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February 23, 2006

Guantanamo Bay - A Savage Anomaly?

The US prison at Guantanamo Bay is not popular here in the UK, or within the Labour Party. However, due to Tony Blair's close relationship to the Bush Administration, he has not been willing to condemn it - instead taking the flack which comes from calling it an "anomaly" that needs to be "dealt with" (this was in response to a member of his Government, Peter Hain, breaking ranks to call for it to be closed). I'm not going to focus on Guantanamo itself here - I find the language Blair uses is so seductive that I'm going to look at this instead.

'Anomaly' is a fascinating word for Blair to use to describe the camp. One might first note that his own government has often been seen as anomalous - for example, John Kampfner argues that it is anomalous for Blair to have played a major role in so many military interventions. Even more interesting, though (at least for political theory students like me) is that the term 'anomaly' resonates with some aspects of recent anti-capitalist politics.

The Italian writer/activist Antonio Negri has referred to Spinoza's work as a 'savage anomaly'. For Negri, the materialism of Spinoza's thought leads becomes a savage anomaly when it comes into conflict with the capitalist mode of production - demonstrating "the radical expression of a historic transgression of every ordering that is not freely constituted by the masses; it is the proposition of a horizon of freedom that is definable only as a horizon of liberation." Blair may then be right to describe Guantanamo as an anomaly - what we see at Guantanemo could be read as the transgression of (neo)liberal norms such as the rule of law by the same bodies that are fighting in the name of such norms.

So, Guantanamo could be viewed as one of the savage anomalies constituted by transgressions of (neo)liberal norms - a transgression which, in Guantanamo's case, has become part of the system which is being transgressed. Blair argues that such anomalies must be dealt with; however, the alternative possibility is that more anomalies will arise to deal with the system. Current problems for both the Bush and Blair governments - abroad and at home - could be early indicators of this. One question to ask now is, therefore, will the anomalies we're seeing in international politics today be dealt with - or will it be the anomalies that do the dealing?

Posted by jon_mendel at February 23, 2006 01:04 AM