Western Spectacle of Governance and the Emergence of Humanitarian World Politics

211 Pages·2009·1.22 MB·English

by  Mika Aaltola (auth.)

Western Spectacle
of Governance and the
Emergence of Humanitarian
World Politics
This page intentionally left blank
Western Spectacle
of Governance and the
Emergence of Humanitarian
World Politics
Mika Aaltola
WESTERNSPECTACLEOFGOVERNANCEANDTHEEMERGENCE
OFHUMANITARIANWORLDPOLITICS
Copyright © Mika Aaltola,2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61634-9
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®in the United States -
adivision ofSt.Martin’s Press LLC,175 Fifth Avenue,New York,NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK,Europe and the rest ofthe world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan,a division ofMacmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England,company number 785998,ofHoundmills,
Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint ofthe above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom,Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37990-3 ISBN 978-0-230-62210-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230622104
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library ofCongress.
A catalogue record ofthe book is available from the British Library.
Design by Integra Software Services
First edition:June 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List ofFigures vi
1 Introduction 1
2 Violent Vortexes ofCompassion 15
3 Vorticity in Action:Compassions,Stimulations,
and Mutual Regressions 39
4 Compassion as a Morality Drama at the Profiled EU
and U.S.Borders 66
5 Compassions at International Airports:
The Hub-and-Spoke Pedagogy ofthe American Empire 107
6 Political Compassions under Pandemic Spectacles 127
7 Beyond Humanitarian Compassion 164
Notes 187
Bibliography 191
List of Figures
4.1 St.George and the Dragon(1504–06) by Raphael. 80
4.2 Der Krieg(1896) by Arnold Böcklin. 81
4.3 Attack(1904) by Eetu Isto. 83
4.4 The Raft ofthe Medusa(1819) by Theodore Gericault. 84
1
Introduction
Humanitarianism has arguably become the key frame through which
the multifarious actors ofthe world evaluate each other’s legitimacy
and determine their roles in the current world.The emerging “humanitar-
ian paradigm” has become an essential expression of what is meant by
“international community”and the contemporary world order behind it.
This book examines the patterns ofco-option and collaboration between
the ethical and political traditions of humanitarianism in various world
political spectacles: September 11, 2001 (9/11), the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Darfur, SARS and avian flu, and the U.S. transformational
HIV/AIDS diplomacy.
This work is about bodily pain. It concerns itself mainly with the
different sentiments of compassion that arise from the suffering of indi-
viduals,but it also looks at bodies of different quality.While composing
the theme,I remember serendipitously crossing paths with Elaine Scarry’s
1983 book,Bodies in Pain.In it,I saw many bridgeheads to the politics of
pain and to political pain.
As one can imagine,Scarry’s topic was full of morbidity:The words
and visuals in it contain contorted and convulsing human bodies,vivid
images of agony,and an account of the unmaking of the body through
torture and war. The schema contained in the book was about the
unmaking ofan individual’s world,which comes with twisted bent-over
human bodies.
While giving a lecture about the book in a course about the politics of
pandemic diseases,I drew a connection between it and Susan Sontag’s classic
about bodily decomposition,Illness as a Metaphor.Sontag,in her flawed yet
pioneering work,ponders over the cultural history ofthe condition ofbeing
sick in Western societies. Distinct diseases have a highly readable social
meaning, with long and mutating historical roots. The most horrid and
culturally memorable of these diseases involve the regressive bodily
2 WESTERN SPECTACLE OF GOVERNANCE
processes ofdecomposition.They are readable not only in a cognitive way,
but also in a more emotional way ofterror and horror.
These interpretations of“dis-eased”bodies and their supposed external
markings permeate cultures and communities.They render bodies as catego-
rized, profiled, and, subsequently, differentially treated. It is clear that the
embodied language ofpain and disease has deep political significance.This
language deals with securing communities at a level that is rarely quite cogni-
tive.More often,it is emotional and,at the more social level,sentimental.
I vividly remember my first conscious rendezvous with what Sontag
calls “the citizens ofthe kingdom ofthe sick”:I was in India as a trainer in
an HIV/AIDS awareness program.Before our first visit to a hospital that
had many HIV patients as well as many terminally ill people with AIDS,I
felt anxiety. My intellectual safeguards and educational need to teach
health-related responsibility faded in the face of the more primal fear of
seeing the skins,bodies,and faces ofdeath.The grammar ofthis fear and
horror is quasi-cognitive.It is revelatory language,meaningful only as a
part ofa particular community’s cultural history as the case ofHIV/AIDS
clearly demonstrates.The history itselfis not enough to adequately appre-
ciate the differential impacts of the language of bodily decomposition.
Insight into communal power relations provides much meaning into our
feverish chills in the face ofdis-ease.This is especially true when we move
from the suffering ofindividuals to other political bodies,such as commu-
nities (e.g., crime-infested neighborhoods), regions (e.g., Africa as a
diseased continent),and empires (e.g.,Soviet malaise).
Thus,in an important way,this revelatory language is meaningful only
as a constitutive part of a particular power hierarchy.Any changes in the
power hierarchy are felt and sensed.Any regressive process is a source of
alarm, securing, and fear. Any such shifts in the power hierarchy are
sources ofworry because the hierarchy is dynamic and labile.Any change
is inherently contagious.Humanitarianism as compassion for the distant
other can be thought ofin such a context.
My aim is to locate humanitarian compassion among the political emo-
tions that are felt in integrated power hierarchies worldwide. Compassion
tied with the “nearest is dearest”theme is closely connected with compassion
“for the distant other.”The political sentiment of hatred is common con-
struction material for both types ofpolitical compassion,as is the sentiment
ofinjustice.Evidently,the list ofthe ways offeeling world politics is long.In a
way,communities and world orders are our second and third bodies.We feel
“bodily”processes in them because the mere thought oftheir extreme forms
sends shivers down our spines.In lived “world politics,”these shivers,chills,
and fevers are easily caught.Humanitarianism is among them.It both excites
and stimulates and causes worry and horror.
INTRODUCTION 3
Both the aforementioned books, Illness as a Metaphor and Bodies in
Pain, provide the groundwork for my guiding idea in this work. Bodily
processes matter and are iconically readable. They are personally emo-
tional in a way that is conditioned and constructed by the prevailing
imagination of the local and global power hierarchy. However, the key
question that we need to ponder over is, “What bodies are we talking
about?”Thinking about this question opens another bridgehead into this
book.The starting point is that our skins are overlapping and multiple.
I will make the case that we live in and are constituted by a diversity of
bodies. The sensations, sentiments, and emotions attached with these
different bodies vary. The suffering, agony, twisting, and convulsions of
our individual bodies are felt by others.In the same way,the pain oflarger
social bodies is inherently connected with those of our own. We feel
through and with the other bodies.One may argue that world politics,and
especially sentiments for the distant others,provides the largest possible
context for such felt and lived bodies.
The longing for the distant other has provided much of the fuel for
charitable, compassionate, and colonial impulses. From orientalism to
modern-day humanitarianism,the relationship between the top and the
bottom ofthe world hierarchy has resulted in a lot ofpolitical imagery.In
this context,I have to mention a third source ofserendipity for this work:
Darcy Grigsby’s (2002) book Extremitiesprovides a powerful demonstra-
tion of how imperial projects connect with those of compassion at
the level of visual imagery and art. Paintings can become sites where
“geographical extremities and bodily extremities articulated one another.”
Human bodies in paintings,and especially those visually demonstrating
pain, can represent and reveal imperial pains. This triad between visual
imagery,bodily pain,and world order will be one ofthe central points of
focus ofthis book.I will review visual representations in order to discern
the different traditions ofpolitical compassion.How are the pains ofindi-
vidual,nation,and empire represented so as to provoke compassion and
consequent political actions? What are the means ofrepresenting the polit-
ical violence and regressive political processes that have traditionally led to
desired political mobilizations?
To simplify the task ahead,I am recognizing the authority oftradition
and ofthe ways ofremembering it,as,for example,in stories,schoolbooks,
and works ofpopular culture.Some “bodies”are more strongly rooted in
political imagery. They contain a gallery of striking memory images. In
other words,there are some consistent themes and corresponding “bodies”
that have been made significant through centuries ofrepetition in what is
commonly referred to as “Western thought.”More specifically,the bodies
and corresponding skins I am tracing are the somatic/individual, the