Frontlines and Interstices in the Global War on Terror

Abstract

In the context of the ‘global war on terror’ and related debates about development and the new imperialism, this essay looks at the involvement of religious absolutist militias in humanitarian aid following the Kashmir earthquake in 2005. By analysing how organizations which are considered ‘terrorist’ are simultaneously working with and fighting against US ‘Empire’, the essay considers the form of the Pakistani ‘development’ state, its geostrategic importance and how this relates to a religious absolutist militia infrastructure. The transformation of (often violent) religious right groups since the 1990s into development and welfare agencies is considered within the broader context of new ‘hypergovernance’ processes unleashed within ‘Empire’. Some general comparisons are also made between the processes of juridical hypergovernance that international humanitarian and human rights NGOs initiate in the ‘South’, and those created by violent groups of the religious right. Both reflect contending strategies for the management of populations by bodies having ambitions on a planetary scale.

The institutional incompleteness of empire

“…From this perspective, then, the incomplete outcomes of such 'order' may well be a form of political rule (cf. Bhatt [2007]) as they reproduce the hierarchy of material forces brought together by the force of refuge. Such a form of domination, rather than being based on the imposition of one global 'order', seems to operate precisely on the basis of the incompleteness and overlap of politico-institutional orders; indeed, it seems to reproduce itself through its dynamic and contingent attempts to establish hierarchies out of a context of institutional disorder.…”

“…The GoP categorized them as Externally Displaced Persons, a category that does not exist in refugee law. 19 Although the status of Afghans has ever since been framed by the Tripartite Repatriation Agreement (UNHCR/GoP/GoA 2003) making provisions for the end of their asylum, the recent earthquake and flooding in areas with large numbers of Afghans have produced even more exceptional governance arrangements, reconfiguring frontlines and interstices in the global war on terror (Bhatt 2007).…”

From Spoilers to Statebuilders: Constructive Approaches to Engagement with Non-State Armed Groups in Fragile States

“…Another example of humanitarian aid disbursement through NSAGs was during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. In this case, Al Qaeda militants worked closely with the US and UN humanitarian agencies in Kashmir with the backing of Pakistan -a key US ally in the global war on terror (Bhatt, 2007).…”

Beyond Abstraction: Marx and the Critique of the Critique of Religion

“…Harvey 2005. For a potent criticism of the limits of theories of imperialism for a 'geosociology' of religious-political militancy, see Bhatt 2007. 9. Marx to Engels, 27 June 1867, quoted in Marx 1990 religion, by the emancipatory and workers' movements of the nineteenth century.…”