虽然齐泽克可以说是最为重要的欧洲思想家，但就对多数人的相关性来说, Lewis R Gordon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr，汪晖和 Enrique Dussel等人的作品却更为重要。
扎巴拉与达巴什在Al Jazeera上的争论引发了21世纪至为关键的一个议题：不断加剧的再西方化(表现为不断接受西方思维方式的改造，从基督教到自由主义和马克思主义)，在生活，政治，经济，宗教，美学，知识和主体性等所有领域的去西方化与去殖民化。
争论只要集中在知识和主体性两个领域。争论源于扎巴拉讨论哲学家角色的一篇文章,其中齐泽克受到赞许。在回应中,达巴什区分了西方思想家和那些供职在欧美学院的非欧洲思想家,认为这两个群体的意义有所不同。
扎巴拉对达巴什的回应强调齐泽克对共产主义概念的创新。我将自己的论述集中在他们的争论范围内。毕竟,我是一个研究边界与去殖民化的思想家。
对等级制的信仰
达巴什对扎巴拉关于哲学家角色的回应文章,致使原本不会被某些群体注意的扎巴拉文章进入了公共领域的视野。达巴什的回应首先从后者文章的开头一段入手:
今天有很多重要且活跃的哲学家：如美国的朱迪丝·巴特勒，英国的克里奇利(Simon Critchley)，西班牙的坎普斯(Victoria Camps)，法国的让-吕克·南希，比利时的墨菲;意大利的瓦特莫(Gianni Vattimo)，德国的斯洛特迪克(Peter Sloterdijk)以及斯洛文尼亚的齐泽克，更不要说其他在巴西、澳大利亚和中国的哲学家了。
达巴什并没有提及那些哲学家的名字。这种沉默反倒将名字的意义问题推向了前台。他的回应说，在这个星球上，我们的生活就是变化，而非生活在变化的时代中。在知识领域中，时代的变化就体现在与殖民主义、帝国主义认识论的区分结构所造成的长远影响相脱钩的过程中。
根据这个框架，美洲土著拥有智慧，而美洲白人拥有科学;非洲人拥有历史，欧洲人拥有哲学;第三世界拥有文化，第一世界拥有社会科学，其中包括研究第三世界文化的人类学;中国人与印度人拥有传统，但欧洲人拥有现代性;穆斯林生活在宗教中，而欧洲人则是世俗化的。
非欧洲思想家在想什么?
我阅读了扎巴拉关于哲学家角色的文章，并非因为我对齐泽克感兴趣(其实我毫无兴趣)，而是因为这是扎巴拉所写。在过去的三年中，我们在很多会议上都有所交流，建立了电子邮件联系，就彼此的文章进行交流。
我阅读欧陆哲学，并非想以之作为指路明灯，去处理非欧洲国家的历史，而是对"他们"所想，"他们的"关怀以及"他们"的志向颇感兴趣。
我的大部分时间都用来与非欧洲思想家打交道。当我与欧洲哲学家打交道时，我往往从非欧洲思想家那里得到启发和指导。其中一个例子就是《对"欧洲中心主义"的左派辩护》(1998)。
我阅读这篇文章，并非因为这是出于齐泽克之手，而是因为其欧洲中心主义的主题。对这个问题我非常关注，其次，对那些论述这一问题的人，我也非常感兴趣。作为非欧洲思想家，我对该文章的第一句话有所异议：
当有人说到欧洲中心主义时，每一个自重的后现代左派知识分子都会避而不及，就像戈培尔对待文化那样--赶紧去找枪，控诉这是有法西斯主义色彩的欧洲中心主义的文化帝国主义。但，左派是否有可能去继承这一欧洲政治遗产?
我在其他地方对这篇文章进行了详细讨论。这里我只集中关注一点。我对这段话的回应如下：
当有人说到欧洲中心主义，每个自重的去殖民主义的知识分子都不会像戈培尔对待文化那样暴力，不会去找枪，也不会给对方带上元法西斯主义的西方中心文化帝国主义的大帽子。
一个自重的反殖民主义知识分子不是去找枪，而是去找法侬："现在同志们，现在到了下定决心，改变立场的时候了。我们必须摆脱束缚我们的夜之斗篷，从而走向光明。当新的一天到来，拂晓之时，我们必须已然下定决心，真理在手，勇往直前。因此，我的兄弟，我们必须明白，除了对欧洲亦步亦趋之外，我们还有更好的选择。"
有了这些评论，我不打算再去质疑扎巴拉对哲学家齐泽克的评价。我要说的是，反殖民主义知识分子而非哲学家，除了亦步亦趋于欧洲哲学家的议题之外，正如法侬所说，"还有更好的选择"
相关性不是普遍的
达巴什提出的问题对我们--前第三世界国家的思想家(即便我们中的很多人都在美国)来说，并不新鲜。我并不是想说不新鲜意味着达巴什的回应已经过时了。我的意思是这些问题至少从20世纪5、60年代以来在非洲，加勒比，南美都讨论过了。但这些问题是在"我们中间"讨论的，而不是"与他们"。
现在这种区分的或者说知识论的力量开始在"我们"(欧洲以外的以及欧洲的哲学家)中受到讨论。在外交界的例外是马凯硕(Kishore Mahbubani )1999年出版的争议书籍《亚洲人会思想吗？》。
如果我们要用"philosophy" (哲学)这个概念来定义不管是欧洲还是非欧洲的思想者，我会认为齐泽克或许是今天最重要的欧洲哲学家，但他的工作对于很多人来说相关性不如牙买加哲学家 Lewis Ricardo Gordon，伊朗哲学家Seyyed Hossein Nasr，中国哲学家汪晖，埃及哲学家 Nawal El Saadawi和拉丁美洲哲学家Enrique Dussel.
而且，如果在齐泽克背后是德里达的大陆哲学传统，那么gordon的背后是非洲哲学中的法侬，Nasr背后是穆斯林哲学中的Ali Shariati，汪晖背后是中国哲学传统中的鲁迅，El Sadawi背后是穆斯林的法尔萨法哲学传统，Dussel背后是拉美哲学中的Rodolfo Kusch.
相关性不是普遍的，而是依赖于意义世界和决定了相关性的信仰系统。在将西方哲学的帝国主义传统去西方化和去殖民化的过程中，我们拥有了构成一个多元世界的思想家和哲学家。欧洲以外世界的哲学一直是也仍然是一个恼人的问题。受过哲学训练的非洲和拉美思想家在1970年代争论过这个关键的问题："非洲/拉美哲学是否存在?"这个问题在同时的德国可以说是不可想象的。
罗伯特·贝马斯科尼Robert Bemasconi 在阐述非洲裔美国哲学家卢修斯·奥特洛 Lucius T Outlaw的思想时，把两难的处境做了如下总结：
"西方哲学把非洲哲学困在双重束缚中：要么非洲哲学和西方哲学相似得没有任何突出贡献也因而实际上消失了，要么非洲哲学不同到了它成为真正哲学的资格总是会被怀疑。"(Bemasconi, 《后殖民非洲哲学：读本》1998年出版，页188)
这就是折磨着非洲、南美和加勒比地区受过哲学训练的思想家的纠缠和疑惑。
共产主义是一个选择
如上所述的一切问题让我想到共产主义，这是扎巴拉的回应中的焦点，也就是说，根据齐泽克的观点，四种强烈的反对力量将阻止资本主义的无限再生产：
1. "迫在眉睫的生态危机"
2. "将知识产权定义为私有财产之观念的不恰当性"
3. "新科学技术发展(尤其是生物基因研究)中的社会伦理问题"
4. "新形式的种族隔离，新的隔离墙和贫民窟"
在过去的二十年中，我常听到很多不同的人提及以上这四点，这些人可能不是哲学家，但是严肃的思想者和行动者。我并不想暗示扎巴拉认为齐泽克最早思考这四个问题，我想说的是她认为齐泽克把这些问题带入欧洲哲学论争是非常重要的。因为如果认为这个世界，尤其是欧洲以外的世界，需要齐泽克来告诉我们有这些危险，那就是一种不必要的倨傲了。
对扎巴拉来说，"在2012年当一个共产主义者并不是一个政治选择，而是一个关于存在的问题。由于资本主义的生产逻辑，全球政治、经济和社会不平等将在今年上升到的程度不仅让我们警惕，而且威胁着我们的生存。"
认识到这些问题并不意味着唯一的解决办法就是成为共产主义者。正如我们可以从历史得知的，对问题的界定不等于对问题的解决只有一个途径。更妥当的想法是，在把和谐当成一个可慕的全球未来的视野中，我们可以合意。
解决的方法不可能只有一个，因为存在的方式是多种多样的，这也就意味着思想和行动的方式是多种多样的。共产主义是一个选择而不是一个抽象的普遍。
同时，需要承认的是，共产主义在欧洲是一个有强烈可能的选择。但它也许不是来自亚非的移民会选择的(或许那些来自拉美而大多本是欧洲裔的移民会选择它)，也不是欧洲的穆斯林哲学家Tariq Ramadan会推崇的。
不过当然，共产主义在欧洲是一个不可忽视的选择：毕竟它发源于欧洲。
在欧洲以外的世界，共产主义是问题的一部分而不是解决方法的一部分。这并不意味着在欧洲以外，如果你不是一个共产主义者，就得是一个资本主义者。
这场争论中的最终依据曾是并将继续是苏加诺于1955年召开的万隆会议。万隆会议的遗产既不是资本主义的，也不是共产主义的，而是去殖民化和去西方化(亦即，从资本主义以及共产主义的脱钩)。
现今的一个例子是玻利维亚。玻利维亚政府的"社群社会主义"模式被CONAMAQ 拒斥，(CONAMAQ是玻利维亚印第安人最大的理事会，由Aymaras和Quechuas两个部落主导，他们正在重新组织印加地区的 Ayllus 和 Markas两个部落 )。这篇文章没有空间来诠释这个问题(它恰是一个关于欧洲中心主义占领了空间并让那些不符合欧洲利益的、不管是左翼还是右翼的人都无法发声的问题)，但它的基本意义是，有一种基于社区来生存的方式，一种基于安第斯地区不同文明的历史--而不是欧洲历史--产生的和谐来生存的方式。
因此，齐泽克和其他欧洲知识分子严肃地重新思考着共产主义这一事实意味着他们在许多选择中着手思考了其中之一(左翼的重新定位)。今天，这许多可能的选择正在向超越战争、超越制造腐败和自私的成功与竞争概念、将生命的丰富性置于发展和死亡之上的和谐前进。
构建和谐未来
总之，在本刊物中扎巴拉和达巴什之间一些想法的交流推出了建构全球和谐未来的一个关键话题。对新自由主义在欧洲以外世界溃败的坚信和对欧陆哲学的局限(及其价值)的坚信同时在增长。
萨特在给法侬1961年出版著作《全世界受苦的人》 (The Wretched of the Earth)所写前言中向法国和欧洲读者做出如下叙述时，已经对这一切做出了总结：
"听，注意，法侬已经不在对我们讲话。"
--
Walter D Mignolo是杜克大学全球研究与人文学科中心主任William H Wannamaker杰出教授。他最近出版的新书《西方现代性的黑暗面：全球未来，去殖民选择》(杜克大学出版社2011)是包括了 《文艺复兴的黑暗面：识字，领地与殖民》（密歇根大学出版社1995）和《本地历史/全球设计：殖民性，庶民知识与边界思维》（普林斯顿大学出版社2000） 的三部曲之第三部。
Walter D Mignolo
Walter D Mignolo is William H Wannamaker Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities, Duke University.
Yes, we can: Non-European thinkers and philosophers
Walter Mignolo weighs in on the debate on the relative strength's of Eurocentric and non-Eurocentric philosophy.Last Modified: 19 Feb 2013 11:34
While Zizek may be the most important European philosopher today, his work is less relevant for many people than the work of other philosophers like Lewis R Gordon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Wang Hui and Enrique Dussel [Getty]
The exchanges between Santiago Zabala and Hamid Dabashi published in Al Jazeera brings about one of the crucial issues of the 21st century: the increasing process of re-westernisation (the revamping of Western ways of thinking, from Christianity to Liberalism and Marxism), de-westernisation and decoloniality in all sphere of life, politics, economy, religions, aesthetics, knowledge and subjectivity.
The exchange focuses mainly in the last two. The exchange was prompted by Zabala's article on the role of the philosopher celebrating Slavov Zizek. In his response, Dabashi took up on the meaning differential between the names of Western philosophers and the countries where non-European philosophers are supposed to dwell or "come from" to Euro-US academy.
Zabala's responses to Dabashi opted to emphasise Zizek's refreshing Communism. I will focus on the issues that emerge in the borders of the exchange. I am, after all, a border and decolonial thinker.
Beliefs in hierarchies
The response by Hamid Dabashi to Zabala's article on the role of the philosopher, contributed to the circulation of the piece in areas of the public domain where it would not have otherwise been circulated. Dabashi's response was a reflection on the initial paragraph of said article on Zizek written by Santiago Zabala.
There are many important and active philosophers today: Judith Butler in the United States, Simon Critchley in England, Victoria Camps in Spain, Jean-Luc Nancy in France, Chantal Mouffe in Belgium, Gianni Vattimo in Italy, Peter Sloterdijk in Germany and in Slovenia, Slavoj Zizek, not to mention others working in Brazil, Australia and China.
Dabashi's strategy parallels his argument: he doesn't mention the name of the article's authors. Dabashi's silence brings to the foreground the meaning of naming. His response is a sign among many that we, on the planet, are living a change of epoch rather than in an epoch of changes. The change of epoch is announced, in the sphere of knowledge, in the process of delinking from long lasting effects of epistemic colonial and imperial differences.
According to this frame, Native Americans have wisdom and Anglo-Americans science; Africans have experience and Europeans philosophy; the Third World has culture and the First World social sciences, including anthropology who study the cultures of the Third World; Chinese and Indians have traditions, Europeans modernity; Islam dwells in religion, Europeans in secularism.
Those beliefs in such hierarchies are gone among a growing number of non-European scholars, intellectuals, thinkers, activists. This is for me the implicit call made by Dabashi.
What non-European thinkers think
I read Zabala's article on the role of the philosopher not because I am interested in Zizek (I am not), but because it was Santiago's article. We coincided in several conferences over the past three years, listened to each other, talked to each other and established an email correspondence and exchange of articles.
My readings of continental philosophy are not in search of guiding lights to deal with issues of non-European histories, but an interest in what are "they" thinking, what are "their" concerns, what are "they" up to.
I spend most of my time engaged with non-European thinkers. It is from the light and guidance I've found in non-European thinkers that, when necessary, I engage with European philosophers. One example is "A Leftist Plea for 'Eurocentrism'" (1998).
I read this article not because it was written by Zizek, but because it was on Eurocentrism. I am always first and foremost interested in the problem, and secondly, in what people confronting the problem have to say about it. As a non-European thinker, my senses reacted to the first sentence of Zizek's article:
When one says Eurocentrism, every self-respecting postmodern leftist intellectual has as violent a reaction as Joseph Goebbels had to culture - to reach for a gun, hurling accusations of proto-fascist Eurocentrist cultural imperialism. However, is it possible to imagine a leftist appropriation of the European political legacy?
I discussed this article in more detail elsewhere. Here I am just interested in underlying one point. My response to that paragraph, published in a couple of places, is the following:
When one says Eurocentrism, every self-respecting decolonial intellectual has not as violent a reaction as Joseph Goebbels had to culture - to reach for a gun, hurling accusations of proto-fascist Eurocentrist cultural imperialism.
A self-respecting decolonial intellectual will reach instead to Frantz Fanon: "Now, comrades, now is the time to decide to change sides. We must shake off the great mantle of night, which has enveloped us, and reach, for the light. The new day, which is dawning, must find us determined, enlightened and resolute. So, my brothers, how could we fail to understand that we have better things to do than follow that Europe's footstep."
With these comments, I do not intend to dispute Zabala's evaluation of Zizek as a philosopher. What I am saying is that we, decolonial intellectuals, if not philosophers, "have better things to do" as Fanon would say, than being engaged with issues debated by European philosophers.
Relevance is not universal
The question raised by Dabashi is not new among us, thinkers of the ex-Third World (even if some or many of us are based in the US). Saying that it is not new, I am not implying that Dabashi's response is outdated. I mean that the issues at hand were debated in Africa, the Caribbean and South America at least since the late 50s and 60s. But they were debated "among us" and not "with them".
Now the differential of epistemic power has begun to be debated among "us" both, non-European thinkers and European philosophers. The exception in the domain of diplomacy was Kishore Mahbubani who raised the issue in his polemical book Can Asians Think? (1999).
Now, if we want to use the term "philosophy" to identify thinkers whether European and non-European, I would say that while Zizek may be the most important European philosopher today, his work is less relevant for many people than the work of Jamaican philosopher Lewis Ricardo Gordon; Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr; Chinese philosopher Wang Hui; Egyptian Nawal El Saadawi; and Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel.
And if behind Zizek there is Derrida in continental philosophy, behind Gordon is Fanon in Africana philosophy; behind Seyyed Hossein Nasr is Ali Shariati in Muslim philosophy, behind Wang Hui there is Lu Xun in Chinese philosophy, behind El Sadawi the legacies of Muslim falsafa and behind Dussel is Rodolfo Kusch in Latin American philosophy.
Relevance is not universal, but depends on the universe of meaning and the belief system under which relevance is determined. We have here a pluriversal world of thinkers and philosophers in the process of de-westernising and decolonising the imperial legacies of Western philosophy.
The question of philosophy in the non-European world has been and is a vexing one. African and Latin American thinkers trained in philosophy debated, around the 1970s, this crucial question: "Is there an African/Latin American philosophy?" This question would have been unthinkable in Germany during the same years.
Robert Bernasconi, elaborating on African-American philosopher Lucius T Outlaw, summarised the dilemma as follows:
Western philosophy traps African philosophy in a double bind: either African philosophy is so similar to Western philosophy that it makes no distinctive contribution and effectively disappears; or it is so different that its credentials to be genuine philosophy will always be in doubt. (Bernasconi 1998, 188;Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader).
This is simply the entanglement and the puzzle that tormented thinkers with an academic training in philosophy in Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
Communism is an option
All of the above take me to the question of communism, which is the focus of Zabala's response, the four powerful antagonisms that - according to Zizek - could prevent capitalism's indefinite reproduction:
1. "The looming threat of ecological catastrophe."
2. "The inappropriateness of the notion of private property for so-called 'intellectual property'."
3. "The socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments (especially in biogenetics)."
4. "New forms of apartheid, new walls and slums.
In the past two decades, I have heard a lot about the four points mentioned by many different people, if not philosophers, serious thinkers and doers. I am not suggesting that Zabala is saying that Zizek is original in thinking about these issues, but that is it very important that Zizek is bringing these issues to the European philosophical debate. For it would be an unnecessary arrogance to think that the world, particularly the non-European world, needs Zizek to tell us that the world is on fire.
#FormatStrongID_21#, "Being a communist in 2012 is not a political choice, but rather an existential matter. The global levels of political, economic and social inequality we are going to reach this year because of capitalism's logics of production not only are alarming, but also threaten our existence."
Now, recognising the problems doesn't mean that the only way to go is to be communist. However, as we know from history, the identification of the problem doesn't mean that there is only one solution. Or better yet, we can coincide in the prospective of harmony as a desirable global future, but communism is only one way to move toward it.
There cannot be only one solution simply because there are many ways of being, which means of thinking and doing. Communism is an option and not an abstract universal.
At the same time, it is necessary to recognise that, in Europe, communism is one strong option. Perhaps not the option for immigrants from Asia and Africa (perhaps yes for migrants from Latin America, mostly of European descent) would choose or that Tariq Ramadan (European Muslim and Muslim philosopher) will promote.
But certainly, it is an unavoidable choice in Europe: it was in Europe, after all, that communism originated.
In the non-European World, communism is part of the problem rather than the solution. Which doesn't mean that if you are not communist, in the non-European world, you are capitalist.
The point of reference in this debate was and continues to be the Bandung Conference, convoked by Sukarno in 1955. The legacy of Bandung is neither capitalism nor communism but decoloniality and de-westernisation (which means, #FormatStrongID_22#.)
A case in point today would be Bolivia. The Bolivian State formula "Communitarian socialism" is rejected by CONAMAQ (Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu), an organisation led by Aymaras and Quechuas, who are working on the reorganisation of Ayllus and Markas of Tawantinsuyu.
I do not have space here to explain what all of this means (which is precisely a problem of Eurocentrism - occupying space and silencing whatever doesn't fit the interest of the European, from the right or from the left), but basically it means that there is a way of being #FormatStrongID_23#, on the prospect of harmony grounded in the history of Andean civilisations and not in European history.
So the fact that Zizek, and other European intellectuals, are seriously rethinking communism means that they are engaging in one option (the reorientation of the Left) among many, today, marching toward the prospect of harmony overcoming the necessity of war; overcoming success and competition which engender corruption and selfishness, and promoting the plenitude of life over development and death.
Building harmonious future
In sum, the exchanges of ideas - in this publication - between Santiago Zabala and Hamid Dabashi, brings to the foreground a fundamental issue in building global and harmonious futures. The growing convictions of the failure of neo-liberalism in the non-European world parallels the growing conviction of limits (at the same time the value) of continental philosophy.
Sartre summarised it all in his prologue to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961), when he states, addressing a French and European audience, "listen, pay attention, Fanon is no longer talking to us".
Walter D Mignolo is William H Wannamaker Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities, Duke University. His most recent book, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (2011, Duke UP) is the third of a trilogy that includes The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995, Michigan UP) and Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (2000, Princeton UP).
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