July 09, 2005
The situation of the state of emergency or exception becoming the normal since 9/11 is now acknowledged in the Australian media. It is no longer the odd idea of fascists like Carl Schmitt undermining the liberal democratic Weimer Republic or odd Italian philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben.
Andrew Lynch, the director of the terrorism and law project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, at the University of New South Wales, writing in The Age makes the point that after 9/11 the state of emergency is becoming the normal.
He says that:
"The shocking terrorist attacks in London are a powerful confirmation of our times. While we can say that "the world changed on 9/11", the London strikes force us to realise that we are now living in that altered world - one that exists in a state of anticipated emergency."
Lynch goes onto say that as we slide into a state where what was exceptional is now the new norm, since 9/11, most Western democracies have sought to increase security through legislative measures that increase the powers of executive bodies such as ASIO.
"In doing so, many of the human rights we took for granted - no detention without charge, freedom of the press - have been diminished.There has been opposition to these sacrifices, but on the whole, the public seems to have thought the price worth paying. This is presumably because exceptional times call for exceptional laws."
Lynch gives us a genealogy of the state of exception:
"There is a long history of such pragmatic responses to threats to the wellbeing of the state. The Roman republic was prepared to cast aside its normal form of governance in favour of a temporary dictatorship to meet these challenges effectively. The Churchill government in World War II was similarly a "crisis government" imbued with extraordinary powers felt necessary to achieve victory.
But those examples were "exceptional" in the true sense. Once the danger passed, the executive government's power returned to its normal state limited by constitutional and political checks. Citizens once more enjoyed the rights they had earlier taken for granted."
Not so today. Our present state of emergency is the new norm.
What does that mean?
Lynch says that it will mean that:
"...the quite extreme way in which national security has been prioritised over human rights in the past few years will solidify. The hallmark of the new norm will be increased deference to the opinion of the executive arm of government....Any signs from that case that governments were going to be held to account for the way in which they have eroded rights in the name of security have been superseded by far more disturbing images."
The state of emergency as our new norm is what we are living. That is as far as Lynch takes it.
We could write state of emergency as the new norm as the state of exception as the new paradigm of government. We could then ask what is the state of exception we are living?
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Permanent emergency is for executive aggrandizement. There is no power without dependancy, and government is using the threat of terrorism to install fear, and consequent dependancy into the electorate. It is a means to manipulate voters into unwittingly providing entrenchment.
It is the same mechanism that the media uses to keep us glued to the screen or paper. Government, instead of using it to sell more advertising, instead uses it to consolidate incumbent power.
I find it disgusting.