14:14, 13 October 2012 - Monoskop

Dog from the Freeway 131
‘For reasons of convenience you stayed close to the occupiers. Let us assume that
all the reports you heard are true. Let us further assume them to be true to the last
detail. Let us also assume that all the people you met were actually from Kampuchea
and not brought there, by the Vietnamese for example. Even then I fail to understand
the way you work and can’t understand how you can demand that
someone believe your reports. You are not the first journalists to be in a situation
like this. We had a similar situation in the Ukraine in 1941 when in the German armies’
wake one could obtain reports of the thirties under Stalin.
‘And of course, many of these reports were quite right. But the journalists who
kept on writing exclusively about them presented a skewed picture of the Soviet
Union. That is the one side, and that is what I meant when I talked about the cruelties
of the Vietcong or how one reports about events in Africa. You have to structure.
To structure a report you have to describe the invasion first and all the rest
afterwards. Only then can it all be understood. Otherwise, the reasons for how it
came to this remain pretty impenetrable.
‘I tried very consciously to introduce a structure, which discussed the need for irrigation
and showed the reasons behind the empty cities. I thought that this was the
right picture to paint of events and that it should be done. I cannot view it in any
other way than that you have been working not like fascist vultures – and the
thousands of journalists I have been speaking about weren’t either – but like the
dozens of journalists who swarm in the armies’ wake and gave honest reports
about the Ukraine, honest reports about the atrocities of the Vietcong, honest reports
about African atrocities.’
Myrdal demands that a picture of the Vietnamese invasion be shown prior to one
of the victims of the Pol Pot regime or the civil war which took place in Cambodia.
The Vietnamese themselves pointed to the image of American aggression when
shown a picture of the dead bodies in Cambodia. As they pushed into Cambodia,
they pulled out the image. These discussions are not about pictures, but about
what a picture represents. If it is representative, one may take an interest in what is
shown. If it is not sensitive, one has to be able to see through what is actually depicted.
Photos 1 and 2, both together and separately, have served to obscure Vietnam
rather than reveal it.
Myrdal’s remarks can be found in Befreiung (Berlin), no. 15/16 (1979).
5. Carl Schmitt, Theorie des Partisanen (Berlin, 1963). Words used by Carl Schmitt:
Acherontic-Acheron is the river that passes through the underworld. It marks the
boundary that the partisan crosses as he enters into history. Partisans declare limitless
war while rulers set the boundaries of war so that enmity cannot essentially
endanger their hold on power.
Nurtured enmity – like a game, enmity requires rules so that the players do not totally
risk their existence. The word ‘nurture’ is a familiar term in the field of horticulture.
Telluric – Coming from the earth. The partisan bases his claim on the soil he is
fighting for and in it lies his strength. Throughout history he has hardly ever been
successful without the help of an interested third party. According to his primary
nature, his fight is defensive. In their reasoning, Mao and Lin Piao or Giap all take