Simpson - A Rough Guide To The Dark Side

Contemporary culture has eliminated both the concept of the public and the figure of the intellectual. Former public spaces both physical and cultural are now either derelict or colonizedby advertising. A cretinous anti-intellectualism presides,cheerled by expensively educated hacks in the pay ofmultinational corporations who reassure their bored readersthat there is no need to rouse themselves from their interpassivestupor. The informal censorship internalized and propagated bythe cultural workers of late capitalism generates a banalconformity that the propaganda chiefs of Stalinism could onlyever have dreamt of imposing. Zer0 Books knows that anotherkind of discourse intellectual without being academic, popularwithout being populist is not only possible: it is alreadyflourishing, in the regions beyond the striplit malls of so-calledmass media and the neurotically bureaucratic halls of theacademy. Zer0 is committed to the idea of publishing as amaking public of the intellectual. It is convinced that inthe unthinking, blandly consensual culture in which we live,critical and engaged theoretical reflection is more important than ever before.

I never really meant to join the underworld. I fell in. Fate proved far more powerful than me.

If our story began with a word, that word was lost, and the world appeared to have lost it more than me. Id been asking people why for most of my life, but it struck me that this question might be pointless. The one that mattered more was how to change things. And Id struggled with that for a while before meeting my partner.

Back then I didnt see him in those terms. Our earliest encounters came at random; or so Id assumed as a skeptical journalist. I felt streetwise when I first set foot in Serbia. In a way, I was sure Id seen it all before: another country stewing in selfpity, fiercely independent in character, while pimping itself around foreigners for cash. From afar, this sounded rather like a turn-off, with none of the furtive thrills of Balkan wars. The cartoon villains who started them were long gone, and theyd left behind a miserable pariah state. Who cared if it was festering in woe?

To my amazement, I found that I did. This was largely down to my partners sense of purpose, and the visions it awakened in us both. Music had revolutionary potential, he said. Young Serbs could be the masters of their destiny, provided they organized ways to come together. The forces that oppressed them would be sidestepped.

There were so many reasons to think he had the answer. Being safe might not be one, but that didnt bother me. Although it was clear wed face risks, they mostly seemed trivial. I was hot off the achievement conveyor belt from Cambridge, with boundless expectations for the future. Id grown accustomed to getting my way if I put my mind to it, and was convinced that if I only kept talking, Id summon the words to persuade other people of anything.

But nothings quite that simple in the Balkans. My partner said wed need a cunning plan. And for the past few weeks, hed supplied them in abundance, while puncturing my ignorant assumptions. Despite this affront to my pride, I felt inspired.

You know, most stories are like parody of history, hed said one evening, plying us both with savage shots of firewater, in a bar at the foot of a tower block in Belgrade. What you tell me is grotesque hallucination. No one here believe those lies of West. Speak Serbian, fuck it, so whole world understands you.

Although I didnt always understand him, G made sense. Most of what I was paid to write was bunk, especially the bits from politicians. As my partner said, they routinely spouted fiction. Serbia wasnt a nation in transition, as most of my articles implied. It was stuck in a rut and it needed urgent help. But since there wasnt a hope of any such thing arriving, our only option left was to intervene: wed have to hijack its election for a president, and engineer the outcome that we wanted.

G wasnt the kind of guy youd want to say no to. And whatever it was he came up with, he sounded for real. His English had a confident authority, with the captivating ring of a pie-eyed piper. It rattled out in blasts of manic brass, which bludgeoned you into surround-sound submission. Hed strut across the city like a battery bunny, while I trotted willingly to heel. Yet despite this perpetual performance, he seemed sincere. I dont give a fuck! hed exclaim, because he did. Though he was patently absurd, I couldnt help liking him. His recklessness was infectious, like his laughter.

When the bar had started spinning, he leaned closer. This place became laboratory for future, he explained, gesticulating vaguely round the room. For centuries Balkans was battleground of empires, so now we show to world whole different model.

What was there to say, except why not? G appeared to know what he was doing. Though he must have been twenty years older than me, he looked ageless. Beneath the greying mop atop his head, the expression on his face was like a babys, gurgling with unencumbered energy. He walked tall with his shoulders braced back, and he chortled through my ethical detachment. He appeared to believe almost anything was possible, and talked as if wed already seen it was.

The morning of truth was upon us before Id thought twice. There was nothing to fear, he assured me, as we zeroed in on our missions first objective. Everything would be fine if we kept it casual. I couldnt help agreeing. Reporters arent meant to be actively political. But I hadnt felt professional for months, and the October sun glossed over my objectivity. G slowed to a halt at my side, shielding his gaze with the mornings unread tabloid, and together we surveyed the square in which we found ourselves. Revived by autumn gold, its statue to a footnote of history gleamed with majesty.

Ive always loved this time of year the most, perhaps because its when I was born. The crisp bright light felt fresh with possibility, and the academic promise of renewal. I thought back to an afternoon just two years earlier, when Id watched what looked like a televised revolution, beamed live to my sofa in Zurich from Belgrade. In those days, it wasnt a place Id thought of visiting, and like most of the rest of the world Id soon switched off. But now I was here, I was learning Id been wrong.

Slouching on a bench, I let my partners words blow over with the breeze. Beyond the gravel park that yawned before us, oppressive walls of tenements receded. Their rusting terrace irons oozed faded charm. It mightnt be the prettiest of cities, but Belgrade wasnt so dreadful, I decided, as long as you were squinting through shades. I lifted mine to my head and turned to G, whod clutched two horny thumbs towards his lips, palms cupped as if to imitate an owl. Instead, he inhaled throatily, until a joint between his little fingers buckled. A murky cloud of dope smoke masked his face. Exhaling like a laryngitic dragon, he flicked the spliff to the ground and pronounced it kicked.

Whoa, that shit is strong, he boomed through the haze. I gotta be careful.

Having already smoked myself senseless, I concurred. Although our rendezvous was nigh, we both sat still. The birds around my head cheeped frail excuses. That building didnt look like a party headquarters. Its entrance was a residential stairwell. The sole distinguishing feature was a patchwork of plaques. But I knew one belonged to our quarry, whose logo was as clunking as its name: G17 Plus hadnt fired up the public, and a chorus of foreign endorsements hadnt helped. At his final rally, their candidate was egged. Now he was facing defeat in a run-off for president, against a populist with next to no charisma.

This was where we came in. Plan B was disguised as an interview with