly wrong in this automatic retranslation of—I don't want to call it a crisis, but whatever you call it—what's happening with refugees into a pure humanitarian problem, which is out there from somewhere we don't even analyze it closely. Hundreds of thousands of people are coming, and it's purely a humanitarian question: do we let them in or not?

I question this on all levels. First, I'm absolutely ready to admit that even crucial, that it's not simply something horrible happening in the Third World or in this case in the Middle East, as we say in Europe in our arrogant way, they screwed it up and now we should pay the bill or what. Of course, Europe—but not only Europe, we are deeply responsible for it. Look at all origins of the crisis where refugees are coming from; from Northern, but not only Northern Africa, Libya and so on.

We Europeans screwed it up with military intervention then. No ISIS, no refugees from Syria or Iraq without American intervention there or without this global or geopolitical conflict between Russia and the United States, others involved like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and so on. They are what is behind the Syrian civil war. So again, we cannot say there is a humanitarian crisis there, and it's purely a question of moral sympathy: we will receive them; we are deeply responsible for them.

First, geopolitically and at a deeper level, economically. I mean, this brutal direct colonialism is more or less over, but economic neocolonialism is, in a way, stronger than ever. We know how big Western—and not only Western, also other—powers are destroying local agriculture and so on and so on. Like, these are things we don't read a lot about—are you aware of what's happening now? Even in some African countries where there is starvation, like Ethiopia and so on.

Western companies, and in this case happily I'm ready to say it's not the usual culprits, Europe and the United States, it's more some rich Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and some Asian countries like South Korea and so on; they're buying gigantic parts of these countries for agricultural use, growing industrial plants and so on and so on with the millions of people who can be employed for the time being when production still goes on. But when there's a crisis, everything is chaotic.

And so for me, the symbol of today's world—and it's typical of how we talk of all the crises we read so little about that crisis—is the Republic of Congo. It may be one of the wealthiest countries in the world with regards to natural resources and so on, but a non-existing country; the central government doesn't work, local warlords rule all in direct connection with foreign companies, all their precious metals to export and so on and so on.

So again, this is the situation out of which refugees are created. And now, if anything, it's getting even worse. We all sympathize with the hopes of 20 years ago with the tragedy of Sarajevo in ex-Yugoslavia, a big city of hundreds of thousands of people under siege like in medieval times. Okay, but what's happening now in Aleppo is even worse, in a way. It's a really big city of almost two million people, and at least out of egotism, we should worry more.

Are we aware of what kind of explosive new refugee crisis is being prepared there? So again, I buy all of this. On the other hand, now comes the problematic part: I don't believe that, first, that we are the only culprits. Because it's not simply us, Western Europeans, Americans and Arabs; there is a mega class division between rich countries and poor countries, corruption among Arabs themselves.

And as some people pointed out, you cannot just simply say—many left liberals enjoy this—they have a kind of a perverse pleasure whenever there is a crisis in a Third World country. They always will somehow prove, "Oh, it's our possibility." There is something so patronizing in this, as if they are even too stupid—all those Arabs or black Africans—to be really evil. If they do something catastrophic, only we are big enough, even in the direction of the evil to do it.

So let's take this case; let's ask a simple question, which some people don't like to ask: aren't there immediately below the big crisis region, Syria, Iraq, a couple of Arab Muslim countries who are among the richest in the world? Take Qatar, where they control their own Al Jazeera, who all the time emphasizes the plight of immigrants and so on. Qatar usually, at least among the first three per capita with greatest per capita income, richest countries in the world—competition is somewhere, Liechtenstein, Europe, Qatar, and Singapore.

You know how many refugees they took? None. All of them, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates, none; only the poor countries are invaded by them. So I don't think these questions should be taboo, like what's the international geopolitical game that is being played here? That's the first point.

The second point: so-called Muslim fundamentalism. You know, we should not simply say—okay, of course, I'm not condemning it in a racist way, but it's also not enough to say, "Okay this is just a reaction to Western imperialism," so automatically, again, we are guilty. Of course it's a reaction, but listen, let me draw a parallel. Hitler was also just a reaction to brutal Western imperialism, treatment of Germany after World War I.

It's absolutely clear in this sense. Western Europe, England, and France were responsible for Hitler, but this doesn't mean that they were wrong to fight it afterward. And it's the same way here. Arabs have been exploited—all that—but nonetheless Muslim fundamentalism is not to simply just a pure passive reaction to a difficult predicament; it's nonetheless a conscious choice.

It's certain active politics; it's a way, in a very strong sense, to react to what? To modern crisis. So for me instead of accepting these official coordinates, on the one hand we Western permissive society, on the other hand bad fundamentalists, a more radical question is: what is fundamentalism today? In what sense is it generated by inner antagonisms of global capitalism?

Even in the United States, you probably know it's simple; it's not Guy Fieri, but a great book Thomas Frank, "What Happened in Kansas." This is the enigma Kansas, which was for over a century the quintessentially progressive American state, from anti-slavery campaigns and so on. In the last 30/40 years, it became the very backdrop of new Christian fundamentalism.

So if you look at numbers of fundamentalists in the United States, they are pretty much the same in percentage—some three/four percent—as the number of radical fundamentalists among Arab countries and so on. First, we should approach the problem in this more fundamental way, not simply blaming Islam and so on. Islam is a problematical religion, but every religion is problematic.

I think we are living today in an era of—I'm not too afraid to speak as a leftist moral conservative—an era of ethical decay, disintegration of ethical substance, where things which were simply unimaginable decades ago can be said or done today. Let's take the example of a state, which boasts itself as the only island of reason in that area of the Middle East.

Do you know that the highest religious authority in the army of a country there said two or three months ago—I checked it with my friends; it's not a hoax, it's true—that when the army of their country occupies another land of people, soldiers have the right to rape local women there? Now, we will say who was this? ISIS? No, the big rabbi of the idea of Israeli defense forces.

The truth is, with all my disagreement with the politics of their government, now they are the ultimate people of civilization. But you see, even they are part of this decay. So that I don't lose the track, the first thing to do with refugees is to locate them in this global economic ideological political situation.

The second thing is nonetheless not to make a taboo of the fact that they are not just passive victims, day by day. I mean here not refugees as such, but those among them who clearly are fundamentalists, and we should debate these issues openly.

The third thing, and that may be the crux of the misunderstanding why people attacked me: the third point is, look, we tend to forget that we all are not just abstract free individual citizens of the world. We do live as part of concrete communities with certain ways of life, which are focused precisely on ways of enjoyment of how sexual relations are regulated.

All that—that's the very core of a community—and we are different to here, so we should not avoid all these questions of, for example, Muslims, Muslim Arabs entering Europe; they come with their customs. And okay, the politically correct way is to say we should leave them their customs, we have our customs, we should elevate ourselves above these differences and take care of fundamental equality, human rights, and so on.

This, I claim, doesn't work because human rights are universal values that are never abstractly elevated above concrete ways of life. Like examples that you get in Germany—I write about them in my book—over 2000 girls per year, immigrants to Germany who go to ordinary German high schools escape from home because they were more seduced by the western way of life, visit nightclubs, have German boyfriends, and so on.

And then their families put pressure on them, like we know in what sense, and they escape, seeking refuge with the police. Do you know that they already have over 20 safe houses in Germany where these girls are provided with fake IDs and so on and so on? And of course, massive community cries or, "You are ruining our way of life." Let's be frank; in a way, they are right.

I mean, you cannot impose on a Muslim community our Western notions of freedom if we need to choose the sex partners and claim we respect your way of life. The way that family deals with a woman is the very basic component of their way of life. I'm not saying there is an easy way out here, but I'm just saying that you see my point: the problem is real here.

The problem is real, and I think we—and also I know the Muslim intolerance is often exaggerated; there is a big story of intolerance of Western people towards Muslims. But there is also the other side of the story. For example, I learned this from leftists in Berlin, in Sweden, in Denmark, and in the Netherlands—Muslim communities, they're attacking gay parades, or when they see a public display of homosexuality, and so on and so on.

So you see what I mean. What I'm simply advocating, it's not—of course not—oppressing refugees on behalf of our Western standards, but I hope you admit you have to set a certain limit, and it's a difficult limit; it has to be renegotiated.

Like I don't know when a girl who doesn't want to be veiled is forced by her family to wear a veil, and she comes to German police and complains. You have to decide; you say, "No, that's their problem," or do you say, "No, we respect a certain notion of feminine freedom; their rights, we will not tolerate that?"

Whatever you do, it will be very painful. I'm claiming this: if we don't approach these topics openly in a public debate, we are just feeding the anti-immigrant populist racists, and we will get in 10/20 years a terrible Europe where the predominant force will be anti-immigrant populists.

So again, my point is not we are incompatible with immigrants; let's not have them in Europe. No, we can have even more immigrants. But we should absolutely talk about these problems in an open way, not ignore these problems. Ignoring these problems means you leave the space open for anti-immigrant populists, and then you have this after catastrophe of literally divided nations.

Where simply the liberal left attitude is as if if you just mention these problems, they claim no this is anti-immigrant, Islamophobic racism; these excel the problems. No, ordinary people experience and see these problems, and we have to also address those concerns.

I'm not talking here as a right-wing populist; on the opposite, if I make a quick jump to American politics, that's why, although I know we shouldn't expect too much from Bernie Sanders, but my admiration for Bernie Sanders was that he mobilized for a progressive project precisely those ordinary small half-impoverished farmers and workers who ideally vote for the new populist Republican right.

Bernie Sanders opened up the scope of the terrain for progressive costs for the left outside all this academic LGBT whatever and included into it also ordinary impoverished people who are the ideal prey of right-wing populism. For me, everything politically depends on this.

We have two struggles today, one which unfortunately are combined enough. One struggle is all the struggle against sexism and so on, gay rights. And the other struggle is the struggle for poor people, economic struggle, Third World and so on.

And the most tragic thing, I write about this in my book, is I hope you noticed this, it's when Third World countries advocate controlling women, homophobia, and so on, as part of their anti-colonialism. No, this is like—the ridiculous example of this is Mugabe, who openly stands for it.

But you have in Kenya, in all those countries, where openly the very notion of women's rights, gay rights is dismissed as neocolonialists' strategy of ruining the local communities, of destroying local ways of life and so on and so on. But if this problem will not be resolved, if we will be caught in our politically correct struggle against discrimination and so on, and keeping this at a distance from basic economic social struggles, then we are doomed.