Sarajevo which had by far the largest Jewish community in ex-Yugoslavia, and, on the top of it, was the most cosmopolitan Yugoslav city, the thriving center of cinema and rock music - why? Precisely because it was the Muslim dominated city, where the Jewish and Christian presence was tolerated, in contrast to the Christian-dominated large cities from which Jews and Muslims were purged long ago.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/2dd45fJ

Obama has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to change the limits of what one can publicly say. His greatest achievement to date is that he has, in his refined and non-provocative way, introduced into the public speech topics that were once unsayable: the continuing importance of race in politics, the positive role of atheists in public life, the necessity to talk with “enemies”

SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/2dpCYmS

What happens to democracy when the majority is inclined to vote for racist and sexist laws? I am not afraid to conclude: Emancipatory politics should not be bound a priori by formal-democratic procedures of legitimization.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/2dqh00N

‘Instead of being bothered of what I am for the others, I fully assume the uttermost contingency of my being’’ Zizek writes on analysis

via http://twitter.com/AndreVantino (via andre-vantino) http://ift.tt/2dsxNyZ

Often one believes even if only indirectly through seeing how others believe, in this case ‘all that matters is that’ one believes ‘it to be true that most of the people around them believe’. And ‘for a particular ideology to survive, it is not essential that people actively support or believe in it’, Zizek writes.

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Those who advocate radical opening of the borders: Are they aware that, since our democracies are nation-state democracies, their demand equals suspension of—in effect imposing a gigantic change in a country’s status quo without democratic consultation of its population?

SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/2cYSXW3

When Angela Merkel made her famous public appeal inviting hundreds of thousands into Germany, which was her democratic legitimization? What gave her the right to bring such a radical change to German life without democratic consultation? My point here, of course, is not to support anti-immigrant populists, but to clearly point out the limits of democratic legitimization.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/2dqAH7C