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A Philosophical Theory of the Politics of Space: Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Spatial Aura

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A Philosophical Theory of the Politics of Space: Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Spatial Aura A Philosophical Theory of the Politics of Space: Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Spatial Aura Saladdin Ahmed Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the PhD degree in Philosophy Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Saladdin Ahmed, Ottawa, Canada, 2013 For Melissa Kajarvzadî. ii Acknowledgements I was very fortunate to have Dr. Douglas Moggach as my thesis advisor. His commitment to reading each chapter of the dissertation as well as the final draft promptly and with care enabled me to meet each deadline I had set for myself in the original timetable for the thesis proposal. Most of all, I would like to express how much I admire and am grateful to Dr. Moggach for his willingness to entertain new and even contentious ideas. Without such open-mindedness on his part, this dissertation would not have been possible. Especial thanks also go to my internal thesis examiners: Dr. Isabelle Thomas-Fogiel, Dr. Denis Dumas, and Dr. Justin Paulson. I thank each of them for their close readings of my thesis and their corresponding comments. Further thanks go to Dr. Paulson for joining my thesis committee and agreeing to read my dissertation on such short notice, as well as his detailed commentary on the text. It certainly made making the final corrections much easier. I also would like to thank my external examiner, Dr. Samir Gandesha for his role in this process. I especially thank him for his presence and valuable comments at my defense in spite of schedule changes, a last minute emergency, and the dreaded technological difficulties of videoconferencing. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Viren Murthy for his comments and suggestions on my thesis proposal. iii CHAPTER 1: ON BAATHISM AND TOTALITARIANISM 1 PURPOSE OF CHAPTER 1 ON BAATHISM 1 ON TOTALITARIANISM 24 THE TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT AND ITS PROBLEMS 24 NOT CULTURE, BUT THE CULTURE INDUSTRY 29 REFUTING THE CULTURAL INTERPRETATION 29 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CULTURE INDUSTRY 36 COMMODITY RELATIONS, HEGEMONIC TOTALITARIANISM, AND CAPITALISM 43 CLOSING 50 CHAPTER II: LEFEBVRE’S THEORY OF THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE 58 A PRELIMINARY MAP OF THE PROBLEMS AND THE PATH TO CONCEPTUALIZATIONS 58 INTRODUCTION: 61 A- LEFEBVRE’S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE DIALECTIC 62 LEFEBVRE’S ACCOUNT OF HEGEL’S DIALECTIC 62 LEFEBVRE’S OBJECTION TO THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC 66 LEFEBVRE’S MARXISM 69 B- LEFEBVRE’S THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE 74 SPACE AS PRODUCTION; TOWARDS THE THEORY OF SPATIAL DIALECTICS 74 LEFEBVRE’S SPATIAL DIALECTIC 81 CONCLUSION: MORE SPATIAL CONCEPTS FROM LEFEBVRE’S THEORY WITH A CONNECTION TO AURA 97 CHAPTER III: FOUCAULT AND SPACE 104 PANOPTICISM AS A MEANS OF THE PRODUCTION OF TOTALITARIAN SPACE 105 CONCLUSION 129 iv THE GAZE 130 HETEROTOPIA OR THE POETICS OF SPATIAL AURA 135 CHAPTER IV: BENJAMIN AND AURA 142 NAVIGATION 142 PART I: WHAT IS AURA? 144 CONCLUSION 174 PART II: THE DESTRUCTION OF AURA AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS 178 RE-NAVIGATION 199 CHAPTER V: ANCHORING 200 REVISITING THE BAATH STATE 200 IMAGES IN THE BAATH WORLD 205 THE IMAGE OF THE LEADER AND TOTALITARIAN SPACE 209 1- MECHANICALLY REPRODUCED IMAGES AS MEANS OF CREATING A HYPERREALITY. 211 2- MECHANICALLY REPRODUCED IMAGES AS MEANS OF PANOPTICISM 217 3- MECHANICALLY REPRODUCED IMAGES AS MEANS OF PRODUCING AND MAINTAINING THE OMNIPRESENT CULT 225 4- MECHANICALLY REPRODUCED IMAGES AS REPETITIVE PATTERNS SIMULATING SPATIAL SAMENESS 241 CONCLUSION 249 REFERENCES 257 v Abstract The central argument advanced in this dissertation is that the production of totalitarian space relies on the systematic destruction of spatial aura. I begin by critically studying the term “totalitarian” with references to Hannah Arendt and Robert Conquest, and re-appropriating it based on relevant insights from Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Georg Lukács, and Slavoj Žižek. In the meantime, I introduce the Baath state in Syria and Iraq as an example of totalitarianism, and present a concise account of its ideological history. Here I also shed light on important aspects of Critical Theory, which will have a recurring role throughout the project. I then discuss spatial production by critically explicating Henri Lefebvre’s dialectical theory of the production of space, which claims that space is produced according to the dominant modes of production. However, despite its critical significance to my project, Lefebvre’s theory alone cannot account for totalitarian space. Therefore, after pausing on Lefebvre’s concepts of appropriated versus dominated spaces, I move to Michel Foucault’s work on the Panopticon as a major spatial technology of power and a generalizable formula in societies of control and discipline. I also introduce Foucault’s heterotopia and Gaston Bachelard’s poetic space as counter examples to totalitarian space. Indeed, I argue that Lefebvre’s appropriated space, Foucault’s heterotopia, and Bachelard’s poetic space all have something in common. Aura, with its inherent negativity, is precisely the concept to indicate such spatial uniqueness, the systematic elimination of which is definitive of totalitarian space. In addition to critically exploring Walter Benjamin’s definitions of aura and developing his secularized notion of it, I also focus on his claim that mechanically reproduced works of art lack aura. This then brings me to the last stage of my project where I argue that mechanically reproduced images are not just auraless; they also destroy the aura of space. Finally, by way of illustration, I turn back to the example of the Baath state and analyze the use of mechanically reproduced images of the leader as destroyers of spatial aura and thus crucial components of the production of totalitarian space. vi Chapter 1: On Baathism and Totalitarianism Purpose of Chapter This dissertation is about totalitarian space and the aura of space, and argues that totalitarian space is produced through the destruction of the aura of space via the proliferation of mechanically reproduced images. Throughout the project, I will use examples to illustrate some points with regard to my main thesis. The most prominent examples will be from the Baath states in Iraq (1968-2003) and Syria (1963-present), occasionally drawing upon my personal observations in those two states. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is limited to the presentation of a short introduction to Baathism, and clarification of my use of the term “totalitarian”. More specifically, this chapter provides: 1- an introduction to the ideological and geopolitical contexts of some of the examples I will use in the last chapter with regard to the role of images in the production of totalitarian, or auraless, space, and 2- an accompanying introduction to the theoretical appropriation of the term “totalitarian”. A more focused discussion on “space” will begin in the second chapter, which centers upon Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space. On Baathism In 1990, my high school Arabic teacher, who was one of the tens of thousands of Arab settlers brought to the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq within a three-decade-long government Arabization campaign, said, “What if Mr. President shows up in our class now? Perhaps it is not appropriate to bring Mr. President into everything in our everyday lives, but to make things better, we always have to imagine the scenario of ‘what if his Excellency suddenly shows up wherever we might be; what will he say about how we do whatever we 1 are doing?’” This teacher’s imaginary world was fed by millions of images of Saddam across Iraq, as well as images of him being everywhere. Saddam also infiltrated television, where he was seen and heard making comments on everything from the most private matters to the broadest issues in world politics. One day Saddam would be seen opening a poor household’s refrigerator (the propaganda message being how closely connected he was to ordinary people). Another day he would be advising people about the importance of teeth brushing or how essential it is for everyone to take a shower at least once a day. Then, he would be preaching about wars, victories, the historical mission of the Iraqi people, the struggle against the nation’s endless enemies, and so on. Actualizing this omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent figure was the priority for all the state apparatuses. The state was everywhere and Saddam was the state. Saddam was the head of the ruling Baath Party, the president of the republic, the prime minister, the commander-in-chief, and the head of all kinds of other powerful councils and institutions. As if that were not enough, Saddam was also everywhere in between in the form of mechanically reproduced images throughout the country. In 1979, Saddam officially became the absolute ruler of Iraq, but only after he had constructed a huge and loyal network of secret police (Darwish and Alexander 1991; Sumaida and Jerome 1991; Makiya 1998; CARDRI 1989). By that time, the Baath state had already become both the reality and the nightmare of people everywhere in Iraq. Moreover, the totalitarian nationalist state met one of its essential conditions represented in hero-worship, 1 and the hero was Saddam. From 1979, Saddam penetrated all social spaces and re-formed people’s desires, dreams, and rationality. In such an irrational world, rationality itself becomes irrational. Perhaps a story of a man who dreamt of the death 1 Ernst Cassirer designates three components of a totalitarian nationalist state: a populist cult-leader, the belief 2 of Saddam can give us an idea of that world of madness and fear. In 1991, as Kurds in Iraq rebelled against the rule of the Baath Party and freed their cities for a few weeks, the Iraqi regime took around 15,000 Kurdish men hostage from the city of Kirkuk in order to prevent the uprising of the Kurdish population there.
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