Jacqui’s PR Contest: ‘Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare’

No Recollection or Reworking but plenty of resistance and repetition

Our consumerist paradise (or hell depending on your tastes) is the new frontline of the war on terror. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5966489.ece According to the government there has been an increase in ‘shoplifting’ of the ingredients necessary for a ‘dirty’ bomb. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, (Smith also appeared on The Politics Show http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7957714.stm and Today) on the morning of 24th March, Smith identified "shopping centre managers, store managers, people who were responsible for the security in those areas" as being key in the battle against terror. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Orwell’s 1984 as I read that ‘intelligence agencies could not be "solely" relied upon to tackle the threat.’ As with the rest of the New Labour portfolio, there are no rights without responsibilities, which means doing some of the vigilant surveillance ourselves. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hTVsyhUyXxY8Ux1Wx2pZ9yo-NX4g) http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gxDVT-EGIwg82hlUd-WWSez2aSMg An object relations psychoanalytic approach may be instructive here. After a number of years of representations clearly delineating protectors, potential victims and perpetrators akin to the triadic model described by Meltzer (1968) there is evidence in this story of a blurring of the distinction between victims and protectors by creating a level of protectors within the group of potential victims, the general shopping public. So the management, already isolated within their workforces for their managerial role, are to become despised further for assuming a suspicious gaze on their workforce and members of the public? The message from Smith seems to be: ‘you cannot rely on the authorities to protect you’ and this seems to me to be a bit of a cop-out because it is their job after all. The emphasis seems to be on everyone doing their bit to fight terrorism together with words such as ‘alongside’ and ‘shared’; there is a work of cohesion going on here. How do we make sense of this psychoanalytically? On the one hand the protector is saying, ‘fend for yourself’ on the other hand we are being encouraged to work together; the 'protector' is saying 'help me to help you'.

This passage from The Politics Show is of particular note in its ‘promoting of shared values’; a collection of good objects to protect against the ‘bad’ that is violent extremism. Interestingly, Smith avoids defining what a violent extremist is, ‘values like our belief in democracy, in human rights, in tolerance and if those things are attacked, that actually creates a space in which it makes it more likely potentially that people can be radicalized and turn to violent extremism’ (Smith, The Politics Show) Smith exhibits a very strange logic here, that destroying abstract values will in some way encourage terrorism, which is why prevention is so important to her. Unfortunately the fact of the matter is that terrorist attacks will always occur. More importantly, what she is totally denying are the powerful emotions of hate, anger, resentment, grievance and a sense of persecution that are involved in this issue which is chiefly about identity and meaning in British culture. The terrorism problem provides politicians with an identity as protectors, as agents of security, compensating for their inability to win hearts and minds.

What kind of ‘object-signifier’ is a dirty bomb, (CBRN) in our culture? We know that the dirty-clean binary, (and the degrees within it) are a powerful metaphor in our culture as well as others, (see the work of Mary Douglas). There seems to be at least a degree of splitting and disavowal with this strong affective characterisation of terrorist bombs. Do we on the other hand have clean bombs? Media representations of our conflicts abroad would suggest that yes; we do, because we never see the bloody mess of corpses produced by British attacks, (the exception proving the rule being the occasion when John Simpson and his crew were caught in friendly fire, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2921807.stm). Coincidentally this attack by the protector on itself caused the death of the interlocutor, the translator who enabled communication between separate groups. There is also the meaning of ‘foul play’ to consider. Within (our) rules of war, it is considered very underhand to leaving a bomb like an I.E.D. lying around for someone to step on. We must also consider the hostile, violent response that this characterisation legitimates in advance, (see Brian de Palma’s Redacted 2007 for a savage personalisation of the conflict and the significance of not having interlocutors to communicate with the 'other'). That’s enough from me, please start a thread.