Rita Segato: "Gaza is a watershed moment, and the left is falling behind"

Börries Nehe: You recently mentioned in an interview that you find it increasingly difficult to be happy. And at a recent conference, you declared yourself “ex-human” and said that you don't want to belong to “this sinister human species”. What causes you such despair?

Rita Segato: We are living in a situation of unbearable pain. What is happening in Gaza, in Argentina, in the world in general, causes me to feel a great sense of despair and hopelessness. I see the world in a state of absolute calamity. And that didn't start on 7 October, but much earlier. I argue this in a text about Palestine that I wrote years ago, called El Grito Inaudible (The Inaudible Cry). And why is that cry inaudible? Because there is no longer any legal grammar, because there is no longer any grammar that organises interpersonal and social relations. Of course, the law, including human rights, was always a fiction. But it was a fiction we believed in, it was a sacred fiction, as Giorgio Agamben says. That legal fiction has now collapsed. Today, the law is the law of the power of death.

This is perhaps a summary of what I always say, because it is my conclusion about the present: one difference between the Holocaust and Gaza, a very big difference for me, is that although there was some news, when they entered the camps, there was surprise. Not today. Today, what is happening in what will now be the ghetto of Gaza is on display to the world. We are being told: Look, this can be done, the law no longer exists, there are no rights. The new law is the power of death, and whoever has that power is the law.

That is why I say that we are all Palestine. For anyone still sensitive to the suffering of others, Palestine is a daily torture. They are killing our hope of living, our hope for an acceptable world.

A very important part of your work revolves around violence, specifically patriarchal violence, feminicide, impunity. Do you think these are categories that help us understand the logic of genocide in Gaza? 

I think what we are seeing in Gaza has to do with my model of understanding patriarchal violence. And that patriarchal violence has to do with what I call expressive violence: I consider sexist violence not to be instrumental violence, but rather spectacle violence. Men need to exhibit their capacity for domination in order to be men.

There is a strong patriarchal element in the history of the present, which has to do with the display of power as a strategy of domination. That display of power is fundamental in the lives of men from an early age, in the way masculinity is formatted.

I began to develop this idea in 1993, when my university requested research on street rape in Brazil. I had never studied violence before. But together with my students I went to interview men convicted of rape, and there I began to understand that what they had done was a display of their capacity for domination through rape. It has nothing to do with desire or sexuality. What lies behind it is a narcissistic, self-referential desire that has to do with the need to present themselves to others, especially other men.

I believe that there is a very strong patriarchal element in the history of the present, which has to do with the display of power as a powerful strategy of domination. That display of power is fundamental in the lives of men from an early age, in the way masculinity is formatted. I think Trump's case is a typical example of the exhibitionism of power as a strategy. He is the latest great incarnation of patriarchal power.

I agree, in Gaza we are witnessing a spectacle of violence and power. But perhaps I see a difference with your writings on, for example, the femicides in Ciudad Juárez. And that is that today, a significant part of society applauds and openly supports it. How do you understand this –I would say fascist– celebration of unlimited power and cruelty?

I refer to Hannah Arendt and her study on ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ (1952) to explain this. Arendt argues that when Nazism emerged, there was a moment when the laws of individual behaviour and the law of history became separated. In other words, history itself claimed a right of its own, and the goal and right of history was to produce the perfect man, the Aryan race, the imposition of one people over others. And everything that was dysfunctional to that goal and right of history, which was separate from the rights of individuals, had to be eliminated.

Today, the 'legitimate' history is the one that points in the direction of capital: competitiveness, productivity, profit generation, accumulation and concentration. Anything that is dysfunctional to that may well disappear.

In the case of Stalinism, the structure was the same, but it revolved around something that I had been criticising in our militancy in Latin America in the 1970s, which is the idea of a utopia as an obligatory future. The idea that we can know what the future should be like is supremely stupid, and inevitably leads to unbearable forms of authoritarianism. So, in Stalinism, history and the rights of individuals became completely irrelevant. What became important was the right of history to move towards a utopia, a little picture of a future of equality.

Today we are in a similar situation and structure of consciousness. History is heading towards accumulation and concentration, and it is for those who are functional to it. Today, the 'legitimate' history, the one that must be defended, is the one that points in the direction of capital: competitiveness, productivity, profit generation, accumulation and concentration. And anything that is dysfunctional to that may well disappear. It is the same structure of a mandatory path, where history has its values and rights, and people do not.

Would you say that this logic is being imposed by capital, or is it enforced by the people themselves – those who, ultimately, will no longer be of value?

I have two ethnographic examples, which would be comical if they weren't so tragic. I was recently at Madrid airport, and next to me was a bourgeois lady in her 80s with her son in his 50s, also very well dressed. A beggar passed by asking for money to buy a sandwich, and I heard the man shout at his mother, ‘You're weak! You're weak!’, because his mother was looking in her purse for some coins to give to the beggar. So I said to the man, ‘No, listen to me, your mother isn't weak, she's good.’ He looked at me with such hatred that I rushed away.

Then I told a friend about it, and he told me that the same thing had happened to him. He was at a meeting of his building's condominium association, which had been called because they wanted to dismiss the concierge who had worked and lived in their building for 20 years. They wanted to dismiss her a year before she retired to avoid the costs of retirement. So my friend protested and said that was wrong. But the other residents reproached him, telling him that ‘that's do-goodism.’ What do you say to that? Other values are there, another morality. Just as Nazism brought another morality, and Stalinism brought another morality, another morality has come among us. And people think that the useless must disappear, and be exterminated.

Why do these ordinary people so publicly and expressively adhere to this capitalist cruelty?

I think people are responding by putting on a uniform. They are uniforming themselves with this ideology and this ethical and moral path as well. That is why they express it, that is why they affirm their sympathy. They are putting on the Nazi, Stalinist, or capitalist uniform, and in this way they are showing that they belong to that history. So, what I want to emphasise is the importance of this expressiveness without denying its purpose. 

In the case of common street rape, the purpose is the reproduction of the patriarchal position, of being a man. And for the examples I gave, the purpose is to prove belonging, adhering to that history by wearing its uniform . A history in which many of those in uniform will also be sacrificed. But they do not perceive it.

I would like to discuss some of the categories and perspectives you propose, because I think they help us understand our violent present and its global interconnections. At the heart of it is perhaps the question: what lines can we draw between gang violence in Latin America, the war on migrants in the United States and Europe, and what is happening in Gaza? When I look at these – and other – examples, I see above all three of your ideas that allow us to make that connection: first, the question of the instrumental and expressive dimensions of violence; second, the issue of coloniality and the production of 'race' to organise violence; and third, what you call 'permanent conquista' [1], that is, the processes of dispossession and accumulation.

What I see in Gaza is the absolute absence of shame in the use of cruelty, and the shameless defence of accumulation and concentration as a historical virtue. I emphasise the aspect of spectacle because I believe it is present, but I do not deny that there is a purpose behind it. There is a purpose, and that purpose is power.

The mafialisation of Latin America is a form of domination, and of making democratic governance impossible.

I want to emphasise the expressiveness in this, because here lies a difference compared to the conquista (the colonization of the Americas). The conquista was not carried out in accordance with the Laws of the Indies, with courts and the great wars of the Spanish armies against Moctezuma and Atahualpa, as we have been told. Our continent was founded by gangs. They were groups of men who went out into the countryside to kill everything in their path.

So the gang violence that afflicts us now in Latin America, I don't understand solely in economic terms or drug trafficking profits, but as a political coup. Gang violence is a blow to the possibility of democratic governance. It is a new form of coup d'état. We see it clearly in Mexico, and from there it is spreading south, taking hold in Ecuador and Peru. This mafialisation of the continent is not only economic, it is politically fuelled. It is a form of domination and of making democratic governance impossible.

In all this, it is specific, racialised bodies that are the primary targets of this violence. How do you think about the relationship between conquista and race?

The conquista invents and racialises peoples and landscapes, the bodies that come. What is race? Race is not in the body, it is a relationship read in a body, by an eye that knows the history of that body, how it moves, how it expresses itself. Racialisation is applied not only to bodies, but also to landscapes and spaces.

I, for example, have four European grandparents, but I am not white—I am a particle, an emanation of a colonial landscape. I am a Fanon. We are all Fanon when we arrive in Paris. There are differences in phenotypes, but the continent from which we emanate is marked in our behaviour. Have you seen the images of the Palestinians? Many of them are blond. The Syrian boy who died at sea, who caused so much pain, was blond. What is race? Race is being a particle of a racialised, colonised continent.

Race is a relationship read in a body by an eye that knows the history of that body, how it moves, how it expresses itself. ... Race is being a particle of a racialised, colonised continent.

The French defined it perfectly when they spoke of the ‘pieds-noirs’: even if they were born in the centre of France, whoever went to administer Algeria was no longer French when they returned, but a pied-noir. Because the soil had stuck to the soles of their feet, the African soil had blackened them.

Race is instrumental; racialisation is a form of power, of producing bodies from which a much more lasting surplus value can be extracted than from class. Because there is no social advancement, since a body marked by certain racialised traits faces far greater obstacles to upward mobility. And in that relationship, conquest is permanent. All of this is entangled today in a world whose value is directed towards accumulation and concentration, and anything that interferes with that historical goal does not reach its destination.

Along with ‘race’ and its more contemporary derivatives, what is currently at the centre of the authoritarian right's discourse is women's bodies and gender issues in general. At the same time, feminist movements around the world are often the most mobilised and capable groups in responding to the politics of death. In the picture you paint, why is the issue of gender so central to the struggles?

The effort made by all the political factions that converge in the defence of accumulation and concentration to undermine women's demands shows how much we threaten them. For me, this is a reason to rejoice!

But the question is, why does it bother a powerful business owner like Elon Musk that a woman has an abortion? The answer I get is, ‘Because they want there to be a surplus in the labour market so that labour is cheap.’ But no, the problem right now is that there is a surplus of humanity! Labour is not needed, on the contrary. So why then? It is not easy to answer that question.

Well, the threat lies in the sovereignty over one’s own body, in women’s disobedience when they exercise sovereignty over their own bodies. Autonomy, that is the threat - a threat that shows that it is possible to steer history in another direction. This autonomy reveals their fear of what could emerge as a female-led history– what I call a female politics. It comes from an accumulation of management experiences that originate in the domestic sphere but are moving into the public sphere. It comes from a management of life that has other rules, other purposes, other values and other management strategies, and it comes from another history, which is the history of women.

In recent years, we have seen a huge accumulation of forces from feminist movements globally, an impressive expansion with marches involving millions of people, the feminist strike, etc. But in Latin America, as in Europe, the movement seems to have reached another moment in its history. Where do you see feminism today? 

Feminism has always had moments of ebb and flow in the streets. The emergence into the public space, the marches, were moments. And then there is a retreat. But the idea of a world-view and political perspective based on women's experiences has never stopped. These are two different things, and you cannot judge the progress of feminism solely by the moments when it takes to the streets. Feminist thought is not retreating; it continues with great force.

Women's proposals are aimed at changing the world. It is a movement for a historic change of course. And for that, a great effort must be made to renew political rhetoric.

What we need to think about is the relationship between feminist thought and politics in general, what I call the Political. Because women's proposals are aimed at having a universal impact on all people, at changing the world. It is a movement for a historic change of course. And for that, a great effort must be made to renew political rhetoric.

I think there is an end, a moment of decline, an emptying of slogans and of the ways we imagine history. I truly believe that Gaza is a watershed moment in history, a change of era. So I believe that what we call the left is falling behind. Why are people in my country, Argentina, not rising up against Milei as they did in 2001? Because people do not want to go backwards. They want to move forward when there is a way out. What does that mean? New slogans, new ideas, new words. We need to come up with new names for politics, new goals, new concepts. It's a huge effort of intellectual, collective imagination. Because everything we've used up to now has reached its end, it's expired. It's not that we have to forget the authors, I'm not talking about that, but we need to be clear that the history from here on out has to be invented, it has to be created.

To do this, we need to generate a new rhetoric for people's aspirations. And women's aspirations are an important path for collective history. We must de-minorise them: they are aspirations for collective history. They are not for the history of women, but for the history of all of humanity.

[1]  see Rita Segato, The Critique of Coloniality: Eight Essays, Routledge 2022