The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left
Edited by Jela Krečič.
There is a commonly accepted notion that we live in a time of serious crisis that moves between the two extremes of fundamentalist terrorism and right wing populism. The latter draws its power from the supposed threat of immigrants: it proposes to resolve the immigrant crisis by placing the blame on the principal victims themselves, that is to say, on some form of otherness (immigrants, Islam, the LGBT community and similar). The predominant leftist position, which advocates multicultural tolerance and understanding, is no match for such aggressive populism.
The premise of The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left is that our situation is indeed extremely dangerous, that near unimaginable catastrophes are lurking on the horizon, but that these new dangers also open up new spaces for radical emancipatory politics. Eleven distinguished thinkers take these perils as a challenge to provide sharp, specific analysis of our social and political predicament, combining a merciless critique of the prevailing leftist humanitarian approach with elements of a new vision for the Left.
The Final Countdown is therefore also a countdown to a new beginning; it is a practice of theory that is not here to lament but to re-think and reframe the very basic coordinates of how we understand and deal with today’s major political issues.
With contributions by Boris Buden, Boris Groys, Mladen Dolar, Saroj Giri, Agon Hamza, Jamil Khader, Robert Pfaller, Frank Ruda, Alenka Zupančič, Slavoj Žižek.
Ordering Information
148 x 210 mm, 208 pages,
UK: £10 / US: $13
ISBN 978-961-90851-2-7