Free Speech Zones Aff
Download 1.19 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- in limning its own boundaries, the law constitutes situations where it is no longer in force and where anything is possible.
- since September 11th, the United States has increasingly passed into a de facto state of emergency
- The construction of the Free Speech Zone at the Democratic National Convention in Boston marked an intermediary
- By creating a state of inclusion in which citizens’ rights of representation were in force, the Free Speech Zone
- objective forms of police control and the techniques of subjectivisation that bind individuals to those forms.
- When exception becomes increasingly necessary to maintain the cohesion of the state throughout its life, Agamben calls this phenomenon the camp
- For protestors of the state though, the reality of excepted space is much more of a conventional experience.
- The free speech zones
- When the state’s external interests are at risk, actors that represent it will step in to protect them
Free speech zones reinforce a permanent state of emergency – by geographically regulating the appropriate exercise of speech, zones inculcate subtle norms of control, forcing protesters to internalize state-mandated standards of "correct behavior"Law defines itself against state of exception (ie free speech zones) 9/11 marked transition to permanent emergency state Zoning is a form of implicit biopolitical norming Berchenko 5 [Daniel Berchenko (freelance writer and social critic), "FREE SPEECH ZONES AND PREEMPTIVE DETENTIONS," 2/8/2005] AZ In his epoch-making study Homo Sacer, Giorgio Agamben defines the state of exception as the condition of that which is taken outside of the normal juridical order. This state is not defined by a simple absence of law. What is excluded from the juridical order is still held in relation to the law in the act of the law’s suspension – in limning its own boundaries, the law constitutes situations where it is no longer in force and where anything is possible. Generally the decision that produces the exception is only exercised during declared states of emergency – for example during wartime, when curfews are imposed and violators can be shot on sight. But since September 11th, the United States has increasingly passed into a de facto state of emergency where the production of states of exception has become part of the normal functioning of the state, for instance in the detention and de-nationalisation of presumed terrorists. The construction of the Free Speech Zone at the Democratic National Convention in Boston marked an intermediary stage between the older logic of protest containment and the more sinister logic of preemptive detainment through exception in evidence in New York. Protestors at the DNC were expected to voluntarily confine themselves to the Free Speech Zone, which was bounded by high fencing and coiled razor wire. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) likened the area to an internment camp – a comparison that a judge in Boston referred to as ‘an understatement’. However to understand the Free Speech Zone solely as an effort to physically contain or intern protestors is to overlook its fundamental biopolitical purpose. By creating a state of inclusion in which citizens’ rights of representation were in force, the Free Speech Zone implicitly produced an Indiscriminate Arrest Zone outside of it where those rights were withheld. As a physically present barrier, it dramatised the convergence of objective forms of police control and the techniques of subjectivisation that bind individuals to those forms. Protestors were literally compelled to find themselves on one side of the fence or the other – constituting themselves a priori as lawful or unlawful protestors (prior, that is, to any factual activity that could be judged by the law) – in a decision that seemed to be their own but that subjected them to the immediate exercise of State power. At the Republican National Convention in New York, this logic of inclusion and exception was taken further. Police deployed orange mesh netting in the midst of the demonstrations, at the discretion of on-site commanders, to delimit mobile states of exception. Free speech zones constitute a state of exception where a temporary suspension of the law is given permanent spatial arrangement – the exception becomes the rule, suppressing dissent to insulate the state from protestersRubin 10 [Zach Rubin (pHD candidate), "The Geography of Protest at the Schools of the Americas" Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, 2010] AZ When exception becomes increasingly necessary to maintain the cohesion of the state throughout its life, Agamben calls this phenomenon the camp. He notes that “The camp is the space that is opened when the of exception begins to become the rule. In the camp, the state of exception, which was essentially a temporary suspension of the rule of law on the basis of a factual state of danger, is now given permanent spatial arrangement, which as such nevertheless remains outside normal order" (ibid. p. 168-169, also cited in Elden 2007). Exception then becomes the rule, so the state that controls its own territorial space can create exception to maintain its integrity. Examples of spaces of exception abound in the United States. A high-profile example made infamous in popular culture are secret activities that take place at Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico. In Nevada, the “secret" military installation at Groom Lake is “... a place without a name, a place that does not appear on any official maps, and as far as the government is concerned, doesn't even properly exist" (Paglen 2007, p. 238), yet is physically present. Places like these exist as "...spaces and bureaucracies created in response to a perceived emergency, as short term exemptions from normal laws and oversight, but became permanent by virtue of their permanent use and expansion” (ibid., p.243). Originally opened to test top- secret aircraft for use against the specter of communism, the base stayed open as that era passed. It became a space of exception, one that exists in the zoé of the state but not in the bios of its people. Such an example is somewhat abstract to most citizens of the United States, as those who travel to the middle of the desert in Nevada are few. For protestors of the state though, the reality of excepted space is much more of a conventional experience. Often when attending protests of various high profile political figure (e.g. George Bush, Barack Obama) the crowd of which I was part was relegated to “free speech" zones often far away from the supportive crowd. It is a controversial concept, because a “free speech" zone (Giovanelli 200 7, Wang 2006, Hampson 2005) is an area designated for protesters to practice dissenting free speech. In a country with the right to free speech is purported as one of its utmost ideals, those wishing to speak their mind about their leaders are put so far out of sight that their message is not even heard. Some even hold signs proclaiming “I thought all of America was a free speech zone” to note the irony. The state protects that which facilitates its functions and its leaders by insulating them from potentially threatening free speech of which they are a target. Precedent for this comes from the presidents who have been assassinated in the past combined with the increased threat of terrorism in recent years. The free speech zones, themselves an exception to the rule of free speech, become the normal excepting participants of their political life as the state acts to protect itself and its apparatus. As spaces of exception, free speech zones are not limited to protection of actors directly linked to the state. When the state’s external interests are at risk, actors that represent it will step in to protect them. Such a case occurred when protests occurred at the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle, Washington, in 1999. Dissidents of a foreign policy perceived as exploitative of poorer countries were beaten, gassed, and arrested, often with no provocation (Herbert 2007, Wainwright and Ortiz 2000, Wainwright et al. 2006). Actors of the state, which had nothing immediately at stake, saw the protestors as a threat to financial interests and likewise the stability of the economy upon which those are staked. Likewise, foreign policy is often a catalyst for protest As globalization compresses space (Massey 1997), advocates for the dispossessed in the United States feel an increased solidarity to the dispossessed of other countries, or to other countries that are dispossessed themselves. The same feelings that brings those advocates to protest their own country are linked to thoughts of exploitation in the sweatshops and banana plantations of the developing world. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.19 Mb. Share with your friends:
|