Secure Insecurity: Patterns of Terror

• Robert B. Lisek

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

Panel: Secure Insecurity

The ob­ses­sion of se­cu­rity. What is the basis of se­cu­rity? Its ab­sence. Noth­ing needs to be se­cured, ex­cept the se­cu­rity it­self. Se­cu­rity is a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of state  and main cri­te­rion of po­lit­i­cal le­git­imiza­tion. Se­cu­rity vs. dis­ci­pline and law as in­stru­ments of gov­er­nance. On one side we have hard power struc­ture based on dis­ci­pline, dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion and block­ade, iso­lat­ing power and clos­ing the ter­ri­to­ries and the sec­ond side: se­cu­rity pol­icy as­so­ci­ated with glob­al­iza­tion, in­ter­ven­ing and con­trol­ling processes as­so­ci­ated with lib­er­al­ism be­cause of se­cu­rity mea­sures may work in the con­text of move­ment of per­sons and goods. The di­vi­sion pro­posed by Fou­cault and Agam­ben on the hard law and the dy­namic ac­tiv­i­ties of the se­cu­rity pol­icy is an ar­ti­fi­cial as­sump­tion. These two areas are closely re­lated, com­ple­men­tary and pro­vide a medium for ex­am­ple laws can be quickly changed by power elite, or processes re­lated to the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of human life forc­ing changes in se­cu­rity pol­icy. The in­creas­ing dy­namism and com­plex­ity of so­cial space and vi­o­lent forms of bio-cap­i­tal make this model of think­ing is in­ad­e­quate. Bio-ex­change. The idea of “life” is con­sid­ered to be in­cluded in the do­main of tech­nol­ogy, both for eco­nomic prof­its and for se­cu­rity rea­sons. Meta-cap­i­tal. Every­thing is par­tially in­ter­change­able, as every­thing is con­nected. Life be­comes a cur­rency of the  code. The code pro­vides for trade, works as a so­cial marker, as a new form of cap­i­tal. We are see­ing an in­creas­ing run­way where we can no longer talk about the con­trol of the phe­nom­ena that is so rapidly in­creas­ing com­plex­ity of the prob­lems that be­comes al­most un­com­putable. The ter­ror­ist act is a knot in which a large num­ber of so­cial processes in­ter­sects and ex­plode .

It is a kind of crit­i­cal point in which the so­cial com­bi­na­to­r­ial ex­plo­sion emerge. This is not re­cur­sively de­scrib­able phe­nom­e­non. Panic sim­u­la­tion and dis­in­te­grated so­cial spec­ta­cle causes, that ter­ror be­comes the in­ter­est of the mod­ern state. Dis­in­for­ma­tion and se­crecy. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the open and the se­cret im­plies a hi­er­ar­chy, the first rule of power. On this dif­fer­ence, the struc­tures called the state are being built. Se­cu­rity state is an en­gine of vi­o­lence. Acts of ter­ror and dis­as­ter are the lifeblood of po­lit­i­cal ac­tion. That is why they are pro­voked and stim­u­lated by the power elite. Se­cu­rity re­quire con­stant ref­er­ence to the state of emer­gency. The quest for se­cu­rity leads to a global world­wide war. You have to change this state of things: re­ject the con­cept of se­cu­rity as a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of state pol­icy and test new mod­els / con­stel­la­tions of power. The task of pol­i­tics is un­der­stand of con­di­tions that lead to ter­ror and de­struc­tion, rather than con­trol these phe­nom­ena, as al­ready oc­curred.

• Panel