Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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follow from oppression as such. There has to be a discourse that makes<br />
oppression visible as oppression. As Camus puts it in ‘The Rebel’:<br />
“The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical<br />
equality conceals great factual inequalities. […] We can only deduce from<br />
this observation that rebellion is the act of an educated man who is aware<br />
of his own rights.” [28]<br />
104<br />
DEMOCRACY TODAY<br />
In the light of this quotation, we can offer a new interpretation<br />
of Mouffe’s plea for the re-institution of a left-right division. What<br />
is necessary is not conflict as such (although it is unavoidable), but a<br />
(leftist) discourse which shows suppression as suppression, thereby<br />
encouraging political action, and thus, hope. Of course, such a discourse<br />
is not totally exterior to political action and hope. It is interwoven<br />
with it and receives its shape and content through it, but it retains a<br />
degree of exteriority. What, then, is the relationship between action<br />
and hope, on the one hand, and discourse that initiates action, on the<br />
other hand? I would say that a discourse is on the side of the ontic:<br />
it is the instance through which action and hope come into existence<br />
and express themselves. The particular content that will express the<br />
ontological relation between action and hope is a contingent matter.<br />
Hope can be embodied by a fascist, nationalist or leftist discourse. The<br />
ontological connection between action and hope <strong>do</strong>es not determine<br />
which particular discourse will express it. The latter will become the<br />
subject of a hegemonic struggle. [29]<br />
<strong>Democracy</strong>: a tragic hope?<br />
The nihilistic challenge can therefore only be overcome if we accept<br />
the ontological connection between action and hope. This means that<br />
28<br />
Camus (1960) 14.<br />
29<br />
Zournazi (2002) 127:“Hope is always related to a certain lack which is the reverse of the<br />
discourse of hope. The point is […] that the concrete content which is going to incarnate<br />
that need for something which is unspecified is not given from the beginning… What we<br />
have to define in this hegemonic game is the attempt to channel this particular content<br />
and this broad social hope which has no precise content of its own.”
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