By Anna M. Agathangelou (University of Houston, Clear Lake and Global Change Institute, Nicosia) & L.H.M. Ling (New School University)
From International Studies Quarterly (June 2004).
Author’s Note: For comments and advise, many thanks to: Timothy J. Emmert, Rogan Kersh, Kyle D. Killian, Cynthia Weber, and our two anonymous reviewers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Seattle University through the sponsorship of the Wismer Chairs and the Center for Social Justice in Society.
Abstract
America’s “war on terror” and al Qaeda’s “jihad” reflect mirror strategies of imperial politics. Each camp transnationalizes violence and insecurity in the name of national or communal security. Neoliberal globalization underpins this militarization of daily life. Its desire industries motivate and legitimate elite arguments (whether from “infidels” or “terrorists”) that society must sacrifice for its hypermasculine leaders. Such violence and desire draw on colonial identities of Self vs Other, patriotism vs treason, hunter vs prey, and masculinity vs femininity that are played out on the bodies of ordinary men and women. We conclude with suggestions of a human security to displace the elite privilege that currently besets world politics.
Introduction
…Today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science.
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality.
sky where once was steel.
smoke where once was flesh…
– Suheir Hammad, “first writing since”[1]
On September 11, 2001, terrorists struck at the heart of the capitalist world-order. The attack and its targets demonstrated with horrendous efficiency that neither global wealth (World Trade Center) nor military might (the Pentagon) could defend against low-tech, human sacrifices when mobilized. For this reason, September 11 has generalized a sense of insecurity that transcends the American state. Three conventions established since the end of the Cold War now seem suspect: e.g., “US power reigns supreme,” “borders dissolve in a globalized world,” and “liberal capitalism secures prosperity, democracy, and stability for all.” All ask now: “Whom can we trust?”
We need to broaden these understandings of power, borders, security, and wealth. Charred remains from the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon compel us to review power as more than just economic or military superiority. Had the terrorists restricted themselves to this traditional, realist notion, they would have needed the backing of a state[2] or access to huge arsenals of military hardware to execute their plan. They relied, instead, on box-cutters and a suicidal guerrilla tactic. Their comrades in the caves of Afghanistan brandished little more than outdated American and Soviet firepower. Similarly, we need to adjust our definition of borders. Many declare geographical demarcations obsolete under the state-straddling, market-binding strategies of neoliberal globalization. Yet September 11 dramatizes the sovereignty of borders in our minds. The terrorists attacked US hegemony to “protect” but really enclose Islamic culture and religion; likewise, the tragedies in New York and Washington, D.C., have reinscribed borders in the popular American imaginary, now translated into a war against terrorism. Assumptions about “national security” and “national wealth” also crumble in light of September 11. How could the world’s richest, most heavily-armed state have been so vulnerable?
We offer a postcolonial-feminist framework for understanding these events. It places power relations and identities within historical constructions of race, gender, class, and culture – most recently attenuated by Western colonialism and imperialism – to demonstrate how world politics reflects and sustains the global inequalities that signify daily life. Put differently, postcolonial-feminism theorizes about the material and ideological struggles of historically-situated agents in a neoliberal world economy. Categories such as “Third World,” “the West,” “race,” “gender,” and so on are disassembled to promote an understanding and transformation of the transnational forces that shape social relations of power. (more…)
