The Decline of the Class Struggle

Post-Marxism is important today. Post-Marxism implies that elements of Marxism are taken up and utilized for the struggle for freedom while other elements are rejected. We will now examine the issue of 'class' and why class is no longer relevant as a category to initiate a struggle for freedom. In moving from Marxism to post-Marxism in this way, we will have to marginalize certain identities, while bringing other identities closer to the struggle for freedom. We will also have to change the fundamental ways in which a Marxist views society and reality. But, we must also show how the Marxist way of doing analysis is still a positive way of articulating a struggle for freedom.

Class is no longer very relevant. This is because the class-based way of struggle (“class struggle”) only goes to divide the population along certain lines which do not 'naturally' pertain to how society is constructed in reality; the class struggle assumes the creation of a class consciousness, which is a slow and complicated process. Indeed, it is because of the inadequacy of the class struggle that there is so much violent conflict as a result of the struggle. Frustration is an important consequence in class struggle; frustration determines the violence of the class struggle; frustration signifies that the divisions of class are inadequate. Many a politician diverts the attention of the crowd towards the other from the upper class, as if the other is the problematic site of the class struggle. In fact, it is never another subject, but the Other of analysis and knowledge (“Other as language” in the Lacanian sense) which is problematic. But the Other is much more difficult to approach and counter for the masses than the other is; and countering the big Other may not be the way forward for struggles anyway. That is why the division of society based on class is still an easy way out for those who want to vent or apply frustration.

Society today is much more blended in than the divisions based on class makes apparent. The upper class person may be a kin or a friend of a lower class person and so on. Society is organically more whole rather than fractured along class lines. Different class elements interact in the everyday, that is, constantly, so it is highly impossible to formulate an antagonistic relationship between two classes. All classes are vital to society. For a class struggle, there is the need of an 'incubation' period, a preparing period...and it is this period where the nefarious elements of class struggle, such as propaganda, are produced. 

But, what is most important is that the lower classes of today have themselves been made into important objects rather than serving as an excess to capitalism. There is no human excess to capitalism today, in that, all peoples are relevant. This is the transition highlighted by Foucault in his text on the birth of 'population' as a category: it is the whole population which is at stake, which is equally important for power, than one class being privileged over another. The days of privilege are gone. With the extinction of privilege along class lines, any critiques of the culture of the upper classes are also no longer important (the cultural sphere is the location where privilege is made apparent.) 

Having rejected the division of class, we must still believe that Marxism is a positive way forward. We must propose another type of division. The solution here too is borrowed from Foucault and Lacan: the division based on 'self' and 'other' is more important. This is because of the possibility that the knowledge of Marxism is available to all and has, in a sense, become part of the norm. There is no need for the group or the collective. The group or collective had as its birth the classroom, where the total population was gathered. To put forward a dialectic not between the powerful teacher and the student, but between the students is an important step to achieve in post-Marxist times. The fundamental critique must be leveled on the collective itself during the process of its learning, the collective as population and the self as an rebellious outlier to it. This means that learning should be individualized, each individual must creatively offer itself to the knowledge material at hand. 

Globalization and Types of Information

The streams of information in the age of globalization have been 'multiplied,' in the sense that the same subject now receives information from different sources, with different levels of 'accuracy' of these pieces of information. What is first at stake is the question of who these informational statements are speaking to, and to what end. It seems that today they are more and more speaking of the subject in his/her immediate present and immediate surroundings. One can think of 'Google Maps,' which can help the subject map the location of where he/she is standing right this moment. Before the global era, information was not so fast and applicable to the surroundings of people as they moved about. There was a possibility of 'going underground' and being away from information, the subject was not as vital to the flow of information as it is today...

In the global era, the person is at the border between two streams of information. In a sense, rather than creating territories that are more and more adept at housing the person, the global era creates 'asubjective' territories where the person himself/herself is the border. Being at the border between two, the subject is open to both streams of information. The subject hears two statements of information at the same time. Big media today is precisely concerned with making what the subject hears more 'sonorous,' that is, of having both sets of information provide the same type of content and the same level of accuracy. Today, one statement informs the other. And, both statements interchange rapidly, informing one another continuously and constantly. This sonorous seamless character of two streams of information keeps the subject in check, and doesn't allow in the subject to foster doubt. The main goal, always, is to keep constructing the subject as being at the border, to make the information seem trivial to the subject by creating in the subject a massive void, so that the subject desires more information to fill this void.

In the more extreme global, in the global with high levels of intense conflict, the same two streams of information do not inform one another, but are rather dissonant with one another, and create noise. There is inaccuracy in the content of the information and a chance to foster doubt in the subject, but even more so, cause a disturbance in the subject as to the possibility of a 'true' world with straightforward facts. Thus, the accuracy of information between two streams (two big media houses) is what indicates the level of functionality of the global. In this conflict-ridden global, the subject is no longer a functional border, but rather is divided by the two sets of information it receives.

Multinational Organizations and a Structuring of (Anxious) Power

It is time to ask for the legacy of multinational organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. What have they achieved? It is not suffice to say that they have alleviated some of the world's problems, for these are not final but intermediate goals of the organizations...these are what they do in the everyday. But, what of their goals in the long-run? Since we do arrive at any conclusion from the fact that the West is, in fact, particularly obsessed with 'power,' we should ask, what have the multinational organizations done in the field of power? The answer is this: that they have constructed fantasies of structured power, meaning that, they have fantasized of having put power in a proper place and of having managed its flow into other places. 

What does it mean to structure something such as power? It means to spread out in different intensities the thing, but even before that, it means to divide and deconstruct the thing to such a degree that it becomes not something which can be captured by a single place, but is in fact many things/sub-components spread out across many places. So, structuring power is to eliminate power's oneness, and also to divide power along different intensities. This was achieved by the multinational organization: to divide the world along developed and developing lines, and then to posit different frameworks for each of these categories. The world, in other words, was fragmented along different intensities of power. We no longer live in a single (united) planet, but we live in a multiplicity...and our aim today, in servitude of power, has been to find more and more difference. 

Let us offer an explanation as to why there was the need in the developed world for such an organization as the UN or World Bank. It was inspired totally by a first-world problem: the inability to decide which nation would be the most powerful, and whether such a nation would be singularly powerful. Anxiety was key: anxiety that the other would be more powerful than one, and therefore, as an 'anti-anxiety' the developed world decided to combine and add up its resources and power, so that one wouldn't be more powerful than the many. Thus, we have the security council, where the heads of state all pool together their power and destabilize the weight of power in favor of themselves and away from the United States. A legally administered framework is in place, a placement of different nations along certain intensities of power so that any one nation cannot emerge as powerful within the framework. But what about outside the framework? It seems true that the structure is managed according to the agendas of what is outside of it. But what is most important is that the structure itself creates a position external/outside of it. It is not, therefore, in the context of an inside-outside reality where the structure is manifest, but, it is with the construction of a structure that the external is created. What we mean is that the UN did not emerge in the context of American dominance, but, it helped form American dominance in its own way. 

Anxiety does not completely quell the question of power, in a sense, anxiety is never a zero-sum game, but rather a compromise. The compromise here is that power would be maintained but it would be transformed into a multinational entity, rather than remain in the hands of a national entity. What is even more key about anxiety is that it is not so much turned towards the other (in a revolutionary vein) but rather turned towards the self (in a self-preservation vein). It does not seek to destroy the anxiety-producing other, it is not about valor, but, it is about making sure that one is protected, it is more defensive. Thus, it suffices when the other goes into hiding, when the powerful operates behind the scenes, where there is doubt as to whether the other operates or not. We have, in the security council of the UN, a great showcasing of the powerful network of individual nations, but, behind the scenes, the United States operates as the true power. As long as the US stays behind the scenes, the anxiety of other nations is not provoked and produced, but as soon as there is a show of power within the UN itself, then there is anxiety and a potential for conflict. The UN, therefore, poses as a neutral framework, a neutralizing structure, a structure which can defuse conflict and tensions...but in actual fact, there is an ignorance on the part of the UN regarding the fact that there are nations which operate their international relations outside of it. There is the real confusion in the UN between the notion that "power is structured" (a false notion) and "power desires (an other) structure" (a true notion). 

The UN is therefore a structure that does not itself have power but which manages power, which allows for a way to fight the anxiety of other nations in the face of US neo-imperialism. The UN upholds the illusion that it has true power, when in fact its only power is in upholding the veil which fights anxiety. But, if the UN is an empty mechanism, it certainly has another role to play in global politics: for if it is empty, it can be filled with a variety of substances...another very important role the UN body plays is by signifying the inevitability of the next empire. The UN is a body which can be used by any empire as it sees fit, it is a tool of power play and a tool of exercising power, without itself being powerful...it serves in the hands of the powerful. So, if the US withers away, the next power will be able to use the UN for its own ploys and tactics, and develop, via the UN framework, another type of international relations. This is precisely what the structuring of power means, that the principle of structuring has allowed empty positions to develop where different nations can sit and play their roles within the entire power play. And between the truly powerful and the rest is the question of anxiety, of self-preservation from a threat rather than any offensive towards itself gaining more power. 

The question now is this: how does one nation cease to play into its current position within the power play and become powerful by itself? How is there rebellion in a structure? Perhaps we have an answer if we revisit anxiety: a nation becomes anxious and defensive, not because of any weakness it sees with itself, but with the weakness of the mechanism (UN, World Bank) itself. When the mechanism which manages power itself becomes seen as weak, then there is anxiety among some elements within a structure. When the structure is weak, there is anxiety from structural elements within it. The veil itself appears damaged, allowing too much room for American power to manifest. Thus, with anxiety as its propulsion, a new nation challenges the veil, it challenges the UN. And there is now finally a conflict, between the US and this new nation, the outcome of which is that either this new nation is destroyed, or it gets a better position within the UN just to refurbish the veil of the UN itself. What this means is that, in global politics today, it is not so much about challenging the US which gives one power, but challenging and critiquing the UN, abstaining from the UN etc..the UN has become the site where power play can operate, a commons where two contesting powers conflict, rather than there being direct contact and friction between two powers. The irony is that, the more one nation abstains from the UN, or shows its anxiety regarding the UN, the more it becomes likely that it will be a dominant member of the UN in the future. The UN by itself has no answer to power play, it is formally ready for any type of power which seeks to fill it with substance. Therefore the UN is not a peace-building organization in any sense, it is rather, an organization which allows power to build itself and its influence in a very systematic manner, so that there is not much 'collateral damage' in the form of anxiety. 

And one gets anxious when one sees a glimpse of the other and thereafter begins the process of constructing a narrative about the other. What truth of anxiety can we shed here? We can say that anxiety is formed on the evidence that the other is in fact just like the self, that the other has the same desires as the self does, that the other is a mirror image of the self. The desires most hidden and suppressed within the self, when given a substance in the excluded other, provokes anxiety and posits questions and doubts regarding the whole power play of a tool such as the UN. It is not the case that an unfolding of the structure posits power at the end of it in a future which will never arrive, but, the excluded element is always animated, and makes of the whole structure a series of contact zones...the excluded element (neo-imperial USA) is very mobile, and it is this chaotic character too which causes anxiety among other nations. 

Police and the Criminal Court

We are attempting to turn the police against the courts, or at least to make the police realize that they are not within a common system with the courts, a system known as 'law-enforcement.' We start from the belief that it is the police which is the better organ, more justly in service of society, but the courts put it into a lot of troublesome scenarios. We must not take the relationship between the police and the courts for granted, meaning that we must not assume that both originated together and are in fact a part of same law-enforcement system. It is only today that the police and the courts have been so close to one another. In this relationship, the police has always come out secondary. It always seems that it is the police which is borrowing from the courts the terminology and tactic in how it should do its work. One consequence is how rigid the police system seems, the level of policing seems, today overburdened by its own call for discipline...its disciplining of another is often turned upon itself to become an act of self-discipline. The courts themselves have more flexibility, and seem to treat the law as something which is blurry in conception and in their execution of it. The police being the chief authority, because of its guns and badges, is in fact an illusory assumption; the real authority are the courts, the lawyers, the judges.

There are many concrete manifestations of the influence of the courts upon the police. The courts have a freedom of shaping the criminal. “The suspect was too violent” the courts may assert, and in the subsequent pursuit of suspected murderers, the police focuses on those which are “too violent”. In the character sketch of the criminal, the courts point to those traits of the criminal that selectively make some things sound more problematic over others; the criminal is made in the court and then found in the street by the police. The police understands what to look for depending on what the lawyer speaks, the lawyer who has private agendas, who has political agendas, who has biases...And borrowing from the courts, in the police's job too the issue becomes less to do with the truth and more to do with the more convincing argument. And the first step here is the intellectualization of the police, the making of the police into an enforcer of law. In this and many other ways, the courts influence the police in the process of criminalization. And what is the issue? Precisely that the private lawyer dominates the court, and therefore what is meant for public service is in fact for the private good. With its influence to the police force, the courts manage to steer what is supposed to be purely for the public/social good towards private agendas. The police finds inspiration from the courts in many ways: the treatment of the criminal in the courts, the way he is judged, the scenarios which are highlighted around him, and the degree of punishment he gets as a form of justice all have direct influences on the police when he/she is on duty. The police is a silent observer in the courts; it is supposed to watch and learn about the process of making a criminal.

It is true that it is difficult to truly note the foreign influence upon the police force. The police force, by itself, seems to demonstrate a great distance from any type of foreign influence, and seems to be a national organ through and through. But the foreign influence is in the courts: through a law education abroad, through the study of Western ethics etc. It would be fine if only the influence was foreign, but, in the contact points between the police force and the courts, there is often direct foreign intervention. Where the foreign law and the domestic police meet, where they have their most meaningful and productive contact is indeed obvious: it is nothing other than the prison. We must not consider the prison to be a backward place, a place that seamlessly integrates with the rest of Nepal in its lack of development...rather, the prison is a place of advanced knowledge, intelligent subjects, and a place with the continuous monitoring from foreign interests. The prison is not under the authority of the police, it seems so only because such an image has been crafted. Rather, the courts too have their presence in the prison, and their influence in the prison is quite deep. It is these courts that may facilitate the conversion of a prison into a mass prison system, and the criminalization of the population is already underway here. This mass imprisonment is possible thanks to the lawyers' equation between words “reckless,” “undisciplined” and others which the police is then allowed to associate with its suspects.

The Elites and Kathmandu's Urbanization

We notice the process of rapid and unplanned urbanization in Kathmandu, which indicates that urbanization does not have as its basis a willingness to make everyone live and work equally comfortably. Urbanization is a political-(monetary)-economic issue. Urbanization is the result of policies as conducive to the short term interests of elites. And what is the primary interest of the elites in this regard? What is the chief motive propagating urbanization in Kathmandu? To balance the power of the entrepreneurial class, meaning that, to make only a certain level and intensity of politics and political access available to the entrepreneurs. Historically, the local elites, perhaps from advice of their foreign counterparts, succeeded on one count: to separate the political class and the entrepreneurial class. To maintain such a separation of business and politics is obviously in their interest, since the elites do not only want to keep a hold of their wealth, but also of their political power. And the urbanization phenomenon is constructed so that it figures into an appeasement and an aggravation of the entrepreneur's political potential.

At the center of this relationship between the elite and the entrepreneur is money. Money is able to shorten the gap between the elite and the entrepreneur: the entrepreneur wants money in order to start his business, and the elite is willing to give it to him/her because money appeases the entrepreneur and buys his depoliticization. The flows of money is, in many ways, able to counter the gap between the elite and the middle class felt culturally, and felt in the field of other assets such as land. The transaction of money between the elite and the entrepreneur signifies that both are equal insofar as they both trade in money. Whereas money equalizes, on the side of the elite is land and on the side of the entrepreneur is politics, which cannot be traded as conventionally as money and goods valued with money. Today, politics does not have as much a price tag as land does (even when politicians can be bought and sold, this type of transaction is deemed a 'corrupt' practice and therefore becomes a secret and marginal practice), which signifies that the entrepreneur is gaining in power and ascendancy with the decline of elite feudalism. Feudalism was nothing other than the resistance of land towards monetary valuation. (The movement from land onto money is much smoother, and hence the transition from feudalism to post-feudalism was smooth, whereas the movement from land directly to politics, that is, the politicization of land, is much more violent, as is demonstrated by the Maoist struggle for land occupancy. As such, it seems the Maoists do not care for money ideologically, but want to occupy land directly as a expression of their political orientation, and this, for them, is true post-feudalism. And how can we begin to equate the Maoists with entrepreneurs? Because of their 'inventiveness' and 'innovation,' for one, which transmit from economic concerns to political ones.) 

The elites are the ones with the money available for investment and loaning. This is their monetary value, but they have a form of power as well, which is controlling the amount of money available for the entrepreneur. When the elite has his wealth in money, it becomes available to the entrepreneur. When money is available from the elites, the entrepreneur becomes depoliticized and interested in his business and in making more of his own money. This helps the elites cement their power. But, to make the picture more nuanced, in the short term when the money supply is reduced, the entrepreneurs are involved in the act of trying to persuade the elites to make more money available. There is, in the short term of the reduction of the money supply, a politicization favorable towards the elites. The elites can entrench their power further in the short term. But, in the longer term, there is inevitably unrest and more radical politicization when money is not available. With the supply of money low, the entrepreneurs attempt to take power from the elites, to take the land itself from the elites.

Thus, in Kathmandu, the politics surrounding land and money makes urbanization not a straightforward issue of people moving into the cities for better opportunities etc. People have been made to move into the cities by the power play; the land brokers are in the pockets of the elites, and so are the builders etc. The quality of life in the city is degrading, not just in Kathmandu, but in Beijing and Paris as well (pollution being the indicator)...The continuous growth of unplanned urbanization points to the fact that the elites are now more so than ever interested in reducing the supply of money in the market and transacting wealth in land, and the inevitable result will be widespread politicized unrest from the entrepreneurial class. The question is, why do elites want to restrict the supply of money when they know it causes political unrest? As will be elaborated in the next paragraph, this has to do with the fact that, because of 'wealth loss,' the elites are now not only in the process of preserving their wealth, but also of attempting to become really wealthy again. In this case, political unrest is the outcome of an political-economic incentive of creating more wealth to cement power.

Why is there such power play? What makes urbanization a phenomenon of recent history? In older times, the elites had significantly more wealth and power such that they could provide the entrepreneur population with money while maintaining other wealth as land. Today, the elites do not have as much wealth to go to all members of the much higher number of entrepreneur population. Some wealth is in the form of 'slippery' money, while other wealth is in the form of more sturdy land. Therefore, the elites play with the supply of money in the market, not to determine the amount of money available to all the entrepreneurs, but to determine the access of such money to a select few. To reiterate, the short term outcome will be more appeasement towards the elites to persuade them to give more, but in the long term there will be politicization and unrest. 

Paranoid Authority's Marginalizing of the Micro-Political

The micro-political level is understood here as the segments of population into small units (the family and the friend circle for example) in which the political opinion and view is expressed. It is 'micro' both in the number of bodies involved in each political unit, and in the intensity of application of any political agenda as developed by these small groups. The family, for instance, may be, through the authority of the father, a communist family or a capitalist family, but ultimately, the political orientation of such a family does not really matter in the national political realm, because the family's access to the making or shaping of national political decisions is minimal. At the same time, the family seeks to continue to express its own political voice and orientation, as if it chooses to ignore the fact that it does not have as much of a political clout as a macro-political level (workers, women etc) identity. What, then, is the function of the micro-political?

The micro-political is about the authority of the father (which is the chief authority in democracy) while the macro-political is about the authority of the politician (which is the chief authority in fascism and other forms of authoritarianism).  Sometimes it is beneficial for the political parties to see politics expressed in the family level more, and sometime it is better if the politics is expressed at a more macro level, as workers or women. It is all about balancing authority, and moving authority along a scale of paranoid to non-paranoid (in our understanding, in Deleuze and Guattari's conception, the non-paranoid limit is 'schizophrenic'). Sometimes paranoid authority is more useful, and the desired political orientation is fascism. At other times, democracy is more desired, and so non-paranoid authority is also desired. In this way, we may begin to contextualize the role of micro-politics and equate it with non-paranoid authority.

The family (the micro-political) is quite evidently non-paranoid in its political participation. Its political participation is limited to views and opinions within the family enclosure, and the political usually takes a second priority to other worries and responsibilities. I will share my political opinions freely, for only my father and mother are listening...It depends, however, also on the intensity of political participation desired by the father. The father may be intensely drawn towards public debate regarding politics, in which case the family may be more political than not. However, there is another type of loyalty within the family which overshadows loyalty towards politics, and this may have to do with the authority of the mother. Her participation in the family has very less to do with politics, indeed, she is the representative that resists the political participation of the family. When the mother's anti-political authority over the family takes precedence, then the micro-political level gives way to the macro-political where the family no longer has a political orientation and participation. The children are drawn towards more macro-level political debate, but at the same time are overtly cautious and paranoid...I have to be careful about my political views, for I do not know who is listening...Therefore, the mother has a key role to play in the onset of paranoid macro-politics in the national level, and in the general manifestation of authoritarianism in politics. The mother must come to realize that politics and political participation within the family, that is, the conversion of the family space into Habermas' public sphere is healthy and positive in order to reduce paranoid authoritarianism.

But the mother is not directly to blame. It all begins when the politician begins to pose as a paternal, father-figure, which replaces the (democratic) authority of the real father for a 'better father' who is the politician himself. This father-like politician is a really ploy to inspire authoritarian fascism or authoritarian communism. And so we may begin to see why, in the discourse of 'divorces,' 'problem children,' and 'single parent households' in the US (which is moving towards fascism), we see a problematization of the real father rather than the mother. With this problematizing, the real father may be replaced by the political father, and the family as a healthy political unit may come to seem weak...and the politician begins speaking of the nation itself as a family, at the same time making the real family more and more depoliticized and crafting this depoliticization as development, prosperity etc. So, what is the way of countering this marginalizing of the micro-political family unit over the macro-political? In the case of the family, it means that the mother should be more political, and replace the real father as the voice of political expression within the family, leading the political debate within the family. The politician must not replace the father, but the mother should. But, the friend circle, because the bonds are not quite so strong, is more problematic and yields more easily to authoritarianism.

The Style of Student Politics

The questions are: how should the student body be organized to make proper demands from the political sphere, and what type of demands should the student body make? What is the style in which the student body appears as a political body? How will the student body become more influential politically? We are concerned in this post in attempting to explore ways in which the student body can be made a stronger force in politics, but also not to play into the political apparatus and arena as it exists, but rather be more original in youthful political expression, voice and actions. Among other things, we will attempt to see a shift from the student body's ego being modeled on the older politician, to the youthful ego itself being the ideal ego for all types of politicians. 'Youth as ideal ego,' insofar as it elicits real identification from older members and styles in politics, is precisely the more positive identity of the student body in the political apparatus.  

We must first situate the problem of the student body in terms of its lack of self-identity and its faulty mobilization. The student body does not come forward as a group of youth, it does not highlight and emphasize the subjective experiences of youth in its approach towards the political level. Rather, the student body has been depoliticized in a certain mode, and has been 'made labor,' meaning that it is made into a labor force for the purposes of the usage of its energy for the vocalization of political demands. On the flip-side of 'sexual frustration,' for instance, is asexual and political energy...the libido as sex-drive channeled towards a protest movement...the organization of politics depending on one's orientation towards sexuality...the perverted student as the leader of the political sphere, for he enjoys the beatings. All of this shows not too little investment towards the political (we do not, like the West, suffer from apathy towards politics among the youth), but too much investment, beyond a 'spiritual' investment towards a physical investment; politics becomes means of subsistence in life, it begins to give life substance and structures life with a meaning. Enabling this is a wide plethora of books and other materials, romanticizing the political struggle over the political gain...the student body has no history, no legacy...and so, the student body is only important as a resistive force in politics, it is prized for its physicality, it is exploited for its youthfulness in terms of the energy available to expend; but once one party is truly powerful, there is no need for the student body. One reason for its lack of access to power is because the student body is forever the object of education and therefore will be educated differently, or problematized to such a degree that a different education is demanded as a solution; the party acts upon the student to problematize it, indeed, it is only the student body which has become the object of self-criticism from the party. Additionally, what is important is the issue of identification: the student's ego, always looking for education, a model, an ideal, identifies with the ego of the politician, and attempts to replicate the archaic life-path of the older politician: old fashioned street protests are mimicked for this reason. There is a generational similarity between the old and new where the younger imitates the older as an ideal ego. The student body should break off with this image of the older ideal ego. And the older politician is satisfied with this idealization, precisely because he/she confuses this basic level identification with actual political influence.   

What the students lack is a maturity in the formal political game. And to counter this, the components of its organization need to be well developed: beneath a leader should be sub-leaders and beneath them more sub-leaders, in other words, an entire hierarchical organization of the members; an institutionalization of the student body; a delegation  of responsibility and authority, but even more so a predictability within the political apparatus so that other political actors start to believe that the student body has actual political clout...the politicized student body is too fragile and temporary today. Even more so, the romanticizing of politics must be ignored, it has led the student body to take to the protest movement too easily, while the arena of more important politics, such as global-level politics, is more favorable to keeping an image of order; the goal of global politics being not so much to maintain peace, but to maintain an image of peace, to keep the streets peaceful even if the policies are causing much conflict 'in private' rooms; 'peace' has become a sign of maturity rather than power. What is most important to understand is that, in such a scenario, it is not so much that the student finds too much enemy on the streets, but that the student finds no one there to oppose it, it is rather alone in the streets, and its protests do not fall on the ears of those that are alienated from that type of political organization. In this sense, the student body is an immature political organization, for even when it is in full volume, nobody cares for it, nobody is willing to hear it...the movement of vehicles and people in the recent strike in Nepal showed how the students protesting were ignored, as if their political voice and will didn't exist; but people generally assume that the students are harboring ways of doing politics which are today a thing of the past. But, as we have tried to explain, they weren't ignored because they are weak politically, but that they come off as too strong, they demonstrate an intensity in reality which is inspired by their political and politicized fantasies.

In a sense, we are looking at the style of doing politics. We understand that this style has shifted, that the world does politics differently these days. First, the student body must find an original voice underlined by its unique subjective position of being the youth of this world; the student, related to the ideology heavy school, must instead understand and address himself/herself and others of his/her age as youth. Youth are not the object of the same level of intense discipline as students are. Youth are not immature, but rather in the cusp between maturity and immaturity, where there is a general disinterested distance towards the mature world. There is a hesitation in action. Most importantly, as a semblance, the youth would be more of an image of the political than reality. In one sense, then, the reading of distance from politics as apathetic is incorrect, because the youthful political agents are more careful and aware even in their distance from politics; they are going towards the post-political with an awareness of the political as problematic. Indeed, from the recent strike in Nepal, we do have an example of what youthful politics looks like: the empty bag that was suspected of being a bomb proved how the youth are borrowing from other struggles in the world, but only in the realm of distance and images, because the bag is empty...as if to say the student is not a student because there were no books in the school bag, but a member of the youth, who will play with the conception that we associate with a bag on the street. Say No to bombs? OK...but I will say No to books too as a Nepali youth! It is a borrowing of the style of doing politics from abroad rather than being too seriously involved. It is a way of saying that if elements of the global-level political have been kept away from the youth, the youth will themselves mysteriously inaugurate signs, such as the empty bag signifying terrorism, to play with the global-level political.