Peter Hallward and Alberto Toscano's Open Letter of Support to the Demonstrators of Iran

A confusing document. It is authored by two London-based Marxist academics, both prominent in the scene around contemporary Marxist continental philosophy, and signed by a selection of more prominent figures of continental philosophy (Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Jacques Rancière, Étienne Balibar), the serial letter-signer Noam Chomsky, and perhaps more interestingly the Middle East expert Juan Cole (whose signature is inexplicably buried in the general mass of signatures) and the analytical philosopher Philip Pettit.

More telling perhaps are those who have not signed: Alain Badiou is the most prominently absent, and one might also question the absence of any of the colleagues of Hallward or Toscano at their respective institutions (Middlesex and Goldsmiths). The absence of other figures involved in the On the Idea of Communism conference in London recently in addition to Badiou should be noted: Toni Negri and Michael Hardt, and Terry Eagleton. Update: a commenter points out that the latest version includes the signature of Alain Badiou; it also includes Hallward's colleague, Eric Alliez.

What kind of statement is this? It is an extraordinarily vacuous one. It states that we are wary of supporting the protestors, but also wary of the government's excuses for clamping down on the protestors. Its title is the only unambivalent part: it is a statement of support, but in fact its conclusion appeals only to the Iranian authorities not to clamp down against democratic contestation of state power.

This strikes me as extraordinarily redundant: the basic fact is that we don't know who won the election. Since we don't know that, we don't know who is right. We do know that the protesters believe the election was stolen, and that the state does not recognise this. In such circumstances, we stand poised for a bloody fight to the finish. This is in fact what one should expect when the legitimacy of elections is not accepted: the only way power can be contested now is by brute force. By condemning the force of the state in advance, Toscano and Hallward side with the protestors against the state. This strikes me as an unacceptable position to take, inasmuch as we can't know whether they are right.