States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

executive powers, and indeed tolerance of excess. This political or
psychosocial phenomenon comes as a result of the perception that
the government is Lighting on behalf of ‘us’ against a common
enemy. This dichotomisation constructs a sense of ‘them’ that is
concerned with groups rather than individuals and thereby the
creation of suspect communities, against whom can be vented the
collective anger in a time of fear. The clearer the line of
demarcation between ‘us’ and ‘them’, the easier it becomes for
governments to expand their emergency powers without public
resistance. This has been a common experience elsewhere; for
example, during World War II, the internment of persons of
Japanese origin in the US, and ‘aliens’ in the UK; and the British
government’s internment campaigns in Northern Ireland.
Following September 11 th , this has become a major problem in the
West.
In the context of internal conLlicts, the ‘us vs. them’ discourse is
even more problematic in that there is no foreign element against
which the dynamic works, and thereby its effects have been
arguably even more pernicious. Quite apart from the tragic social
costs and human suffering intra‐State conLlicts involve, it is also
clearly demonstrable that this dichotomy is entirely counterproductive
to stated aims of anti‐terrorism or counter‐insurgency
measures, and impede the political dynamics of conLlict resolution
through negotiated means.
Ethnic and religious minorities have often been subject to
repressive measures taken by governments in the name of
combating terrorism or insurgency, usually with popular majority
support, where such minorities share communal connections with
the terrorists or the insurgents. This support is often accompanied
by the de‐humanising of the ‘them’, which creates the political
space for human rights violations with impunity. In these
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