For the victims of state and violence

THESE ARE VERY GRAPHIC, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.


Ibrahim Shayban, a 9-year-old child, shot dead by the security forces on 14 Oct 2011



Syria Dictator Assad kills 8 year old Girl in Hama - Gadeer Mousam Hamdale - 10-Sept-11

These are an example of the victims of state violence. Please keep them in mind.

You would think that the state would realize that it is not the central actor in domestic and international politics in the globalized world. The state is resisting change demanded by its people, like many humans do naturally, through what it has known as the means of exercising its existence : violence and force. The exercising of force is antiquated and stigmatized, and many have not transcended to the benefits of negotiation, communication, and following human rights and humanitarian law (at the least). The right of the state to defend, to protect, and cleave violence between legitimate and illegitimate for security of the people is the product of the political subject of violence: state's use of violence to protect from violence. Thus creating the idea that violence is both the poison and the cure (Dillon & Campbell, 1995).

The statecraft, that exists only in the expression of it's actions and motions, is believed to be made out of marble when it is an expression of energy that is constantly changing and vibrating in the flows of channels. The Westphalian territoriality norm and sovereignty is perforated by the stems of globalization, making the entity of the state sensitive to the waves of "effects" from all dimensions: econ/politic/socio/cultural and many more. This destabilizes the power of the state to control what happens to it.

When the state mentality transcends from defense to providing FOR the people through governmentality, I believe we would have a change in international relations and less feeding of the image of the "other" - fueled by the war machine and militarization as the norm of power. Could you imagine all the money invested in weapons, nuclear arms, military, private security companies...in which case are flowed into companies that abuse HR and IHL too?? The problem is that with this system, violence continues to be cycled through, wastefully sacrificing raw ingredients for the existence of state: victims like the children in the videos, soldiers, private military personnel (that are useful for the state to wash their hands and outsource violence), torture victims, other innocent people like the victims of radiation in Baghdad after the start of the Operatipn Iraqi Freedom, and not forgetting to mention the victims of militarized gender roles that feeds societal norms of what is normal and not (The list is just way too long).

When will we have more than cold militarized peace? Peace with fear and tension of attack that fuels the power of the state? The lives of these children and the other victims are not worth the protection of the static idea of the state. I demand change.