welcome back to part three I'm speaking with Jeremy kovaleski about his book domestic extremism and the case of the Toronto 18 welcome back Jeremy thank you very much so Jeremy in segment two we discussed how the media coverage of the Toronto 18 um allows the state to behave in a way that would have been unacceptable 25 years ago in terms of its foreign policy give us some specific details in terms of how foreign policy has Chang uh when it comes to Canada sure I mean well I mean just through again the events of 911 and
the uh the case of the Toronto 18 um and certainly the corporate media coverage which reinforced this notion that um this this atmosphere of fear of not only enemies from without that there are these Islamic individuals that to attack us from without because they um despise democracy despise Freedom right despise our way of life um and as well as then internally you have this enemy from within that purportedly carries the same um the same values and seeks to then do harm to the Canadian State thereby justifying um you know different foreign policies right I mean
which is the war in Afghanistan and the continued fighting that has gone on there um as well as then domestic policies right which uh Direct direct forms of State violence towards communities considered suspect right from within um and we see this more broadly within the context of the United States and we see it within Britain France and others where you have the the justification for the need to engage in military forms of adventurism to eradicate this purported threat okay and then um it's its relationality is how it then that same type of need to eradicate
the threat from without we need to eradicate that threat that threat from within thereby dramatically increasing um uh certain domestic uh counterterrorism policies and practices increase surveillance right um the undermining of different Charter rights and freedoms right and Bill c-51 for example bill c-51 I mean um uh for many your viewership that was uh recently passed in Canada it was probably the most pernicious piece of uh legislation and Draconian piece of legislation that was passed within Canada uh that not only granted increased information sharing Powers Within um the state apparatus is uh of Canada um
but also then changed the Canadian Security intelligence service from a rather passive intelligence gathering um entity into a kinetic entity so they were able to now actively disrupt in its most vague and ambiguous um uh terminology right um various uh groups right or or terrorist uh conspiracies as it were um and then the other being is this glorification Clause that was introd produced is that people can now be found criminally liable for um supporting right um uh or accessing material that purports to support domestic extremism and so what we've seen um within this overall war
on terror both externally and internally okay because it one always has to understand these things relationally is that we've seen um not only the the expenditure of tremendous amounts of taxpayers dollars on engaging in activities counterterrorism activities that seek to ultimately um eradicate the threat of Terror which is a gross Distortion from actually what actually uh exists um but as well as then you have the justification for the resurrection of these massive National Security edifices within Canada within the United States and others that seek to justify right the need to um surveil right uh these
not only these the individual communities but so Society more broadly right because of this threat that is largely spectral it exists everywhere and nowhere and therefore we need to be eternally Vigilant or otherwise if we're not that you're going to see this eruption of violence from these various communities and at the end of the day what the taxpayer has received is a society that is less secure less safe less Democratic and ultimately much poorer I mean just in the United States itself for inance instance um you have I mean in in the war of Terror
you have roughly $5 trillion that has been spent purportedly to not only um eradicate the threat of Terror externally but then manage that threat internally the greatest irony that I see and this is not only true of the United States but it's true within Canada and Britain and other jurisdictions that are engaged actively in this war of Terror um is that the state is attempting to manage domestically the very threat that it in itself is creating by engaging in this these types of policies or state policies and practices which is ultimately State violence visited not
only on individuals right in foreign jurisdictions but as well as then um on on individuals internally through Mass surveillance racist policies and practices and so what's important I think for people to understand is that um the state itself through its own violence is actually producing the very insecurities right and threats that is purportedly seeking to neutralize um and what happens instead is through the corporate media and through others is that rather than actually having to focus on the role of the state and its complicity in the production of these types of threats is that there's
an attempt to um obfuscate where the actually this threat threat comes from so it's not a re it's not um a result of State sanction violence that we we support ourselves because this atmosphere is fear that's been created right so we have to deflect it and we have to um we have to project it on to others so we have to project it on to Islam and onto Muslims and therefore then the threat comes from Islam from Muslims these people that are inherently anti-western anti-democratic and that the reason for their agency and their reason to
want to act and to therefore then carry out acts of violence is somehow because they're they're sealed off in kind of their own speci specicity sorry um that is again inherently violent that is irrational right that is inherently um uh anti-modern that is inherently anti-democratic right um and again what it does is it actually seeks to um displace citizens from actually looking at what is the cause of what's going on which is State violence in and of itself so we deflect this and we displace it onto others and then we create it right that it
is it is Islam which is a threat what sorry go ahead so uh essentially to use Norm chomsky's term manufacturing consent for the state to behave the way it does within uh the country domestically and when it comes to foreign policy so let's switch gears here um one very important thing you just said was that it prevents um the citizens from resisting because there's this ultimate fear that if we resist then uh you know we'll be doomed by these attacks because the state won't be able to get at it and protect us and you're saying
we are not safer um so then after spending billions of dollars having all these policies we are still not any safer so um give us uh the Turning Point here how do we become more conscious of what's going on and how do we respond to this um so what are the solutions well I think the first thing is um trying to provide more conceptual clarity as to exactly what is going on um and I think the first step to that is extricating from religion from uh case of domestic extremism okay or particular incarnations of domestic
extremism so if we want to call it this islamist variant is you know or Islamic um or as I state in the book Islamic okay um number one is that um this reduction or centralization that this is a religious or cultural type of moment or is motivated by religion in culture is nothing but an orientalist construction um Visa Edward SED and others who have talked about how Islam is represented within the Western imagination and how historically how it's come to be you have to remember is that there is a long disc course and a long
history of how um Islam um and Muslims are represented within the Western imagination and to and and this precedes 911 this far precedes 911 although contrary to to what many people may say or the general belief is that the recognition of of Islam and Muslims um somehow emerged post 911 and that they um we didn't really pay attention to you know Islam or Muslims beforehand right um is to uh misconstrue history um there is a long history to how Islam and Muslims have been represented within uh within the West uh which Edwards say details um
quite quite carefully but even this I mean so to give an example um so we have the war of Terror uh that was declared 911 but what people have to recognize is is there was actually that was the second Declaration of the war on terror the first Declaration of the war on terror occurred in the early 1990s underneath Ronald dragon and following that that was to identify to fight International Terror M um specifically related to the PLO and others um and so Islam as well at the same time that was represented in the same way
in a post 911 contacts as it was beforehand so we think of the bombing of the Marine Barracks in 19 883 uh in in Beirut uh we have um the first Gulf War we have the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 um and we have also uh the bombing of the USS Co in in 2000 um throughout kind of the 19 1990s and 1980s the same types of tropes are used to represent Islam um again inherently violent inherently anti-west anti-democratic fundamentally culturally incompatible with Western values and Western Society right and we constructed
I mean in this particular threat and it was represented Visa um these extra discursive moments that I just described as well as though discursively following the the end of the Cold War you have two different figures that emerge you have Samuel Huntington who put forth his Clash of civilizations thesis and um Francis fukiyama who put forth the end of History okay um and these people were trying to theorize what the global order would look like in a post kind of um Cold War kind of scenario um and according to fukiyama the end of history is
that liberal democracy had won and that conflicts right would uh May emerge but it would be working out the details of uh of liberal democracy being kind of replicated and assimilated around the world um and then you have Samuel hunington who put forth his class of civilization thesis which was is that um the wars of the future would not be between if you want to call it competing political ideologies but would be between competing civilizations and the one main threat that he saw was the compet the competition between what he normally referred to as in
this abstract sense the west and in an abstract sense Islam and his his argument being is that the two were fundamentally incompatible and Inc commensurate so you mix in the extra discursive moments that I described the events violent events that occurred with this discursive moment which presents Islam right as somehow inherently incompatible with Western Society right and ultimately Samuel Huntington became a very influential figure especially amongst neoconservative circles you combine those two things together in a post 911 context right Islam is already understood then as the enemy is already represented as such and so to
present Islam in this way um was not a derivation from the Western imagination prior to 911 what it represented was an intensification of representations and discourses that already long preceded the events of 911 itself and so to present Islam in this way it was drawing upon a long history right both discursively and otherwise um where Islam was always constructed as the enemy and so you just further intensified and reactivated these particular types of tropes so in response to Clash of civilizations the former uh president of Iran hatami wrote a book called dialogue of civilization and
uh given that this week uh president Trump is on his way to Saudi Arabia who uh many people uh will remember it was uh the site of uh generating a number of people that were involved in the 9/11 attacks and this is President Trump's First International foreign uh visit as president and he's going to Saudi Arabia and he's trying to frame it as if it's uh something that is normal within the practice of diplomacy but to go and meet with people he criticized in his campaign um as being responsible for 911 and the birthplace of
the kind of terrorism that we are facing in the world today um what is the significance of such trip and that this trip is also going to be an effort to isolate Iran uh at a time when Iran can play a very important role in terms of the dialogue between the civilizations that you had just described um give us a sense of your thoughts about this political moment that we are facing today just outside in the backyard of Washington DC here in Baltimore um I think I mean uh what's important I mean to understand is
that when you were saying is this this importance of civilizational dialogue um I think yes I mean there's an importance to look at areas of convergence rather than Divergence um in the in this broader geopolitical context and talking about convergence and know here we're talking about a state uh of Iran who's actually helping uh both uh the US and Russia in this case fight in Syria and fighting back Isis in many ways well I think I mean um I I think more broadly I mean what's happening right now is that um you're seeking uh I
my interpretation is on a geopolitical level you're seeking to to to isolate Iran and that hopefully this isn't the case and I hope my interpretation is wrong is that you are setting the conditions uh for a geopolitical PIV pivot towards Iran we're setting the stage actually for conflict with Iran right and that somehow so we see for instance um the same types of rhetorical machinations occurring that we saw with the leadup to the invasion in Afghanistan or sorry into Iraq which was uh just to remind your viewers leading up to the invasion of Iraq there
was an attempt within the corporate media and certainly within government or aided and embedded by the corporate media right to establish linkages between Iraqi weapons of mass destruction right um in the Iraqi State and as well as connections between Al-Qaeda and uh Saddam Hussein right and that somehow Saddam Hussein was integral to the events of 911 well fast forward now another uh 16 years and we're seeing the same types of machinations being deployed which is somehow that um Iran is connected to to Isis that it supports Isis right um that it represents an existential threat
to to Global Peace um and I think you're seeing the same types of um preconditions being set to help justify internally right because this is always meant for internal um consumption to to potentially launch an attack against Iran or start to build support for such a foray into these things jery it's a very very interesting book that spells out a lot of um the kind of policies that we are experiencing uh not only in Canada but really worldwide so I thank you for writing it and I thank you for joining us here at the real
news it was my pleasure to join you for a conversation thank you very much and thank you for joining us here on the Real News Network [Music]
