Pacifism as Weaponry?

The argument regarding the role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as key actors of 'just war' in Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's book, Empire is one I find challenging to digest. Hardt and Negri's proposition that “moral intervention often serves as the first act that prepares the stage for military intervention” (37) is troubling for someone who has found herself on the frontlines of social change. It is difficult to imagine that by drawing attention to social injustices, NGOs can also elicit responses from corporations and State agencies that often result in ‘just war’ and corporate-run foreign development initiatives.

Yet, the discourses surrounding this ‘first act’ by NGOs does in fact have a strong correlation to the concept of ‘just war’. For example, in drawing awareness to the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan, "The Afghan Challenge", supported by NGOs such as MEDA, successfully elicited a global response. However, the U.S. military’s defensive response seems to be inconsistent with the campaign’s initiatives of peace and equality for Afghan women. As such, is there a way to disrupt the relationship between activism and just war?

In my attempt to answer this question, Naomi Klein’s book, Fences and Windows (2002), came to mind. Through her analysis of anti-globalization efforts, Klein suggests that there may not be an immediate solution to the flux and flow globalization has brought to nations around the world. However, Klein does assert that:

“Despite all the attempts at privatization, it turns out that there are some things that don’t want to be owned. Music, water, seeds, electricity, ideas—they keep bursting out of the confines erected around them. They have a natural resistance to enclosure, a tendency to escape, to cross-pollinate, to flow through fences, and flee out open windows” (2002).

Fences and windows are all around us, inviting some to partake in global phenomena while refusing access to others. I find Klein’s use of the terms enclosure, escape and flow to be consistent with many of the themes presented in Part One of Empire. Although writing from an anti-globalization perspective, Klein positions the discussion of globalization in the realm of civil society, which is an important aspect of Hardt and Negri’s argument.

As we continue to analyze the various aspects of globalization, it will be interesting to see how these aspects involve themselves in the day-to-day happenings of the local, national and global spheres of life.