Radicalism

SergiuMicoiu OanaRalucaCrciun NicoletaColopelnic
Radicalism,Populism,Interventionism. ThreeApproachesBasedonDiscourse Theory

ClujNapoca ThePublishingHouseoftheFoundationforEuropeanStudies EFES 2008
Onthefirstcover:Goya,Elsueodelarazonproducemonstruos(1799) Coverdesigner:RaduGaciu
Motto: The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothingtodowithwhetherthereisaworldexternaltothought,orwiththe realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects is constructedintermsofnaturalphenomenaorexpressionsofthewrathof God,dependsuponthestructuringofadiscursivefield.Whatisdeniedis not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursiveconditionofemergence.
ErnestoLaclau,ChantalMouffe,HegemonyandSocialistStrategy:Towardsa RadicalDemocraticPolitics,London:Verso,1985,p.108
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CONTENTS AbouttheAuthors.....................................................................................ix Introduction............................................................................................... 11 DiscourseTheoryandPoliticalContestation.AnInquiryBasedon anInternationalResearchProject ......................................................... 14 LEuroperebelleaninternationalresearchproject ....................... 15 DiscourseTheoryandPolitics............................................................. 17 DiscourseTheoryandLEuroperebelle ............................................ 20 Conclusions ............................................................................................ 29 TheNewPopulism.AnanalysisofthePoliticalDiscourseofFront NationalandLijstPimFortuyn............................................................. 31 Conceptualizingdiscourse................................................................... 33 Hegemonyandantagonism................................................................. 36 ApproachingCriticalDiscourseAnalysis ..................................... 43 TheemergenceofFNandLPFasRadicalPopulistparties ............ 46 Bearing a fascist identity...................................................................... 47 Assuming a racist identity.................................................................... 52 Assuming the populist identity from the ideological point of view..... 63 Radical populist identity ...................................................................... 66 Conclusions ............................................................................................ 68 TheDiscursiveRoadform9/11toOperationIraqiFreedom .......... 70 TheDiscursiveApproach:PreliminaryRemarks............................. 71 9/11andtheWaronTerror.............................................................. 76 OperationIraqiFreedom...................................................................... 97 Conclusions .......................................................................................... 119 Bibliography............................................................................................ 121
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TableofFigures Figure1:ErnestoLaclau,Creationofdiscursivehegemony .............. 39

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AbouttheAuthors
Sergiu Micoiu is a Lecturer of Political Science at the Faculty of European Studies, BabesBolyai University in ClujNapoca, Romania. In 2006, he obtained his PhD degree in Political Science at the University of ParisEst MarnelaValle (France) and his PhD degree in History at the BabesBolyaiUniversity.Hismainresearchinterestsaretheconstructivist andthealternativetheoriesappliedtothenationbuildingprocesses,tothe radicalpoliticalparticipationandtothepoliticaldynamicsoftheEuropean publicspaces.Hepublishedtwobooks(LeFrontNationaletsesrpercussions sur lchiquier politique franais 19722002, in 2005 and Nation Formation. A Social Constructivist Approach, in Romanian, in 2006), coedited two internationalvolumes(IssuesofDemocraticConsolidationinRomania,in2004 and Perceptions and Attitudes of the BabesBolyai University Students in the EuropeanUnion,inRomanian,in2007),andheistheauthorofthirtyarticles published in Romania, United Kingdom, France and Moldova. Sergiu Miscoiu is also the Acting Director of the Centre for Political Studies and International Relations, a reviewer for Freedom Houses Annual Report Nations in Transit, the EditorinChief of the Academic Journal Studia EuropaeaandachroniclerforRadioFranceCulture. OanaRaluca Crciun studied International Relations European StudiesatBabesBolyaiUniversityinClujNapoca,Romania.In2008,she obtained her BA degree with the thesis Making Sense of Immigrants and MuslimImmigrantsinFranceandintheNetherlands.Presently,sheisenrolled at Leiden University, the Netherlands, where she follows a masters programme in Public Administration European Governance. She is particularlyinterestedintheroleofdiscourseinmakingpoliticsmatterand sheintendstoenlargeherresearchareatowaysofimprovingthediscourse onpromotingtheEuropeanidentity.
Nicoleta Colopelnic studied International Relations European StudiesatBabesBolyaiUniversityinClujNapoca,Romania.In2008she obtainedherBAdegreewiththethesisFrom9/11totheInterventioninIraq: an Analysis based on Discourse Theory. Presently she is enrolled at Babes Bolyai University in ClujNapoca, where she follows a masters program inMulticulturalStudies.Hermaininterestsarethealternativeapproaches to international relations, the discursive identification of the Other and Orientalism.
Introduction
SergiuMicoiu
Since the beginning of the 1970s, the emergence of the socalled alternativeapproacheshasgeneratedaseriesofcontinuousdebatesabout thescientificpertinenceoftheneophytedisciplinesthatweremoreorless willingly included in the area of the nontraditional sciences. Discourse theory does not make an exception and, moreover, seems to have been a permanentsubjectofdispute,mainlyforthreereasons. First, Discourse Theory was built on the bases of Postmodernism, even if its most recent developments appear less and less relativist. It shared with Postmodernism the same mistrust in metanarratives and the samevisionontheflexibilityoftruth.1Thus,DiscourseTheorywasalways subjected to contestation coming from the scientists who rejected the postmodernistassumptionsandmethods.2 Then, Discourse Theory, and, especially its two first generations, put the linguistic approaches as their methodological fundaments. The linguisticapproachwasbythattimetheonlyoption,asthenewdiscipline was trying to create a critical difference and to challenge in this way the structuralist establishment of that time.3 But along with audacity comes vulnerability: by sticking to the linguistic area, Discourse Theory was placedatmostatthemarginofsocialsciences,asameresupplierofideas concerningthemodesofproductionofwords,phrases,textsandspeeches, andfarfromthescientificcorethatitaspiredto.
SeeJeanFranoisLyotard,ThePostmodern Condition:AReportonKnowledge,Minneapolis: UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1984. 2StartingwithAlexCallinicos,AgainstPostmodernism.AMarxistCritique,Cambridge:Polity Press,1991,pp813;3540. 3 A pioneering work that backs this argument is the one of William Labov. See William Labov, TheLogic of NonStandard English (1969) inThe Routledge Language and Cultural TheoryReader,NewYork:Routledge,2000,pp.456466.
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Introduction
And finally, there has been a sizable amount of uncertainty concerning the autonomy of this discipline, especially as, since the 1990s, DiscourseTheoryhasmaderathersuccessfuleffortstobroadenitsscopeto theensembleofthesocial,culturalandpoliticalspheres.EvenifDiscourse Theory has become a school of thought in the traditional sense of this concept, its opponents claimed that there was no common base for some extremely atomised interdisciplinary and interparadigmatic approaches, suchasthoseofDiscourseTheory. Far from being a manifesto in favour of Discourse Theory or a collection of empirical attempts to cement the vacillating bases of a less solid discipline, this book is a critical assessment of Discourse Theorys addedvalueinexplainingsomecrucialprocessesthatinfluencenowadays national and international relations. We are neither in the case of an adulatory collection of articles that bring an homage to the everlasting wisdomofacertaindiscipline,norinthepresenceofavolumethatwishes to discredit a theory just because some of its assertions are simply incompatiblewiththepriorfindingsoftheauthors.Rather,ourintentionis to test and, if necessary, to remodel various propositions of Discourse Theoryasaresultoftheirconfrontationtothreedifferenttypesofpolitical situations.Asaconsequence,thebookisbuiltuponthreecontributionsthat concentrateontheapplicationofdiscoursetheoryinthreedifferentcases. Anextensivebibliographythatgathersthesourcesusedfortheensembleof thesecontributionsmaybefoundattheendofthisvolume. Sergiu Micoius article discusses the opportunity of applying Discourse Theory to the study of the radical antisystem movements. For that, he employs as casestudies the subjects of an international research project that he comanaged, LEurope rebelle. Stepbystep, he analyses the capacity of Discourse Theorys insights to bring a new perspective on the basic militants motivations to join the rebellious movements and to act againstthepost1989Romanianpoliticalsystem. The contribution of Oana Raluca Crciun aims at rendering understandable the contribution of Discourse Theory to the study of RadicalPopulism.Ascasestudies,sheemploystheemergenceoftwofar right European political parties, the National Front in France and the List Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands. By putting forward both the advantages and the disadvantages of using Discourse Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis in these two casestudies, Oana Raluca Crciun shows to what
Radicalism,Populism,Interventionism.ThreeApproaches...
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extentitisnecessarytoconnectinsightsfromvariousdisciplinesinorderto analysecontroversialphenomena. NicoletaColopelnicsarticleisbasedonthediscursiveconstruction through time of the idea of Orient in the view of the Westerners and studiesthewayinwhichthisconstructionwasusedinordertobackUSAs decision to intervene in Iraq, in 2003. For that, she corroborates the assumptions of Discourse Theory with those of Social Psychology and those of Cultural Theory, and applies this interdisciplinary ensemble on some critically important ideological constructions during the cocalled WaronTerror,likeGeorgeW.BushsrepresentationoftheAxeofEvil. Perhaps the main contribution of this book is that it shows that Discourse Theory could provide not only some theoretical advancement but also some determinant tools for the empirical research. At the same time, this book also intends to show the limits of those discursive approaches that consider the social sphere as being a simple extension of the linguistic interrelationships and do not take into account, at least as a sidedevice,thescientificmethodsofsomeotherdisciplines.
DiscourseTheoryandPoliticalContestation.An InquiryBasedonanInternationalResearch Project
SergiuMicoiu
Ignoredforalongperiodoftime,thephenomenonofcontestation has made its return among the main research interests on the occasion of the celebration of the May 1968 upsurge. But between 1968 and 2008, contestation has changed its nature and its appearance. The place of the massmovementswhoopenlycontestedpowerhasbeentakenbythequasi sectarianunitsortheinformalpressuregroupswhoseactionsaregenerally a strange combination between violent sabotages and meticulous constructionsofparallelworlds. This contribution attempts to evaluate the explicative added value ofdiscoursetheorytothestudyoftheRomanianrebelliousmovements.1In the first part, I will briefly expose the framework of the research project LEurope rebelle (a joint project of the Universities ParisEst Marnela Valle,France,andBabesBolyai,Cluj,Romania).2Iwillconcentrateonthe Romanian component of this project and try to highlight the specific aspectsoftheindividualsandofthemovementswhobelongmoreorless to the world of the antisystem contestation. Then, I will investigate the framework of discourse theory in order to filter the elements that will be appliedinthecasestudiesoftheRomanianrebels.Inthethirdsection,Iwill evaluate the contribution of the aboveselected theoretical elements to the
In order to avoid some possible misunderstandings, I will use different quotation marks forthemetaphorsthatIwilluseandforthewordsusedbythesubjectsofmyinterviews. Thus,Iwillrespectivelyuseitalicsformymetaphorsandsinglequotationmarksforthose usedbytheinterviewed. 2Thetitlechosenfortheprojectwasmeanttobebothdescriptiveandteasing.Inthisarticle, Iwillusethewordsrebelandrebelliousinarathermetaphoricsenseandinconnectionwith thetitleofthisprojectandnotnecessarilytodescribeanimminentupsurge.
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understanding of the phenomenon of contestation in nowadays Romania. In this sense, I will try to show how the main assumptions of discourse theory could be applied in the analysis of the Romanian contestation phenomenonandIwillprovidesignificantexamples:farleftandfarright, Anarchists, revolutionaries, ultraorthodox militants etc. Finally, I will draw the main conclusions concerning the merits and the limits of discoursetheoryinapproachingtheRomaniancontestationmovements.
LEuroperebelleaninternationalresearchproject
The research project LEurope rebelle is the result of a collective reflection of an international group of experts gathered within the Laboratory Espaces Ethiques et Politiques of the University ParisEst MarnelaValle.3 The main objective of this project is to identify the reasons behind rebellious activism in three European countries having differentculturaltraditionsFrance,PolandandRomania. Duringthefirststageoftheproject,theteamestablishedthecriteria forselectingtherebelliouspopulationthatwillbestudied.Atthebeginning, the team has chosen about twenty rebellious political movements which seemed to be relevant for this approach. Finally, the area of the only political movements was enlarged to the ethnic, social and religious groups,providedthatatleastoneoftheactivitiesofthosegroupswasthe contestationoftheactualpoliticalsystemoratleastofoneofitselements. As for the methods, and, implicitly, as for the expected results, the team optedforthesemidirectedinterviewsandfortheanalyticalmonographic studies. The team has also decided that the interest of this project was to provide a multidisciplinary understanding of the reasons behind the political involvement of the antisystem activists. The subjects selection was made by following three criteria. First, the subjects have to be contemporaryrebels,meaningindividualswhoseactionsaimedtoquestion, to radically change or to suppress the present political realities. Thus, the former rebels, and especially the antifascist resistants and the
The General Manager of the project LEurope rebelle (The Rebellious Europe) is Professor ChantalDelsol,whereastheResearchManagerforRomaniaisDcotorSergiuMiscoiu.
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DiscourseTheoryandPoliticalContestation.AnInquiry
anticommunist dissidents, are excluded from this project. Even if the former dissidents could have constituted an important resource for the casestudies on Romania and Poland, the team considered that the coherenceoftheprojectresidedespeciallyinthetransversalanalysisofthe phenomenon of rebellion against nowadays democratic systems. In this way, we have excluded all the individuals who contested a totalitarian system or a certain political system prior to the democratic transition in CentralandEasternEurope. The second criterion concerned the quality of the subjects as activists within their groups, associations, parties or networks. As we consideredthatresearchershavealreadyextensivelystudiedtheleadersof the radical or extremist political movements, we decided that one of the mostoriginalaspectsofthisprojectwouldbeitsfocusonthebasicactivists. Thus, our studies concentrated on the paths of the simple militants who constitute the fundamental structures of the rebellious movements and not onthecarriersoftheirleaders. The last criterion was diversity. As a quantitative research based uponaprecisesamplingprocedurewasnotthepurposeofthisproject,the onlymeansthatcouldhaveensuredtheextensionoftherangeofcaseswas thevarietyofthesubjectstypologies.Accordingtothisthirdcriterion,the chosenmilitantsand,consequently,themovementsheldforthisresearch, should be nationally unique. So, we have approached a single neofascist Polish militant, a single Romanian ultraorthodox activist, a single French Anarchist,andsoon. Fromthemethodologicalpointofview,thisresearchsupposesthe following rationale: the inquirer makes a halfguided interview with the chosen militant and, based on the interview, he or she writes the monographic study. The interviews cover the ensemble of details that couldclarifythereasonsandthemodalitiesofthesubjectsinvolvementin the activity of rebellion: aspects related to the familial life, to the professionalevolution,tothefriendcircles,tothevariousreportswiththe politicalandsocialspheres,tothepathsofthevaluesystemsconstruction. The essential part of the monographic study has to concentrate on the analysis of the subjects militant activity and on the perspectives of his or her political involvement. Finally, if necessary, the inquirer could add a chapter with some precisions concerning the nature, the history, the ideologyandtheactivityoftherespectivemovement.
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LEuroperebellestartedinMay2007andendsinDecember2009.By the end of this project, a collective volume about the phenomenon of rebellioninEuropewillbepublished.
DiscourseTheoryandPolitics
The shakings that took place in the seventies within the scientific community allowed the emergence of the postmodern and of the poststructuralist approaches. Discourse theory belongs to the family of these alternative approaches, meaning that it contributed, in successive stages, to the dismantlement of the great convictions held by the pre existingscientificframework. If the starting point of discourse theory was the work of Michel Foucault4 and Jacques Derrida5, literature discusses about the existence of threegenerationsofthisschoolofthought.Thefirsttwogenerationswere rather tributary to the genuine visions and concentrated on the linguistic andsemanticaspectsofdiscourse,inanarrowsense.6 On a contrary, prompted by the weakening of the classical ideologies after the end of the Cold War, the approach of the third generation has been intimately related with the apprehension of politics. Two of the most salient representatives of this generation, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe7, have concentrated on the study of the discursive representation of the power relations, mainly on the constitution, confrontation, destruction and restructuring of the dominant networks of
For a synthesis of Foucaults view on discourse, seeMichel Foucault, LOrdre du Discours inMichel Foucault, Philosophie. Anthologie, (Anthologie tablie et prsente par ArnoldI.DavidsonetFrdricGros),Paris:Gallimard,1999,pp.6179. 5 Jacques Derrida, Lcriture et la diffrence, Paris: Seuil, 1967, especially the chapter Lcriture,lesigneetlejeudanslediscoursdesscienceshumaines,pp.409428. 6NormanFairclough,thefounderofCriticalDiscourseAnalysis,isoneofthemostsalient representativesofthesecondgeneration.Hismainconcernwasrelatedtotheapproachof thelinguistictechniquesusedbyspeakersintheireffortstoimposeacertainconclusionif the contradictory debates. See Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis, London, Longman:1995. 7See,especially,ErnestoLaclau,Grammairedelmancipation,Paris:LaDcouverte,2000and ChantalMouffe(ed.),DeconstructionandPragmatism,NewYork:Routledge,1996.
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power through the dynamics of the discursive placements, displacements andreplacements. Grosso modo, discourse theory is based on an antiessentialist ontology and antifoundationalist epistemology.8 In the first place, the adepts of discourse theory consider that there is no preexisting and self determining essence of the world. Religion, capitalism, class struggle, rationalityor,morerecently,theglobalwarmingtheoryareasmanyfalse essences that pretend to offer a final explanation of mankind destiny. Following Foucault and Lyotard, the discourse theorists see behind the effortsdeployedtoachieveauniqueandfinalrepresentationoftheworld the desire to establish a political hegemony. The purpose of discourse theoryistosearchforthedeepestconsequencesoftheabsenceofaCentre capabletostructureandtomanagetheworld. Secondly, the epistemology of discourse theory is rather relativist. ItsstartingpointseemstobeRichardRortysideaaccordingtowhichthe existenceofrealitydoesnotguaranteetheexistenceoftruth.9Truthseems to be conditioned by a truth regime, which, as Foucault put it, is co extensive with power itself. The claim of an absolute truth has to be abandoned once and for all. Discourse theorists show that truth is elastic and ephemeral and depends of the truth regime that holds the rules for assessingthetruthclaimofacertainsentence.Thatiswhywecannothave the necessary means to declare that a statement is true per se, but we can onlyhavethepossibilitytomeasureitsallegedtruthconsistencyinrelation toacertaincontextandtoourownperceptionoftheouterworld. For discourse theorists, the application of these two premises necessarily results into a polymorphous system of relations, withinwhich the identities of the actors are always established via interaction. Thus, identity construction through the discursively analyzable social interactionsbecomestheessentialobjectofdiscoursetheorists.Thecentral idea of discourse theory is that identity is constituted by subjects self determination in relation to its nonidentities, or, in other words, to the identitiesoftheothers.Thisoperationisquasidiscursive,meaningthatwe produce(andweconsciouslyorunconsciouslyreproduce)descriptionsand
8SeeDavidHowarth,JacobTorfing(ed.),DiscourseTheoryinEuropeanPolitics.Identity,Policy andGovernance,Palgrave:Macmillan,2005,p.13. 9SeeRichardRorty,Contingency,IronyandSolidarity,Cambridge:UniversityPress,1989.
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analyseswhichallowustoidentifyourselvesinrelationtotheouterworld. This way, discourse is both the creator and the alterator of identity, as, trough the mechanisms of representation, it invisibly and temporarily establishes the social positions and places occupied by individuals and groups.Thedomainofpoliticsisthefirsttobeconcernedbythisdiscursive constraint,asitswayoffunctioningisbasedonthepermanentnegotiation oftheprinciplesofgovernment. Discourse theorists have been trying to apply their hypotheses in variousfieldsofpoliticalscienceandpolitics.However,itseemsthatthey succeeded only in a limited area of subfields, including the study of extremistandradicalpolitics.Thereasonsofthisexplicativepredilectionof discoursetheorytowardsradicalpoliticsarenumerous. In the first place, the resurgence of the European farleft and far right parties coincided with the emergence of the third generation of discourse at the beginning of the 1990s. The new waves of political extremismrevolutionaryTrotskyism,French,ItalianandDutchfarright parties,antiglobalizationmovements,etcweretakenbytheresearchers ofthisthirdgenerationascasestudiesfortheirongoingtheoreticalworks. Then,discoursetheorylooksforexplanationsthatareexteriortotheareaof the mechanic determinations of the social world, whereas the most of the analyses based on social determinism have failed to offer a satisfactory explanationfortheemergence,theevolutionandthedecayofradicaland extremist movements. And, finally, discourse theory was able to include and to make understandable the multidimensional aspects of extremism andradicalism,bycombininglinguisticandsemanticapproaches,insights from social psychology and from behaviourist sociology and methods inspiredfrompoliticalanthropology.10
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AnexampleofthediscursiveapproachofradicalpoliticsisErnestoLaclaus,OnPopulist Reason,London:Verso,1997.
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DiscourseTheoryandLEuroperebelle
To summarize, it is convenient to use the idea of Jacob Torfing11, accordingtowhomtheapproachofdiscoursetheorymaybesynthesizedin fivekeypoints.Inthenextpages,Iwilltrytoinvestigatethewayinwhich these five keypoints have been used both as research hypotheses and as analytical tools within the framework of the project LEurope rebelle. For each of these points, I will offer relevant examples extracted from the empiricalstudiesconductedunder our researchproject,inordertoassess the degree of pertinence of the discursive approach in evaluating the phenomenonofcontestationinRomania. 1.Thefirstpointisthatsocialpracticestakeplaceinanenvironment dominatedbyspecificdiscoursesthathavethemselvestheirownhistorical background. What it is said today bears the burden of what was said yesterdayanddetermineswhatwillbesaidtomorrow.Theevolutionfrom one dominant discourse to another takes place through the liberation of signifiers;astheybecomefree,thesesignifiersaretobechainedinaseries of new logical continuums. In this context, some of the free signifiers become nodal points, gathering the various representations of reality in a coherent ensemble, but bearing the legacy of their prior meaning and configurations. In the case of our research project, the identification of the discursiveenvironmentinwhichthesubjectformationtookplacewasone of the essential concerns of the team. Moreover, we were interested in finding the free signifiers that have allowed the constitution or the reconstitution of the nodal points capable to support the emergence of a newdiscursiveframeworkforsocialaction. Here, the case of L.F. is probably an appropriate example. Briefly, L.F. is a researcher from Timisoara who participated to the upsurges that resulted into the violent regime change of December 1989, but who was banishedfromtheleadershipofthenewregimeinthefirstmonthsof1990. He is the cofounder of an NGO that fights against the enslavement of
11 Jacob Torfing, Discourse Theory: Achievements, Arguments, and Challenges in David Howarth, Jacob Torfing (ed.), Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance,Palgrave:Macmillan,2005,pp.1417.
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RomaniaandofthewholeworldbytheforcesofEvil,theextraterrestrials andtheirallies,theFrancMasonsandtheJews.12Hespendshisenergyin cofinancing TV shows, in organizing reunions and in printing books, leafletsandsomesporadicjournals. Inhiscase,studyingtheinitialdiscursiveenvironmentinwhichhe waseducatedcontributedtotheunderstandingofthefactthathisattitude towards the social world has been the consequence of his family legacy (both his father and his grandfather were fascists). When, after 1989, the chaosoftransitionwasproducingawholevacuumofvaluesandmodels, L.F.progressivelyreplacedvariouselementsofthislegacyinthecoreofhis convictions.Somefree signifiers suchasdivine justice, nationalcause ormoralrevolutionproliferatedinasocietythatseemedtohaveturned once and forever the page of communism without having been able to build its own system of values. L.F. captured stepbystep these empty signifiers, correlated them with significant excerpts of the fascist familial legacyanddenouncedahypocriticallyreligioussociety,meaningasociety where the political system was totally corrupted and infiltrated by the twilight forces. The result was the gradual emergence of a halfparanoid character, dominated by the will to establish an ideal order through a crusadethathewouldleadasoneofthearchangels. The central idea of this first argument of discourse theory the existenceofadiscursiveburdeninthepresentbutalsoofanequallyheavy burdenofthepastprovedtobeusefulindeterminingthereasonsofL.F.s actionsonlyifonecanassesstowhatextentthefreeingofcertainsignifiers was the cause of this characters antisocial reaction and not the actual events (such as the divorce, the failure of his inventor brevets, or the banishment from public life). The conjunction of these two types of explanation (discursive and mechanic) seems to be more appropriate for approachingthecaseofL.F. 2. The second point of discourse theory holds that discourse is constituted via hegemonic struggles for imposing a political leadership and forarticulatingthemeaningandtheidentities.Hegemoniccombatsarefar from taking place in neutral, conscious and isolated battlefields. Rather theyaretheresultsofaneverlastingseriesofsequentialandchaoticefforts.
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IconductedtheinterviewwithL.F.inAugust2007,inTimisoara.
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The success of these efforts depends of the individuals propensity to opt for those identity yardsticks that are sufficiently strong to maintain and reinforce some articulations of meaning and, above all, the temporarily dominant articulation. Discourse theory posits that the articulations that succeedinofferingabelievablereadingkeyfortheinterpretationofmajor eventsbecomehegemonic.Forcreatingandmaintainingsucharticulations, we use the ideological totalisation, a process through which discourse is structuredinseveralnodalpoints. Within theframe of LEurope rebelle research project, this idea was applied in analysing rebellious activism as an endless search for an articulationcapabletofixthesocialworldinauniqueandfinaldiscourse. The ideological totalisation showed itself through the progressive constitutionoftheworldoftherebel,aworldthatisgenerallygood,just andfairandcontrastedinthiswaywiththerealworld. Toillustratethisidea,itisappropriatetostudythecaseofM.D.,a painterfromBucharestandacofounderofaninformalNGOthatactivates for the development of the Lesbian identity. She acts against the marginalisation and the submission of women and preaches a world where men become dispensable.13 M.D. claims to have a full Lesbian identity and participates to the actions of combat against disinformation by the establishment. Nevertheless, she is against Feminism and against the GLBT14 movements that she considers soft and responsible for an alteredimageofthehumanessence.Sheleftherfamilyandbrokewithall her former friends for living with her girlfriends in a marginal neighbourhoodinBucharest. In the case of M.D., the hegemonic struggles took place between UltraOrthodoxy, Anarchism and radical Lesbianism. Radical Orthodoxy lost when M.D. became aware that there was a tremendous gap between theory and practice within this religion. Between Anarchism and radical Lesbianism, she chose the latter, as its integrative discourse suited [her] very well. Lesbian radicalism presented at least two majors advantages. Thefirstwasthatitconcentratedonacomponentthatmadethedifference between M.D. and the others, namely sexual orientation. And the second was that it gathered in a compact ideological ensemble nodal points that
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InterviewtakeninFebruary2008,inCluj. GayLesbianBiTrans.
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were essential for the young rebel: the denunciation of womens marginalisation, the social identification based on the sexual orientation andthestruggleforgenderedjustice. In brief, discourse theory explains that M.D. translated the free signifiers partly recomposed in a discursive articulation in her own language and chose, according to her own capacities, the version which seemedthemostadequate.ShegotinthiswaytotheideaoftheLesbian identity,thatsheconstructedherselfbyusingthenodalpointswhichwere victorious in the struggle with the other signifiers. However, one may ask himself if there has really been a combat between discourses having hegemonic claims or if rather M.D. has not invented herself the idea of a hesitationbetweenseveralcurrents,assuchanideawouldhavelegitimised herfinalchoice.Moreover,itisprobablethatherstatusofasexualminority memberinahomophobicsocietyleftherlittleroomforselectingthemain criteria for joining a radical movement. But this objection would be valid onlyifwewouldassumethathersexualorientationitselfhasnotbeenthe result of the adoption of a certain identitybased discourse, but the determinantofthatverydiscourse. 3.Thirdly,discoursetheoryexplainsthathegemonicarticulationsof meanings and identities are based on the emergence of social antagonisms. All the doctrines based on the ideological totalisation suppose the idea of theexistenceoftheOther,asayardstickforstructuringtheidentityandthe principles of the inner group. Thus, alteration (or, in other words, the invention of the Other) supposes by itself the identification of a nonUs which, in the context of social and political competition, becomes an adversary whose nature and dimensions are representable through discourse. In order to give a sense to our own identity, the Other is excludedand,withinsocialantagonism,confronted.Hisidentitystructures ouridentitybutatthesametimeopensthewayforthedismantlementof Ourselves,asitoffersanalternativetoouridentity. The determination of what is contained and what is not contained in our identity becomes in this way essential for our perspective of the world and for our manner to perceive the political. This determination becomes understandable through the imaginary construction of political
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frontiers, which are merely or not at all transpassable in the case of the extremistandradicalcollectiveidentities. For LEurope rebelle, the reasons of the action of contestation are based on the belonging to the groups that associate the nonrebels with theevilorderandtoitsconsequences.Therebelscreateuntranscendable frontiers between their own group and the establishment; these frontiers definethetwotypesofidentitybyplacingtheminacontextofantagonism thatisperceivedtobenatural. Letusseeaconcreteexamplethatillustratesthisthirdproposition of discourse theory. G.A. is a former apparatchik of the fourth echelon of the Communist Party in the Mehedinti county.15 He fought against the coup dEtatin 1989 and, paying the bill of his attitude, held his convictions all over the transitional period. First, he joined the Socialist PartyoftheWorkers,presidedbyanexministerofCeausescu.In1995,he left this party in order to join the Romanian Socialist Party, a small and radicalcliquedominatedbyformerCommunistcadres.Inspiteofhisage (75in2008),G.A.doesnothesitatetocontinuethecombatbypublishing articles in NeoCommunist newspapers, by distributing leaflets, by participating to the annual commemorations of Nicolae Ceausescus birthday and by organising reunions with the comrades of his neighbourhood.Withinthislatteractivity,hecamewiththeideatogather a small brigade of comrades that issued in 2007 a Proclamation of the CommunistState,asamizdatmanifesto,publishedinsuchawaythatthe CIAwouldntnotice. InthecaseofG.A.,socialantagonismwasfedbytherefreshmentof aNeoStalinistideologicaldiscoursethatwasstrongenoughtooverwhelm all the other possibilities to read the prior and the post1989 events. The identification of the Other has already been perpetrated during the Communistregime,whentherevengeagainstthebourgeoisandthenthe permanentagitationofthedangerofrestorationhaveprovidedthemain objectfortheideologicalstruggle.After1989,thebalanceofpowerbetween Us and Them has been reversed. The discursive inscription of the New RegimeasafolloweroftheOthermadepossiblethereconstitutionofthe political frontiers, this time with more passion and virulence. The associations operated by the NationalCommunist press of the time
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InterviewtakeninSeptember2007,inDrobetaTurnuSeverin.
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(CapitalismtransitionLiberalismpovertybetrayalcorruption) redrew the imaginary links with the past and prompted the reactivation of G.A. as a militant. In his case, as the militant action was less and less effective, political frontiers merged with the material boundaries: the discursive linkagebetweentheidealCommunistorderandtheverylimitofthesmall neighbourhoodhewaslivinginengenderedamaterialisationofpeoples power projection, and the latter led to the Proclamation of the Communist State. However, in addition to the explanations offered by discourse theory, it is obvious that the determinants of G.A.s socialisation are also responsible for the radicalisation of his discourse and for his decision to undertakesomeratherspectacularactions.Amongthesedeterminants,the conservationofthenetwork offormerlocalCommunistactivistsplayeda crucial role in the preservation of the old ideological line. But such conservation would have had few chances to resist in the absence of a discursivetotalisationoperatedbyimportantsegmentsoftheradicalpress, especially in the early 1990s, a period when a sizeable number of former Communists have regrouped around Ion Iliescu and bent to the social marketeconomy,namelytobusiness.Itwasthehighdegreeofradicalism of the discourse based on the antagonism between the passed idealised order and the present denounced one that nourished G.A.s opinions and actions. 4. The fourth assertion of discourse theory regards the dismantlement of the discursive orders. A discursive system dislocates when it unsuccessfully tries to bring credible explanations to the new developments that happen in the actual world. Dislocation takes place underthedestructiveactionoftheotherdiscursivesystemswhichaspire tohegemonybyattemptingtocapturethesignifiersfreedbytheformerly dominant system while agonising. The apprehension of a set of publicly vocal free signifiers and their coherent ideological totalisation give to a certaindiscursivesystemdecisivechancestowinovertheothers. In our case, competition among many virtually hegemonic discursivesystemsisanessentialtraitoftransition.Inthelightofthisidea, rebellion is the result of the violent integration of a set of principles and valuesabandonedafterthefalloftheCommunistdiscursivemacrosystem.
26
Thus,ourteamwasinterestedinstudyingthewaysinwhichthefallofthe dominantdiscursivesystemswasrelatedtotheintegrationofoursubjects intherebelliousmovements. M.I.offersagoodillustrationofthisidea.BorninIasi,inafamilyof intellectuals, he was first a spoiled child and then a real burden for his family:duringhighschool,hestartedtodrinkandtotakedrugsand,asa student, he failed his exams and had to repeat the first year.16 Since 2005, M.I.hasjoinedanAnarchistmovementandparticipatedtotheactivitiesof two NGOs animated by some sages whose names have to remain unknown and financed from abroad. In addition to the activity of ideologicaldisseminationofBakuninsworks,theAnarchistmovementof Iasi made a salient public appearance when it attempted to boycott the NATOSummit,organisedinBucharest,inApril2008.M.I.tookparttothis eventinordertofightagainstStatepersecutionsandpoliceterror. M.I.decidedtojointheAnarchistmovementwhenherealisedthat the entire political system was based on lies meant to conceal its real totalitarian nature. Failing to explain to M.I. why the passage from Communism to democracy required a transitional period, the democratic discursive system lost in his view its hegemony and was replaced by a virulent antipaternalist discourse having an Anarchist flavour. For M.I., free signifiers, such as freedom, individualism, selfmanagement or emancipationbecamemorecoherentiftheywereintegratedintheradical andrebeldiscoursethaniftheyweredrownedintheoceanofthesignifiers producedbytheofficialdiscourse.Inhisownwords, At first, I believed the promises of freedom and peace. But everythingfelldownwhenIrealisedthatneithertransition,northe socalledEuropeanizationwereleadingtoanentirelyfreesociety.It wastheotherwayaround! Inthiscase,discoursetheoryexplainsthatthefallofaholisticand supported by a repressive apparatus discourse opened the way for a merciless war between the discursive systems that had hegemonic tendencies. The PostCommunist hegemonic discourse, based on the democratic rhetorical repertoire, did not succeed to maintain the
16
InterviewtakeninMay2008,inIasi.
27
encapsulation of numerous signifiers, partly captured by the rival discourses,includingtheAnarchistone.Allegedly,M.I.followed,moreor less consciously, the plot presented hereabove, by discarding the official discourseandbyadheringtoradicalAnarchism. One may criticize the credit that this approach gives to the self determination capacity of subjects when they choose their preferred discursive universes. Once again, we can imagine that M.I. has joint Anarchismtoopenlydefyhisfamilyratherthantocompensatetheabsence ofacoherentsystemofvalues.Moreover,behindhismilitantinvolvement, there are perhaps the seduction of the game of contestation and the need for integration, and not the incorporation in a certain discursive universe. However, the last point of discourse theory, presented herebelow, will providesomesupplementarycounterargumentstothisobjection. 5. Finally, discourse theory holds that the dislocation of a certain discursive horizon is strongly connected with the emergence of the split subject. As a consequence of subjects failure to achieve a fully integrated identity,heorsheisalwaysinaprocessofsearchforanidentificationthat offers the illusion of the complete integration.Politics is a field where the promises concerning the realisation of a common welfare may be widely understood as a perspective for acquiring a full identity. According to Slavojiek,thefailureofthefinalidentificationgeneratesthedramatisation ofthesearchforidentity.17Itmayleadtoachoiceinfavourofsomeofthe most radical discourses, which promise the immediate achievement of a full identity. But as these radical discursive systems fail at their turn to accomplishthispromise,theyfeedthedislocationofresponsibility:theOthers arealwaysresponsibleforthefailureofafullidentitysachievement.This way, the perpetual creation and recreation of discourses in which the excluded from the inner group are guilty for the absence of a fully integratedidentitybecomeindispensable. For our research project, it was useful to determine the lacking identityorthelackingidentitiesofthesubjects,tounderstandthediscursive mechanismsthroughwhichtherebelsjoinedthegroupsthatpromisedthe reconstitutionoftheiridentitiesandtodepicttheprocessesofresponsibility
17
See Slavoj iek, Invisible Ideology: Political Violence Between Fiction and Fantasy in JournalofPoliticalIdeologies,Vol.1,Issue1,February1996,pp.1618.
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dislocationandtheobjectsoftheseprocesses,theOthers.Inthemostofthe cases, the act of rebellious integration was by itself a form of guiltiness deviation, as the search for a remedy for the particular situation of each subject passed through the identification with a group that was more capabletofindconvenientscapegoats. ItwaspreciselywhathappenedinthecaseofD.P.18Bornin1965,in aformerlyGreekCatholicfamilyinOradea,hewasthefirsttobebaptised in the Orthodox religion, in a time when the GreekCatholic church was dissolvedbytheCommunistregime.Thetwoidentitiesofhisfamilythe Catholic and the Orthodox have peacefully cohabited under the Communism,buthaveviolentlyclashedafter1989,whentheissuesofthe restitutions that the Orthodox Church had to make to the GreekCatholic one openly emerged. The young technician, who has been three times unsuccessful in his efforts to be admitted at the Polytechnic University in Cluj,foundhimselfthrowninthemiddleofreligiousandpoliticalquarrels. Since1993,hehaspaidalotofattentiontotheinterreligiousdebatesand collected, at the beginning, the arguments that were favorable to the Catholics.HeendedupbyconvertingtoGrecoCatholicismandbyactively fighting what he called the Orthodox ChurchPartyState. But he had a hardtimetogetacceptedbythetraditionalGreekCatholiccommunitiesin Oradea,whofeared,inhisownwords,theinfiltrationofspies.Asaresult of the frequent scandals that took place in his parish council especially duringtheperiodswhen hewastemporarily unemployed,D.P.startedto distance himself from the GreekCatholic circles. Moreover, he started to frequent a radical orthodox association and reconverted to his native religion in 1998. Since then, he has remained a simple militant of this group; the main objective of this association is to return to the traditions and to purge the Church of the Communists and of the Secret Service agents. Since 2003, this association has militated for the instauration of a National Orthodox State, governed by a diarchy composed of a lay President and of the Orthodox Patriarch. In 2008, D.P. and his comrades actedagainsttheelectionofthenewPatriarchoftheOrthodoxChurch:his association has openly criticized the main three candidates, but did not proposeanalternativetothem.
18
InterviewtakeninJuly2008,inOradea.
29
D.P.shesitationswithrespecttohisconfessionandtheultraradical manner in which he joined a marginalised Orthodox sect are consonant with the psychoanalytical theory of the split subject. Traumatised by his professional failures and by the interreligious conflict that destroyed his family, D.P. firstly tried to identify himself with a religious, moral and political discourse that preached, in a nutshell, the restitution of the pre 1945 realities. But, as he has not been accepted by a GreekCatholic community whose collective habits and personal requirements were too hard to cope with, D.P. recovered his Orthodox identity and blamed his Catholic heresy for its situation in which he found himself. Within the radical Orthodox movement, he identified himself with a faction that started to attack the high Orthodox hierarchy. For D.P., the fault for the ensembleofhisfailuresalwayscomestotheOthers.Consequently,hetook the care to build a protective fence against Them. As a final example, the failure of his last marriage attempt was due to the manner in which his formerwouldbewifehasbeenindoctrinatedbythePapistsandtheOrtho Papists. Discourse theory seems to be capable to explain the social and political behaviour of this character, provided that the thesis of the split subject (which rather comes from social psychology) is fully integrated in its theoretical framework. For the moment, the inclusion of this thesis withintheensembleofdiscoursetheoryremainsproblematic,becausethe search for the completed identity does not necessarily take place in the interior of a certain discursive universe and rather depends of a series of factorsthatisendogenoustotheimmediatesocialrelations.However,one may argue that the social and the discursive are themselves co substantial
Conclusions
Iftheresearchquestionposedatthebeginningofthisarticlewasif discoursetheorybroughtacertaincontributiontotheunderstandingofthe phenomenonofcontestation,theanswercouldnotbenegative.Thereisno doubtthatdiscoursetheoryprovidesaremarkableanalytictoolandthatit offersavaluablealternativetothemonisttraditionalapproaches.However,
30
on a more accurate level, is discourse theory sufficient to analyse the reasons of the political involvement and of the militant actions of those commonindividualswhochosetojoinsomeRomanianrebelmovements? Atafirstglance,theresponsetothissecondquestionwouldrather be negative. An overarching argument in this sense would be that, as opposedtothecontestationphenomenaintheothertwocountriesheldfor thisresearchFranceandPolandtherebelliousactionoftheRomaniansis farmoreindividualisedandthuslesssusceptibletobeschematisedwithin someclearpoliticalpatternsandprofiles. Nevertheless, if we take into consideration the fact that discourse theory is far from claiming that it is by itself alone capable to approach generalpoliticalphenomena,thisnegativeanswercouldbechallenged.In fact, discourse theory takes the discursive paradigm as a framework that givesthepossibilitytointegrateopenandmultidisciplinaryexplanations.It ispreciselyitsconclusiononthedisappearanceofaregulatorycentreofthe social sphere that opens the way to the negotiations between several readings of the world which require the corroboration of data and interpretationsproposedbyallthesocialsciences. The contestation of the democratic order remains, in the case of Romania, a marginal phenomenon. However, the end of the post transitionalperiod,markedbyRomaniasaccessiontotheEuropeanUnion, allowedforacertainrelaxationofcensorshipandselfcensorshipoverthe voicesthatopposedtheactualpoliticalsystemanditsprinciples.Moreover, themultiplicationoftheEuropeannetworkswhichcontesttheestablishment hasprovidedasupplementaryimpetustothesimilarorganisationsofthe formerCommunistcountries. Inthiscontext,discoursetheorycouldbringitscontributiontothe analysis of the mechanisms that allowed the naturalisation of the anti system action at the level of the European public spaces. But this contributionshouldnotignorethemotivationsofthebasicmilitantsdirect actions and the fact that this demarche requires some interdisciplinary approaches. The research project LEurope rebelle could contribute to the complexresultsthatareobtainedinthesetypesofscientificlaboratories.
TheNewPopulism.AnanalysisofthePolitical DiscourseofFrontNationalandLijstPimFortuyn
OanaRalucaCrciun
Machiavelli, one of the most influential political theorists, whom BernardCrickandothershavecalledthemostworthyhumanistanddistinctly modern,1 provided us with a comprehensive understanding of power and authority.Thesetwoconceptscoexistbecausewhoeverhaspowerhasthe right to rule.2 Since power is central to political rationality, activity, or decisionmaking,thepoliticalelites useitinordertogathersupportfrom thepublicopinion.Onewayofdoingthisisthroughdiscoursebecauseas Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida and many others have indicated, communicationisatalltimesalreadypenetratedbypower3.Moreover,thisview recognizesconflictasbeingsomethingnatural,asopposedtoHabermasian conception, which has its roots with Plato via Kant and which considers that consensus seeking and freedom from domination4 should guide our communicative process. The only form of power which Habermas considers legitimate in the ideal speech situation and communicative rationalityistheforceofbetterargument,5whichprovidesarationalbasisfor theorganizationofsociety.
Bernard Crick , Preface and Introduction to Niccol Machiavelli, in The Discources, Harmondsworth:Penguin,1983,pp.12,17. 2 Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince, QuentinSkinnerand RussellPrice (eds.), Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1988. 3BentFlyvbjerg,IdealTheory,RealRationality:HabermasversusFoucaultandNietzsche, inTheChallengesforDemocracyinthe21stCentury,SchoolofEconomicsandPoliticalScience, 2000,p.5. 4JrgenHabermas,ThePhilosophicalDiscourseofModernity:TwelveLectures,Cambridge:MIT Press,1987,p.295. 5 Jrgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990,p.198.
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TheNewPopulism.AnanalysisofthePoliticalDiscourse
Ashistoryhasdemonstrated,Habermasidealtheoryanddiscourse ethicsarenotviableinaworldwhererationalityismanytimesoverlooked andreplacedbyrationalizationinthestrugglefordomination.Instead,an analysis of discourse that acknowledges the struggle over ideas as the essence of politics and decisionmaking should be implied.6 According to this framework, the world is experienced by people in different ways, in accordancewiththeirinterests,positions,needs,preferences,andtheway theydefinethesedependsonhowchoicesarepresentedtothemandbywhom.7 Moreover,discourseshouldberegardedasacatalystforcollectiveaction, asanelementthatholdstogetheraparticularcommunitywhileitdiscredits andrejectsanothercommunity.Inotherwords,discoursecanbeviewedas havingthepowertomobilizesymbolicresourcesprovidingcollectiveforms ofidentification.8 Thischapterexaminesthegrowthofnewradicalpopulistpartiesin FranceandintheNetherlandsandthemanifestationofethnicandreligious dominance in their antiimmigrant, antiMuslim discourse. The investigation is carried out from a multidisciplinary and comparative discourseanalyticalapproach.Thiscontributionattemptstoestablishalink betweenthetheorydevelopedbyErnestoLaclauandChantalMouffethat explainstheprocessofidentityformationthroughdiscourseandCritical Discourse Analysis that studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequalityareenacted,reproduced,andresistedbytextandtalkinthesocialand political context.9 In other words, this study seeks to examine the nexus betweenthemannerinwhichtheidentityofthepartiesNationalFrontand Pim Fortuyn List was shaped and their discourse ascertaining and reproducingethnicandreligiousdominance. The examination of the connection between these two theories facilitatestheunderstandingoftheelectoralsuccessofFNandLPF.Despite thefactthatFNandLPFengagedinpoliticsintwodifferentmoments,both parties reached their peak in 2002. For instance, Le Pen qualified for the
DeborahStone,PolicyParadox:TheArtofPoliticalDecisionMaking,NewYork:W.W.Norton, 2002,p.10. 7Idem. 8 Chantal Mouffe, The End of Politics and the Challenge of Rightwing Populism, inFranciscoPanizza(ed.),Populismandthemirrorofdemocracy,London:Verso,2005,p.80. 9 Teun Adrianus van Dijk, Multidisciplinary CDA: a plea for diversity, in Ruth Wodak andMichaelMeyer(eds.),MethodsofCriticalDiscourseAnalysis,London:Sage,2001,p.325.
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secondroundofvoting,afterhehaddefeatedLionelJospin,andLPFwon 26 (17%) out of 150 seats in the lower house of parliament, becoming the secondlargestparty. Before discussing the actual political phenomena, I will firstly clarifythenotionofdiscourse.Secondly,IwillbrieflyintroducetheTheory ofHegemonydevelopedbyErnestoLaclauandChantalMouffeandIwill emphasize the process in which the populist identity is created by subsumingtheotherheterogeneousidentities.Then,withintheframework ofCriticalDiscourseAnalysis,Iwillexplainanumberofdiscoursedevices thatwillbeusedtoexploretheconnectionbetweentheuseoflanguageand unequal power relations.10 In the forth section, I will empirically test the viability of the theory of Laclau and Mouffe by showing the manner in whichFNandLPFacquiredradicalpopulistidentity.Here,Iwillalsotry toshowthattheirelectoralgrowthowestotheradicalrhetoricadoptedin disputingtheabilityoftheirpoliticalopponentstogovern.Intheend,Iwill drawthemainconclusionsconcerningthediscursivestrategyemployedby these two parties to antagonize the French and the Dutch towards immigrantsandMuslimsandtowinvotes,attheirexpense.
Conceptualizingdiscourse
Untilnow,thenotionofdiscoursehasbeenmentionedindifferent stances but without being offered any comprehensive explanation. What does discourse refer to? Many authors have tried to grasp the nature of discourseandtoencodeitinadefinitioninordertoservetheirtheoretical purposes. Therefore, some of the conceptualizations around this idea are illustrated in the attempt to underline the features they have in common. Kress described discourses as being systematically organised sets of statements,11 to which Parker added a purpose of constructing an object.12 Hollway, by stipulating the concept of meaning a particular network of
DeliaMarga,Reperenanalizadiscursuluipolitic,ClujNapoca:Efes,2004,p.171. Gunther Kress, Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice, in ECS806 Sociocultural aspectsoflanguageandeducation,Victoria:DeakinUniversity,1985,pp.67. 12IanParkerandJohnShotter,Deconstructingsocialpsychology,London:Routledge,1990,p. 191.
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meanings,theirheterogeneityandtheireffectsattachedthesubstancethatwas missingfromthepreviousdefinitionsofdiscourse.13Alsoinrelationto meaning, Davies et al. stated that discourse is a multifaceted public process through which meanings are progressively and dynamically achieved.14 The emphasis on rhetoric and semantic strategies discernible clusters of terms, descriptions, commonplaces and figures of speech often clustered around metaphorsorvividimagesandoftenusingdistinctgrammaticalconstructionsand stylesisprovidedbyPotteretal.15Thenextconceptualizationsaremeant topenetratethesocietalandpoliticalrealm.Faircloughseesitasaformof social practice, rather than a purely individual activity or a reflex of situational variables,16 whereas Widdicombe considers discourses as products and reflections of social, economic and political factors, and power relations.17 The regulatory fashion of discourse is stressed in the Burmans definition socially organised frameworks of meaning that define categories and specify domainsofwhatcanbesaidanddone.18Lastbutnotleast,Ramazanogluadds a very important aspect regarding the endless and ongoing process of shifting the rules through discourse historically variable ways of specifying knowledgeandtruth.19AninterestingexampleinthisregardisgivenbyDirk Nabers who says that materializations like street, house, car, but also, president,primeministerandmember ofparliament,areconsequencesofpast speechand/orprecedingdiscourses.Thismeansthatwheneverthereisan alteration in discourse those materializations not only lose their prior meaningbuttheiridentitychangesalso.20
WendyHollway,Subjectivityandmethodinpsychology:gender,meaningandscience,London: Sage,1989,p.38. 14 BronwynDaviesand RomHarre, Positioning: the discursive production of selves, in JournalfortheTheoryofSocialBehaviour,no.20(1),1990,p.47. 15JonathanPotter,MargaretWetherell,RosGillandDerekEdwards,Discourse:noun,verb orsocialpractice?inPhilosophicalPsychology,no.3(2),1990,p.212. 16NormanFairclough,DiscourseandSocialChange,Cambridge:PolityPress,1992,p.3. 17SueWiddicombe,Identity,politicsandtalk:acaseforthemundaneandtheeveryday, inSueWilkinsonandCeliaKitzinger(eds.),Feminismanddiscourse:psychologicalperspectives, London:Sage,1995,p.107. 18EricaBurman,Deconstructingdevelopmentalpsychology,London:Routledge,1994,p.2. 19 Caroline Ramazanoglu, Up against Foucault: explorations of some tensions between Foucault andfeminism,London:Routledge,1993,p.7. 20 Dirk Nabers, Crises, hegemony and change in the international system: A conceptual framework, in GIGA Research Programme: Transformation in the Process of Globalisation, no. 1(50),2007,p.27.
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Relying on these definitions, there can be identified four aspects which are commonly encountered when the notion of discourse is explained.Firstly,itconsistsinacoherentsystemofstatementsproducedona regular basis with the purpose of constructing effects. Secondly, the link betweenstatementsandeffectsisprovidedbymeaningwhichisconveyed inamannerthatservesacertainpurpose.Muchofthetime,themeaningis lessevidentandithastobereadintothosestatements.Thirdly,itisasocial practicethattailorsthe mediumthatgeneratesit.Finally,thedispersion of meaning is possible through power,21 and it also encapsulates a temporal aspectbecausediscoursesareprogressivelyanddynamicallyachievedovertime andwithinparticularcontextsofpowerrelations.22 The understanding of discourse in general is helpful when analysing political discourses because they preserve the main characteristics discussed above. However, the conflict is more vivid in politicaldiscourses.Thatiswhytheyareusuallylabelledasaspecificform of conflicting discourses.23 The latter refers to the discourse of a party in conflict directed to the other party, who is the opponent, and who can respondinturnwithanotherconflictingdiscourse.TheobjectistheOther whose discourse must be ilegitimized and rejected. The addressee is not alwaystheopponentandthisisavailableespeciallyinthecaseofpolitical discoursewheretherecipientisthepublic. Furthermore,politicaldiscoursesarepredominantlyargumentative, orientedtowardspersuasion.Thisneedforpersuasioncanbeattributedto theimpossibilitytoexplainthechoiceforapolicydecisionusingscientific methods.Therefore,politicaldecisionsarenotthereflectionoftheinherent and universal truth derived from the world of facts and postulated by positivists. They are rather the result of the struggle to create meaning throughoutthepolicyprocessinwhichpoliticalelitesattempttoconvince others to share the meaning they attribute to particular events. Since the scientificmethodsareleftinsubsidiary,whatmattersisthepowerofbetter arguments,butnotfromtheHabermaspointofview,becauseasitwillbe laterseen,rhetoric,interestsandpowerdistorttheidealcommunication.In
MichelFoucault,Thearchaeologyofknowledge,London:TavistockPublications,1972,p.38. Catriona Macleod, Deconstructive discourse analysis: extending the methodological conversation,inSouthAfricanJournalofPsychology,32(1),2002,p.22. 23DeliaMarga,Reperenanalizadiscursuluipolitic,pp.914.
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short, the argumentation performs a joint task, which on the one hand, implies persuasion, because political actors employ arguments to bring others around to their position and on the other hand, it entails justification,sincethesamepoliticianstrytolegitimizetheirdecisionswith respecttothepublicinterest.24 Due to the fact that political reasoning is contingent rather than scientifically rigorous, it follows that rhetoric is present in the argumentativeprocess.DrawinguponCicerosreflections,weunderstand rhetorical displacement as the process through which a literal term is replaced by a figurative one.25 Political actors use rhetoric also when they wanttosecuretheadherenceoftheaudiencebyappealingtoemotionsand authority. Other devices used in political discourses are rhetorical questions. They strengthen a claim that is made by forcefully inviting an intendedanswerandthuspreventingtheoppositeanswerthatisintheline withtheopponentsarguments.26 Rhetoricdominatesthepoliticaldiscoursesanalysedinthischapter, andconsequently,itwillbefurtherdiscussedinthenextsections.
Hegemonyandantagonism
The centrepiece of the writings of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe,the mostrepresentativeauthorsofthe thirdgenerationDiscourse Theory,reliesontwoconcepts:hegemonyandantagonism.Theyencapsulate the entire process in which a party acquires the populist identity through discourse. Fortheseauthors,aswellasforPostStructuralists,thesocialreality isdiscursive.Theyarguethatontologically,theworldexistsindependently of the observers mind but we get to know it under certain descriptions which bear a certain meaning.27 The access to meaning is facilitated by
Giandomenico Majone, Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process, New Haven:YaleUniversityPress,1989,p.2. 25ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,Paris:Seuil,2008,p.89. 26 Ineke van der Valk, Rightwing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France, DiscourseandSociety,no.14(3),2003,pp.330. 27ColinWight,Agents,StructuresandInternationalRelations.PoliticsasOntology,Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,2006,p.27.
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language.So,languageisachannelthroughwhichobjectsmeaningfultous are socially constructed.28 For instance, in 2007, the Paris suburbs riots existedaseventsandinvolvedphysicalactsincertaindefinitelocationsin space and time. However, whether these violent acts were constructed as gangrene and participants associated with scum (racaille) and rabble (foule) depended upon the nature of the discourse that was triggered by these events.29 In other words, the condition of possibility made the existence of thatdiscoursepossiblebutitwasnotthecauseofit. Referring to Laclau and Mouffes interpretation, the social is a discursive space because nothing societal is outside the discursive.30 Even if the importance of meaning in creating the social reality was ascertained, the question regarding the prevalence of some meanings over others is still opened.Here,RuthWodakprovidesuswithanexplanationcentredonthe notionofpower. Languageindexespower,expressespower,isinvolvedwherethere iscontentionoverpowerandwherepowerischallenged.Powerdoes not derive from language, but language can be used to challenge power, to subvert it, to alter distributions of power both in the short andthelongterm.31 Put differently, the discourses of the powerful agents overcome the discourses of those less powerful and thus, the former gets to impose its meaning. FollowingthePostStructurallineofreasoningofJacquesLacanand Jacques Derrida, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe argue that another distinguishing feature of the social is uncertainty rather than structural determination. This uncertainty leaves space for politicohegemonic
Dirk Nabers, Crises, hegemony and change in the international system: A conceptual framework,p.6. 29 World News BBC, Dozens injured in Paris rampage [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7114175.stm],October15,2008. 30 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics,London:Verso,1985,p.107. 31RuthWodak,Criticallinguisticsandcriticaldiscourseanalysis,inJefVerschuerenand JanOlastman(eds.),HandbookofPragmatics,Amsterdam:Benjamins,2006,p.4.
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articulations [which] retroactively create the interests they claim to represent.32 Sincethesocialisundetermined,theidentitiesinsideitarealsoincomplete and rely on the constant movement of differential relationships.33 This means that an identity is forced into filling the structural gaps through identification,34orinotherwords,identificationcanbeseenasthestruggle of a subject to gain full identity.35 Consequently, the subject is no longer considered the source of meaning but, instead, as just one more particular locationwithinameaningfultotality.36 Laclau,inspiredbyFerdinanddeSaussurewhoclaimsthatthereare no positive terms in language but differences, brings into play the logic of difference and opposition by arguing that identity is constituted by its differencefromaninfinitenumberofotheridentities.37Thisimpliesthatall principles and values governing an identity receive their meaning accordingtothislogic.38Forinstance,identityistiedtoaspecificcontent, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, culture, history, nation or region, and becomeswhatitisbyvirtueofitsrelativepositioninanopenstructureof differentialrelationships.39 The incompleteness of the subjects identities is linked to a political contestation over signifiers (demands) and, at the same time, it is a pre conditionforthecreationofanyhegemonicprocess.Laclau,inConstructing Universality,40 uses the following model in order to clarify the way hegemonicarticulationworks:
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics,p.xi. 33Ibidem,p.95. 34 Niels kerstrmAndersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies. Understanding Foucault, Koselleck,Laclau,Luhmann,Bristol:ThePolicyPress,2003,p.52. 35 Dirk Nabers, Crises, hegemony and change in the international system: A conceptual framework,p.19. 36 Ernesto Laclau, Discourse, in R. E. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.), A Companion to ContemporaryPoliticalPhilosophy,Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1993,p.433. 37ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.86. 38 Dirk Nabers, Crises, hegemony and change in the international system: A conceptual framework,p.19. 39Ibidem,p.20. 40ErnestoLaclau,ConstructingUniversality,inJudithButler,ErnestoLaclau,andSlavoj iek(eds.),Contingency,Hegemony,Universality:ContemporaryDialoguesontheLeft,London: Verso,2000,pp.281307.
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D1,D2,D3,D4Signifiers FFrontier TExcludedelement Blankspace(gap) Equivalence
Figure1:ErnestoLaclau,Creationofdiscursivehegemony
Starting from the premise that the social structure entails the existence of void spaces (gaps), Laclau illustrates the manner in which, particular signifiers (demands),41 D1, D2, D3, D4, and so on, acquire different positions within that structure. One of the signifiers, D1, has temporarily succeeded in fixing its meaning to a nodal point, a centre of command, from which attempts to dominate the other signifiers.42 This discursiveprocessisknownasthecreationofhegemony.Theconstellation
The notion of signifier (stream of sounds or acoustic image) was coined by Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of Structural Linguistics. In relation to the signified (concept), the signifier constitutes the sign, which is the fundamental unit of linguistic analysis. The problemwiththeSaussureanprojectisthestrictisomorphismbetweenthesignifierandthe signified. This means that only one concept can correspond to each stream of sounds, implying that there cannot be any distinguishable difference between the concept and sound. A response to the failure of this project comes from three directions: semiology (science of signs in society) and more specifically, the work of Roland Barthes, the psychoanalytic current inspired by Jacques Lacan and the deconstructionist movement initiatedbyJacquesDerrida.Grossomodo,alltheseauthorsarguethatasignifiercannotbe permanently attached to a particular signified and thus, the meaning is only temporarily fixedtoacentreofcommand. 42 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics,p.113.
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by which a certain particularity assumes the representation of a universality entirelyincommensurablewithit,iswhat[we]callahegemonicrelation.Inother words, the notion of particularity is identified with totality. This identification is highly politicized because it creates a continuous inner tensionrenewedeverytimewhenanewparticularsignifiertriestoidentify with the whole. The hegemonic identity becomes the order of a void significantwhichtriestofillupthetotalityimpossibletoattain.Asitcanbe seen, the totality is rather a horizon, than a fundament.43 However, the conditionofpossibilityoftotalitypresupposestheexistenceoftheexterior, whichdrawsthelimitsofthesystem(F). Theproblemiswhetherthatexterior,whichliesbeyondthetotality of differences, is another difference or we deal with something more complicated than this. Well, the response provided by Laclau is that the exteriorconstitutesindeedadifferencebutitisneitherneutralnorallowed bythecomponentsoftotality.Onthecontrary,itisanexcludedelement(T) whichfunctionsaccordingtothelogicsofequivalenceandantagonism.44This meansthat,withregardstotheexcludedelement,allthedifferentidentities are grouped together in chain of equivalence. The linkage between them is thecommonrejectiontowardstheexcludedidentity.Whereasequivalence highlightsthecommunityeffectofaperceivedcommonnegativeorenemy, thecommunityisconstructedinnonantagonistictermswithinthelogicof differencethatcaneventuallyleadtotheformationofcollectiveidentities.45Put differently, while the logic of antagonism accentuates difference, the logic of equivalence subverts it.46 The tension between equivalence and difference providestheconditionsfortheemergenceofthesocial. Theconstructionofthesocialdependsalsoontheemergenceofan empty or a floating signifier.47 Laclau defines the notion of empty signifier as an indistinct signified with no conceptual content or the plenitude constitutively absent.48 Empty signifiers are terms that can have different meanings and can thereby serve to unite disparate social movements.
ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,pp.89,144. Ibidem,p.88. 45 Dirk Nabers, Crises, hegemony and change in the international system: A conceptual framework,p.20. 46ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.88. 47Ibidem,p.87. 48Ibidem,p.119.
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Examples of empty signifiers are order, justice or democracy. On the other hand,floatingsignifierscanassimilatedifferentmeaningsdependingonthe natureortopicofthediscourse.Forinstance,expressionssuchasfreedom, equityorequalityarefloatingsignifiers.Whereas,anemptysignifiertakesthe limitsofthevoidforgranted,thefloatingsignifierallowsforthepossibility of dislocation of those limits.49 Still, the difference between them is only minimal. For the purpose of this work, the function of floating signifiers is epitomized in the next example. According to Deborah Stone, equity is considered the goal which all sides try to attain in a distributive conflict.50 TheRightmayperceiveequitydifferentlyfromtheLeft,whenenhancinga policy concerning the distribution of social benefits for unemployed immigrants.Forinstance,acentrerightwingpartywouldprovidecourses for professional requalifications of unemployed immigrants, as equitable solution, whereas a left wing party would consider equitable to provide social assistance for unemployed immigrants. In other words, one side considers that it is equitable for indigents to have the means necessary to overcomeunemploymentwhiletheothersidebelievesthatitisequitableto have a redistributive policy that gives to the unemployed the resources (money,housing)theyneedtosurvive.Concluding,itcanbesaidthatonly afloatingsignifiercanlooseitsspecificitywhileitsubordinatesitsmeaning todifferentpoliticalobjectives. Relying on the organic crisis (a term borrowed from Gramsci), [a] conjuncture where there is a generalized weakening of the relational system defining the identities of a given social or political space, and where, as a result there is a proliferation of floating elements,51 Laclau and Mouffe illustrate the way a floating signifier acquires universal meaning and by fixing its particular meaning to a nodal point. Therefore, they assume that the existenceofunsatisfiedsocialdemandsmakespossiblethetransformation ofisolateddemocraticdemandsinpopulistdemandsthrougharelationof equivalence. This becomes possible only if the relation of equivalence is crystallized in a certain discursive identity which represents the link as
Ibidem,p.157. DeborahStone,PolicyParadox:TheArtofPoliticalDecisionMaking,p.39. 51 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics,p.136.
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such, and not the constituencies.52 In other words, while initially, the equivalencechainwasmediatingbetweenparticulardemands,towhichit was subordinated, now it became autonomous, reversing the relation of dominance. Therefore, when a particular demand (signifier) acquires popularcentralityitdetachesfromitsoriginalconceptanditassumesthe identityoftheequivalencechain,becominghegemonic. Morespecifically,ifwesupposethatinsideasocialorderthereare several unfulfilled demands such as unemployment, criminality and insecurity, a populist discourse would attempt to fix the meaning of insecurity, for instance, to a nodal point, which, on the one hand, would combine the other demands (unemployment and criminality) in a chain of equivalenceand,onthe otherhand,itwouldsubstitutetheentirechainto thatnodalpoint.53Therefore,wesaythatinsecurity,whichwasoncepartof thechainofequivalence,gainedpopularcentralitythroughdiscourseand became hegemonic. This process would not have been possible if the populist discourse had not divided the social order in two antagonistic camps,thosewhosuffertheconsequencesofunsatisfieddemands(e.g.the Frenchpeople,theDutchpeople)andrespectively,thosewhoaretoblame for causing or not solving them (e.g. the immigrants, the Muslims, the rulingcoalition). Thepreservationofthecentralityofthepopulardemandandthus, of hegemony, depends, on the one hand, on the identification of a threateningoutsideandontheotherhand,onthecontentofthesignified which has to be kept vague. Correspondingly, as much as a signifier enlarges the sphere of the signified, integrating a longer chain of unsatisfied demands, as less intensive it becomes, and therefore, the hegemonyispreserved.54 The same logic can be applied when explaining the manner in whichapartyacquirespopulistidentity.However,thismatterwillbelater discussedinthischapter.
ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.106. Combination and substitution are terms used by Ernesto Laclau in the work Philosophical roots of discourse theory, [http://www.essex.ac.uk/centres/Theostud/papers/Laclau%20 %20philosophical%20roots%20of%20discourse%20theory.pdf],October15,2008. 54ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.118.
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ApproachingCriticalDiscourseAnalysis
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a qualitative research methodology which critically analyses the relation between language, ideology andsocietyinbothdomesticandglobalarenas.55Itemergedinthelate1980s as a programmatic development in European discourse studies led by Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, and others. As Ruth Wodak mentioned, CDA cannot be viewed as a holistic or closed paradigm [because its studies are] multifarious, [and] derived from quite different theoretical backgrounds and oriented towards very different data and methodologies.56 Although CDA has different modi operandi and directions, there can be identified four mainstream approaches to CDA: critical linguistics, the sociocultural approach, the discoursehistorical approach and sociocognitive approach. All these frameworks provide a critical attituderegardingtheeffectsoftheethnicdominationinthemodernsocial relations analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language.57 CDA research enterprise is not limited only to uncovering andcriticizing social inequality but it actually seeks social change through critical understanding,58 anditaimstoprovideguidelinesfor[better]humanactions.59 CDA has its roots in Social Theory. In this regard, its advocates sustain that discourse is a social phenomenon which shapes the social realityandatthesametimeitissociallyconditioned.60Moreover,therecan
SeeChristopherHart,CriticalDiscourseAnalysisandCognitiveScience:AnalysingStrategies andStructuresinTextsonImmigrationandAsylumUsingEvolutionaryPsychologyandCognitive Linguistics, [http://www.hartcda.org.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/chapterone.cda.pdf], October 29,2008. 56 Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak, Introduction: Theory, interdisciplinarity and critical discourse analysis, in Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak (eds.), Critical discourse analysis: Theoryandinterdisciplinarity,NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2003,p.12. 57RuthWodak,Criticallinguisticsandcriticaldiscourseanalysis,p.4. 58TeunAdrianusvanDijk,Principlesofcriticaldiscourseanalysis,inDiscourseandSociety, no.4(2),1993,p.252. 59See Ruth Wodak, The discoursehistorical approach, in Ruth Wodak and M. Meyer (eds.),Methodsofcriticaldiscourseanalysis,London:Sage,2001pp.6394. 60 Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen, Critical discourse analysis, in Annual Review of Anthropology,no.29,2000,p.448.
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be displayed two theoretical tracks, one inspired by the Foucaultdian thinking which deals with power and ideology, and the other following Giddens and Habermas to an extent, attempts to overcome the structural determinism. Within the framework of CDA, I will explain some discursive categories used to express or influence beliefs about minorities and immigrants.Thepurposeofthisexplanationistohighlighttheroleofthese discursivedevicesintheelectoralsuccessofthepartiesFrontNationaland LijstPimFortuyn. 1. Referential strategies are employed to construct and oppose two different camps, the ingroup and the outgroup. The ingroup is positive representedwhiletheoutgroupis portrayedinnegativeterms.Themost important semantic structure manifesting a referential strategy is the pronoun. When referring to the ingroup actors it is used the first person plural (e.g. we, us, our), whereas, the outgroup actors are referred to the thirdpersonplural(e.g.they,them,their).61 2. Semantic moves are usually encountered in discourses about immigrants and minorities in the form of disclaimers. They illustrate the possible contradiction between positive selfpresentation and negative Other presentation.Politicalactorsusedisclaimersinordertoavoidbeingopenly against the Muslim minority, for instance. The typical disclaimers are apparentdenial(Nothingagainst,but...),apparentconcession(Theyarenotall bad, but...), apparent empathy (They have difficulties, but...), apparent ignorance (We do not know, but...), apparent excuse (We are sorry, but...), reversal(blamingthevictimstory),andtransfer(Wehavenoproblemwith them, but the constituencies...).62 The denial strategies are easy to study becausetheyusuallyappearasbutclauses.
See Maria Sedlak and Ruth Wodak, We demand that foreigners adapt to our lifestyle: PoliticaldiscourseonimmigrationlawsinAustriaandtheUnitedKingdom,inCombating RacialDiscrimination,Berg:Oxford,2000,pp.217237. 62TeunAdrianusvanDijk,Ontheanalysisofparliamentarydebatesonimmigration,in MartinReisiglandRuthWodak(eds.),Thesemioticsofracism:Approachesincriticaldiscourse analysis,Vienna:PassagenVerlag,2000,p.92.
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3.Argumentationisfrequentlyusedinpoliticaldiscoursesbecauseit helps politicians to persuade the public and to gain adherence and votes. Moreover, argumentation resolves a difference of opinion by means of exploring the relative justification for competing standpoints.63 However, sometimes argumentation is misused by politicians. They intentionally breaktheaccurateargumentationrulesandemployfallaciesthatappealto the common sense. Usually, fallacies are employed to delegitimate the opponents by oversimplifying and exaggerating their intentions and actions,byappealingtopityandbylaunchingpersonalattacks.Examples offallaciesare:argumentumadhominem,argumentumadmisericordiam,straw manfallacy,slipperyslopefallacy.64 4. Rhetoric, as a form of argumentation, is used in political discoursesbecauseitcarriesoutapersuasivefunction.Ontheotherhand, it plays an important role in ideological manipulation because political actors use rhetorical means such as metaphors, hyperboles, euphemisms, rhetoricalquestionstomanipulatethemeaningofthesocialrepresentationof ingroupandoutgroup.65 5. Topos is an argumentative device and it has the origins in the classicalargumentationtheoryofAristotle.Literally,itmeansplaceorinthe
Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst and Tjark Kruiger, Handbook of Argumentation Theory:ACriticalSurveyofClassicalBackgroundsandModernStudies,Dordrecht:Foris,1987,p. 218. 64InekevanderValk,RightwingparliamentarydiscourseonimmigrationinFrance,pp. 320,328. 65Ametaphorisanimpliedcomparisonwhichusesawordthatdenotesonekindofobject or idea to describe another; a hyperbole is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggeratedwiththepurposetoevokestrongfeelingsortocreateastrongimpression;an euphemism is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offendorsuggestsomethingunpleasant.Themostfrequentmetaphorsusedinpoliticsare living organisms, machines, containers, diseases, natural disasters and wars; the negative characteristicsoftheoutgrouparestressedbyhyperboleswhiletheeuphemismsaremeant tominimizethenegativeaspectsoftheingroup.Forfurtherexplanations,seeInekevander Valk, Rightwing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France, p. 100; Deborah Stone,PolicyParadox:TheArtofPoliticalDecisionMaking,p.148.
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words of Erasmus, seat of arguments.66 Van der Valk, referring to Anscombre, describes topoi as general principles that support an argument without themselves constituting the argument itself.67 All in all, topoi are sociallysharedbeliefslinkedtotraditionsorauthoritativesourcessuchas religioustextsusedasargumentativetoolsbypoliticiansbecausetheyhave increasedpersuasionpowers. 6.Insteadofusingtheconceptoftopos,DeborahStonespeaksabout narrative stories which she describes as widely shared, often unspoken explanations,andsomuchtakenforgrantedthatwearenotevenawareofthem.68 For instance, she illustrates the story of decline that implies a continuous decadence of the outgroup in the eyes of the ingroup that results in the rejection of outgroups physical presence. Another story is that of helplessnessandcontrolwhichacknowledgestheexistenceofabadsituation and the impossibility of the ruling elites to deal with it. In spite of these problems, there is hope and this is in the power of the radical populist elites. The conspiracy story is an alternative of the helplessness and control storyanditrevealstheharmwhichisdeliberativelycausedbytheout group.Byusingthesestories,thepopulisteliteswanttopinpointthefact thattheyarenotonlyabletocuttheharmbutalsotopunishtheculprits.
TheemergenceofFNandLPFasRadicalPopulistparties
ErnestoLaclaudefinespopulismtakingintoaccountitsformrather than its content. In this sense, populism does not belong to a type of movement with a particular social base and a certain ideological orientation;itbehavesaccordingtoapoliticallogicthatexplainstheprocess ofsocialchangeaccordingtothelogicofequivalenceanddifferenceandtothe
Francis Goyet, Les diverses acceptions de lieu et lieu commun la Renaissance, in ChristianPlantin(ed.),LieuxCommuns,topoi,strotypes,clichs,Paris:EditionsKim,1993,p. 415. 67 Ineke van der Valk, Rightwing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France, p. 319. 68DeborahStone,PolicyParadox:TheArtofPoliticalDecisionMaking,p.137.Seealsopp.139 145.
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constructionofacommonenemy.69Theweaknessofthisframeofreference is that it gathers under its umbrella different and often contradictory ideologicalpositions.However,theweaknessisalsothestrengthbecauseit offers a reasonable explanation concerning the impossibility to label the new radical parties, as FN and LPF, according to the classic leftright division.Inlinewiththisexplanation,IarguethatFNandLPFareradical populistpartiesbecausetheyembracedintheirpoliticaldiscoursediverse political beliefs that were unified by their opposition to Muslim and immigrantcommunity.Atthesametime,eachideologicalorientationofa partyisoneofitsmultipleidentitieswhicharesubsumedtothehegemonic identity once they become equivalent in their rejection towards the excludedcommunity. Bearingafascistidentity Oneofthemultipleidentitiessubsumedtothepopulistidentityof FN is the fascist identity. According to Sternhell, a fascist party is an extremeright party identified in a specific period and organized around Fhrerprinzip(strongleadership).70Inthisdefinition,thetermextremeright doesnotrefertopoliticalpracticesasparticulartypesofmassmovements, buttoideology,whichimpliesthattheextremerightpartieshavetoshow theideologicalcharacteristicsoftheprewarfascistmovementsinorderto belabelledassuch. According to this definition, FN can be considered a fascist party. This party was animated by fascist movements commonly known in the interwar period such as Ligues dextrme droite (Far right leagues) and BenitoMussolinisfascistparty.However,itsmainpointofinspirationwas thedoctrineoftheCroixdeFeuligue(CrossofFireleague),whichemployed two distinct visions of France: la France profonde (the real France) and la
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ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.141. Meindert Fennema, Populist parties of the right, in Jens Rydgren (ed.), Movements of exclusion:Radicalrightwingpopulism,Dartmouth:NovaScotiaPublishers,2004,p.6.
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France den haut (the imaginary France), two vague principles which were easilymanipulatedbyLePeninhisdiscourses.71 Ontheotherhand,thereareauthorswhoarguethatthehistoryof fascistpartiescouldbetracedbacktoleftistmovements.Thefoundationof this explanation lays on the antimaterialist creed of fascists members. Fascists blamed the liberalist doctrine for encouraging the creation of a materialist society in the detriment of the national solidarity. However, they were neither proMarxist because they saw the fragmentation of societyintoclassesasanelementthatinevitablyleadstothedestructionof the nation. The fascist doctrine could be rather considered ambivalent because it proclaims the power of synthesis between nationalism and socialism.72ThisdualityisepitomizedinthestatementoftheBritishfascist leaderOswaldMosley:Ifyouloveyourcountryyouarenational,andifyoulove your people you are socialist.73 Despite the fact that fascist claimed to subordinate the individual to the people and implicitly to the nation, the individualwasinfactsubordinatedtotherulingelites. TheantimaterialismisalsoatraitofFN.Initspoliticalstatements FNpreachedthenegativeconsequencesofthematerialinterestsofprivate multinational companies and of the open market policies undertaken by the French state, and it directed its critique towards those who obtained unfairgainsfromcorruptionandotherpracticesdamagingforsociety.The antimaterialismofFNisalsosystematizedinthefivecorevalues: [] lamour de la patrie, lamour de la terre et du travail, lhonntet,lerespectdautrui,lesensdelafamille[].74 [] patriotism, love of the land and labour, honesty, respect for others,thesenseoffamily[...]
Sergiu Micoiu, Le Front National et ses rpercussions sur lchiquier politique franais, 1972 2002,ClujNapoca:Efes,2005,p.66. 72MeindertFennema,Populistpartiesoftheright,p.9. 73 Zeev Sternhell, Fascist Ideology, in Walter Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A Readers Guide, Berkley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1976,p.321. 74 See Discours de JeanMarie LE PEN Lyon, [http://www.frontnational.com/doc_interventions_detail.php?id_inter=66],October27,2008.
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After clarifying the ideological positioning of fascist parties, I will turn back to the other important aspect of the definition issued by Sternhell, the concept of strong leadership. The powerful leader demands totalcommitmentoftheothermembersandtheiractiveinvolvement.The internalorganizationofafascistpartyischaracterizedbyrigidityandthe leader disregards the democratic principles of decision making. In consequence, the right to question the decisions taken at the top is suppressed. The figure of Le Pen and the way he rules the party prove, once again, the fascist heritage of FN. The scandal between Le Pen and Bruno Mgret brought to the surface the interdiction to question the political strategyofthepartyestablishedbyitsleader.75 According to Fennema, the political axiom of fascism implies that people are naturally different and thus, they have different social positions.76Thesocialinequalityasaresultofnaturallyborndifferencesis not restricted to fascist ideology only, being rather a characteristic of the radical right in general, as it will be seen when the issue of racialism is discussed. Besides the biological differences which set people apart, fascism also postulates the natural differences between nations. Therefore, the theme of ethnic nationalism was frequently undertaken in the fascist discourse. Ethnic nationalism is the expression of the nation which has a soul and is entitled with a common destiny.77 It is different from the civic nationalismbecausethenation,inthiscase,istheexpressionofthepolitical contract between the people and the sovereign, a contract which can be
Theconflictaroseduetothedifferentvisionsregardingthestrategyofthepartyforthe European Parliament elections in 1999. In fact, Mgret pleaded for the reformation of the party, which meant the abandonment of the old extremist orientations in favor of a traditionalRightpoliticaldiscoursewhichcouldensurethepossibilityfornewalliances.The dispute ended with the victory of Le Pen who proved for the second time his unshaken positioninsidetheparty.DespitethefactthatMgretnamedhisfactionMouvementNational Rpublicain(NationalRepublicanMovement),in1999,hefoughtforthelegalrighttousethe nameFrontNational.HisdemandwasrepelledandLePenmanagedtokeepthenameof theparty. 76MeindertFennema,Populistpartiesoftheright,p.7. 77Ibidem,p.8.
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denounced if the people feel that they are not adequately represented by thesovereign. In the discourse of FN, the ethnic nationalism alternates with the political nationalism and, depending on the context, one may be stressed more than the other. The ethnic nationalism is emphasized in the frontist discourse when Le Pen refers to the universal character of the French language which must be preserved: protger la langue franaise en France et assurersonexpansionltranger(protecttheFrenchlanguageinFranceand ensure its foreign expansion).78 This quotation clearly indicates the perceived superiority of the French nation that has the duty to pass its languagetootherforeignpopulations. Thecivicnationalismtakestheshapeofethnicnationalismunderthe slogan la France pour les Franais (France for the French).79 This message suggests that the belongingness to the French nation has to be based on lineage and on the inborn right of membership. Therefore, those who do notbelongtotheethniccommunityshouldbeexcluded.However,FNdoes not exclude the right to acquire the French nationality through naturalization. The party included in its previous electoral programme, underthereformofthelawofnationality(rformedudroitdelanationalit), theconditionsthatwouldhavebeensufficientinordertoobtaintheFrench nationality. Lancer une rforme du droit de la nationalit, en supprimant notamment la binationalit et lacquisition automatique de la nationalit(cellecineseraitalorsautomatiquequesilonestdepre ou de mre franais). Lacquisition dpendrait alors de critres reposantsurlabonneconduiteetledegrdintgration.80 Launch a reform of the law of nationality suppressing the double nationalityandtheautomaticacquisitionofcitizenship(whichwould not be automatic unless there is a French father or mother). The
Sergiu Micoiu, Le Front National et ses rpercussions sur lchiquier politique franais, 1972 2002,p.59. 79 Elaine Sciolino, Le Pen submits just enough signatures, March 14, 2007, [http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/14/news/france.php],October29,2008. 80SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.
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acquisitionwoulddependthenonthecriteriabasedongoodconduct andonthedegreeofintegration. Taking into account the previous examples, we may assert that the fascists ethnic nationalism does not fold into the idea of ethnicity as labelled by FN. Since fascism postulates the nation based only on ius sanguinis, FN conceives the membership to a nation based on ius soli too. Still, the party chooses to deliver messages with an ethnic nationalist connotation to voters because they have a precise target (against immigrants), are intelligible and they are touching upon a sensible issue concerning the voters actual existence as French. Furthermore, the strict criterion of belongingness to the ethnic community, put forward by the fascist doctrine, is replaced in the frontist discourse by two vague standards which have to be met in order to become a French national. These are good conduct and degree of integration. They were intentionally pickedupbecausetheycanhavedifferentinterpretationsdependingupon theintentionsofthespeaker.Forinstance,thedegreeofintegrationishard tomeasureeventhoughstrictindicatorsareemployed.Knowinglanguage and being aware of the history of France does not make someone French. Consequently, good conduct can be interpreted subjectively and can be usedasabenchmarkeitherforrewardsorforpunishments. Concluding,wemaysaythatFNdoeshaveafascistidentitybecause itborrowsanumberofthemesfromthefascistdiscourseanditundertakes several fascist principles. On the other hand, the fascist identity is not the onlyidentityofFNbecausethepartyspoliticaldiscourseintegratedother elements inconsistentwith the fascist doctrine. For instance, the party did notrejectthedemocraticmeansofgovernance.Itevenclaimedtobemore democratic than the political establishment by mentioning, quite often, theirpreferenceformoredirectmechanismsofdemocracy: [] nous engagerons par voie rfrendaire les grandes rformes indispensables au renouveau national et au printemps de la France [];[] les Franais seront invits par rfrendum, approuver le
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projet de loi autorisant le gouvernement prendre toutes les mesuresvisantarrter,puisinverserlesfluxmigratoires[...].81 []wewillbeginbyreferendumthemajorreformsessentialtothe national renewal and spring of France [];[] the French will be invited by referendum, to approve the bill authorizing the government to take all measures to stop and then to reverse immigration[...]. Assumingaracistidentity The racist dimension of LPF and FN is identified under their opposition towards immigration and immigrants, especially those of Muslim origin. Van der Valk, referring to Moscovici, defines racism as a complex, multifaceted system of domination and exclusion that produces social inequality betweendifferentethnicgroups.82Racismwasreproducedinthediscourseof these parties through the representation of a distorted image of the entire group of immigrants. They were stigmatized and portrayed as a threat to thewellbeingoftheFrenchandDutchpeople. The manifestation of racism is influenced by the changes in the economic, political, and sociocultural conditions. Since the fifties, the Racialist Theory has been experiencing a shift in the core principles, departing from the theoretical considerations based on biogenetic race superioritytowardstheincompatibilitybasedonculturalcharacteristics.In other words, the biological racism has been replaced by cultural racism. However, the change was not radical because the new type of racism is using biological arguments for explaining the cultural incompatibility.83 Therefore, cultures, nations, or religions are represented as homogeneous andrigidentities,incapabletochangebecauseoftheinbredcharacteristics.
See Le programme de gouvernement de JeanMarie Le Pen (2007) [http://www.lepen2007.fr/pdf/Programmejmlp2007.pdf], October 30, 2008 and FDA Le magazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLePen,Paperback,April 2007. 82 Ineke van der Valk, Rightwing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France, p. 313. 83MeindertFennema,Populistpartiesoftheright,p.13.
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In line with this reasoning, Barker considers the new racism as pseudo biological culture and the race as the attribute of culture, ethnicity, or religion.84 Barker introduces also the principle of otherness as explanation usedtolegitimatetheracistpractices: Itispartofourbiologyandourinstinctstodefendourwayoflife, traditions,andcustomsagainstoutsidersnotbecausetheseoutsiders areinferior,butbecausetheybelongtoothercultures.85 Rephrasing, the principle of otherness acknowledges that it is natural andevenfairtoexcludethosewhobelongtootherculturessimplybecause theirculturesaredifferent.Theentiremechanismofexclusionisbasedona positive presentation of the ingroup which is systematically paired to a negative presentation of the outgroup. The outgroup is represented as culturallydeviantandthreateningandtheirmereexistenceisconsideredto infringe upon the very essence of the ingroup cultural inheritance, values, and identity. This logic is adopted by Le Pen when he makes multiple references to the threat that Islam is posing to the ingroup (the French), primarily referred to as we, us and our. The positive selfpresentation of the French is further contrasted with the negative Otherpresentation of Islam whenthefrontistleadermentionsthesuperiorityoftheWesterncivilization and Christianity to which France is part of. The Islamic state, as the incarnationofthepowerofreligiouseliteswhohamperthepoliticallifeby imposing their own religious law and the dominance over the women, is consideredinantithesiswiththeFrenchlaicstatethatdoesnottoleratethe interferenceofreligionindomesticaffaires. [] Il [l Islam] sagit dradiquer de notre univers spirituel et intellectuel tout ce qui nous rattache la civilisation occidentale et chrtienne[]Lislamestbienplusquunesimplecroyance.Cestune thocratie qui est la fois religion, tat et systme de gouvernement: La religion islamique ne fait pas de distinction entre le pouvoir temporel et le pouvoir religieux ; bien au contraire, elle les associe et
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MartinBarker,TheNewRacism.London:JunctionBooks,1981,p.23. Martin Barker, Het nieuwe racisme [The New Racism], in Anet Bleich and Peter Schumacher(eds.)NederlandsRacisme[DutchRacism],Amsterdam:VanGennep,1984,p.78.
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les confie ltat [L]es normes sociales et des comportements [islamique] ne sont, ni de prs, ni de loin, compatibles avec notre civilisation,notreconceptiondelhomme,nostraditionsjuridiques.86 [] It [Islam] works to eradicate our spiritual and intellectual universe everything that links us to the Western civilization and Christianity[]Islamismuchmorethanjustabelief.Itisatheocracy thatisreligion,stateandsystemofgovernment:TheIslamicreligion doesnotdistinguishbetweenthetemporalandreligiouspower;quite the contrary, it involves them and entrusts the State [T]he [Islamic] social norms and behaviours are neither close nor far consistent with ourcivilization,ourconceptionofman,ourlegaltraditions. Along with the principle of otherness, there are other two important mechanisms framed by Crandall that are used to justify discriminatory practices: attributive approaches and hierarchical approaches.87 While the formerapproachesestablishwhocausedtheproblems,andthuswhohasto be held responsible, blamed and excluded, the later approaches justify the goodness,thenaturalness,andthenecessityofsocialhierarchies.88Thenaturalness of the superiority that French have over the immigrants is expressed straightforwardbyLePeninthenextquotation: Il est normal que les Franais dans leur propre pays aient une priorit sur les trangers. Les Franais hritent dun patrimoine en naissant, conquis par le travail et le sacrifice des gnrations prcdents, ils ont donc un droit particulier dans leur propre pays [].89 It is normal that the French in their own countries have a priority over foreigners. The French inherit inborn assets conquered by the
SeeJeanMarieLePen,LecriduMuezzin,Identit,no.6,1990. Christian S. Crandall, Ideology and Lay Theories of Stigma: The Justification of Stigmatization, in T.F. Heatherton, R.E. Kleck, M.R. Hebl and J.G. Hull (eds.), The Social PsychologyofStigma,NewYorkandLondon:GuilfordPress,2000,p.129. 88Ibidem,p.133. 89SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.
86 87
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work and sacrifice of previous generations; they have, thus, a particularrightintheirowncountries[]. Thehierarchicalthinkingdoesnotnecessarilyimplythattheperceived inferior races and cultures have to subordinate to the superior ones. The hierarchyisratherestablishedbecauseitjustifieswhysomereceivespecial treatmentwhereasothersareexcluded.Forexample,LePenintroducedthe principle of prfrence nationale (national preference) to ensure that the Frenchpeoplearetheonlybeneficiariesofthesocialassistanceprovidedby theStateandthatthesocialbenefitsareredistributedtothemonly. Supprimerlespompesaspirantesenrservantlesaidessociales diverses et les allocations familiales aux seuls Franais et en rinstaurant, dans le cadre de nouvelles dispositions lgislatives, la prfrencenationalepourlesprestationssociales.90 Suppress the suction pumps by reserving the various welfare aides and family allowances only to the French and reinstating, undernewlaws,thenationalpreferenceforthesocialbenefits. AswellasLePen,Fortuynalsofavouredtheexclusionofimmigrants byadvocatingthebanonimmigrationandthepreferentialgrantofrefugee right.However,unlikeLePen,whostatedthatillegalimmigrantsshouldbe placedintransitcampsbeforebeingexpelledwithaspecialtraintotheirhome countries, Fortuyn did not manifest such extremist views regarding the illegalcomers.Evenso,hisopinionswereracistinthesensethathedenied the civil rights of Antillean youths, considering them illegal immigrants, despite the fact that Netherlands Antilles is part of the Dutch kingdom. In hisopinion,onlythosewhowerebornandraisedintheNetherlandsshould beconsideredDutchcitizens: Ik zeg: iedereen die hier binnen is, blijft hier binnen. Ik wil niemand zijn burgerrechten ontnemen. Het zijn onze Marokkaanse rotjongens,daarkunnenwekoningHassannietmeeopschepen.We hebben ze zelf binnengelaten, dan zullen we het ook zelf moeten
90
Idem.
56
oplossen.VoorAntilliaansejongerenwilikeenuitzonderingmaken. Die zijn hier illegaal binnengekomen; nou, hup terug. Maar als je hiergeborenengetogenbent,hebjeburgerrechten[...]91 Isay:everyonewhohasbeenherecanremainhere.Iwillnotdeny anybodyscivilrights.TheyareourMoroccanbadboys,andwecan notshiftresponsibilitytoKingHassan.Weletthementer,makingit our own problem to solve. For Antillean youths, I would like to make an exception. They entered here illegally; well, they can go back.Butifyourebornandraisedhere,youhavecivilrights[...] The antidiscriminatory legislation and the social restraints forced racistpartiestoconveythebluntlyandviolentracistmessagesintomore subtle and indirect forms of social domination. They evade the explicit reference to racism by replacing the biological argumentation with the biological rhetoric. For instance, the leaders of FN used rhetoric devices, such as hyperboles (le carr diabolique de la destruction, la menace mortelle) andmetaphorsofwar,wateranddisease(labombe,legnocideculturel,les pompesaspirantes,lextinctionbiologique),inordertohidetheracistcontent oftheirdiscourse,butatthesametime,tocreateanimageofthefutureof agony that France is expecting to have. The protagonists of this doomsday scenarioare the immigrants and euromondialists lead by the Frenchrulingelites: []danslecarrdiaboliquedeladestructiondelaFrance,mene par les politiciens de ltablissement, aprs lextinction biologique delaFrance,lasubmersionmigratoire,ladisparitiondelaNation, sajoutelequatrimect,legnocideculturel.92 []inthediabolicalsquareofthedestructionofFranceledbythe politicians of the Establishment, after the biological extinction of
91FrankPoorthuisandHansWansink.Deislamiseenachterlijkecultuur[Islamisabackward culture],deVolkskrant, [http://www.volkskrant.nl/den_haag/article153195.ece/De_islam_is_een_achterlijke_cultuur] November5,2008. 92SeeThreehundredmeasuresfortheFrenchrenaissance[300mesurespourlarenaissance delaFrance],[http://www.frontnational.com/doc_id_immigration.php],November5,2008.
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France, the migratory submergence, the disappearance of the Nation,afourthsideisadded,theculturalgenocide. Denials and victimization are also used as tactics to avoid being openly racist. Both Le Pen and Fortuyn denied that immigrants and Muslims could be victims of a stigmatized stereotypical thinking, maintaining instead that the natives were those discriminated by immigrants. Le Pen blamed immigrants for being a danger to the French identityandprosperity.Themetaphorsandthehyperboleswereemployed tocreatefearandanxiety,andthus,tomotivatepeopletosupportrestrictive andantiimmigrationpolicies: La prsence et le dveloppement, anne aprs anne, de colonies de peuplement, confortes par des dispositifs lgislatifs et sociaux trsfavorablesetunedlirantepropagandedeprfrencetrangre, baptise lutte contre le racisme, sont pour notre identit nationale unemenacemortelle:ilsmodifientenprofondeurlasubstancemme dupeuplefranais.93 The presence and development, year after year, of the colonies of people,reinforcedbythesocialandlegislativedevicesverysupportive and a delirious propaganda of foreign preference, baptised as fight against racism are for our national identity a deadly threat: they changeindepththeverysubstanceoftheFrenchpeople. Fortuyn used disclaimers to negate the hatred for Muslims and highlightedthat,onthecontrary,theDutchwereunfairlytreatedbyIslamic immigrants. He claimed that the Dutch had been the victims of Islamic discriminationandcrimeandclearlystatedthatthebackwardIslamhadbeen a hindrance to the development of the Netherlands and even more, a restraint to the human rights and freedoms. Moreover, he said that the Netherlands underwent the process of emancipation of homosexuals long timeagoandtheiridentityhadbeenacceptedinthepublicsphere.Butwith
93
SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.
58
Muslim immigrants, these people were again seen obliged to hide their sexualorientations(homosexualsarelessthanapig). Ikhaatdeislamniet.Ikvindheteenachterlijkecultuur.Ikhebveel gereisdindewereld.Enoveralwaardeislamdebaasis,ishetgewoon verschrikkelijk[...]Jadieislam,diezondertmensenaf.Zezienonsals eenminderwaardigsoortmensen.Marokkaansejongensbestelennooit een Marokkaan. Is u dat wel eens opgevallen? Wij kunnen wel bestolenworden.Eniknatuurlijknogdubbel,wantikbennietalleen een christenhond, maar ook nog minder dan een varken. [] Ik heb geen zin de emancipatie van vrouwen en homoseksuelen nog eens overtedoen.Opmiddelbarescholenzijntalvanhomoseksueleleraren die vanwege Turkse en Marokkaans jongens in de klas niet durven uitkomenvoorhunidentiteit[].94 IdonthateIslam.Ithinkitisabackwardculture.Ivetravelledall over the world. And everywhere where the Islam rules, it is terrible [] the Islam [] excludes people. They see us as an inferior sort of people. Moroccan boys never steal from a Moroccan. Have you ever noticed that? They are allowed to steal from us. And of course, they can steal from me even more, Im not just a Christian dog, but I am even less than a pig. [] I do not wish to redo the emancipation of womenandhomosexualsagain.Therearemanyhomosexualteachers in high schools that are afraid to reveal their sexuality because of TurkishandMoroccanyoungsters[]. The strategy to minimize the sociopolitical phenomena of discrimination and racism is reinforced in the discourse of FN and LPF by theillegitimacyofthepoliticalopponents.Thecoreoftheargumentmeant toinvalidatethepoliciesoftherulingpartieswasbasedonthefrequentuse of topoi (socially shared opinions and commonsense conclusions about
94FrankPoorthuisandHansWansink.Deislamiseenachterlijkecultuur[Islamisabackward culture],deVolkskrant, [http://www.volkskrant.nl/den_haag/article153195.ece/De_islam_is_een_achterlijke_cultuur] November5,2008.
59
something). The topoi that were often part of the illegitimate strategy of thesepartiesare: Toposofcomplicity: Thelobbyistsofimmigration(theeuromondialistsandthepoliticiansofthe Establishment)advocatedcollaboration,favoured(Islamic)immigrationand triedtodestroytheessenceoftheFrenchidentity. Impliedconclusion:donottrustthelobbyists. Les lobbis de limmigration prnent la collaboration: ils pensent pouvoirdtruirelessencedenotreidentitparuneutilisationdautant plus perverse de lIslam quelle ne repose pas sur des valeurs religieuses,fussentellesislamiques.95 Lobbyistsofimmigrationadvocatecollaboration:theythinktheycan destroytheessenceofouridentitybyusingasmuchaspervertIslam whichisnotbasedonreligiousvalues,eveniftheywereIslamic. Toposofattractivelegislation: The immigration has been sustained by the same lobbyists through supportivesocialandlegislativedevicesandadeliriouspropaganda. Impliedconclusion:tougherlegislationmustbeenacted. Le lobby immigrationniste a, en effet, su entretenir une lgislation attractive,fondesurlabsencededistinctionselonlanationalit.96 Theimmigrationlobbyhas,indeed,beenabletomaintainanattractive legislation,basedonthelackofdistinctionaccordingtonationality. Toposofdecline: The Purple coalition had not dealt with the problem of the Islamic closed cultureandthesituationhadworsenedsince1993.
SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007. 96Idem.

95
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Implied conclusion: the coalition must be changed if we want to preserve ourcultureandfreedoms. Toen Paars in 1993 aantrad, had ik daar aanvankelijk grote verwachtingen van. Ik dacht: die gaan dat aanpakken, die gesloten cultuur. Dat is niet gebeurd. Integendeel. Het is veel erger geworden.97 When the Purple coalition took office in 1993, initially I had great expectations. I thought myself: they will address the issues of the closed culture. That didnt happen. On the contrary. It became even worse. Toposofabuse: Therulingpartiesabusedthecivilrightsofimmigrantsbyofferingthem bribeinchangefortheirdeparture. Impliedconclusion:wedonotneedsuchdishonestpolicies. Janmaat ging wel een stapje verder. Die wilde bevorderen dat menseneenenkelereisterugkregen.Datzultubijmijnietzien.Nou dat zie ik niet zo zitten. Daar moeten we maar eens even mee stoppen.98 Therulingpartieswentastepfurther.Theyencouragedthepolicyto give all the people a one way ticket back [without taking into considerationthecivilrights].Youwillnotseethatwithme[]Ido notagreewiththis.Wehavetostopthis. Each separate element of the strategy conceived to antagonize the French and the Dutch people toward the immigrants and Muslims, the negativeOtherpresentation,thedenials,thevictimizationandtheillegitimacy of the political opponents, was put together in a story of helplessness and
97FrankPoorthuisandHansWansink.Deislamiseenachterlijkecultuur[Islamisabackward culture],deVolkskrant, [http://www.volkskrant.nl/den_haag/article153195.ece/De_islam_is_een_achterlijke_cultuur] November5,2008. 98Idem.
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control. The natives portrayed as helpless because of the threatening immigrationandIslamization,victimizedanddiscriminatedagainstbyboth the communities in question and the ruling elites are now able to see the winkoflightattheendofthetunnel.Withthecrisishittingtheroof,the French and the Dutch civilization and civil peace succumbing under the pressure of ethnic conflict, Le Pen and Fortuyn reveal themselves as two strong leaders who are going to fight to save France and the Netherlands fromdecline. La prsence sur le territoire franais dethnies de plus en plus nombreuses,dontlesmembresprivilgientsouventleurappartenance communautaire par rapport leur assimilation au modle franais, posetermeunproblmedepaixcivile.Enmlantdeshommesetdes femmes dorigines ethniques et religieuses diffrentes, les ressortissants immigrs se trouvent dracins, coups de leurs traditions, tout comme les Franais dans les quartiers immigrs se sentent trangers dans leur propre pays. Limmigration est donc une sourcemajeuredinscurit.99 The presence on the French territory of increasingly numerous ethnicities, whose members often prefer the belongingness to their community in relation to their assimilation to French model, ultimatelyposesaproblemofcivilpeace.Bymixingmenandwomen of different ethnic and religious origins, the resident immigrants find themselves uprooted, cut off from their traditions, like the French in the neighbourhoods of immigrants who feel strangers in their own country.Immigrationisamajorsourceofinsecurity. They portray themselves as the only politicians who can defend the interests of the ordinary people, who can reestablish the true norms and values and who can reconstitute the foundations of the Dutch and French culture.
99
SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.
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Je suis pay pour dfendre les Franais. Moi, je ne loublie pas. La nation,cenepassimplementunenviedtreensemble,cestaussiun sentimentdappartenance,dintrtcommun,derisquepartag.100 IampaidtodefendtheFrench.Ididnotforgetit.Thenationisnot simply a desire to be together, it is also a sense of belonging, of commoninterest,ofsharedrisk. Wewillenhetlandteruggevenaandemensen.Depolitiekmoetde burgeruitnodigenmeetedoen.101 We want to give the country back to the people. Politicians should invitethecitizenstoparticipate. Thesemanticstrategiesofbothpartieshavemanycommonalitiesbut also differences. The stories were built up using fallacies (straw men fallacy,slipperyslopefallacy,adhominemfallacy)toinvalidatethepolitical opponents and rhetoric devices to increase the persuasive effects of the arguments. However, while Le Pen tried to simplify and exaggerate the content of his messages in order to increase the impact on the public opinion,102 Fortuyn delivered more informed speeches sustained by clear evidence. Racist references were also signalled more in the discourse of Le Pen than in the discourse of Fortuyn. Whereas Le Pen acknowledged indirectlyhisracistviews,Fortuynwasmorepreoccupiedtodenythem.The analysisoftheuseoflanguageinLPFdiscourseshowedneverthelesssubtle formsofracismanddiscrimination. Inconclusion,wemaysaythatdespitethefactthatthesepartiesacted as racist both at the semantic and conceptual level trying to justify and legitimize the exclusion of immigrants and Muslims, their political
Idem. FrankPoorthuisandHansWansink.Deislamiseenachterlijkecultuur[Islamisabackward culture],deVolkskrant, [http://www.volkskrant.nl/den_haag/article153195.ece/De_islam_is_een_achterlijke_cultuur] November5,2008. 102InekevanderValk,Politicaldiscourseonethnicissues.AcomparisonoftheRightand theExtremeRightintheNetherlandsandFrance(199097),inEthnicities,no.3(2),2003,p. 195.
100 101
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programme was not entirely focused on the criminality of immigrants and ontheIslamizationofcultureandidentity.Therefore,wemayascertainthat together with the racist identity, there are other identities assumed by FN andLPFthroughdiscourse. Assumingthepopulistidentityfromtheideologicalpointofview Untilnow,theconceptofpopulismhasbeenframedinthischapterasa mechanism rather than an ideology that explains how the heterogeneous identitiesofapartycometogetherinachainofequivalenceandsubsumeto ahegemonicidentitywhiletheycarryonthecommonrejectiontowardsan excludedelement.Inthissubsection,Iamthoughfocusingontheconcept of Populism as ideology because it contributes to the structuring of the last importantidentity,fromthebulkofdifferentidentities,ofLPFandFN. Populismisapoliticalideologybecauseitmeetsthenecessarycriteria tobelabelledassuch.Heywooddefinesideologyasamoreorlesscoherentset ofideasthatprovideabasisfororganisedpoliticalaction[...]intendedtopreserve, modify or overthrow the existing power system.103 We can extract from this definitionthreeimportantaspects:underlyingprogrammaticideas(i)about thepresentorder,(ii)abouttheidealtypeofpoliticalarrangement,and(ii) aboutwaystomaintain,challengeordenouncethestatusquo.Therefore,I arguethatPopulismmatchesthesecriteriabecauseitclaimstoknowtheway thepresentorderfunctionsanditoffersanalternativethatitisportrayedas theonlylegitimatepathtoreachtheidealpoliticalarrangement. Apopulistpartyappealstovoxpopulibysustainingmoredirectforms of democracy and it criticizes the establishment for being elitist and for creating an institutional framework that hinders the transparency of the politicaldecisions.Accordingtothisconceptualization,IarguethatFNand LPFarepopulistsbecausetheyrefertopeopleasaunifiedcorpus;theytake an antiestablishment stance by accusing both the government and the opposition of stealing the democracy from the people; and they strive to create more direct links between the people and those who share the politicalpower.
103
AndrewHeywood,PoliticalIdeologies.AnIntroduction,3rdEdition,Houndmills:Palgrave Macmillan,2003,p.43.
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The reference to the people occurs heavily in both the discourse of FNandLPF.Thepeopleinthepopulistperceptionareasingleunity,with no internal cleavages, ordinary as opposed to the elitist government or politicalclass,andoppressedbecauseofthearbitrarypoliciesdictatedby particular interests. When speaking about the people, both FN and LPF employed general terms such as the people, the citizens, as if they were referring to abstract entities. While FN was giving an explicit nationalist connotation, les Franais (the French), nos compatriots (our compatriots), la nation(thenation),LPFwasattachingtothepeopleacivicconnotation,de burger (the citizens). Although less frequent, the parties were referring to the people in a particular sense also (the entrepreneur, the patient, the farmer). However, these groups became representative for the whole through a rhetoric technique with the purpose to appeal to a broader audience.104 FN and LPF placed the establishment in direct opposition to the people. The antiestablishmentstatements were often accompanied by the reference to the victimized people. The idealtype of democracy where the will belongs solely to the people is contrasted to the existing representative democracy that is practiced in corrupt institutions through abusive policies dictated by oligarchic interests. The target of the populist critique is not only the political elite but also bureaucracy, private institutions and media. Barney and Laycock say that the main purpose of these statements is to delegitimise established structures of interest articulation andaggregation.105 Despitethefactthatingeneraltermsthecriticismwasframedmoreor less in the same fashion, particular variation could be found also. For instance,FNshotitsarrowswellbeyondthenationalboundaries,attacking EuroAtlantic political actors and institutions for interfering into French domestic affairs (e.g. les lobbis de limmigration the lobbyists of immigration). Le PendenouncesthewholeFrenchsystem ofbeingcorrupt because it favours backstage affaires and it practices political clintelism. Ignoring any democratic accountability, les dynasties bourgeoises (the
104 The rhetoric technique is synecdoche that is understood as a figure of speech in which a wholeisrepresentedbyoneofitsparts. 105 Darin David Barney and David Laycock, RightPopulists and Plebiscitary Politics in Canada,inPartyPolitics,no.5(3),London:SagePublications,1999,p.321.
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bourgeoisdynasties)transmittheelectoralmandatesfromfathertoson.The opinion formers (journalists, scientists) were also finger pointed for not showingthetruefaceofthereality.Theterminologyusedtodiscreditthe establishment was general, les lites dirigeantes (the leading elites), ltablissement (the Establishment), les lobbis financiers mondialistes (international financial lobbyists), but also specific, directed to particular institutionsorpoliticians.Ontheotherhand,Fortuynwasmoreconcerned with the malfunction of the system due to sinuous bureaucracy and intermediary structures that were disturbing the direct communication betweenthepeopleandtheelectedandthatwerespreadingtheresources. LPF employed rhetorical figurae to express the discontent and to enhance the persuasion of the argumentation: De bezem door de doorgeschoten bureaucratie(Sweepingthebureaucracythatwenttoofurther).106Aswecan see, the main difference between the discourse of LPF and FN is that the former is attacking less the political class and more the bureaucracy that flourishedinsidethepublicsystem.However,therewereseveralreferences to the incompetence of the political elites (Paarse Coalitie the Purple Coalition)towesternizetheIslamicculture,consideredastheTrojanhorse ofintolerance.107 Toremedythesituationandtoredeemthebrokenpoliticalsystem,FN andLPFsustainedthatthesovereigntyshouldbeplacedbackinthehands ofthepeople.Theyintendedtodothisbymeansofdirectdemocracysuch as referenda, popular consultations, and even a reform of the electoral system. While LPF issued concrete proposals of institutional changes and directelectionofmayorsandtheprimeminister,FNusedlavoierfrendaire (referendum)ratherasarhetoricalmeanthanademocraticviablesolution. However, both partiesstressed that they areworking for the people and theyintendtomaketheprocessofdecisionmakingfullytransparent. All in all, we can observe from the previous analysis that all three elementsofthepopulistideologywerepresentinthediscourseofLPFand
See Verkiezingsprogramma LPF Hoofdpunten januari 2003 [The main points of the electoral programme of LPF January 2003] [http://www.pimfortuyn.com/asp/default.asp?t=show&id=1432]November6,2008. 107DePaarsorthePurpleisthenicknameofagovernmentcoalitionofsocialdemocratsand liberals. It is derived from the combination of the color of the liberals (blue) and social democrats(red).
106
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FN. However, the degree of intensity differed from one dimension to the other.Moreover,PopulismhadbeenassumedmoreseriouslybyLPFsinceit managed to propose a coherent political action. In addition, their strategy wasnotfocusedsolelyonthedisparagementofthepoliticalopponentsand ontheexaggerationoftheirhumancapacitiestochangethestatusquo.On theotherhand,FNadoptedPopulismasastyleofpoliticalcommunicationand behavedmoreasacatchallpeoplesparty.108 Radicalpopulistidentity The purpose of this last subsection is to show that the discursive processinwhichanidentitybecomeshegemonicfollowsthepopulistlogic.In other words, I want to illustrate that FN and LPF, by issuing a discourse againstimmigrantsandMuslims,managedtofixtheirpopulistidentitytoa nodal point after it had reunited, in a chain of equivalence against the excluded element, all the other separate identities and it had incorporated thechainintoitsownidentity. The word radical placed in front of populist identity stresses the importance of the language used by LPF and FN in adopting the anti immigrantandantiMuslimstance.Ipreferredradicalinsteadofradical right or extreme right because the latter would have implied a strict labellinginlinewiththeLeftRightdivision.AccordingtoLaclau,populism hasanontologicalnecessitytoexpresspermanentlythesocialdivision,and therefore,thevoidmaybeoccupiedbypoliticalsignsradicallyopposed,not onlybelongingtotheRightbutalsototheLeft.109Forinstance,theelectoral programme of FN contained leftist policy proposals such as protectionnisme cibl (targeted protectionism) with regards to certain strategic sectors and familyaidsforFrenchonly. Ontheotherhand,theleftistthemeswerenot extensively developed in the electoral programme of LPF. Though, with a socialistbackgroundandeducatedinthespiritofMarxistideology,itisnot clearwhatcontributionFortuynwouldhavebroughttotheDutchpolitical
108SeeJasperdeRaadt,DavidHollanders,andAndrKrouwel,VarietiesofPopulism:An Analysis of the Programmatic Character of Six European Parties, Working Papers Political Science,No.2004/04,Amsterdam:VrijeUniversiteitAmsterdam,2004,p.2. 109ErnestoLaclau,Laraisonpopuliste,p.108.
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lifeifhehadbeenaliveaftertheelectionsin2002.Inaddition,theseparties are rather reactionary that xenophobic because they criticize the political system for being technically incompetent and morally corrupt to deal with the immigration and integration and they do not reject in totality the immigrantsandMuslims. No identity is apriori and thus, it does not have a fixed location within the social structure. When a party emerges or undertakes a new themeinitsdiscourseitisforcedtoidentifywithinaspecificlocationinthe political structure by filling up a gap which exists there. This means that when immigration and Islamization became the core issues of FN and LPF programme, these parties had to identify within certain positions depending on their discourse at a given moment in time (e.g. FN fascist, racist, and populist identity; LPF racist and populist identity). When the socialantagonismwasexpressed,theFrench,theDutchversuslestrangers (foreigners), sans papiers (the documentless), les clandestins (illegal immigrants), de Islam (the Islam), the radical populist identity became hegemonicthroughtheintegrationoftheotherheterogeneousidentitiesina chain of equivalence. The coagulation of the other identities did not imply the elimination of all differences. They continued to exist because what mattered was the perceived common enemy, which, in this case, was the immigrantandMuslimcommunity. Each identity is the expression of unfulfilled social demands. The fascist identity of FN is the exponent of ethnic clashes. The racist identity monopolized the unsatisfied social demands caused by the cultural incompatibilitybetweenthenativesandtheimmigrants,especiallythoseof Muslim origin. The populist identity outlines the gap between the citizens andinstitutionalpolitics.Theradicalpopulistidentitybroughttogetherthe disconnected social demands and laid the blame on immigrants and Muslims for causing them. Once the cause of the problems had been identified, the radical populist elites portray themselves as the only legitimate politicians that could restore the country, the identity or the governmentbythepeople,forthepeople. The populist elites preserved the antagonism by employing floating signifiers,conceptsthatcanbefoundinallthreetypesofdiscourses:fascist racistandpopulist.Forexample,insecuritywasusedintheantiimmigrant argumentationbecauseitcouldstandforunfulfilledsocialdemandssuchas
68
unemployment(socialinsecurity)andhighcrimerate(physicalinsecurity). The immigrants and the Muslims were blamed for abusing laws and for embracing the physical violence. They were also accused for coming to France because the system offers them more advantageous unemployment benefits than the wages they could receive in their home countries. Therefore, the antiimmigrant discourse apparently pertaining to the right wingwascombinedwiththemesthatbelongedtotheleftwingrepertoirein ordertoattractvoterswhodidnothaveasolidideaabouttheiridentity. The electorate of theseparties did not necessarily identified with any type of ideology, being it fascist, racist or populist. The empirical evidence shows that radical populist parties mobilized a large part of the electorate not because their policies were actually seen comprehensive and well founded but because they occupied the space left free by the lack of an alternativepoliticaldiscourse.Thiswaspossiblebecause,asIsaidearlier,a large percentage of voters did not have fixed issue positions (fixed identities), so, their preferences could be induced through persuasive communication. Allinall,wecanseethattheradicalpopuliststrategyoftheseparties entailsthepassagefromdisconnectedsocialdemandstoauniversalonevia the construction of a chain of equivalence and the creation of an external, antagonistic force. They coagulated the voters by shaping their dissatisfactions regarding to the presence of immigrants and Muslims in FranceandintheNetherlands.
Conclusions
In this chapter I attempted to analyze according to Discourse Theory the manner in which FN and LPF framed their radical populist identity. Grosso modo, the analysis indicated that although the radical populist identityisvoidofanyideologicalcontent,itdoesnotnecessarilyimplythat its components can not be the expression of ideologies. This means that bothpartiesacquiredradicalpopulistidentitybyplacingtheheterogeneous identities(embodiedinthreedifferentideologies)inachainofequivalence andbyopposingthechaintoanexteriorelement.
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However,thedegreeofradicalpopulismdiffersfromonepartytothe other. FN identified with all three components of radical populist identity (fascist,racistandpopulist)whileLPFassumedonlythelasttwoidentities. FNhasafascistdimensionduetoitsaffiliationtofascistmovements,from which it borrowed a number of principles such as Fhrerprinzip, anti materialism and ethnic nationalism. These elements were not entirely preservedinthediscourseofFN,beingratherusedasdiscursivestrategies. Another difference between the parties analysed is that FN scored higher on racist statements than LPF. The positive presentation of the in group(theFrench)andnegativepresentationoftheoutgroup(immigrants andMuslims)washighlightedthroughanexcessiveutilizationofdiscourse strategies based on rhetoric that implied an increased level of persuasion and manipulation. On the other hand, the discourse of LPF showed more subtleformsofracismanddiscrimination. A further differentiation between FN and LPF could be made also when the scale of populism was examined. While Fortuyn criticized the public sector and signalled the state of decline due to the purple years of inconsistent policies, Le Pen directed his critique mostly towards the Establishment. In addition, the general democratic rhetoric was missing fromthediscourseofFN. In the end, I would like to acknowledge the fact that the social becomesameaningfulconstructiononlythroughdiscoursebut,atthesame time,itisdisruptedbydislocationandantagonism.
TheDiscursiveRoadform9/11toOperationIraqi Freedom
NicoletaColopelnic
Theaimofthisessayistorenderevidentthediscursiveconditions ofpossibilityofOperationIraqiFreedom.Inordertodoso,theapproach will be implicitly a discursive one. Using this approach, world politics is explained by highlighting the discursive structures that make possible certain representations and certain identities for actors on the scene of internationalrelations.Whyaresomeactorsreadasdanger?Whorenders thisreadingpossibleandonwhatgrounds?WhatIaimatrevealingarethe discursive structures that made the intervention in Iraq in March 2003 possible.Indoingso,mystartingpointwillbetheeventsthattookplaceon September11,2001,butweshouldkeepinmindthewarningthatEdward Saidmakesinthe2003editionofhisbook,Orientalism:
Withoutawellorganizedsensethatthesepeopleovertherewere not like us and didnt appreciate our values the very core of traditionalOrientalistdogma[]therewouldhavebeennowar.1 So, this reading of the Other as danger, and the legitimization of violence against it, draws upon discursive structures that were at hand before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Baring this in mind, I shall try to explain how such expressions as 9/11, war on terror, Axis of Evil gained their meaningandhowtheymadepossibleacertainidentificationoftheactors involved.
EdwardSaid,Orientalism,London:PenguinBooks,2003,p.XV.
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TheDiscursiveApproach:PreliminaryRemarks
Since its establishment as an academic subject, the field of international relations theory became more and more diverse, many new debates marking its evolution till this day. The many different theories tried to establish the main actors on the scene of international relations, theirgoalsandthemainpatternsoftheirbehaviour.Thedebatethatgoes on as we speak is one between the established traditional or mainstream theories,mainlyNeoRealismandneoLiberalism,andthenewalternative approaches to international relations. The main methodological dispute between the traditional and the alternative approaches can be reduced to twomainissues:theontologicalissueisthereanobjectivereality?and the epistemological issue: can we know this reality? According to their answer to the ontological question, theoretical approaches can be divided intoexplanatoryandconstitutive: An explanatory theory is one that sees the world as something external to our theories of it; in contrast a constitutive theory is one thatthinksourtheoriesactuallyhelpconstructtheworld.2 According to their answer to the epistemological question, the theoretical approaches can be divided into foundational and anti foundational;this distinctionreferstothesimplesoundingissueofwhetherourbeliefs about the world can be tested or evaluated against any neutral or objectiveprocedures.3 An approach that is both constitutive and antifoundational, assuming that there is no reality outside the theory that can only seek to understandthisrealityandnottoexplainit,isknownasPostmodernism. According to Franois Lyotard, Postmodernism refers to incredulity
Steve Smith, Reflectivist and constructivist approaches to international theory, in John Baylis, Steve Smith, (eds.), The globalization of world politics: an introduction to international relations,Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1999,p.226. 3Ibidem,p.227.
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TheDiscursiveRoadfrom9/11toOperationIraqiFreedom
towardsmetanarratives.4Thesemetanarrativesareinfacttheoriesthatbase themselves on foundationist claims. They claim to be objective and reveal anuniversaltruthabouthumannature,orthesocialandpoliticalworld,or about the nature of international relations. Postmodernism questions the claimthatanobjectivetruthisoutthereforustoexplain,thatatheoryis neutralandallitdoesisdiscoverrulesandpatternsofbehaviourthatare universally valid. The truth is not independent from the theory that explains it, because every theory establishes what matters as a fact and assumesthatitsclaimsareuniversallyvalid.AccordingtoMichelFoucault: We are subjected to the reproduction of truth through power, and we cannotexercisepowerexceptthroughtheproductionoftruth.5Truthand powerarenotindependentfromoneanother.Thus,thereisnoobjective truth,onlyregimesoftruththat reflect the ways in which, through history both power and truth develop together in a mutually sustaining relationship. What this meansisthatstatementsaboutthesocialworldareonlytruewithin specificdiscourses.6 But the powerknowledge relationship is not the only issue raised by Postmodernism, another one is the relationship between truth and language. What is communicated about events is determined, notby the character of events themselves, but by linguistic figures or forms.7 From thispointofview,theclaimofmanytheoriesthattheyrepresentrealityis highlyproblematic.JacquesDerridasuggeststwomethodsforuncovering the way through which a text is constructed based upon oppositions of termsthatarenaturalizedandclaimtorepresentreality.Theremethodsare deconstructionanddoublereading.8Whenitcomestotheacademicfieldof
Ibidem,p.239. MichelFoucault,Power/Knowledge,NewYork:PantheonBooks,1980,p.132,apud,Pauline Marie Rosenau, PostModernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions, Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1992,p.78. 6SteveSmith,op.cit.,p.240. 7KennethJ.Gergen,CorrespondenceversusAutonomyintheLanguageofUnderstanding Human Action, in Donald W. Winslow Fiske, Richard A. Shweder (eds.), Metatheory in Social Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 143, apud Pauline Marie Rosenau,Op.cit.,p.79. 8SteveSmith,op.cit.,p.240.
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internationalrelationstheory,themaintargetofdeconstructionanddouble reading were different concepts naturalized by the traditional approaches inexplainingthebehaviourofstates.Oneofthemostcriticizedtheoriesto thisdayisNeoRealism.9 Often referred to as postmodern, discourse theories are those theories that using an interdisciplinary approach, aim at combining elements of linguistic analysis with main elements of social and political analysis,dealingespeciallywithissuesconcerningsocialpractice,identity, powerandlegitimation.Thesesocialandpoliticalissuesareapproachedas discursive practices. From a linguistic point of view, discourse analysis refers to the analysis of certain texts. But integrating some social and political issues into this analysis led to the expanding of the field of discourseanalysistoissuesconcerningidentityconstruction,theprocessof politicallegitimation,thepowertruthrelationship. A definition of the term discourse must come to answer several questionsregardingtheusageoflanguage:who,how,whenandwhyuses language? These questions outline the main issues that discourse theories are concerned with: identity, meaning, legitimation and power. Although in the beginning, the different theoretisations concerning discourse were morepronetothesemanticandlinguisticaspects,intime,thepostmodern issues concerning the existence of an objective reality and an objective truth,therelationshipbetweenrealityandlanguage,andtheconstruction of reality through language began to gain ground in discourse analysis. Discoursewasdefinedasasocialpracticeanditsmainissuewasthatofthe forming and reforming of the object andsubject through discourse. These developments in discourse theory are attributed to the important contributionsofMichelFoucault,JacquesDerrida,ErnestoLaclau,Chantal MouffeandSlavojiek.10
See Richard K. Ashley, The Poverty of NeoRealism in Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neo RealismandItsCritics,NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1986. 10 See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, Archeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish; JacquesDerrida,WrittingandDifference,SpeechandPhenomena,Deconstruciapoliticii;Ernesto Lacalau,NewReflectionsontheRevolutionofourTime,Emancipations;ErnestoLaclau,Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Politica, The DemocarticParadox;Slavojiek,TheSublimeObjectofIdeology;JudithButler,ErnestoLaclau, Slavojiek,Contingency,Hegemony,Universality:ContemporaryDialoguesontheLeft.
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MichelFoucaultexplorestherelationshipbetweentruthandpower. Accordingtohim,themaindifferencebetweenlanguageanddiscourseis one concerning power: we can, linguistically, say many things. Why do we, in fact, say some things and not others?11 Discourse is defined as a practicethatcanbebestunderstoodifweanalysetherelationshipbetween truth,knowledgeandpower,insidewhatFoucaultcallsaregimeoftruth: Truth is of the world; it is produced there by virtue of multiple constraints.Eachsocietyhasitsregimeoftruth,itsgeneralpolitics of truth: that is the types of discourse it harbours and causes to function as true: the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true from false statements, the way in which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures which are valorised for obtainingtruth:thestatusofthosewhoarechargedwithsayingwhat countsastrue.12 A discourse is not something isolated, but it is a practice that continuously forms and reforms its objects. To Jacques Derrida, discourse plays an essential role in the construction of the social and of social identity,andaccordingtoErnestoLaclauandChantalMouffe,thereisno extradiscursivereality: The notion of antagonism, central to their work, arises as the experienceofthelimitofthesocial,butthislimitiswithinthesocial, notbeyondit:Thereisnobeyond,noextradiscursiverealm.13 The discursive practices determine and constitute the social and political structures, nothing being left outside discourse. Even social identityisdeterminedbydiscursivepractices.Thesediscursiveapproaches owntheirdevelopmenttoachangeintheviewonlanguagethatledtothe questioning of the nature of representation. Language does not merely reflect reality, but actually constructs it. Ferdinand de Saussure points to
JennyEdkins,PoststructuralismandInternationalRelations,London:Boulder,1999,p.46. MichelFoucault,Truthandpower:aninterviewwithAlessandroFontanoandPasquale Pasquino, in Patton M. Morris, (ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/Truth/Strategy, Sydney: Feral Publications,1979,p.46,apudSaraMills,Discourse,NewYork:Routledge,2004,p.16. 13JennyEdkins,op.cit.,p.134.
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the way inwhich a word derives its meaning from its relation with other words. There are two kinds of relations that make up the system of differencesthatgiveaworditsmeaning:thecontrastwithotherwordsand the position in sentences.14 The notion of difference elaborated by de Saussure is taken one step further by Jacques Derrida who, by using the notion of difference, tries to to show how two opposing terms function withinthought.Theoppositionreliesonanillusion.15 Language and discourse raise issues concerning power. Some discourses are more legitimate then other, they are given more credit. Power is directly exercised and expressed through differential access to variousgenres,contents,andstylesofdiscourse.16Notonlythis,but,the discursive practice also plays an essential role in identity construction. Starting with the antiessentialist view of socioconstructivism every collective[identity]becomesasocialartefact,17thatconstitutesitselfinthe processofsocialinteraction.ButPostmodernismistheonethatwouldpay moreattentiontotheroleofpowerintheprocessofidentification,arguing that the construction of identities does not take place outside power relations, but in close connection to them. The process of identification actuallyreferstotheinterestsandresourcesoftheonethatismakingthis identification.Thusthediscoursesthatareavailabletouslimitthewaysof identification. Our identity therefore originates not from inside the person, but from the social realm, a realm where people swim in a sea of languageandothersigns,aseathatisinvisibletousbecauseitisthe verymediumofourexistenceassocialbeings.18
Jonathan Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rethoric and Social Construction, London: SagePublication,2004,p.70. 15JennyEdkins,op.cit.,p.68. 16TeunA.vanDijk,StructuresofDiscourse,StructuresofPower,p.22, [http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Structures%20of%20discourse%20and%20structure s%20of%20power.pdf],5March2008. 17KarenA.Cerulo,IdentityConstruction:NewIssues,NewDirections,AnnualReviewof Sociology,Vol.23,1997,p.387,[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2952557],26May2008. 18VivienBurr,SocialConstructionism,NewYork:Routledge,2003,pp.108109.
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Thepostmodernsubjectdoesnothaveafix,essentialidentity,and languageandthesocialenvironmentcontributetotheconstructionofthis identity.AccordingtoErnestoLaclautheconstitutionofasocialidentity is an act of power and identity as such is power.19 Thus, identity is not perceived as something stable, as something that can be established once and for all. It is in a process of continuous formation and reformation through the language and power games that structure the social and politicalreality.
9/11andtheWaronTerror
Amajorevent:9/11 On the morning of September 11, 2001, two passenger planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, leading to their collapse and causing the death of approximately 3000 persons. Another passenger plane crashed into the Pentagon Building in Washington D.C, and yet a forth plane crashed near Shanks Ville, Pennsylvania.Thiswasamajoreventthatleftadeepmarkonthescene ofinternationalrelations,changedtheprioritieswhenitcomestoassuring collective security, and made the interventions in the name of the War againstTerrorinAfghanistanandIraqpossible. Whatturned9/11intoamajorevent?Thepostmodernistanalysis definedtheeventasonethatmarkstheendofthepostColdwareraand withitaparadigmshift.20Tobeabletounderstandwhatturns9/11intoa majorevent,wemust,asJacquesDerridasuggests,
Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolutions of Our Time in Ernesto Laclau, (ed.),NewReflections,London:Verso,1990,pp.3132,apudJennyEdkins,op.cit.,p.133. 20 Sharif M. Shuja, The September 11 Tragedy and the Future of World Order in ContemporaryReview,2002,p.199.
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distinguish between the brute fact, the impression and the interpretation. Of course, it isalmost impossible to cut out the brute factfromthesystemthatproducestheinformationaboutit.21 An event is not equal to the fact itself, but it also contains the impressionthatthefactleaves.22So,wecansaythat9/11isamajorevent becauseitlefttheimpressionofbeingamajorevent.AccordingtoDerrida, an event involves a certain perplexity, an acknowledgement of not understanding, of the fact that what just happens is situated somewhere outsideourhorizonofknowledgeandcomprehending.Thisisonereason whywhathappenedon9/11isreferredtobyasimplecallingofthedate September 11, 9.11, nineeleven a name, a date it speaks of the unspeakable, acknowledging that we do not recognize: we dont even know,wedontknowhowtoqualify,wedontknowwhatwearetalking about.23 An event brings about it a silence, a lack of a linguistic and conceptual framework within which we can define the fact as clear as possible. An event also involves a certain amount of surprise, a lack of foreseeing. Thefactsthattookplaceonthemorningof9/11shatteredmorethan steel buildings, they also shattered the entire postCold War discourse. Fromthispointofview,the9/11eventwasindeedamajorevent.Jacques Derridanoticesthattobeabletograspthewholesignificanceoftheevent, more that just a quantitative analysis is needed. The scale of material damage or of human loss cannot in itself account for the impression that what just happened is a major event. But, according to Derrida, 9/11 representsadifferentkindofthreat,athreatto the whole system of interpretation, axiomatic, logic, rhetoric and also the concepts and evaluations that should enable us to understandandexplainsomethinglike9/11.Iamreferringhereto
Jacques Derrida, Autoimuniti, sinucideri reale i simbolice. Un dialog cu Giovanna Borradori, in Jacques Derrida, Deconstrucia politicii, ClujNapoca: Ideea Design & Print, 2005,p.102. 22Ibidem,p.102. 23Ibidem,p.100.
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the entire discourse that is accounted for in a massive, prevalent, hegemonicwayintheglobalpublicspace.24 ThepostColdWardiscoursewasnolongersuitabletoaccountfor9/11. Besides all this, 9/11 is a major event because the target of the attackwasthenationalterritoryoftheUnitedStatesofAmerica,thestate thatfollowingthecollapseoftheUSSRremainedtheonlyhegemonicstate onthesceneofinternationalrelations.TheroleoftheUSinthepostCold Warerawasthatof guarantor and tutor of the whole world order, the one, that ultimatelyissupposedtoassurethecreditingeneral,aswellaswhen it comes to financial transactions, as when it comes to the language, laws,politicalordiplomatictransactions.25 9/11 showed to the world that even this hegemonic power is vulnerable, and by doing so it brought into disrepute the whole world politicaldiscourseforwhichtheUSwaraguarantor.Moreover,thetargets chosen for the attack were not random targets, but they were the very symbols of economic and military power of this sole world superpower, and thanks to globalization, mainly to the fact that the events were broadcasted live in every corner of the world, 9/11 acquired a global dimension.26Awholenewdiscursiveframeworkmustbeusedinorderto accountforthiseventbypoliticiansandbypoliticalanalystsaswell. Tragedy,crime,actofwar:makingsenseof9/11 Theactofnaming9/11hasimportantconsequencesondetermining thesignificanceofthiseventandoffittingitinacertaindiscourse,aswell asontheestablishingtheidentityofthosewhoweredirectlyinvolved.As wementionedbefore,thefirstreactionisthatofbeingperplexed.
Ibidem,pp.105106. Ibidem,p.107. 26RolandBleiker,AestheticisingTerrorism:AlternativeApproachesto11SeptemberinThe AustralianJournalofPoliticsandHistory49.3,2003, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002025505],3March2008.
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The prevalent faculties, including reason, are confronted by their limits and reduced to impotency, for they are unable to grasp the event in its totality. The result is incomprehension, pain and fear, whichexpressesthegapbetweenwhatwasexperiencedandwhatcan actuallybeapprehendedbythought.27 After the shock comes the attempt to name the event, to fit it into somediscursiveframework.Butwhohastheauthorityandthelegitimacy to do such a thing, to give a name to the events of 9/11? According to Derrida, thedominantpoweristheonethatmanagestoimpose,tolegitimize and even to legalize (because it is always a question of law), on a nationalorglobalscene,inacertainsituation,theinterpretationthat suitsherbest.28 Thus, the official reaction comes from Washington through the voice of President George W. Bush. By naming this event the president (re)creates his role of leader: when the president speaks, he governs.29 EverybodyturnedhisgazeuponPresidentBushtofindoutnotonlywhat happened but also what will happen next, what would be the official reactionitwashisroleandtheresponsibilityofhisofficetoshapepublic opinion, to put events in perspective, and to set the nation on a sensible courseofaction.30 The act of naming actually took place is a series of successive addressingofthepresidenttohisnation.Thefirstremarksofthepresident definedtheeventasatragedy:Todaywevehadanationaltragedy.Two airplaneshavecrashedintotheWorldTradeCenterinanapparentterrorist attack on our country.31 The first interpretation of the event is a pretty
Ibidem. JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.116. 29SaraSilberstein,WarofWords,Language,Politicsand9/11,London:Routledge,2002,p.5. 30 Robert L. Ivie, Democracy and Americas War on Terror, Tuscaloosa: The University of AlabamaPress,2006,p.127. 31 George W. Bush, Remarks by the President after two Planes Crash into World Trade Center, Emma Brooker Elementary School, Sarasota, Florida, 11 September 2001, in Sara Silberstein,op.cit.,p.18.
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indefiniteoneanditdosenotoffermuchinformationaboutitsnature.Itis atragedy,itisyetunknownwhatisthenatureofthistragedy,isitacrime thatinvolvesacertaincourseofaction,oranactofwarthatbringsabouta very different course of action? The general public is assured that those responsible for 9/11 will be hunted down and punished, but there is no referencetothewayinwhichthiswillbedone.Inthepresidentaddressto thenation,thatveryday,afewthingsaresortedoutandnamed:whatwas attacked was our way of life, our freedom, by a series of evil acts of terror, acts of mass murder, but even so, the general public is assured that our country is strong and that everything will get back to normal, the government and the economy, and that the main priority is the preventionofsimilarattacks;atthesametimeanactiontofindthosewho arebehindtheseevilactsisonitsway:Ivedirectedthefullresources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.32 As it can be noticed the definitionoftheeventthatcomesoutofthesestatementsarerathermore towards the naming of 9/11 as a crime, it is true, a massive and unprecedented crime, but one that leads to an investigation to find those responsibleandtobringthemtojustice,thustreatingthemascriminals. Itmustbementionedthatwhenitcomestothenotionsofwarand crime,thereisbetweenthemadistinctionthatisbasedonthewayinwhich sovereignty is defined in the modern era. According to this, the notion of crime is closely linked to the monopole of violence that the state has, concerningitshomeaffaires.Acrimeisabreachofthismonopole,andits punishment is mainly about maintaining the security of the state on a domestic level. This concerns an effort of the state to protect its citizens from the violent acts of other citizens of the same state. The main way through which this is done is legislation and courts of law. The fight against crime, even when we are talking about international crime is assuredbythestatepolicethatcancooperatewiththepoliceofotherstates. On the other hand the notion of war is connected to the sovereignty of a sate in the sense of its autonomy from other similar entities and, in the wordsofCarlvonClausewitz,waristhecontinuationofpoliticsbyother
32GeorgeW.Bush,StatementbythePresidentinhisAddresstotheNation,11September 2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,pp.1920.
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means,33 noting that it is about politics between states. So, war is somethingthatconcernstheforeignpolicyofastate.Inthedefinitiongiven to it by Clausewitz, the notion of war also implies a clear distinction between civilians and soldiers, a distinction that became very faint in the 20thcentury,especiallywhenitcomestoethnicwars. The events of 9/11 were defined as being an act of war and not a crime,althoughuntilthenterrorism,includinginternationalterrorismwere dealt with as crimes. On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committedanactofwaragainstourcountry.34Fromalltheinterpretations that wereat hand the one that was chosen was that of theact of war, the PearlHarboranalogybeingusedveryoften.ButthePearlHarboranalogy had its limits, mainly because at Pearl Harbor, Japan, another sovereign state,attackedanAmericanmilitarybasewithoutanypreviousdeclaration ofwar.AseriesofdistinctionsthatcouldbemadeinthecaseofthePearl Harborattackcouldnotbemadeinthecaseofthe9/11events.Thiswas alsoevidentinthefactthatThelinguistictrajectoryfromtheWorldTrade Center and the Pentagon began with silence. No state announced responsibilityfortheeventsofSeptember11.35Butdespitethisitwasclear thatAmericahadanenemyagainstwhichaglobalwarwouldbedeclared. Another distinction that was shattered was the civilian military distinction, because the targets of 9/11 were not military as in the case of Pearl Harbor. Something new happened on 9/11, something that would neednewdistinctionstomakeitcomprehendible.Evenif9/11wasdefined asanactofwarwemustaskourselvesasDerridawarnsus Where do we draw the line between national and international, police and army, peacekeeping intervention and war, terrorism and war,civilianandmilitaryonacertainterritoryandinthestructures thatassuresthedefensiveoroffensivepotentialofacertainsociety?36
R.B.J.Walker,War,Terror,andJudgmentinBulentGokay,R.B.J.Walker,(eds.),11 September2001:War,Terror,andJudgment,London:FrankCass,2003,p.78. 34 George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, UnitedStatesCapitol,Washington,D.C.,20September2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p. 22. 35SaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p.XIV. 36JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.116.
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Whywas9/11definedasanactofwarandnotasacrime?Because definingitasacrimesupposesacertaincourseofactionasaresponse,and definingitasanactofwarsupposesacompletelydifferentone. If terrorism is considered a criminal matter, the appropriate responseistogatherevidence,correctlydeterminetheculpabilityof theindividualorindividualsresponsibleforanincidentandbringthe perpetratorstotrial.37 Sucharesponseisaratheralaboriousone,requiringinternational cooperation that can only be productive after some time passes. But keeping in mind the impression of a major event and thedefinition as an actofwar,theresponsewillbethecallingupofarighttoselfdefenseand thedeclarationofawaronterror. Picturing9/11inthemedia The global dimension of 9/11 owns itself primarily to the broadcasting of the event across the world by the massmedia, leading to the creation of a global memory38 and to a global representation of the event.Thedimensionofamajoreventwasattributedto9/11alsobecause of this live broadcasting of the facts across the world. A global public thus emerged, a public that lived this tragedy through their TV sets: through media coverage that the day was primarily experienced and understood by its various cultural audiences.39 The first role of mass mediawastooffertotheworldpublicasetofimagesthatbecamepartofa globalmemory.9/11becameaglobaleventundertheeyesofmillionsof viewers that watch in perplexity the collapse of the twin towers. Neither thescaleofmaterialdamage,northenumberofvictimsdidnotdetermine theperceptionofthetragedyatagloballevel,because,asJacquesDerrida rightfullyremarks:
BrianMichaelJenkins,op.cit.,p.216. StanleyD.Brunn,Introduction,inStanleyD.Brunn,(ed.),11SeptemberandItsAftermath: TheGeopoliticsofTerror,London:FrankCass,2004,p.1. 39StevenChermak,FrankieY.Bailey,MichelleBrown,Introduction,inStevenChermak, Frankie Y. Bailey, Michelle Brown, (eds.), Media Representations of September 11, Westport: CT:Praeger,2003,p.4.
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inacertainsituationandinacertainculture,withtheconditionthat the media echo does not come to dramatize the event, the killing of thousands of people in a very short time, can lead to less psychical andpoliticaloutcomes,thentheassassinationofasingleindividualin acertaincounty,acertainculture,acertainnationstatewithanover equippedmedia.40 This was the exact effect that those who organized the terrorist attack expected. Without the massmedia, the global impact of 9/11 would have been much reduced in scale. Terrorism, unlike conventional military target attrition, exercises dramatic power through the mass med1ia coverage it receives, rather more than it does through the number of casualties.41 The representation power of the media is actually the dimensionitisabletogivetoacertainevent.Terrorismusesthispowerto attainitsgoalwhichisnotasmuchthecausingofmaterialorhumanloss, butshowingwhatitiscapableoftoalargerpublic,tothepotentialvictims ofafutureattack.Aterroristactisademonstrationofmight.Bymeansof television broadcasting the whole planet witnessed this demonstration of might radio, television and communications satellites gave the terrorists almostinstantaccesstoaworldwideaudience,publicizingtheircauseand creatingwidespreadalarm.42 Western massmedia, especially the American media generated a certain representation of the 9/11 events, giving priority to some interpretationsanddisregardingothers.Inthisway,theviewersreceiveda unitary,monolithicimageof9/11.Themaincharacteristicofthisimagewas the blending information and entertainment in often highly problematic ways.43 The main things that are emphasized are the spectacular, the heroic, the expression of emotions and feelings of those involved in the tragedy so the depiction of it can be as veracious as possible for the viewers. The main role of the media is to frame the event, to offer an
JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.118. DeborahStaines,Introduction,inDeborahStaines,(ed.),InterrogatingtheWaronTerror: InterdisciplinaryPerspectives,Newcastle:CambridgeScholarsPublishing,2007,p.8. 42BrianMichaelJenkins,op.cit.,p.210. 43RolandBleiker,op.cit.

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interpretation thatsuits the viewers, to build a collective identity through theprivilegednarrative. Toframeistoselectsomeaspectsofaperceivedrealityandmake them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promoteaparticularproblem,definition,causalinterpretation,moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.44 The first type of framing is the visual one that refers to the collocations like live, breaking news that appear on the screen. A framing that was especially referring to 9/11 was that of America under attackusedbyCNN.Thistypeofframingtogetherwiththestoriesofthe survivors and the opinion of the officials that were broadcasted helped transform an attack into an act of war45 and helped build the collective identities,mainlytheAmericanidentityofanattackednationwhosevoice is the voice of the survivals and of those who condemn these attacks and reassure the viewers that something will be done to prevent other attacks like this from happening; it also implicitly helps build the identity of the Other, of those who committed these cowardly acts. But although the framingoftheeventwasmadeinthetermsofanactofwar,theprevalent imagesthatwerebroadcastedwereofciviliansandofcivilianintervention forces, mainly firefighters and policemen. This only comes as a confirmationofthefactthatthecivilianmilitarydistinctioninnolongera viableone. Byconfirmingtheinterpretationoftheeventasanactofwarthe mediaalsojustifiedtheresponseinwhateverformitmaycome.Themedia andtheofficialrepresentationoftheeventleadtothecreationofacertain collectiveAmericanidentity,acountrythatwasunitedandsupportedthe president all the way, and a president that was empowered to name the event and to establish a course of action; it also lead to the creation of an identityforthosewhocommittedthoseacts,theterrorists.
44 Robert Entman, Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm in Journal of Communication 43, 1993, pp. 5158 apud Amy Reynolds, Brooke Barnett, America under Attack:CNNsVerbalandVisualFramingofSeptember11,inStevenChermak,FrankieY. Bailey,MichelleBrown,op.cit.,p.86. 45SaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p.77.
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Creatingidentities:therhetoricofevil Theterroristattacksof9/11broughttheintothespotlight,although his face remained concealed at first. By naming the attack an act of war, America had an enemy. But what kind of an enemy? No state and no organizationclaimedtheattacks.Theenemyremainedhidden.Tobeable to identify it, America first defined its own identity. Thus, the enemy would be the one who rejects all the values that America stands for. The official rhetoric can be resumed to the identifying of the Other as the absolute evil, whose actions cannot be justified by any means, and againstwhichAmericahadadutytofight. Naming9/11anactofwarleadstoembracingofacertainvisionof politics that works by the friend/foe dichotomy. This was identified as a main political distinction by Carl Schmitt in his Concept of Politics (1932), and it mainly refers to the attribution of alienness and difference to an enemy such that extreme conflict is possible, in physical defence of the self.46Theenemyposessuchathreattothewayoflifeandthevaluesof theself,becauseitisbuiltasastranger,theOther.Despitethis,theenemy hasthepotentialtobecomeafriend,butitisapotentialthatneverbecomes reality, thus the enemy is a failed version of the self, my enemy must, therefore, be someone who can attain the same level of civic meaning as me.47Byconferringanabsolutedifferencetotheonewhohasthepotential ofbeinglikemyself,butfails,theenemyiscastoutsidethesystemofnorms and values that belong to the self, and thus all violence against him is justified.Schmittarguesthattoinvokesomehigherclaimbehindwaristo maketheenemyanoutlawofhumanity,therebypreparingthegroundfor waragainstthisstranger.48Becauseheisidentifiedasbeingdifferentthe violenceagainsthimisjustified,andbecauseyoucanfightagainsthim,he isanabsoluteOther. The act of naming 9/11 sets forth a process of identity building troughwhichaSelfandanOtherarecreatedandantagonized.Thisprocess
MatColeman,TheNamingofTerrorismandEvilOutlaws:GeopoliticalPlaceMaking After11September,inStanleyD.Brunn,op.cit.,p.94. 47NickMansfield,UndertheBlackLight:Derrida,War,andHumanRights,inMosaic (Winnipeg)40.2,2007,[http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5023293750>]6March2008. 48MatColeman,op.cit.,p.95.

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ofdifferentiationisfundamentalfortheidentificationprocess.TheSelfand the Other are represented as occupying antagonist positions leading to a polarization of the virtues attributed to the two. Moreover, the Other is identifiedasposingathreattotheveryexistenceoftheSelfthusjustifying the act of selfdefense. The discourse about the Other relies on the identification of the Other as the enemy who committed an act of war against us. The defining of 9/11 as an act of war determines the identification of America as a victim, an attacked nation. Before this victimization, a process of Americanization of the victims, takes place: whereanAmericanwehasconvenientlyburiedthemultiplenationalities andidentities ofthosetrappedintheWorld TradeCentertowers,against the specter of terrorism.49 On 9/11 the places of the terrorist attacks, especially New York, were identified with America itself, and the victims became American citizens as the president himself made it clear: The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors.,50inotherwordstheywerecocitizens,theattackagainstthem being an attack against all Americans. Besides, the targets of the attacks were national symbols, a symbol of prosperity and a symbol of security, and whatwere attacked were the very way of life, the freedom51 and everythingthatAmericastandsfor.Asaconsequencetheenemyisonethat rejectssuchvaluesasdemocracyandfreedomwhichareattheverycoreat theAmericanculture. The discursive construction of the American identity as a victim standsforitsinnocence.Thebehavioroftheattackercannotbejustifiedby any means, because the victim is innocent. Giving the nation such characteristics as weakness, vulnerability, determine a feminine identification,andthusthemasculinemilitaryactionbecomesnecessaryto compensate for the weakness of the victim and to prevent any further attacks.52Thereactiontotheactofwarisamasculinereactionthatshould concentrate on firm, decisive action, on a demonstration of might, on the
Ibidem,p.93. GeorgeW.Bush,StatementbythePresidentinhisAddresstotheNation,11September 2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p.19. 51Ibidem,p.19. 52 Stacy Takacs, Terror TV: Challenging the Terror Paradigm in Post9/11 U.S. EntertainmentPrograming,inDeborahStaines,op.cit.,pp.144145.
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exhibition of invulnerability and of the indestructibility of the nation, as opposed to a feminine response that would concentrate rather more on dialogueandcompassion.Thefemininemasculinedistinction,onewhichis deeply embedded in western culture, is used to justify the act of self defensethatcanonlybeamasculineone.Includingthepresidentsidentity is a masculine, patriarchal one, a father in which the nation, standing unitedasavictim,looksforcomfort.Thisdeterminestheinvocationofthe homelandmodel for whose defense thefather must do anything that is necessary. The nation is united: This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time.53 America is at war. This road from victimization to the assurance that America will prevailistypicalforthevictimizationprocessthattookplace.Andforthe nationtobeatwar,ascapegoat,anenemywasneeded.Foravictimtoexist theremustalsoexistavillain.Victimizationsupposesthepersonification and ritual destruction of those powers that threaten the survival of community.54VictimizationtransformsthediscourseabouttheOtherinan usthemdichotomythat function to constitute identities that personify good and evil: villainous subjects of negative power (=terrorists) who must be fought and destroyed, and heroic subjects of positive power (=freedomfighters) who must kill and die in heroic struggles to defeatthoseevilpowers.55 The enemy is represented by these villains, the terrorists that committedsuchanabominableactagainstus.Theenemywasidentified asbeingaterroristnetwork,AlQaeda, an enemy that identifies himself as being Islamic, a fundamentalist Islamic, even thought it does not necessarily represent the authentic
GeorgeW.Bush,StatementbythePresidentinhisAddresstotheNation,11September 2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,pp.2021. 54MichaelBlain,OntheGenealogyofTerrorism,inDeborahStaines,op.cit.,p.58. 55Ibidem,p.59.
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Islam,andeventhoughnoteveryMuslimisreadytoidentifyhimself withit.56 This identification of the terrorists as being the representatives of the true Islam determines a differentiation from Americas perspective between good and bad Muslims, between those who really represent theMuslimfaith,andthosewhoinitsnamecommittedthesehorribleacts ofterror.InhisAddresstoaJointSessionofCongressandtheAmericanPeople on September 20th, 2001 President George W. Bush makes this differentiation: I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world.Werespectyourfaith.Itspracticedfreelybymanymillionsof AmericansandbymillionsmoreincountriesthatAmericacountsas friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evilinthenameofAllahblasphemethenameofAllah.Theterrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. TheenemyofAmericaisnotourmanyMuslimfriends;itisnotour manyArabfriends.Ourenemyisaradicalnetworkofterrorists,and everygovernmentthatsupportsthem.57 What takes place is a process of discursive identification of Muslims. There are good Muslims, and bad Muslims who in fact betray Islam.Butwemustkeepinmindthat in the West, for instance, the image of the stereotypical terrorist contains strong Islamic and Arab features, and this long before 11 September. Islam has been constituted as the classical Other, encompassing people whose sense of identity and whose religious practicesaresostrangethattheycannotbeseenasanythingelsethan athreattotheexistingsocietalorder.58
JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.126. George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, UnitedStatesCapitol,Washington,D.C.,20September2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p. 24. 58RolandBleiker,op.cit.
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Islamhasbeenconstitutedalong thecenturiesastheOtheragainst which the West could differentiate itself. Some elements of the orientalist discourse that determine a simplification, a monolithic and textual approach of the Orient as being inferior, uncivilized, traditional are still visibleinthewesterndiscourseaboutIslam,asEdwardSaidshowsinhis bookOrientalismpublishedin1978.59TothisstereotypedimageofMuslim terrorism,thepicturingofMiddleEastconflictsbythemediaandpopular culturehasasignificantcontribution. Terrorism was identified as the enemy. But terrorism is rather difficulttodefine.Moreover,itisbynomeansanewphenomenon.Isthisa newkindofterrorism?Themainissueregardingterrorismisthatwhatfor someoneisterrorism,forsomeoneelseisliberationfight.Butwewemust keep in mind that power selects the interpretation that suits her best. Because of the difficulties in defining terrorism the international community adoptedanapproachedthat involvedthedefiningofterrorist actsandtactics,ratherthandefiningterrorismitself.60Before9/11terrorist actswereconsideredtobeinfactcriminalacts,butafter9/11theAmerican discourse defines them as acts of war. We can argue that terrorism is not theonethatchangeddramatically,althoughchangesdidtakeplace,mainly an internationalization of terrorist attacks, but that what changed is the paradigm of how to address terrorism. This new paradigm attributed a global dimension to the major event that was 9/11, thus marking a discursive shift in issues regarding world order and global security. The namingofterrorismofferstothestateanenemyagainstwhichtoprotectits citizens,andevenmore,itbringsintotalktheissueofevilness.61Americas officialdiscourseplacedterrorismalongsideotherincarnationsofevilthat ithadtofightagainst.Terroristsare the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions by abandoning
SeeEdwardSaid,op.cit. BrianMichaelJenkins,op.cit.,p.214. 61MatColeman,op.cit.,p.88.

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every value except the will to powerthey follow in the path of fascism,andNazism,andtotalitarianism.62 Bythisplacingofterrorismonthesideofevil,Americaisasserting its mission to assure the world that this ideology of evil will not prevail, and that the values that America stands for, values of good, freedom and prosperity will prevail once more. U.S.A.s response to the act of war committed against it is to protect freedom, to bring the evildoers to justicetogivereassurancethatthisisaneraoffreedom,hereandaround the world, America is in a battle in which God is not neutral, a perpetualbattlebetweenfreedomandfear,justiceandcruelty,abattlein which America was always on the good side.63 Americans perceive themselvestobeanexceptionalnation,achosenpeople,destinedtoextend thefruitoffreedomtoanenslavedworld.64 Thedichotomistgoodvs.baddiscourseleadstoasimplificationof the enemys portrait and to the reduction of its identity to a single dominanttrait,thatofevilness,thecaricatureoftheenemy,deprivinghim of any legitimization or justification for his action. In the same time, Americas portrait is also simplified, and reduced to the image of the freedom and justice fighter that leads to a legitimization of its actions. ThosewhocommittedtheactofwaragainstAmericawerefirstviewedas cowards, and then as mad men a rational human being would not be capableofsuchahorribleact,thusmakingterroristsirrationalbeings.The next step was the adoption of the rhetoric of evil. Those who committed these terrorist acts are in fact an expression of evil, of what is the very worstofhumannature.65Therecanbenojustificationforthesedeeds,and the sole motivation is hatred for all that America stands for, this leads to attributing evil motives to evil deeds.66 This discursive placing of the
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, UnitedStatesCapitol,Washington,D.C.20September2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p. 24. 63Ibidem,p.24. 64RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.125. 65GeorgeW.Bush,StatementbythePresidentinhisAddresstotheNation,11September 2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p.20. 66RobertL.Ivie,OscarGiner,HuntingtheDevil:DemocracysRhetoricalImpulsetoWar, inPresidentialStudiesQuarterlyno.37.4,2008, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5024109821],3rdMarch2008.
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enemy on evils side makes a complex analysis of the motivation behind theseterroristactsimpossible.Theseactsaremostclearlytheexpressionof insanity and evilness, and thus they are incomprehensible and unjustifiable. And so, what you cannot comprehend you cannot negotiate with. You cannot have a dialogue with evil, you can only exterminate it. TheOther,whosevisionoftheworldisbasedonviolenceanfanaticism,is fartoodifferentfromussothatadialogueandhenceacompromisecould exist. On both sides of the divide, perpetrators of terror and counterterrordrawuponafamiliarvocabularytoreduceoneanother to demons that savagely massacre innocent people and thereby threaten to destroy all civilization. Each side marks the Other for eradicationassubhuman,barbarian,insane,andwickedoutlaws.67 Amutualsatanizationoftheenemytakesplace.Thisjustifiesthewarand theviolenceagainstit. Thewaronterror From the perspective of fighting against evil, a just war against terrorcanbearguedfor.Thediscursiveplacingoftheotheronevilsside, and thus outside any possibilities of negotiation, leaves as an only option thedeclaringofawaronterror:toanactofwaryourespondonthesame terms.Deterrence,theprinciplethatworkedsowellduringtheColdWar, has now failed, as the 9/11 attacks have proven. To prevent any similar attacksareactionisnecessary,andthisreactionisthestartingofawaron terror.Adeclarationofwarisadiscursiveactthatuncoversacertainway of establishing meanings and a certain system of distinctions that make possibletheexistenceofsuchadiscursiveact.Wecanevenspeakabouta warparadigmwhenitcomestoanalyzingthepossibilityconditionsofsuch adiscursiveact.Paradigmsfunctionasanindextomeaning,andtherefore to the production and legitimation of related cultural forms and practices.68Evenmore,paradigmsprovideconditionsofpossibility69for
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RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.135. DeborahStaines,op.cit.,p.5.
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discursive acts and practices. Placing terrorism into the war paradigm offersconditionsofpossibilityfordefining9/11asanactofwar,aswellas fordeclaringawaronterror. Thewaragainstterrorismushersinanewparadigm,oneinwhich groups with broad, international reach commit horrific acts against innocentcivilians,sometimeswiththedirectsupportofStates[].70 ThisishowPresidentBushdescribesthenewparadigmofthewar on terror. This is a type of war against enemies of freedom who take innocentciviliansastargetsfortheirdespicableevilacts.Furthermore,the enemy is not a sate, but a terrorist network with global reach. This determines a new way of thinking about both national and individual security.Noplaceseemstobesafeanymore.Thewaronterrorisaglobal war, and even if some states can be pointed out as supporters of terrorist networks, the war on terror requires a global campaign. Borders cannot stop the infiltration of terrorist and cannot prevent terrorist attacks from taking place. No geography, no territorial designation is relevant, for some time, to localize the headquarters of these new technologies of aggression.71 When it comes to terrorism, borders do not matter; the aggressor can be and strike anywhere. This global dimension of the terrorist threat extends to the War on Terror; it means not only that the threat can be anywhere, but also that the answer to that threat can be anywhere: in the global war on terrorism the U.S. could target Al Qaeda suspectsandkillthemwithoutwarningwherevertheyarefound.He indicatedthatincludedtargetingpersonsonthestreetsofapeaceful citylikeHamburg,Germany.72
Ibidem,p.6. George W. Bush, Memo Re: Humane Treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees, February7,TotheVicePresident,SecretaryofState,SecretaryofDefense,AttorneyGeneral, ChairmanoftheJointChiefofStaff,etc,2002,apudDeborahSteins,op.cit.,p.2. 71JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.113. 72MaryEllenOConnell,WhenIsaWarnotaWar?TheMythoftheGlobalWaronTerror,pp.2 3,[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=893822]12May2008.
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At the basis of this distinction between war and terrorism, distinction that makes possible a war on terror, lays the differences betweenlegitimateandillegitimateviolence.Thestateistheonlyonethat can claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of force, this fact relying on the concept of sovereignty: from this claim that emerges the moral distinctionbetweenwar(alegitimateactofviolenceperpetuatedbyastate) and terrorism (an illegitimate use of violence perpetuated by a nonstate actor).73 This distinction between war a legitimate form of violence, and terrorismanillegitimateformofviolence,hasimportantconsequenceson theidentityoftheterrorists.Whatarethey?Soldiersorcriminals?Thinking ofterrorismintermsofthewarparadigmleadstotheidentificationofthe terrorist as soldiers. This allows for the judging of terrorists in war tribunals instead of in civilian ones. But how must these prisoners be treated? Does the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisonersofwarapplytothemornot? Arguing that these committed terrorists are not state agents but extraordinarily unusual nonstate actors whose very being permanently threatens the system of sovereign states, and thus that the prisoners are not covered under the terms of the Geneva Convention,74 the Bush administration considered some more or less abusive interrogationpracticestobefullyjustified. Becauseofthediscursiveidentificationoftheenemywithevilitself, thewaragainstitisnotjustAmericas,butitisawaroftheentirefreeand civilized world. America is just one freedom fighter that must set an exampletotherestoftheworldinthewaragainstterrorism. Thisisnot,however,justAmericasfight.Andwhatisatstakeisnot justAmericasfreedom.Thisistheworldsfight.Thisiscivilizations
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RolandBleiker,op.cit. MatColeman,op.cit.,p.96.
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fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, toleranceandfreedom.75 Thewaragainstterrorismisawarinthenameoffreedom,progress andtolerance.Theenemyisdiscursivelyplacedasbeinganenemyofthese values. But these values are beyond negotiation and compromise. In the battlebetweengoodandeviltherecanbenomiddleground.Thisiswhy theworldisdividedintothosewhoareonAmericassideandthosewho opposeAmericaandarethusontheterroristsside:Everynation,inevery region,nowhasadecisiontomake.Eitheryouarewithus,oryouarewith theterrorists.76Inthefightagainstevilthereisnoroomfordisagreement and critique. And there can be no neutral ground. This simplistic distinctionbetweenonesideandtheotherhasconsequenceswhenitcomes todesignatingfriendsandenemies.Thus,statesthataredealingwiththe problem of home terrorism and have a drastic policy toward it, declaring thattheysupportbyallmeansthewaronterror,areAmericasfriendsan allies,whileotherstatesareconsideredtobeoutlaws,eitherbecausethey supportterroristnetworksAfghanistan,orbecausetheypossesweapons ofmassdestructionIraq.Thisglobalpolarizationofsidesone,fighting terrorism, and the other supporting it had the following consequence: formerglobalenemiesbecamefriends,aslongastheysupportedawaron terrorism; new enemies were created, some states (the axis of evil) or thosenetworksofterroristswhichoperateacrossstatelines.77 The threat posed by terrorism, a discursive construction, is perceived with such acuteness that a response is urgently needed. This responsetakestheformofsomeexpressionofthewarparadigminwhich terrorismisaddressedafter9/11.Expressionsofthewaronterrorcanbe visibleinthebureaucracyofnewlyformedgovernmentbodiessuch astheU.S.DepartmentofHomelandSecurity.[]Itisexpressedby
George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, UnitedStatesCapitol,Washington,D.C.,20September2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p. 25. 76Ibidem,p.25. 77StanleyD.Brunn,op.cit.,p.3.
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thelargemilitaryengagementsofOperationIraqiFreedom(Iraq)and OperationEnduringFreedom(Afghanistan).78 Regarding internal affairs in the US, security became the main concern of the government. Because terrorist can be anywhere, including among us, the government needed the appropriate tools to expose them andbringthemtojustice.Securitywouldbecometheunderlyingprinciple of every action of the government. A first measure taken in order to increase homeland security was the tightening of border and airport control. The polarization between good and evil means that there is no room for dissent and patriotism was reduced to inflexible conformity.79 The clearest expression of this patriotism is the so called PATRIOT ACT (The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools RequiredtoInterceptandObstructTerrorismAct),troughwhichterrorism isfoughtevenatthepriceofgivingthegovernmentthepowertosuspend certainfundamentalcitizensrights.Thisispossiblebyinvokingastateof siege.Definingterroristattacksasactsofwarandfittingthemintoawar paradigm determines a militarization of political life (as well as a politicization of the military) and a coextensiveness between war and politics.80Thethreatisperceivedasomnipresentandthusspecialsecurity measuresareneeded:Westerndemocraciesnowcharacterizethemselves as being under a state of siege, threaten everywhere, externally and internallybythespecterofterrorism.81Inademocraticsuzerainstate,the state of siege is closely linked to the state of war. The fragile balance between the suzerain power that grants security to its citizens and their individual rights and freedom can be disturbed only when something threatens the existence of the state that is the guarantor of this balance. Treatingterrorismasacrimewouldnothavemadepossibletheinvocation of a state of siege. Fighting terrorism incorporates also an economic dimension. To be able to carry this fight, economic security is needed: Once we have funded our national security and our homeland security,
DeborahStaines,op.cit.,pp.67. RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.156. 80SaulNewman,MichaelP.Levine,TerribleTerror:Security,ViolenceandDemocracyin theWaronTerrorisminDeborahStaines,op.cit.,p.86. 81Ibidem,p.86.

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thefinalgreatpriorityformybudgetiseconomicsecurityfortheAmerican people.82 A first international expression of the war on terror was the intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001. Addressing terrorism in the warparadigm,andnaming9/11anactofwarmadepossibletheinvocation of a right to selfdefense and the starting of an armed intervention in Afghanistan. This intervention however was focused on eliminating its most immediate means and agents.83 The declared purpose of the interventionwaseliminatingtheAlQaedaheadquartersinAfghanistan,as wellastheoverthrowingoftheTalibanregimethatsupportedthisterrorist network. But this intervention was in fact a new sort of war, because the targetwasnottheafghanstateitself,butaterroristnetworkofglobalreach, and the Taliban regime, the Bush administration declared war on AfghanistanandatthesametimedeclaredthattheUnitedStateswasnotat warwiththeAfghanpeople.84TheinterventioninAfghanistanwasanact ofselfdefense.Somethinghadtobedonetorespondtotheactofwarthat wascommittedagainstAmerica.Butthisintervention,althoughvictorious didnotmarktheendofthewaronterror,butmerelyitsbeginning: Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthycampaign,unlikeanyotherwehaveeverseen.85
GeorgeW.Bush,PresidentDeliversStateofUnionAddress,apudRobertL.Ivie,op.cit., p.156. 83RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.151. 84 Drucilla Cornell, Defending Ideals: War, Democracy, and Political Struggles, New York: Routledge,2004,p.22. 85 George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, UnitedStatesCapitol,Washington,D.C.,20September2001,inSaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p. 25.
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OperationIraqiFreedom
Fromselfdefensetopreemptivestrike:roguestatesandtheaxisofevil The war in Afghanistan represented a first materialization of the waronterror.ButavictoryinAfghanistan,thedestroyingoftheTaliban headquarters and the overthrowing of the Taliban regime are but a first stepinthisglobalwaronterror.Thewaronterrorhasapermanentand indefinite character,86 meaning that the enemy can be anywhere, and eliminating him involves more than a singular military action, it rather involvesacampaignthatcanlastforanindefiniteperiodoftime. The terrorist thereat determined a new assessment of security and oftherighttoselfdefense.Whatisaterroristthreat?Firstofall,as9/11has showed, it is a threat that cannot be contained or deterred. These two principlesthatworkedsowellduringtheColdWar,andthatevenafterthe collapse of the USSR did not seem to be obsolete, are no longer working. Terrorismcannotbedeterred: Traditionalconceptsofdeterrencewillnotworkagainstaterrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose socalled soldiers seek martyrdom in deathandwhosemostpotentprotectionisstatelessness.87 Against such an enemy who is hard to pinpoint, and who is discursivelyidentifiedasirrational,aconceptlikedeterrencethatrelieson a rational calculus of the enemys as well as one selfs military capacities cannot work. The problem that America is facing is how to deal with an enemy that cannot be deterred? How to contain an enemy that, being stateless,canbeanywhere,includingamongourselves.Besides,terrorism wasbutonemanifestation ofevilthatAmericahadtodealwith.Another was represented by the so called rogue states and their weapons of mass destruction. The two threats are merged into a single one. Terrorists and rogue states are but different representations of the same evil. A
SaulNewman,MichaelP.Levine,op.cit.,p.86. NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.15,[http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/nss.pdf], 20May2008.
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demonizingprocessofboththeterroristsandtheroguestatestakesplace. Thedevil,asanessentialantagonistinthenationscosmology,hashada long and notable history in national dramas playing the part of the enemy.88FightingthisdevilenemyreaffirmsAmericasmissionarism. Thegravestdangertofreedomliesatthecrossroadsofradicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclearweapons,alongwithballisticmissiletechnologywhenthat occurs,evenweakstatesandsmallgroupscouldattainacatastrophic powertostrikegreatnations.89 The issue of nuclear weapons proliferation is thus linked to the issue of terrorism. On 9/11 terrorists have proved their capacity to carry forth such a devastating attack against the sole superpower of the world, which,despiteitsmilitarycapabilityanditssecretservices,wasnotableto protect itself from such an attack. The possibility that terrorist could acquiremoredeadlyweaponsfromthesocalledroguestates,wouldnow betakenintoaccount. But what is a rogue state? First of all, these states are discursively positioned on the same side as the terrorists, as materializations of evil, withwhichyoucannotnegotiate,andwhichyoucannotdeterorcontain: deterrencebasedonlyuponthethreatofretaliationislesslikelytowork againstleadersofroguestatesmorewillingtotakerisks,gamblingwiththe lives of their people, and the wealth of their nations.90 These rogue sates didnotappearjustafter9/11,butafterthisunprecedentedterroristattack, thethreatposedbyroguestateswasmergedwiththeterroristthreat,and wastobeaddressinthewaronterrorparadigm.IntheNationalSecurity Strategy 2002, these rogue states are defined as sharing some common featuresalthoughdifferentinotherregards: brutalize their own people [] display no regard for international law,[] are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction, alongwithotheradvancedmilitarytechnology,tobeusedasthreats
RobertL.Ivie,OscarGiner,op.cit. NationalSecurityStrategy,p.13. 90Ibidem,p.15.

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or offensively to achieve the aggressive designs of these regimes; sponsor terrorism around the globe; and reject basic human values andhatetheUnitedStatesandeverythingforwhichitstands.91 Thereisanusthemdichotomization:theUnitedStatesrogue states.TheUSstandforacertainsetofpositivevalueslikerespectforits people,respectforinternationallaw,forfundamentalhumanvalues.This setofpositivevaluesareontheotherhandtotallydisregardedandhated by the Other. Furthermore, rogue states share the same hatred for all that Americaanditsalliesstandfor.Fromthispointofview,thesupportthat rogue states offer to various terrorist networks only comes as a confirmation of their vileness and for the fact that terrorism and these regimesarebuttwodifferentmaterializationofthesameevil,because,let usnotforgetthatterroriststoohateAmericaandallforwhatitstands.Itis clearthatthishatredtheysharewilldeterminethetwoincarnationsofevil toworktogether.Using themetaphorofabsoluteevilmakesthemerging ofthetwothreatsmucheasier,anditleadstothebuildingofamonolithic image of the enemy, who, be it terrorist network or rogue regime, is irrational,cannotbedeterredanditssolereasonforactionishatred. Especiallythreestateswereconsideredasposingamajorthreatto Americassecurityandweredesignatedasconstitutingasocalledaxisof evil:Iran,IraqandNorthKorea.Theusageofthecollocationaxisofevil intheStateoftheUnionAddresstoCongressonJanuary22nd2002constitutes arestructuringoftheAmerican understandingoftheWaronTerror.92 Thereisaredefinitionofthethreattosecurity,threatthatnolongerlimits itself to AlQaeda, but also incorporates a number of states that are considered to be an easy source of weapons of mass destruction for terrorists.Theaxisofevilmetaphorisnotanewone.Itwasfirstusedin the 30s, referring initially to the alliance between Hitlers Germany and Mussolinis Italy, which Japan joined later on. In the collective memory following the Second World War, the powers on the Axis remained as being an incarnation of evil, and the main implication is that something
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NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.14. DanielHeradstveit,MatthewG.Bonham,WhattheAxisofEvilMetaphorDidtoIran, TheMiddleEastJournalno.61.3,2007,p.3.
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mustbedoneaboutthem.93Defininganaxisofevilisonthesamelineof thinking as the discursive positioning of terrorism as the heir of all the murderousandtotalitarianideologiesofthe20thcentury.Thedichotomist discoursesituatesAmericaanditsalliesonGoodsside,fightingagainsta newreincarnationofEvil. Theaxisofevilisacreativemetaphor;thatisametaphorthatis capable of giving us a new view of the world94 by drawing on a set of perceptionsthatbelongtothecollectivememory.Thereisanaxisofevil that is a reincarnation of the BerlinRomeTokyo axis. The metaphor has consequencesonperceivingtherelationsbetweenthestatesthatmakeup this axis. Thus, North Korea, Iran and Iraq are more that isolated materializations of evil. They are allies. They make up a conspiracy of evil.95 Even though these three states do not make up an alliance in the proper sense of the word, they are discursively positioned in such an alliance of evil that must be confronted. Those who are on evils side are responsible for all its manifestations, be it weapons of mass destruction proliferation, or terrorist attacks. And this axis of evil metaphor also leadstothepolarizationoftheworldintotwosides: Ifthereisanaxisofevil,thatobviouslyplaces[PresidentBush]in theaxisofgood,andalsomeansthatanyonewhodisagreeswiththe policiesheisadvocatingisplacedontheotherside.96 Those who fight the axis of evil are necessarily on goods side, protecting civilizations values. Identifying the enemy is closely linked to theidentificationprocessoftheSelf.InChantalMouffeswords: to construct a we, it must be distinguished from a they and that means establishing a frontier, defining an enemyconsensus is by necessitybaseduponactsofexclusion.97
Ibidem,p.2. Ibidem,p.1. 95Ibidem,p.6. 96LaurieGoodstein,APresidentPutsHisFaithinProvidence,NewYorkTimes,February 9,2003,[http://www.nytimes.com/]apudRobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.160. 97 Chantal Mouffe, Democratic Citizenship and Political Community in Miami Theory Collective,(ed.),CommunityatLooseEnd,Minneapolis:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1991,
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Nico Carpentier identifies a series of dichotomies that play a very important role in the process of identification. The first series refers to characteristics of the Self and of the enemy: good/bad, just/unjust, innocent/guilty, rational/irrational, civilised/barbarian; the other series refers to the actions of the Self and those of the enemy: legitimate/illegitimate, necessary/unnecessary, last resort/provocative, limitedeffects/majoreffects.98Thesedichotomiesaredefinedasfloatingor empty signifiers,99 meaning that these signifiers do not have a fixed meaning, but are articulated during the conflict.100 They get their significanceduringtheidentificationprocessandhaveadifferentmeaning for the sides in conflict. Moreover, they can be claimed by both sides to definetheirsandtheirenemysidentity:alwaystheSelfwillbegood,just, anditsactionlegitimate,whiletheenemywillbeevil,unjustanditsaction illegitimate. The right to selfdefense that was invoked in order to attack Afghanistan would be transformed into a right to preemptive strike. This wouldbethenewsecuritystrategyoftheUS:Toforestallorpreventsuch hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.101 The USA invoked the right to self defense following the 9/11actofwar,andinvadedAfghanistantooverthrowtheTalibanregime andtodestroywhatiscouldofAlQaeda.Thiswasastrongreadingofthe righttoselfdefense,accordingtowhichthisrightcanbeinvokedonlyafter an attack has taken place. A soft reading of this right says that under certain circumstances, this becomes admissible even before an enemy has fired the first shot or sent his troops across the border,102 but these
p. 78, apud Romand Coles, Liberty, Equality, Receptive Generosity: NeoNietzschean ReflectionsontheEthicsandPoliticsofCoalition,TheAmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90,No.2,1996,p.378,[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2082891],2June2008. 98NicoCarpentier,Introduction:StrengtheningCulturalWarStudies,inNicoCarpentier (ed.), Culture, Trauma, and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on War, Newcastle: CambridgeScholaryPublishing,2007,p.4. 99 Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics,London:Verso,1985,pp.112113,apudNicoCarpentier,Op.cit.,p.4. 100NicoCarpentier,op.cit.,p.4. 101NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.15. 102 Dietrich Murswiek, The American Strategy of Preemptive War and International Law, p. 6, [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=397601],3March2008.
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circumstancesmustbeunderstoodinanarrowsense.Mainly,selfdefense beforetheactualattacktookplaceislegitimate,onlyifthereisproofofan imminentthreattothestateincase.Agoodexamplecanbeconsideredthe attack launched by Israel against Egypt in 1967, when the Egyptian tanks werebeingpositionedattheborderwithIsrael.103 In the war on terror, the threat posed by terrorist networks and rogueregimeswasdiscursivelyconstructedsothatiswasperceivedasan imminentthreattoAmericassecurity,andthusapreemptivestrikeagainst themwouldbejustified.Afirststepinthisdirectionwasthe9/11analogy: As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civiliancasualtiesisthespecificobjectiveofterroristsandtheselosses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weaponsofmassdestruction.104 Considering the scale of these attacks and the fact that it was not foreseen or prevented, the elimination of the terrorist threat was to be pursuedatanycosts.Thepriceofinactionwasconsideredtobetoohigh. Thethreatisimminentbecausetheenemyswantonpurposeisdestruction. The more different the Other is from us, pushed into the sphere of the irrationalandoutsideanypossibilityofdialogue,themoreimminentisthe threatheposses.Thus, inthecaseofroguestates,thecriterionofanimminentthreatisnow supposedlytobeunderstoodasthemerepossibilitythatthesemight useweaponsofmassdestructionatsomefuturepoint.105 Toremainidleandtoreactonlyafteranattackhastakenplaceisno longeraviableoptionafter9/11.ThethreatisimminentandAmericamust not wait to be attacked once more. A first strike did take place, and that wasenoughtochangethesecuritydiscourse,todeterminetheabandoning of principles like containment and deterrence and to argue in favor of
103 Franklin Eric Wester, Preemption and Just War: Considering the Case of Iraq, in Parameters no. 34.4, 2004, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5008625815], 3 March 2008. 104NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.15. 105DietrichMurswiek,op.cit.,pp.1112.
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preemptiveaction:inanagewheretheenemiesofcivilizationopenlyand actively seek the worlds most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.106 Despite all the critics and by discursively constructing the terrorist rogue regimes as an imminent threat,theUSwereabletoinvoketherighttopreemptiveaction,especially consideringthatindolencecouldleadtoanew9/11. From the USs perspective, the establishing of a new international normofpreemptivedefenseisadangerousthing, because youcanforsee thepossibilityofitsabuse.PresidentBushmadeadeclarationconsidering this:TheUnitedStateswillnotuseforceinallcasestopreemptemerging threats,norshouldnationsusepreemptionasapretextforaggression.107 ButtheterroristthreatisonethattheUSmustaddress.Theexceptionalrole thatithastakenontoitself,theroleofprotectorofthecivilizedworldand itsvaluesfromtheforcesofevil,allowsittousepreemptivestriketodeal with this imminent threat. The Other is dual in nature: its existence is compulsory for the identification of the Self, but at the same time it constitutes a threat to the existence of the Self. The only option to avoid another9/11istoactnow. Iraq:casusbelli One of the rogue regimes that made up the axis of evil that was identified as the greatest threat of all was Iraq. Dialogue or negotiation were considered to be impossible with a ruler that was demonized and discursively placed beyond reasonand that could thus not be deterred or contained. A first preemptive strike will take place against Iraq. Iraq was discursivelyconstitutedasanimminentthreatbasedupontwoarguments: possessionofweaponsofmassdestruction(WMD)andtieswithAlQaeda: thejustificationforgoingtowarinIraqisthusbuiltontherecurring closeness and imminence of danger facing the American people, which this time stems from the alleged possession of WMD by the
106 107
NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.15. NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.15.
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Iraqiregimeand,consequentially,byeasyaccesstotheseweaponsfor terroristgroupssuchasAlQaeda.108 After 9/11 the nature of the threat to security changed, and it was now represented by the merging of two threats: terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 9/11 did not create the proliferation of WMD threat and thus neither the Iraqi threat, but these attacksleadtoareconsiderationoftheWMDthreatanditsintegrationinto thewaronterrordiscourse: the Bush administrations post9/11 case for war was a function of suddenly perceiving the presence of evil instead of any significant changeorupsurgeinIraqsstatusasathreattoworldpeace.109 AfterthewarinAfghanistan,thenewfaceofevilwasSaddamHussein. The war on terror, which is ultimately a battle between good and evil, supposestheeliminationoftheseincarnationsofevil. InconstructingtheIraqithreat,the9/11analogyplaysanimportant role.AlthoughthelinkbetweenSaddamHusseinand9/11isnotveryclear, this was a major argument in the cassus belli for Iraq. In the words of GeorgeW.Bush: Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. September the 11th changedthe strategicthinking,atleast,asfarasIamconcerned,for howtoprotectourcountry.Itusedtobethatwecouldthinkthatyou could contain a person like Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protectusfromhistypeofterror.Septemberthe11thshouldsaytothe Americanpeoplethatwearenowabattlefield,thatweaponsofmass destructioninthehandsofaterroristorganizationcouldbedeployed hereathome.110 The possibility that the weapons of mass destruction owned by SaddamcouldfallinthehandsofterroriststransformedIraqintoaterrorist
108PiotrCap,LegitimisationinPoliticalDiscourse:ACrossDisciplinaryPerspectiveontheModern USWarRhetoric,Newcastle:CambridgeScholarsPress,2006,p.3. 109RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.175. 110GeorgeW.Bush,AddressattheNationalPressConference6March2003,apudPiotr Cap,op.cit.,p.22.
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threat. The 9/11 analogy determines the necessity of selfdefense: We learnedalesson:thedangersofourtimemustbeconfrontedactivelyand forcefully, before we see them again in our skies and our cities.111 Thus, althoughtheSeptemberthe11thattacksdidnotcreatetheIraqitreat,they gave it an imminent dimension. The rhetoric of evil, used to define the terrorist threat, was extended to encompass the axis of evil to demonize SaddamHusseinandhisregime,andtolegitimizetheuseofforceagainst him. The 9/11 analogy works inside of what Piotr Cap calls temporal proximization.PiotrCapanalysestheAmericanlegitimizationdiscourseof theIraqintervention,usingthenotionofproximizationwhichhedefinesas incorporating three axes: spatial, temporal and axiological. Proximization involves the defining of an identity of the Self that is threatened by the Other, whose identity is established according to a dynamics on the three axesthatcouldleadtoacollisionoftheOtherwiththeSelf,thusthreatening the very existence of the Self. The notion of proximization is useful in understanding the process of the discursive identification of the Self and the Other. Temporal proximization refers to a certain way of interpreting theconsequencesofpasteventssothatitdeterminesthecentralcharacter of the current situation for the evolution of the publics expectations and wishes.112 The interpretation of the current situation is made through the prism of the 9/11 events, so that an armed intervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein would be justified, although the link between Saddam and9/11cannotbeundoubtedlyproven. A historic date September 11th, 2001 is implicitly imposed to serveasananchorforlegitimizationofthecurrentactionswhichare construed as if they were undertaken in circumstances similar, or even identical, to those making up the retrospective basis for the analogy.113
GeorgeW.Bush,AmericanEnterpriseInstitute,WashingtonDC26February2003apud PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.79. 112Cap,Piotr,op.cit.,p.67. 113Ibidem,p.66.

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Defining Iraq as a rogue regime has its roots in the way Iraqs behaviorwasdefinedpriorto9/11:Theworldhaswaited12yearsforIraq todisarm.114Duringthese12years,Iraqdidnotactaswasexpectedofhim bytheinternationalcommunity:itrefusedtodisarmandtorespecttheUN resolutionsconcerningit.Iraqsattitudetowardsinternationallawshowed nothingbutcontempt: Inarepeatingpattern,Iraqisservednoticewith[UN]resolutions, agreestothem,andthenbreaksthem....Thereisnolongeracredible waytoenvisionanypeacefulroadtoIraqidisarmament.115 After 9/11 this continuous refusal of Saddam to disarm can no longer be tolerated. The tolerant attitude toward Iraq is compared to the appeasementpolicytowardsHitlerthatdidnothingtoostoptheoutbreak oftheSecondWorldWar.ThepreferredidentificationofSaddamwasthat ofamadmanthatcannotbedeterredorcontained:Trustinginthesanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.116Thisdictator,discursivelysituatedonevilsside,cannotbedealt with by rational means. In his deeds he only cares about his own whims. But,althoughtherepeatedhumanrightsviolationswereusedaspartofthe argumentinfavoroftheinterventioninIraq,thesewerenotconsideredto bethemaincasusbelli,andwillonlybeemphasizedaftertheintervention was well on its way. The violations of human right were just one more elementtoconfirmtheroguenatureoftheregime,andSaddams disdain for any regime of international law. Saddam is discursively transformed intoavillain:Ifthisisnotevil,thenevilhasnomeaning.117 The most powerful argument for the intervention was that of the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq, and its refusal to
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address 28 January 2003 apud Robert L. Ivie, op. cit.,p.162. 115ThomasM.Nichols,JustWar,NotPrevention,CarnegieCouncilonEthicsand InternationalAffairs2004, [http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/867]apud FranklinEricWester,op.cit. 116GeorgeW.Bush,StateoftheUnionAddress28January2003apudRobertL.Ivie,Op. cit.,p.162. 117Ibidem,p.162.
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disarm.Thecollocation weaponsofmassdestructionimpliesconflating nuclear,chemicalandbiologicalweapons118makingitmucheasierforthe Bush administration to use the weapons of mass destruction argument especially considering the fact that there was clear evidence that Saddam hasusedchemicalandbiologicalweapons: This dictator, who is assembling the worlds most dangerous weapons,hasalreadyusedthemonvillagesleavingthousandsofhis owncitizensdead,blindordisfigured.119 Collocations like the worlds most dangerous weapons or weapons of mass destruction were used without distinguishing between the type of weapons chemical, biological, nuclear, and without any reference to the meansofdeliveringtheseweapons:thefactthatSaddamusedthemagainst his own people does not mean that he has the capability to launch them against the US for example. But on the other hand, 9/11 proved that distanceorthenatureoftheweaponisirrelevant.Thegreatestthreatwas however considered to be the possibility that Saddam Hussein had reconstructed his nuclear weapons program. A very disputed argument used by President Bush to confirm the existence of a nuclear program in Iraq,wastheclaimthat:TheBritishGovernmenthaslearnedthatSaddam Hussein recently bought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.120 This claim that Saddam bought uranium from Niger, was investigated before2002,andwasfoundouttobegroundless.121Butstilltheargument of a nuclear program going on in Iraq was not abandoned and it constituted along with the presupposed link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, oneof the mainargument for the intervention. According to Piotr Cap, what is at work here is the logic of spatial proximizatin that determinesamovementclosertoeachotheroftheSelfandtheOther,and thatleadstoatranscendenceofthephysicaldistance:
James P. Pfiffner, Did President Bush Mislead the Country in His Arguments for War withIraq?,inPresidentialStudiesQuarterlyno.34,1,2004,p.29. 119 George W. Bush, State of the Union Address 28 January 2003 apud Robert L. Ivie, op. cit.,p.162. 120GeorgeW.Bush,StateoftheUnionAddress,28January2003apudJamesP.Pfiffner,op. cit.,p.30. 121SaraSilberstein,op.cit.,p.172.
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the phrase possessed WMD, by being used repeatedly in the contextoftheIraqiterroristconnections,hascometomeanpossessed WMDcapableofimpactingtheUS122 TheonlywaytoassureIraqsdisarment,andtoeliminatetheIraqi threat,is,accordingtotheUS,aregimechange,becausetheroguenatureof thisregimemakesanydialogueoranypeacefulattemptatdisarmingIraq, futile: regime change was a way, not an end, and the end of a disarmed IraqwasdeterminedbytheBushAdministrationtobeachievableonlyby regimechange.123 Possession of weapons of mass destruction and links to AlQaeda werethetwomainargumentsthattransformedIraqintoaterroristthreat. This, along with the 9/11 analogy and the demonizing of Saddam contributed to the transformation of the Iraqi threat into a terrorist threat that had to be dealt with in the war on terror paradigm. This is why PresidentBushcouldsaythat:ThebattleofIraqisonevictoryinawaron terrorthatbeganonSeptemberthe11,2001.124 TVwar Thewaronterrorisanewkindofwarthatinvolvesnewwaysof fighting. The Iraq intervention fits into the war on terror paradigm, not onlyregardingthecaseforwar,butalsoregardingthemeansofwar.First of all this is not a war against the Iraqi people, but one against Saddam Husseinsregime: tonightIhaveamessageforthebraveandoppressedpeopleofIraq: your enemy is not surrounding your country; your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from powerwillbethedayofyourliberation125
PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.45. FranklinEricWester,op.cit. 124GeorgeW.Bush,May1,2003apudJamesP.Pfiffner,op.cit.,p.27 125GeorgeW.Bush,StateoftheUnionAddress,28January2003,apudRobertL.Ivie,op. cit.,p.162.
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This is why the intervention will be called Operation Iraqi Freedom; the rogue regime, and not the Iraqi people was the enemy that theUShadtofightagainst.TheIraqipeoplearebutavictimofthisregime that tests its dangerous weapons on them. This clear distinction between theregimethatmustbeoverthrownandthepeoplethatareinfactvictims makes this intervention seem like an operation of great, even surgical precision.Definingtheoperationintermsofprecisionwouldtransformit intooneoftheswiftestandmosthumanemilitarycampaigninhistory.126 The language used for referring to the war is very technical, this creating the image of a clean war. The technicalstrategic language became the most accepted and the most credible and reasonable way to refer to security problems, determining a hygienization of the war image byusingcollocationslikecleanbombs,collateraldamage,andkeepinga safedistancefromthegrotesquerealityoftheconflict.127Thisisnotaclassic war;itisinfactaseriesofsurgicalstrikesaimedatarogueregimeinorder tooverthrowit.TheweaponsusedbuytheCoalitionaredeadlyaccurate. ThisisawarthatalsohasasitspurposetheliberationoftheIraqipeople. Thustherepresentationasacleanwarisessential.Besides,thecredibility oftheinterventionmustbemaintained.Themeansmustmatchtheendto makethiswarfordisarmingIraqajustwar.Beforetheinterventionbegan, the intelligent US weapons were highly mediatized. These weapons allowed to, at least in theory, target only the government and its loyal forces without devastating the cities and causing thousands of civilian casualties.128 This was a new way of waging war. These surgical strikes wouldfirsthitBaghdadinordertoshockandawetheenemy. The whole purpose was to intimidate, not devastate, to stun the enemy, turning its soldiers and leaders into glassyeyed survivors, ready to surrender. That success would limit both civilian and militarycasualtiesandcontainthedestructionofproperty.129
GeorgeW.Bush,October7,2003apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.44. RolandBleiker,op.cit. 128 Paul Rutherford, Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Marketing the War Against Irak, Toronto: UniversityofTorontoPress,2004,p.56. 129Ibidem,p.53.
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The operation would be a demonstration of might but also of precision and of good intentions towards the Iraqi people. In all this, the Iraqipeoplewererepresentedashavingawelcomingattitudetowardsthe coalition forces. Because Saddams regime was also an enemy of its own people, a surgical intervention to overthrow it would face no resistance fromtheIraqipeople.Butatthesametime,Iraqwasconstruedascredible enemybyinvokingitspossessionofweaponsofmassdestruction.Thiswas also due to the discursive construction of Iraq as a real and imminent threat.Theirrationalnatureoftheregimemeantthatitwasalwayspossible thatinadesperateactSaddamwouldusehisdreadfulweaponsagainstthe coalition forces. Not only this, but also, the Iraqi Republican Guard was frequently described as an elite military force, highly trained and equipped.130 FortheAmericanpublic,butnotonly,thewarwasaTVwar.The roleofmassmediainrepresentingtheevolutionoftheconflictwasavery importantone,mainlyduetothefactthatmostjournalistswereembedded with the coalition forces. The TV war was a clean war: the news downplayedtheissueofciviliancasualtiesandthedamagetoBaghdad.131 Theroleofthemassmediawasevengreater,becausethiswasthefirstlive warevertobeshowedonTV: awarbroughtliveandbroughtconstantlyintothelivingroomsand bedrooms of the whole world via television. You could now experiencewarasitwashappening.132 FromallthemediachannelsonlytheTVcoulddelivertheexperience,the imagesandthesoundsthatmadeofwaralivespectacle.133Inrepresenting thewar,thetwodimensionsofmediarepresentation,theinformativeand the entertainment one, are often combined into an infotainment that showsthewarasaspectacletomillionsofviewers:televisioncannotbut turn war into a spectacle and a story that employs the styles of popular culture134tofashionthewarinformationtransmission.Thewarbroadcast
Ibidem,p.66. Ibidem,p.100. 132Ibidem,p.79. 133Ibidem,p.80. 134Ibidem,p.108.
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follows the patterns of entertainment broadcast, transforming the informational content into a story with such elements as adventure, tragedy, action, mystery, heroism. It follows certain patterns that turn it intoahybridgenresimilartothemoviegenre.Agoodexampleistheway the saving of Private Jessica Lynch was shown on TV. It can be easily compared to the Hollywood movie Saving Private Ryan because it had all the ingredients for a typical hollywoodian representation of military operations: it had heroism, adventure, comradeship. What helped construing this representation were elements of popular culture and especially elements of a western war mythology. All elements were presentinJessicaLynchscase: Private Lynch was young, nineteen years old, attractive, blond, and a woman, an American victim saved by the heroics of her comrades, in a short a natural for retelling of that old yarn, the captivity narrative, that harked back to the legends of the Indian wars.135 Massmedia, especially television, had a fare share in creating an image of the war as an adventure with herosoldiers sent to disarm a demonic tyrant that tortures his own people. There is also a phallic dimensiontothisextremelymasculinewar.Althoughthefeminineelement isalsopresent:therearewomensoldiers;thereisnofemininedimensionof thewarthatisonlyarestatementofthemachomasculinestyle.Thegender discourseinwesternsocietyisonethatconsidersthewarasanexclusively masculinething,theherobeingatypologybasedonthemasculineidealof forceandcourage.Meanwhile,thevictimtypologyispreferablyafeminine typology.Bearingthisinmind,thestoryofJessicaLynchisonlyrestating the gendered representation of war in western society. In the televised representation of war, the phallic dimension is best visible in the depictionsofAmericanweaponry,theimpressiveAbramstanks,thesleek fighters,thephallicmissiles,thereallybigbombs.136 Thismediarepresentationofthewarwasbasedoacertaintypeof journalism:embeddedjournalismwhichinexchangeforloosingsomeofits
135 136
Ibidem,p.68. Ibidem,p.174.
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objectiveness can bring to the public exclusive war images. Embedding journalistswiththetroopshasproduceditsdesiredeffect,creatingafeeling oftherenessthatmanyanactionmoviedirectorwouldenvy.137Although it is not an entirely new type of journalism, the practice of embedding journalistsinmilitaryunitshasalonghistory,datingtotheCivilWar,138 the scale it reached during Operation Iraqi Freedom was unprecedented: morethan600Americanandforeignjournalists139wereembeddedwiththe coalition troops. The embedding of such a large number of journalists determined the creation of a monolithic image of the war. The journalists hadaccesstothewar,thatbecamethuspublic,butthiswasanAmerican perspective mostly. The relation between the journalist and the military unitthatembeddedhimledtosomesortofsymbiosisbetweenthetroops andthejournalists:Now,thegeneralsandthejournalistswerenotonlyat peace but locked into a symbiotic relationship: the military delivered the showandthemediapromotedittothepublic.140 Butthewarwasnotperceivedinthesamewayallacrosstheglobe. The same product could have different significations in different parts of the world. A quite opposite representation from that predominant in the WestwastheoneofferedbyseveralArabtelevisionsthatshowedamuch dirtier face of the war. Far from being considered liberation troops, the coalition forces were viewed as invading and aggressive. The Self Other identificationwasexactlytheoppositeofthewesternone. HumanitarianIntervention?RepresentingandIdentifyingtheOther The main argument for the intervention in Iraq was not humanitarianinnature,butwasmainlydeterminedbytheidentificationof theIraqiregimeasathreattointernationalsecurity,ratherthanasathreat
Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 26 March 1st April 2003, apud Paul Rutherford, op.cit.,p.86. 138MichaelPfau,MichaelM.Haigh,LindsayLogsdon,CristopherPerrine,JamesP.Baldwin, RickE.Breitenfeldt,JoelCesar,DawnDearden,GregKuntz,EdgarMontalvo,Dwaine Roberts,RichardRomero,EmbeddedReportingduringtheInvasionandOccupationof Iraq:HowtheEmbeddingofJournalistsAffectsTelevisionNewsReports,inJournalof Broadcasting&ElectronicMediano.49.4,2005, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5013910771],2June2008. 139Ibidem. 140PaulRutherford,op.cit.,p.77.
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to the rights and freedoms of the Iraqi people. But the humanitarian argumentwasnotabsentfromthejustificationandthelegitimizationofthe war. The demonizing of Saddam Hussein was accomplished through a series of arguments that would prove his disdain for western norms and values,especiallythoseregardinghumanrights. The use of innocent victims (e.g. women and children, civilians) to articulate the truth of the opponents villainity is the primary rhetoricalmeanstovilifyanopponent.141 Butthisargumentisnotasmuchaboutthehumanrightsviolations perseandtheprejudicestotheIraqipeople,astheyaretoprovethatthere is a precedent, and that Saddam had used his dreadful weapons before, and is capable of doing so again. As long as the weapons of mass destruction argument is the main argument for the intervention, the humanitarian argument is left aside. Between humanitarian interventions andthetwointerventionsofthewaronterrormilitarycampaignthemain differenceinthewordsoftheCanadianUNambassador,PaulHeinbecker, is that: while the interventions in Kosovo and East Timor were all about protecting the vulnerable other, in Afghanistan and Iraq, the motivation was protecting self.142 The humanitarian argument was present in the legitimization of the Iraqi intervention, but it was to be even more emphasized after the declared failure to find the weapons of mass destruction. What needed to be protected in this was the, the Other was alwaysinterpretedasadanger. This reading of the Other as a danger to the Self is also due to a dimension that Piotr Cap calls axiological proximization. This proximizationisneitheraphysical,noratemporalphenomenon,
141 142
MichaelBlain,op.cit.,p.63. Jennifer M. Welsh, Conclusion: Humanitarian Intervention after 11 September in JenniferM.Welsh(ed.),HumanitarianInterventionandInternationalRelations,Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,2004,p.181.
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it rather involves the narrowing of the distance between two different and opposing ideologies whose clash could lead to the eventsdefinedwithinthedimensions.143 In a first stage of the discursive process of legitimizing the Iraqi intervention, the axiological dimension was present along with the temporal9/11analogyandspatialweaponsofmassdestructionthreat,but this axiological dimension was not as emphasized as the other two. AxiologicalproximizationisbaseduponrepresentingtheOtherasrejecting the core values of the Self. Thus, while the United States of America cherishes such values as freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights, the Other, Saddam Husseins regime, is an ideology of murder. Discursively situated on the terrorists side, this rogue regime also shares the terrorists hatred for all that the civilized world stands for. The Other becomes an image of radicalism, dictatorship, tyranny, showing only contempttowardshumanrightsandwesternvalues. In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventionsofwarorrulesofmorality.SaddamHusseinhasplaced Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocentmen,womenandchildrenasshieldsforhisownmilitarya finalatrocityagainsthispeople.144 From an axiological perspective, the theme of a battle between good and evilisoutlinedbydichotomyinidentifyingtheopponents:us,theUnited StatesofAmericaonthesideofgoodthem,theIraqiregimeonthesideof evil. The humanitarian argument is used to define the evil nature of Saddamsregime. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inevitablyledtoattemptsbyPresidentGeorgeW.Bushandothersin
143 144
PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.6. GeorgeW.Bush,SpeechofMarch19,2003,apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.36.
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his Administration to use humanitarian justifications to defend the removalofSaddamHusseinsregime.145 After the official recognition of the failure to find weapons of mass destructiontheaxiologicaldimension,thatwasuntilthenkeptabitasidein comparison to the other two dimensions, is now brought forth and emphasized.LoosingtheWMDargumentisreflectedupontheusageofthe weapons of mass destruction collocations in the public speeches of the president: thus before loosing this argument the collocation is used 88 times,andafterloosingtheargument,only6times.146 The axiological dimension allows for glorifying military action as moralagency.147DefendingtheSelfalsoimpliesthedefendingofitsvalues against the values of an ideology of murder. In this discursive context of military action read as a moral action, the identities of the opponents are defined. First of all, by demonizing Saddam Hussein and his regime, the Iraqipeoplebecomesavictimofacrueltyrantthatuseshisownpeopleas humanshield,testshisdreadfulweaponsonwholevillagesthatareunder hisrule,andsubjectsinnocentcivilianstohorribletortureacts,lockingup Iraqiwomeninraperooms.Becauseitstandsforanideologyofmurder, theIraqiregimedoesnotrespecttherightsandfreedomsofitscitizens. At the other end Americas identity is that of protector of human rights, a moral agent, whose violence is justified because it is for a good cause, the fight against evil. The discursive identification of America positionsitonthevictimsside,astheirprotector,asaproofofAmericas Exceptionalism: Ourcause[ofliberatingIraqandriddingitofterroristconnections] is just, and it continues. [] And all nations should know: America did,doandwilldowhatisnecessarytoensureournationsandthe worldssecurity.[]Wewanttobeanationthatservesgoalslarger
EricA.Heinze,HumanitarianInterventionandtheWarinIraq:Norms,Discourse,and StatePractice,inParametersno.36.1,2006, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5015582841]3March2008. 146PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.62. 147MichaelBlain,op.cit.,p.64.

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thatself.Wevebeenofferedauniqueopportunity,andwemustnot letthismomentpass.148 As proof of this Exceptionalism, America must rise up to the opportunity that was given to her. Was given by whom? In this Exceptionalism there is also a bit of predestination that sets this Great NationonthesideofGoodinthebattleagainstEvil.Whiletheideologies of murder embrace tyranny and death as a cause and creed, America always chooses freedom and dignity of every life, being guided in its actionsbyamoralcompass.149Americasactions,evenifviolentareonly theoutcomeofawishtospreadthevaluesoffreedomandhumandignity, ofamissiontoactaccordingtotherequirementsofauniversalmoralcode andtoprotecthumanrightsineverycorneroftheworld.Thisishowthe Iraqiinterventionbecomesamoralone: From this ontological position, our violence, which cannot be a violation of human rights, is a therapeutic corrective applied to a peoplewhomustberescuedfromtheirbackwardnessorpunished forandrehabilitatedfromtheircriminalityandtheirguilt.150 Topromotehumanrightsandtostoptheviolenceagainstinnocent victims, Americas mission is a civilizing one based on the liberal assumptionthattheworldhasaclearinterestinthespreadofdemocratic because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder.151 Democratization is the solution in order to stop the violence just as modernizationwasseenduringthecolonialageasthesolutioninorderto civilize a backward Orient. Transforming the Middle East into a democraticoasis,evenwhenimposedbymilitaryforce,wastheanswerto
GeorgeW.Bush,SpeechofMarch15,2004,apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.105. GeorgeW.Bush,SpeechofApril19,2004,apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.106. 150CyraA.Choudhury,ComprehendingOurViolence:ReflectionsontheLiberal UniversalistTradition,NationalIdentityandtheWaronIraq,inMuslimWorldJournalof HumanRightsno.3.1,2006,p.9, [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=940207],28February2008. 151GeorgeW.Bush,AddressattheAmericaEnterpriseInstitute,February26,2003,apud PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.3.

148 149
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theproblemrevealedonSeptember11.152TheOtherisidentifiedjustlike in the orientalist discourse: barbaric, uncivilized, irrational, its violence is justifiedonlyasaninstinctualimpulse.Onlythroughdemocratizationcan thesebreedinggroundsofviolencebeeliminated.Anddemocratizationis broughtaboutbythosewhoseviolenceislegitimate. The construction of the other as savage allows the speaker to constructabinarydiscoursedifferentiatingus(onthevictimsside) from them and consequentially our use of force technologically drivenandpreciseandtheirs,whichisbrutishandvile.153 Ourviolenceistheoutcomeofamoralaction,andisjustifiedbyour positioningonthesideofGood,byourmissiontohelpthevictims,andby the fact that the values we stand for are universal values of good. The violence is also justified by the identity of America as a liberator of an oppressedpeople,comingtoaidhelplessvictims.Behindtheviolencethere isamotivationbasedoncareandcompassionandtheoccasionalvictimsof ourviolenceareinfactcollateraldamage,aeuphemismthatspringsfrom thelegitimateuseofforce. Usingthelogicofdichotomy,becauseAmericasidentityisthatofa liberator,anditsactionsarelegit,theIraqiviolenceisillegitimate.Firstof all, standing proof of their barbarity and irrational nature, the regimes violence against its own people is the first violent manifestation of the Other.Theonesituatedonthegoodsideintervenesexactlytoputastopto thisviolence.TheOtherisidentifiedasaprimitivesavage,situatedbeyond reason, this stressing the consequent futility of negotiation and the need forimmediateinterventiononbehalfofthesavaged154thatmustbesaved fromhimself.Secondofall,theviolenceagainsttheliberatingforcesofthe coalitionisdefinedasbeingillegitimate,therebeingnojustificationforit,it isbutamanifestationoftheprimitivenatureofthesavage,anexpression ofitsirrationality.Thus,anyactofresistanceisillegal:
RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.175. EranN.BenPorath,RhetoricofAtrocities:ThePlaceofHorrificHumanRightsAbuses inPresidentialPersuasionEffortsinPresidentialStudiesQuarterlyno.37,2,2007,p.184. 154Ibidem,p.185.
152 153
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When such actions are (inevitably) taken against us, our identity formulations create us as the victims, our acts of violence as self defenseandjustifiable,andtheiractsofviolenceasfurtherproofsof theircriminality.155 CriminalitybecomesthemaintraitoftheOther,thatispermanentlyreadas danger. His violence is always a threat to security, while our violence is necessaryformaintainingorderandsecurity. This potential threat permanently represented by the Other determinesachangeinitsinnocentstatute: Forexample,thosewhohavebeeninternedintheIraqijailsandat the Guantanamo Naval Base are not given the benefit of the doubt that is presumably afforded every criminal in the U.S. As enemy combatants, these detainees are not innocent until proven guilty but quitetheopposite.156 Theyareaprioriguiltythroughtheirpositioningontheenemysside.And theenemyisalwaysevil.TheIraqiinsurgentsareeitherSaddamHusseins supporters, either members of a terrorist network. The Iraqi people that wereliberatedarerepresentedbythosewhowelcomedthecoalitiontroops andnotbythosewhoresortedtousingviolenceagainstthem. The work of building a new Iraq is hard, and it is right. And Americahasalwaysbeenwillingtodowhatittakesforwhatisright. ButasdemocracytakesholdinIraq,theenemiesoffreedomwilldo allintheirpowertospreadviolenceandfear.157 The only motivation of the insurgents is contempt for the values of democracyandfreedom,andtheironlypurposeistospreadviolenceand fear. In the war on terror those who are not on Americas side are on the sideoftheterrorists.
CyraA.Choudhury,op.cit.p.10. Ibidem,p.10. 157GeorgeW.Bush,SpeechofJanuary20,2004apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.97.

155 156
119
The discursive positioning of the insurgents on the terrorists side opened the possibility for the torture acts of Abu Grahib. The making publicofthesetortureactsdeterminedtheircondemnationbyAmericaand theothercoalitionforcesbutatthesametimeasaresult,wecanalsofocus ourattentionononekindofviolencewhileignoringifnotjustifyingother violence that may have much greater impact on a far larger number of Iraqis.158 Besides, a reinterpretation of the torture act and its definition took place. This was possible due to the blurring of the civilian/military distinction and to the emergence of an undetermined discursive space concerningthewayinwhichtheseprisonersofwarmustbetreated.These prisonersarediscursivelypositionedonevilsside,thistransformingthem intoaprioriguiltypersonstheyareguiltybyproofoftheirveryidentity andtheproofoffactsinnolongernecessary.Themaineffectofthistorture discoursethatischaracteristicofthewaronterrorparadigmis to construct the symbolic conditions in which torture (as designated by the instruments of international law) is able to be enacted without being designated as such, without signifying as such.159
Conclusions
Beingawareofthecriticsthatsuchanapproachcanbringuponit, and also being aware of the interdisciplinary approach that was used in ordertoachievethegoalthatwasstatedintheintroduction,Inevertheless believethat adiscursiveapproachtointernationalrelation canshedsome lightonthesecomplexphenomenonthatisembeddedintothenatureofa truthknowledge relation. Starting from an analysis of the way in which 9/11 acquired its meaning, the aim of this essay was to render visible the discursive structures of the war on terror and the process of discursive identificationoftheSelfandtheOther.Acknowledgingthatwordsdomuch morethatdescribeanobjectiverealityandbeingawareofthehistoricand culturalmeaningofcertainwordsanddistinctions,weareabletoexplain
158 159
CyraA.Choudhury,op.cit.p.13. NinaPhiladelphoffPuren,SpeachActs,TortureActs,inDeborahStaines,op.cit.,p.79.
120
howcertainexpressionsstructureourunderstandingoftheworld,making some representation more plausible that other and thus making possible such acts as the 2003 intervention in Iraq. The deconstruction of such expressions as war on terror, Axis of Evil or weapons of mass destructioncanhelpusseebeyondthesimplisticdichotomizingdiscourse thatlegitimizedtheinterventioninAfghanistanandIraq.
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SergiuMicoiu OanaRalucaCrciun NicoletaColopelnic

Radicalism,Populism,Interventionism. ThreeApproachesBasedonDiscourse Theory

ClujNapoca ThePublishingHouseoftheFoundationforEuropeanStudies EFES 2008

TableofFigures Figure1:ErnestoLaclau,Creationofdiscursivehegemony .............. 39

DiscourseTheoryandPoliticalContestation.An InquiryBasedonanInternationalResearch Project

8SeeDavidHowarth,JacobTorfing(ed.),DiscourseTheoryinEuropeanPolitics.Identity,Policy andGovernance,Palgrave:Macmillan,2005,p.13. 9SeeRichardRorty,Contingency,IronyandSolidarity,Cambridge:UniversityPress,1989.

D1,D2,D3,D4Signifiers FFrontier TExcludedelement Blankspace(gap) Equivalence

SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.

94FrankPoorthuisandHansWansink.Deislamiseenachterlijkecultuur[Islamisabackward culture],deVolkskrant, [http://www.volkskrant.nl/den_haag/article153195.ece/De_islam_is_een_achterlijke_cultuur] November5,2008.

SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007. 96Idem.

SeeFDALemagazinedeJeanMarieLePen,Les5grandchantiersduquinquennatLe Pen, Paperback,April2007.

JacquesDerrida,op.cit.,p.118. DeborahStaines,Introduction,inDeborahStaines,(ed.),InterrogatingtheWaronTerror: InterdisciplinaryPerspectives,Newcastle:CambridgeScholarsPublishing,2007,p.8. 42BrianMichaelJenkins,op.cit.,p.210. 43RolandBleiker,op.cit.

MatColeman,TheNamingofTerrorismandEvilOutlaws:GeopoliticalPlaceMaking After11September,inStanleyD.Brunn,op.cit.,p.94. 47NickMansfield,UndertheBlackLight:Derrida,War,andHumanRights,inMosaic (Winnipeg)40.2,2007,[http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5023293750>]6March2008. 48MatColeman,op.cit.,p.95.

SeeEdwardSaid,op.cit. BrianMichaelJenkins,op.cit.,p.214. 61MatColeman,op.cit.,p.88.

DeborahStaines,op.cit.,pp.67. RobertL.Ivie,op.cit.,p.156. 80SaulNewman,MichaelP.Levine,TerribleTerror:Security,ViolenceandDemocracyin theWaronTerrorisminDeborahStaines,op.cit.,p.86. 81Ibidem,p.86.

RobertL.Ivie,OscarGiner,op.cit. NationalSecurityStrategy,p.13. 90Ibidem,p.15.

NationalSecurityStrategy2002,p.14. DanielHeradstveit,MatthewG.Bonham,WhattheAxisofEvilMetaphorDidtoIran, TheMiddleEastJournalno.61.3,2007,p.3.

GeorgeW.Bush,AmericanEnterpriseInstitute,WashingtonDC26February2003apud PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.79. 112Cap,Piotr,op.cit.,p.67. 113Ibidem,p.66.

EricA.Heinze,HumanitarianInterventionandtheWarinIraq:Norms,Discourse,and StatePractice,inParametersno.36.1,2006, [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5015582841]3March2008. 146PiotrCap,op.cit.,p.62. 147MichaelBlain,op.cit.,p.64.

CyraA.Choudhury,op.cit.p.10. Ibidem,p.10. 157GeorgeW.Bush,SpeechofJanuary20,2004apudPiotrCap,op.cit.,p.97.

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