Munif frames petro-despotism as self-immolating worship of oil time

Evidence

That volume’s title, Sabry Hafez observes, “alludes to the Qur’anic verse in which the infidel ruler of Mecca casts believers into a pit of fire: ‘Self-destroyed were the owners of the trench, of the fuel-fed fire, when they sat by it, and were themselves the witnesses of what they did’ (LXXXV, 4–7).” This new religion, which incinerates all before it, is the creed of petro-despotism, marked by uncontrollable rapacity, corruption, brutality, and hypocrisy. The motif of the fuel-fed fire can thus be read as linking conspicuous consumption with its invisible twin, the inconspicuous consumption of irreplaceable oil time as, without hindsight or foresight, the petro-despotic state plunges headlong into the pit of collective self-destruction. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 279

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘inconspicuous consumption of oil time’ concretizes Nixon’s core concept that slow violence is temporal — the harrowing of what the reader reads toward is how harm without a dramatic moment becomes legible. — connects to: Deracination shaped Munif’s imagination of petro-capitalism’s uprooted communities — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 248; Exile sharpened Munif’s sense of resource wealth as squandered time — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 280; God’s self-alienation manifests a new mode of time, not lack

Broader Connections

• Exile sharpened Munif’s sense of resource wealth as squandered time #expands (0.85) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 280
• God’s self-alienation manifests a new mode of time, not lack #qualifies (0.72)