From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 09 Jan 2004 - 13:58:18 GMT
<I don't know if it's necessarily a search for an enemy. Instead it
boils
> down to conflicting worldviews generating mutual mistrust and enmity, a
> two
> way street. Enemies might not actively be searched for, but passively
> found
> on both sides of the equation.>
>
Joe also picked me up on this, off list, so I guess I should qualify
what I meant. Essentially, taking the historical outlook you offer as
broadly correct, what I meant was that institutions initiated and organised
around the Cold War have needed to re-orient themselves in the post-cold war
period (this has even been referred to in popular culture- one of the
Brosnan James Bond movies has Judi Dench's M calling him a 'cold war
dinosaur'). Looking very cynically one can see agencies like the CIA or MI6
needing to heighten the threat of islamic fundamentalist sects like Al Qaeda
to justify their existence- or more generously to ensure that the
representation of that is such that they are seen as the people to deal
with. The bitter irony is that 9/11 gave them some basis for this whilst at
the same time suggesting significant gaps in their ability to deal with such
threats- and why, because they're organised to deal with cold war style
tactics from their enemies, not the kind of threats posed by al-Qaeda and
others.
In other, I hope more list-relevant, words, the search for an enemy
is about the reorganisation of the memeplexes of the West- particularly the
institutions of governance and security. That reorganisation in order to
fit into existing memeplexes requires a singular, unified enemy-
islamofascism as Joe calls it. But that shapes the discourse in a way that
suits cold war mentalities used to the notion of a singular enemy, rather
than reflecting the myriad of threats, and potential threats in the
post-cold war world.
To give an example from a few years ago (1999 I think), the Brixton
bomber- the lone nut who set off three nail bombs in london locations
targeting asian, black, and homosexual communities, initially confused the
security services, and the media. I recall an early news report in a
serious newspaper after the first bomb that must of mentioned about at least
half a dozen possible suspect groups that might have done it- including
Serbs upset about the kosovan war, right wing groups in the UK, islamic
fundamentalists, and various organised crime groups from around the world.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that there are discourses around
issues that dominate the way people structure events, issues and their means
of being understood, addressed and resolved which are shaping the way
threats post 9/11 are being represented and interpreted, and those
discourses (or memeplexes, perhaps) stem from the cold war.
Vincent
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