Monday, March 8, 2010

The state of Exception





 Law without Law: the State of Exception

       The October Crisis (1970) rattled the bones of many Canadians. The war measures act was put into place, allowing police officers to arrest without warrant. Martial law was also put into place, allowing the Canadian Military to temporarily rule the country. What is interesting is the general public’s willingness to cooperate, despite the fact that they themselves could possibly be stripped of their rights
(Clément, 2008). After the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration administered similar measures to that of the War Measures Act, which exist almost ten years after it’s installment; Guantanamo Bay for example detains international prisoners, providing them with little knowledge as to the crime they have (or have not) committed ( Irons, 2009). In both cases, it is easy to see the potential for human rights violations by those in power. Knowing this, why is it that the public so freely gives its consent? As Antonio Gramsci (1971) suggests, the key to submission is found in the "spontaneous consent" of the masses; the Intellectual is used by the dominant group as a medium to render support of the masses (Gramsci, 1971).
       Although Gramsci was writing in an Italian prison during the Fascist regime, his concept is perfect in explaining post 9/11 security measures carried out in the Western world. Sherene Razack’s (2008) proposes that a society which operates both inside and outside the law operates similar to a concentration camp. The rights of individuals become ambiguous, unaware of their legal status in a given situation. It is in this instant, as Razack (2008) suggests, that our bodies too become camps. The Pakistani men who were accused of having terrorist connections by the Canadian Government, for example have been thrown into a ‘camp’. Similar to many victims of the October Crisis of 1970 and Guantanamo Bay, the men at hand did not commit a crime. Using the “law without law” (Racack, 2008, p.17), the Canadian Government arrested and charged these men on suspicion, finding “truckloads of evidence” after the fact. A society that rules under a law without law provides those in power with the capability to abuse human beings without liability. The danger of such a society lie in the fact that a small few are given permission to rule the state, detaining innocent citizens based on suspicion alone, such as the Muslim man who was accused of engaging in suspicious activity when really he was simply throwing away garbage (Razack, 2008).
       To push Razack’s camp concept further, I would invite you to assess the camp Caster Semenya was placed in late last summer (August 2009). Semenya, an 18 year old female runner from South Africa was accused of being a man after winning Gold in the 800m. Semenya was accused of ‘cheating’, as she was believed to have higher testosterone levels which would lead to her increased performance in the run. After deliberations, the International Olympic committee decided Semenya would take a biological test to ‘prove’ her gender. In an article titled The Gender Police are Back (Winnipeg Free Press, Feb. 9th, 2010) Robinson points out the IOC’s tendency to categorize athletes based on gender, leaving Semenya somewhere in the middle as a transgendered person. The IOC’s strict rules surrounding gender do not leave room for those who do not simply fall into one or the other. This, as Razack proposes, is where the trouble lies. It is in this state of liminality that concentration camps are created (Razack, 2008); once accused of ‘cheating’ her gender, she has been stripped of her identity, her rights as a human being and her dignity. Before Semenya was accused of cheating her gender, there was no question: she was a female. Similar to the Pakistani men Razack (2008) speaks of; Semenya is living in a camp. In broader terms, transgendered peoples live in between, in a state of exception, just as the ‘terrorists’ in Razack’s (2008) article.

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