What is the distinction that Nelson Mandela makes between terrorism and the type of violence that Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) resorted to? Do you agree with this difference?
This is a 4,000 words essay writing. Please use UWE Harvard Referencing style, find the link below:
The essay must have a clear introduction, overall argument and conclusion. The essay should not simply summarise reading materials, but needs to incorporate your own analysis and argumentation. Your argument needs to be supported by examples and evidence.
The essay must be properly referenced, using University of West England Harvard Referencing style. Please find the link for the UWE referencing below
https://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/info/refbuilder/
Please you must use the Required readings below for this work. There are additional resources below which must also be used as well as your independent research. On this essay details, you will find questions for discussions which is of great importance for this work. Please use the UK English for this work.
ESSAY QUESTION: ‘Violence itself participates in the definition of violence.’ (Coronil and Skurski, p.6 ) Discuss.
REQUIRED READINGS
1)Arendt, H. (1970) Excerpt from Part II. On Violence. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 43-56.
2) Mandela, N. (1964) An Ideal for Which I am Prepared to Die – Part I (Mandela’s Statement from the Dock at the Rivonia Trial, Pretoria, 20 April 1964). Guardian
3) Butler, J. (2020) Introduction. The Force of Nonviolence. London: Verso, 1-25.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Bernstein, R. J. (2013) Violence: Thinking without Banisters. Cambridge: Polity.
Coronil, F. and Skurski, J. (2006) States of Violence. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Della Porta, D. (1995) Social Movements, Political Violence and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, B. and Carver, T. (2017) Histories of Violence: Post-war Critical Thought. London: Zed.
Galtung, J. (1969) Violence, Peace and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research. 6 (3), pp. 167-191.
Ruggiero, V. (2006) Understanding Political Violence: A Criminological Approach. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Tilly, C. (1985) War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In: Evans, P., Rueschemeyer, D., and Skocpol, T., eds., Bringing the State Back In. Eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 169-187.
Žižek, S. (2008) Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile.
Arendt, H. (1970) On Violence. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Bernstein, R. J. (2013) Violence: Thinking without Banisters. Cambridge: Polity. [Especially Chapter 3 on Arendt]
Çubukçu, A. (2017) Thinking Against Humanity. London Review of International Law. 5 (2), pp. 251-267.
Evans, B. and Carver, T. (2017) Histories of Violence: Post-war Critical Thought. London: Zed. [Especially Chapter 3 on Arendt]
Frazer, E. and Hutchings, K. (2008) On Politics and Violence: Arendt Contra Fanon. Contemporary Political Theory. 7 (1), pp. 90-108.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONWhat are the different possible definitions of violence? What about ‘political’ violence?
What is the definition of ‘political violence’ that Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski work with in their Introduction to States of Violence?
Why is the relationship between power and ‘violence’?
What is Butler’s criticism of ‘self-defence’ as justified violence?
What do Coronil and Skursi mean when they write: ‘the rhetoric of violence is thus inseparable from the violence of rhetoric’ (p. 6)?
When political activists and leaders contemplate the question of violence, they usually do so in terms of the congruence between means and ends. How do the texts you have read for this week theorise the instrumentality of violence? What are some of the justifications and critiques of violence they offer?
How does Arendt differentiate power, strength, force, authority, and violence? What are her respective definitions of these terms? Do they make sense to you?
What is the distinction that Nelson Mandela makes between terrorism and the type of violence that Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) resorted to? Do you agree with this difference?
How does Nelson Mandela’s explanation of the movement’s recourse to violence as “responsible leadership” compare to Arendt’s view that ‘power and violence are opposites’?
TOPICS COVERED
WHAT IS POLITICAL VIOLENCE?
Introduction to the module: its scope, framework, general aims, and central concerns
Definitions of violence and nonviolence
An overview of the vocabulary for contextualising individual acts of violence within broader structures of violence: subjective/objective violence, systemic violence, symbolic violence, epistemic violence, slow violence
Introduction to critical thinking on relations between state power, law and violence, and on official discourses around political violence and terrorism
CRITICAL DEBATES: VIOLENCE AS INSTRUMENT?
TOPICS COVERED
The instrumentality of violence: the question of means and ends
Introduction to the thought of Hannah Arendt on violence and politics
Arendt’s definitions of power, strength, force, authority, violence, terror – do they make sense?
Through the lens of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa: considering violence as political strategy
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: COLONIALISM & VIOLENCE
TOPICS COVERED
Introduction to the thought and influence of Frantz Fanon on the question of violence
Fanon’s analysis of colonialism and decolonization
The possibilities and limits of non-violent action
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: LAW & VIOLENCE
TOPICS COVERED
Introduction to the thought of Walter Benjamin on violence
The relationship between law and violence: law-positing and law-preserving violence
The question of legal violence
DEFINING TERRORISM
TOPICS COVERED
The stakes of defining terrorism
The workings of ‘terrorism discourse’
The rise of ‘terrorism studies’ as a discipline, its limits, and its effects on law and policy
The critique of ‘clash of civilizations’ WAR & TERRORISM
TOPICS COVERED
The distinctions between war and terrorism in contemporary public discourse
Talal Asad’s thinking on the continuities and co-implications between war and terrorism
Asad’s theorisation of ‘forms of death-dealing’ and their ‘moral packaging’
Judith Butler on the hegemonic frame for understanding violence in the immediate aftermath of 9/11
Quandaries of legally defining terrorism as opposed to acts in war: the example of R v. Gul (2013)
POLICING TERROR I: MIMETIC VIOLENCE
TOPICS COVERED
The involvement of state institutions and agents in ‘unsanctioned’ political violence
Counterterrorism and imitative violence
Producing terrorism through policing: sting operations and the use of informants
POLICING TERROR: SUSPECT COMMUNITIES
TOPICS COVERED
The social life of counter-terrorism measures
Anti-terror laws, policing of terrorism, and the creation ‘suspect communities’
How counter-terrorism measures combine with discourses of nationalism and social identities
Policing terrorism through notions of ‘risk’
Theories of radicalisation and the example of PREVENT in the UK
THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE OF THE WAR ON TERROR
TOPICS COVERED
The expansion of state power under anti-terror laws
The post-9/11 debates around the notion of emergency powers and the ‘state of exception’
The concept of ‘hyperlegality’
The relationship between administrative determinations and legal violence
The role that law plays, and the shape that it takes in the war on terror
