The Shock of Violence

By Steffen Boehm
from Sign of the Times

I took your paper to read at home just after the events last Friday in London. I was very shocked with the descriptions, made by eye witnesses, of the way the guy had been shot. So, I read your text with this thought always present. I read it with my body, feeling the discomfort of the 'truth' of your words and, at the same time, the fear of our weakness and the difficulties we have to face in order to exercise the violence of critique in these days. The next day I knew that the murdered guy was a Brazilian – someone 'innocent' in many senses, as well as nameless. Probably for this fact, I realized that part of the discomfort I was feeling had to do with memory. All the statements of the British authorities were related to the need of the new procedures, were the defence of the state of exception. This was the name given by the Brazilian dictators for the suppression of the state of rights, when citizens’ rights were suspended in the name of the need to protect the order and the public against the enemy. I’m clearly shocked because some of the elementary principles of liberal democracy are being eliminated. If liberal democracy is not enough, totalitarianism is always worst. - Maria Ceci Misoczky; edited excerpt of an email sent to Steffen Böhm on 25 July 2005

I’m quoting the above email with a purpose in mind. In my view, it clearly expresses the state of emergency – or the moment of danger, as Walter Benjamin calls it – we find ourselves at this very moment. Maria, a Brazilian educator from Porto Alegre, responded with her email to my paper ‘The Moment of Danger: Benjamin’s Critique of Violence’, which I had submitted to the editors of a book last week. I had written that book chapter in response to my experience of being in Scotland for the anti-G8 protests and the London bombings that took place on 7 July 2005. Since this book chapter will not be published until early 2006, and since it will probably be read by only a handful of people, I would like to take this opportunity to make some of the reflections offered in that chapter available to a wider audience.

Social Text Call for Papers, "The Ends of War"

War is back and seemingly forever. In recent years the pacific neo-liberal rhetoric of globalization has been replaced by the Hobbesian war of all against all. This pervasive metaphorization of war blurs the boundaries between military and civilian, combatant and non-combatant, state and war machine, wartime and peace. But war discourse also operates as a strategy that partitions, separates and compartmentalizes knowledge, offering a highly seductive, militarized grid through which to interpret the world. Though the contemporary scene shows striking parallels with the neo-colonialism, counter-insurgency and "dirty wars" of the Cold War era, the current proliferation of war discourse often masks older continuities and material interests. Like a virus, it seems, war tropes have spread throughout the body politic and global economy.

What are the ends of war? This special issue of Social Text invites contributions that engage this critical question: by challenging teleological narratives of endless conflict; by confronting the seductions of metaphorization and militarization; and by analyzing the historic and material interests that they serve. “The Ends of War” will insist on the contingent and instrumental nature of war discourse and on the need to think beyond its global reach. Contributors are invited to challenge the hegemonic force of war, and contest its tendency to compartmentalize knowledge, divide and rule.

Contributions that link the work of gender or postcolonial studies, area studies, or political economy to analyses of war culture and technology will be particularly welcome. Possible areas of interest might include: the gendered imaginary of war; the Left’s ambivalent relationship to the seductive metaphorization of war; the colonial genealogy of contemporary war discourse; race and the military; buried histories of postmodern war culture in other conflicts; the arms trade and the permanent war economy; the militarization of intellectual life; media consolidation, censorship and the reporting of war; and the economic and environmental impact on the Global South.

Submission deadline: May 1, 2006

Essays of 7,000 to 10,000 words, including endnotes, and following The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, should be emailed as Microsoft Word documents to Livia Tenzer, Managing Editor, Social Text: ltenzer@rci.rutgers.edu. Hard copies may be sent to Social Text, 8 Bishop Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08903.

s0metim3s writes "

From MetaMute

New analysis of civilian casualties in Iraq: Report unveils comprehensive details

"A Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq, 2003-2005" is the first detailed account of all non-combatants reported killed or wounded during the first two years of the continuing conflict. The report, published by Iraq Body Count in association with Oxford Research Group, is based on comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 media reports published between March 2003 and March 2005.

"For Iraq, The 'Salvador Option' Becomes Reality"
Max Fuller, Centre for Research on Globalisation

Abstract

The following article examines evidence that the 'Salvador Option' for Iraq has been ongoing for some time and attempts to say what such an option will mean. It pays particular attention to the role of the Special Police Commandos, considering both the background of their US liaisons and their deployment in Iraq. The article also looks at the evidence for death-squad style massacres in Iraq and draws attention to the almost complete absence of investigation. As such, the article represents an initial effort to compile and examine some of these mass killings and is intended to spur others into further looking at the evidence. Finally, the article turns away from the notion that sectarianism is a sufficient explanation for the violence in Iraq, locating it structurally at the hands of the state as part of the ongoing economic subjugation of Iraq.

artforchange.org writes
War & Peace in Ireland
1998 D. Art MacCaig
90 minutes.
Monday, June 6 8pm
Carlitos Cafe & Galeria
1701 Lexington Ave NYC at 106th St.
212-348-7044

War & Peace in Ireland is a documentary film by Art MacCaig that examines the 30 years of war in Northern Ireland from 1968 and the civil rights movement up to the IRA cease fires of 1994 and 1997 and the beginnings of the ongoing peace process.
Using archival footage the film explores the causes of the conflict and investigates the effect of the war of the lives of ordinary people in Belfast, Derry and other parts of the Six Counties with interviews of those who have taken part in the war. Included in the film is exclusive footage of the IRA in training and on operations.
Also included are interviews with Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, David Irvine of the Progressive Unionist Party, John Hume, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and John Major, former Prime Minister of Britain.

Prisoners of Conscience
Peace Doesn't Come Easily
By Camilo Mejia
Counterpunch

Just about a year a go I was tried by a special Court-martial at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The charge: desertion with the intent to avoid hazardous duty. My case received a lot of attention from the media, mainly because I was the first Iraq veteran to have been to combat, returned on a two-week furlough, and publicly refused to return to Iraq while denouncing the war as illegal, and who then surrendered himself to military authorities. For the first time since the invasion of Iraq the military had to deal with the delicate issue of public dissent within the ranks.

Court rules against arrest of US President
From expatica

4 May 2005

AMSTERDAM — A Dutch judge has ruled that US President George W. Bush can visit the Netherlands as planned this weekend and should not be arrested.

The ruling in a court in The Hague on Wednesday comes after a group of Dutch nationals lodged legal action against the State in the lead-up to Bush's visit.

The activists demanded that Bush be arrested or a court order issued to block his entry to the Netherlands due to "numerous, flagrant breaches of the Geneva Convention".

However, the judge rejected the request on the grounds that such a refusal was a political matter and therefore not something the court could rule on.

Indyrad writes:

Cyber-movement Against The War
By Adam Roark

On February 15, 2003, 10 million people simultaneously rallied in protest of the pending U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was the largest coordinated protest in the history of the world,(1) kicking off nearly 2 years of mass demonstrations culminating with the 400,000 – 1 million-strong Republican National Convention protest in New York City on August 29, 2004. The swift rise and demise of this movement leads one to question its strength and function; both the spectacular scale of these protests and the coordination of them are noteworthy. The U.S. peace movement in particular largely failed to present itself as ungovernable and effective, acting rather to reaffirm the legitimacy of a political system which had lost substantial credibility following the 1998-2000 crisis.

Yulie Khromchenko writes "Some 250 high-school seniors have signed a letter stating that they will not serve in the Israel Defense Forces or take part in military activities, and sent the letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and Education Minister Limor Livnat.

"We call on all youths ahead of service in the IDF, and all soldiers already in the Israeli army, to reconsider endangering their lives and taking part in a policy of oppression and destruction," the letter states.