And what experience shows is that, over the long term,
neither antagonistic action, based on the military or police model, directed
against enemies, nor Terror within your own camp can resolve the problems
created by your own political existence...
Ultimately, every political problem boils down to a problem of the unity
of orientation on an issue that is collectively defined as being the main issue
of the moment or of the situation. Even
a victory over the enemy depends on the subjective unity that was the
victors’. Over the long run, the key to
a victorious treatment of antagonisms
lies in the correct handling of contradictions among the people - which also
happens to be the real definition of democracy ... There is a necessary
slowness, both democratic and popular in nature, which is particular to the
time of the correct handling of contradictions among the people... What
...[that paradoxical] violence especially destroys is the time of emancipation,
which is on the scale of the life of humanity, not on that of the market’s
profit cycle. (Badiou, 2013: 9-11)
From Zizek (Ed. The Idea of Communism Vol., 2, London, Verso
2013)
