Politics of Fear and Terror - Essay Example

?Introduction The war on terror is one that is being fought on many different fronts on behalf of many different countries. The United s has framed its war in Iraq as being part of the war on terror, despite the fact that Iraq was not involved in 9/11. The United States, like Australia, has used the war on terror as a way to legitimize draconian security measures, as well as racial profiling. And, according to the authors lecturing and writing in the course readings and lectures, the war on terror has even darker motivations and objectives, and that is to vanquish a non-white country, which is an extension of the imperialistic mind-set which has been the foundation of Australia and other non-white countries since the 18th Century and before. To these speakers and authors, the war on terror is rather convenient, as it has given the white majority an excuse to vanquish the non-white minorities, in this case, Arabs. The war on terror somehow legitimizes detaining dark, swarthy individuals, as well as profiling and marginalizing them. It legitimizes invading countries with important resources, such as oil-rich Iraq. It also legitimizes an “us verses them” mentality, which permeates modern society. It gives white society a rallying point and a reason to be prejudiced and discriminate. It just one vestige, according to these lecturers and writers, of the white sovereignty, and provides a convenient platform for the same. Discussion One of the people who has written and spoken on the war on terror is Joseph Pugliese. Pugliese is relentlessly critical of the war on terror, seeing the war on terror as a kind of subterfuge for powerful countries to run roughshod over weaker countries who have critical energy resources which are needed by the stronger country. In this way, according to Pugliese, the United States is able to invade Iraq, which is oil-rich, therefore central to the United States strategy in securing oil, by using the pretense of 9/11 (Pugliese, 2011). When one considers that Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11, not Iraq, yet Iraq was the country invaded, not Afghanistan (who actually was the proper country to invade, as it was the country where Osama bin Laden was hiding), Pugliese’s theory makes a bit of sense. Actually, it is somewhat incorrect to state that Iraq was the country invaded instead of Afghanistan, as Afghanistan was invaded as well, but it was pretty common knowledge that Iraq became the central conflict in the U.S. led war, and Afghanistan was only peripheral. Pugliese would state that the reason why the United State chose Iraq as its central focus is because the United States had more of an interest in vanquishing Iraq, as Iraq is the country with more oil. Pugliese also sees terror as being a convenient platform from which a government can institute draconian domestic measures that would otherwise not be acceptable to the citizenry. For instance, Pugliese cites the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 as an example of this type of measure (Pugliese, 2011). Other measures are those instituted by the United States under the tutelage of Tom Ridge (Pugliese, 2011). These measures encourage racial profiling, according to Pugliese, as being of Middle-Eastern appearance is equated with being a terrorist. This leads to entire populations of people being disenfranchised (Pugliese, 2011). Further, Pugliese sees the war on terror as providing a convenient excuse for a super-power, who has a white majority, to vanquish a country whose majority is non-white and has been the subject of imperialism. This is what Pugliese means by the term “white mantel of internal peace” - the countries which vanquish are white countries which are subjugating countries who are made up of non-white “others.” Pugliese states that these countries, such as Iraq, are only attempting to resist the imperialism of the white countries, or is “intransigently refus[ing] to comply with the unilateral violence of the imperialism of the [white country]” (Pugliese, 2011). Osuri (2006) echoes this sentiment, as he believes that the war on terror is an example of an asymmetrical conflict of land and territory (Osuri, 2006). This contributes, according to Osuri, to the view that deaths are either significant (when a member of the invading country dies) or non-significant (when a member of the invaded country dies, even if that person is a woman or a child). This is shown in the “uneven forms of mourning and counting” that occurs in the terror wars. For instance, the United States kept a running tally of the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and never focused upon the multitude of Iraqi civilians and soldiers were killed. This is simply collateral damage and not something with which to concern oneself, and, in this way, “to play the numbers game in this war is to lose” (Osuri, 2006). Osuri also sees the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man who was shot and killed by the London Police simply because he matched the description of a suspect in the July 7, 2005 London Bombings, as another example of collateral damage, which is seen this way because the killed man was a non-white. Osuri states that there is no way that the officers will pay for the killing of this man, because the investigation of the officers was shifted to the terms of health and safety, which means that the officers will merely be fined for negligence if found guilty. Even the Prime Minister of Australia at the time, John Howard, found the murder to be a “minor consideration” (Osuri, 2006). The implication is that the whole thing was treated as a minor thing because it involved a man who was a non-white and was apparently guilty of resembling an Arab. If the incident involved a white, the entire matter would have no doubt turned out quite differently. The reason why rich white nations are able to get away with invading non-white nations, seeing non-white deaths are simply collateral damage and unimportant, and profiling non-whites is because of the way that the citizenry is conditioned to think about the non-whites during periods of anti-terrorist thinking. Returning to the notion that individuals of Middle-Eastern ancestry are “others,” which means that they are portrayed as the “them” in the us v. them mentality which permeates anti-terroristic thinking, Pugliese states that people of Middle-East heritage are demonized, as they are the very embodiments of the terrorist bogey-man (Pugliese, 2003). Further, the Middle-Eastern individual becomes homogenized in the brains of the citizenry, so that the representation of the race, the stereotype, becomes applied to all individuals of the Middle-Eastern ancestry. There are no longer individuals, or, for that matter, people who are Arabs from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, etc. Rather, all individuals who are of Arabic descent are the same as all other Arabs, no matter from what country they hail. They are all a part of the homogenized “other” and are all demonized the same (Pugliese, 2003). As Pugliese puts it, those who are of “Middle Eastern appearance, dark of eye, swarthy of skin, black of beard” are put into the same category - somebody who might be a terrorist (Pugliese, 2003). Giannacopoulos (2006) takes the argument about whites verses non-whites one step further, as she states that all Australian law is the product of white sovereignty, even while she grounds this theory in the context of anti-terrorism law. Thus, she states that there is not “an absolute separation between the workings of Australian law and the workings of white sovereignty” (Giannacopoulos, 2006). Giannacopoulos, who is, by her name, evidently of Greek ancestry, therefore a non-white, felt criminalized since her youth, as she and others with swarthy complexions were constantly told that they were “hooligans, hoons and thugs” (Giannacopoulos, 2006). She used this anecdotal story as one of the bases for stating that Australia’s law is based upon white sovereignty and those with darker complexions are habitually marginalized. Giannacopolous further frames her argument by stating that Australia came to become a white country because of the fact that the whites, in the form of James Cook and his men, in 1770, vanquished the Aboriginal peoples. According to Giannacopolous, this is the kind of power grab which was based upon violence which ironically repeats itself from the other side, as minorities violently protest against the white majority. Giannacopolous sees this conflict as being ironic, as the minorities who are using violence are simply using the same tactics against the ruling majority that the ruling majority used against the non-whites in the late 18th Century. Colonialism had a foundation in violence. Now those who attained their position in violence are acting indignant against those using violence against them, and therein lies the irony of the situation (Giannacopolous, 2006). Conclusion There is little doubt that Australia, like all Western countries, is a country which is ruled by whites. As Giannacopolous put it, Australian law and white sovereign law is one and the same; Australian executive power of essentially white power. This is nothing new. After all, history is written by those in power, and laws are also made by those in power, and the power has been in the hands of the whites of Australia since the 18th Century. As with the United States, who vanquished the Native American, the white British who arrived in this country during the 18th Century handily defeated the Native Aborigine and instituted white power. Those individuals with dark, swarthy skin were marginalized, no matter what the person’s ancestry and no matter whether or not the person was a native Australian. According to Giannacopolous, this is the way that it has always been. But this has the potential for backlash, as the world becomes more progressive and the act of being bigoted or prejudice against an individual just because of that individual’s skin color has become more and more repugnant. Therefore, the white majority must find a way to keep its power even in the face of opposition. Enter the war on terror, which is a convenient tool for the whites in power. In this case, the “enemy” happens to be non-white – black of hair, swarthy of face as Pugliese puts it. And there have been acts of violence which have killed thousands of people, although Giannacopolous sees the acts of violence as being pushback against the imperialistic attitude which have been foisted upon the Arabs and other non-whites for centuries. This war on terror has been, according to the speakers and writers in this packet, one more way for the whites to keep power over the non-whites, while also convincing the white majority, who might otherwise be skeptical of treating people of color in a prejudicial way, that the prejudice, discrimination and bigotry are justified. After all, “they” attacked “us,” and this mentality helps reinforce the image of the Arab as being “other.” Of course, the ultimate irony, according to the implications made by the authors and speakers in this packet, is that the whites became the majority through violence. Imperialism is steeped in violence, and has its foundations in violence. The whites are now on top, having used violence to subjugate its subjects. Therefore, it must have security to stay that way, and the Arabs and others who have fomented the terror are a threat to that security. But, really, the terrorists are merely giving the whites a taste of their own medicine, so to speak, as they are using violence as a way to free themselves from the imperialistic attitude of the western world. And it is this freedom that is sought by the terrorists which is the very threat that is being used by the whites to further curtail the freedoms of not only the terrorists, but of people who merely look like terrorists. In this way, the war on terror is merely a subterfuge to continue the white domination over non-whites, as well as secure the imperialistic rule of the Australian white ruling class. While many in the white majority may roll their eyes at such an indictment of the white sovereignty, the authors and speakers in this packet make good points which should not be taken lightly or dismissed. Sources Used Giannacopoulus, M. (2006) Terror Australia: White sovereignty and the violence of law. Borderlands e-journal, 5.1 Osuri, G. (2006) Regimes of terror: Contesting the war on terror. Borderlands e-journal, 5.1. Pugliese, J. (2011) The politics of fear and terror [lecture]. Pugliese, J. (2003) The locus of the non: The racial fault-line of “The Middle-Eastern appearance” Borderlands e-journal, 2.3. Read More