Becoming of democracy ahims and ‘death drive’

Nadeem Hameed

The aims or arguments of this presentation are manifold, but economically they would be put in
three aims or arguments. Firstly it aims or arguments to ‘death drive’. As you know that after many
theoretical and clinical impasses Freud felt forced to articulate’ death derive’ to explain the un-
explainable by this, his ‘myth’ as he claimed, in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, here I am by passing the
popular context (just mentioning it in passing, closing of ‘World War l’ and his sons’ death while serving
in the ‘war’) and rational that provides Freud reason to say that or more appropriately write that wo da
essay. From then onward it (death drive) becomes a contested terrain from Reich’s early critique to
Deleuze & Guttari’s efforts to produce a ‘PRAGMATICS’ through articulating a positive character of
desire, to Derrida’s deconstruction of “all the limits we thought pertained to life’ and thus aporias of
‘death drive’. The concept-practice of ‘death drive’ in particular and death in general haunts theory and
practice-‘theo-practice’- of psychoanalysis as well as philosophy that take psychoanalysis ‘seriously’ or
rather rigorously.

Secondly, it (this presentation) aims or arguments to Derrida’s works on democracy’s aporias,

what he said ‘democracy to come’ and possible choice open in this political ‘regime’ form, named
democracy, to become suicidal that means to close itself off through its democratic practice as he took
and talk the particular case of Algiers and philosophical traces of this aporia of democracy.

Thirdly, it’s aim or argument concern with a figure know as Gandhi, that proposed and
hypothesized here, as the repressed of twentieth century; especially and particularly, late years of his life,
when, on the one hand, he is working for ‘communal’ harmony and tolerance in the wake of the
‘communal’ strife, or rather ‘civil war’, on the name of religion (here religion functions, at least, in its
double sense, as the alleged reason of ‘communal violence’ and as the reason , as Gandhi was/is
struggling, to ‘cure’ that ‘communal violence’ by producing other ways to theo-practice of religions),
with a vow of ‘do or die’. On the other hand, the landscape of his late years, forced him, or might be he
felt compelled, to re-think his wish for a life of 125 years, and in a melancholy mood thinking again and
again of dying earlier than that wished life span.

By aiming or arguing this way, it is expected to produce a case of a theo-practice, or rather, ‘la
différance’ of democracy ahims, or rather ‘becoming of democracy ahims’. While orienting the
presentation towards works of Derrida, for example, ‘democracy to come and its relation with non-
violence (ahims) within his writings; and suggesting and iterating ‘practical idealist[‘s]’ Gandhi’s vow
into ‘do and live’, looking at his work for democracy and ahims; and psychoanalysis discourse’s aporatic
theo-practice of ‘death drive’ and its implications for democracy ahims.