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In its communiqué regarding the tragic events at Tunisia’s Bardo National Museum, the organising committee announced that the opening WSF march would come under the banner of “Peoples of the world united against terrorism.” This clumsy and ambiguous slogan ends up – intentionally or not – aligning itself with the discourse of the “War on Terror,” an endless war that has caused untold suffering and created more violence and instability in the world.
The global war on terror has been used to justify interventionism and maintain Western hegemony, which enforces the brutal neoliberal global order, the plunder of natural resources and support for repressive regimes.
That the WSF preparatory committee adopted this language is unfortunate, but we need to bear in mind the local Tunisian context that facilitated such a decision. It is a context where key elements of the political elite – including partly re-incorporated sections of the old regime – have benefited from a so-called polarisation between “secularists” and “Islamists,” in which terrorism is often equated with the latter. Such battles have impacted the psyche of large sections of Tunisian society.
Former dictator Ben Ali’s “politics of fear” and “instrumentalisation” of “national security” for political purposes have ongoing ramifications for Tunisia’s contemporary political context. Not only have they often diverted attention from the socio-economic concerns expressed in the uprising, but they also have limited debates around alternative “conceptualisations of the state and state-society relations”.
In recognition of the past and present forms of the use of “security” discourses by various domestic and global power structures, several organisations and individual activists came together to critically reflect upon and challenge the WSF communiqué.
They called for a new slogan, more aligned with the mission and objectives of the WSF: “People of the world, united for freedom, equality, social justice and peace. In solidarity with the Tunisian people and with all victims of terrorism, against all forms of oppression.”
In a communiqué sent to the WSF organising committee, the signatory organisations stated that “The global justice movement cannot allow itself to be used for domestic and geopolitical agendas designed to manipulate public emotions and justify the further militarisation of societies in a way that ultimately benefits the security/military-industrial-complex.”
In an effort to follow up some of the discussions raised by the communiqué, several workshops specifically addressed this issue: the “Religion and Emancipation Convergence Meeting,” “Neocolonial Militarism and State Violence,” and “From Ferguson to Palestine: We Can’t Breathe.”
The purpose here is not to underestimate the very real effects of political violence, whether it occurs in Tunisia or elsewhere in the world, and regardless, as the statement puts it “of the perpetrator, whether state or non-state actors”. Rather it is to point to the ways the “War on Terror” has been used to shift the attention away from the way capitalist and imperial power works, as well as from the dire socio-economic and repressive political conditions that led to the uprisings in the first place.
The latest declaration by the octogenarian Tunisian President Béji Caid Essebsi that Tunisia will be a major non-member ally of NATO seems to confirm the concerns of the statement supporters that the “War on Terror” agenda ultimately contributes to a further militarisation of the region in a way that benefits the burgeoning “security-military-industrial complex”. Furthermore, the organisation of the “We are all Bardo” march on the 29 March, reminiscent of the “republican” march that was organised in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, is a reminder of how “national security” continues to be instrumentalised for domestic and geopolitical purposes.
It is not new or surprising that many of the region’s authoritarian regimes would send representatives from their loyal civil societies to the WSF to confuse, co-opt and disrupt truly independent and grassroots civil societies. Most notably, the 2013 WSF witnessed clashes between the pro and anti-Bashar al-Assad crowds. . ... continuation.
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