Abstract
In this article, I ask three key questions: First, what is the
relationship between militarism and race? Second, how does colonialism
shape that relationship to produce racial militarism on both sides of
the imperial encounter? And, third, what is the function of racial
militarism? I build on Fanon’s psychoanalytic work on the production of
racial hierarchies and internalization of stigma to argue that
militarism became a means through which the European imperial
nation-state sought to mitigate its civilizational anxiety and assert
itself at the top of a constructed hierarchy. In particular, I argue
that European militarism is constituted by its colonization and
historical constructions of the so-called Muslim Orient, stigmatized as a
rival, a threat and an inferior neighbour. However, this racial
militarism and civilizational anxiety is not only a feature of the
colonial metropole, but also transferred onto colonized and postcolonial
states. Drawing on examples of racial militarism practised by the
Syrian regime, I argue Europe’s racial-militarist stigmas are also
internalized and instrumentalized by postcolonial states via fleeing and transferral.
Throughout the article, I demonstrate that racial militarism has three
main functions in both metropole and postcolony: the performance of
racial chauvinism and superiority; demarcation of boundaries of
exclusion; and dehumanization of racialized dissent in order to
legitimate violence.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Security Dialogue |
Volume | Online First |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Nov 2021 |
Keywords
- Militarism
- Racial militarism
- Racialised religion
- Fanon
- Civilization
- Syria