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INTIMATE PUBLICITIES

As one cartoon intimates, however, under the prevailing circumstances it is impossi-
ble once and for all to award the prize for the greatest laughingstock. Laughter is a great
equalizer, democratically afflicting all the contending parties. Saying to whom the last
laugh will go is not just hard to decide, it is radically undecidable. As a result, even if
often the regime laughs even harder than the opposition does, this does not mean that it
achieves any more success in quashing or subduing its opponents. As in some virulent
replay of the nation’s implosive origins, the more that the regime exerts overwhelming
force at some point or another in the political landscape, trying to bring everything within
its grasp, the more, in their lateral flight, such things elude its sovereign grasp. Much like
the electronically reproduced panties of the general, things fly in all directions, briefly
touching each other to form fleeting figures where, amidst tumbling monuments, the face
of the sovereign state does not catch its reflection. In a political landscape increasingly
crisscrossed by NGOs, manifold media images, Internet messages, cellular phone commu-

F I G U R E 8 ‘‘At the

moment, I don’t know whether

I work for the leaders of the

government or for those of

the opposition.’’ (Caricature

by Rayma,El Universal, May 8,

2004.)

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