ABSTRACT
It is a fundamental theme of this book that the disasters and deceits of the War on Terror attest to the shortcomings of the dominant approaches to security at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Far from delivering greater security, they have generated insecurity across much of the world, a paradox closely associated with the changes wrought by globalization. As has been argued in earlier chapters of this book, globalization reaching back to the processes of colonization has introduced new sources of tension and exacerbated old ones in many parts of the world. Globalization has also profoundly shaped our perceptions of both the causes of violence and what should be done to set things right. Overturning such thinking will not come easily. In the concluding section of the book attention will be directed to local attempts in post-conflict societies to pursue new security agendas through processes of mediation. At this midway stage it is instructive to reflect on some of the closures that have come to be associated with “topdown” approaches to security conceived in the Western tradition. This in turn helps prepare the way for accounts in later chapters of more grounded initiatives located mostly in the periphery of the global encounter. Taking its cue from these reference points, this chapter sketches a schema
for rethinking security and insecurity. It is structured in three parts: first, ethnocentrism and Othering; secondly, insecurity and the self; thirdly, victims and suffering. The chapter is positioned in relation to the established literature in security discourses, most of all critical security studies. It also keeps company with human security in its insistence that more attention be directed to ordinary people, although the approach adopted here differs quite substantially from that taken by human security advocates. Crucially, the chapter draws on postcolonial perspectives to broaden the archive of knowledge about security and to directly address issues of interculturality and dialogue across difference. To this point very few postcolonial scholars have taken up questions related to security (for exceptions see Barkawi and Laffey 2006; Darby 2006). It is therefore a matter of selecting from the tool box of postcolonialism those strategies and concepts that are appropriate to the task at hand. This said, the general pertinence of postcolonialism could scarcely be in doubt. More and more, the dilemma of security has come to be located in
the former frontiers of the European empires and to focus on the role of the state (Maroya 2003). This is home territory for postcolonial scholars. There is one other point that should be made by way of introduction. The
problems associated with thinking about security in the established mode can no longer be laid simply at the door of the military establishment, if they ever could. Post-September 11 developments suggest that security critics need to do some rethinking about whom to target. Disclosures in Britain, the United States, and Australia over the past few years intimate that the military and intelligence establishment has less to answer for about the grand strategy pursued in Iraq and against terrorism, and the lies that were told in support, than the political leadership. This is certainly not to give strategic thinking a clean bill of health, but it
does go to show that rethinking security needs to go forward on a much broader basis than has often been thought. Critiquing strategic thinking is a necessary part of the project. However, it must be partnered by an enquiry into the Western political mindset and the way the representations of the world external to that so often play on fears and insecurities. The roots of the problem, in other words, are embedded in the culture. This reading runs in parallel with John Kenneth Galbraith’s denunciation of the ugly side of what he calls “the culture of contentment,” and it is sharply at odds with the idea of Francis Fukuyama and his fellow travelers that democracies are essentially peace-loving (Galbraith 1992). It is my contention that, all too easily, democracy can be used to legitimate an approach to security that is plainly counter-productive. In turn, a brief summation of my argument is needed because it may be
thought to raise questions about the whole thrust of this chapter. Over the past decade or two the sense of self-satisfaction that permeates Western societies appears to have been accompanied by a marked impatience with the developing world and its problems. Alongside the survival of militarist attitudes and orientalist tropes from an earlier era, numerous critics have pointed to a growing assertiveness and intolerance taking the form of the “new racism” or the recent revival of interest in imperial overlordship. Here it is useful to recall a line from Slavoj Zižek (1999: 186), “ruling ideas are never directly the ideas of the ruling class.” With relative affluence now the norm in the developed world, the pursuit of material benefit has produced a negativity towards those who have not succeeded, not least internationally. This indifference to the welfare of others has been powerfully reinforced by the way that neoliberalism has changed our understanding of politics, substantially narrowing the range of permissible debate. At least as expressed in elections, the wishes of the majority are taken to proscribe the nature of the political and in turn perpetuate a profoundly unequal world with the insecurity that necessarily results. Yet such is the pull of democracy that there is a deep-seated reluctance to critique how it serves to justify intervention in its name. A similar argument can be made with regard to development, which also puts a lock on opening-up the debate about security.
