The Concept of the Soul
Can the concept of the soul be salvaged? Yes, and it can be salvaging. For me, the soul is the principle of modesty and subsumption in the world rather than human exceptionalism and arrogance. In a new book project, I will investigate three processes of soul formation: experiencing the world; thought as dialogue with the self; and interaction with absence. Absence is an ever-present dimension of the social, the political, the global, and of natural existence. In Arabic, ghayb is a very interesting notion for absence as an ontological category. It is usually understood as what only God knows – and we humans do not know. I understand ghayb differently: it is what we are not. And we are only one of millions of living species in the world, who experience the world in different ways. Thus, ghayb could be understood as related to the world of immanence rater than that of transcendence. Soul can also be a productive vantage point for a radical critique of Islamism or contemporary Islam. Contemporary Islam, whether political or jihadi, is soulless. The ontological absence, ghayb, is epistemologically absent (ghai’b) for modern Arab and Muslim thought.
2019-2020
Modes of Mass Murder: A Comparative Study
In what ways does mass killing in Syria differ from other well-known examples of mass murder in Rwanda, Cambodia, and before them Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Armenian Genocide? Variables like bureaucratization, the role of labor in concentration camps, and a theory of supremacy (of race or class) are either lacking in the Assadist mode of killing, in contrast to the Holocaust and the Gulag, or they are not systematic. Physical contact between the victims and the perpetrators was almost absent in the Soviet and Nazi killings, but this is not the case in Syria and Rwanda. The Daesh mode of killing preferably involves physical contact between the killer and the killed. What are the roles of religion, sect, and ethnicity in this mode? Can we differentiate between violent violence like what we experienced in Syria at the hands of the regime and Daesh, and the more organized and less violent violence of Israel against Palestinians for instance? Is it possible also to speak of historical progress in modes of killing, the way Marx talked about modes of production in his days? What are the relations between modes of killing and political systems, social structures, and cultural organization in specific countries? Are contemporary modes of killing understandable on the basis of individual countries: Syria, Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc.? What are the forms of articulation between violent and less violent modes of killing on the global level? Is it possible for us to interpret the contemporary world order (as it is institutionalized in the UN, many other organizations, and especially the UNSC) as a global organization of death, violent death? Finally, is politics without violence, even organized and legitimately monopolized violence, possible?