Sat, Apr 12, 2003 page8

• Pathology, the police and SARS

  • By Lin Shu-fen and Jon Solomon 林淑芬、蘇哲安
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  The Department of Health (DOH) recently ran a newspaper advertisement reading, "SARS and commie spies both come from China, but with a concerted effort by the whole nation, there is actually far less SARS than commies." At first glance, this ad seems like a relic from another era, as though Taiwan had reverted to the period of martial law when "commie spies could be right next to you: Look out!" Following the spread of SARS, the Ministry of the Interior's Department of Police and its Labor Affairs Commission have both rushed to adopt measures aimed at controlling such figures as Vietnamese brides, Chinese brides, foreign laborers and illegal immigrants. The equation between pathology and foreign labor has become so ubiquitous in Taiwan that no one seems to notice. When "warding off disease" is linked to "warding off spies [commies]," however, controversy ensues.

  Some legislators have questioned whether DOH Director-General Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) went too far by sensationalizing the matter, but the association between politics and public health measures is, in fact, not at all surprising given the fact that "public health" and "the police" are two key links in the security of society today.

  Strictly speaking, although the measures pertaining to martial law were lifted in 1987, our society has never truly emerged from the state of martial law -- a fact that has become particularly salient amid the din and drone of the War on Terror discourse that followed the events of Sept. 11. The war that the US is now waging against Iraq only further highlights the pressing need, apart from opposing the war, to pursue the critique of this ongoing form of martial law. Any given moment of crisis is also a moment of new possibilities. While the US pursues its war in Iraq, how should we, in Taiwan, think about this crisis in a way that moves beyond a geo-political analysis and takes hold of the opportunities for an alternative democratic vision?

  Without a doubt, the war has once again highlighted the inherent problems of national construction and the international community. The greater part of the anti-war discourse has focused on: castigating US unilateralism; demanding a return to the UN; and finally proposing the US must prove its rationale for war to the UN Security Council and then respect Security Council resolutions. Precisely at this moment, we need first and foremost to critically examine the phantasm that imagines the UN as it is today to be a forum for democratic practice. The gulf between the UN's organizational structure and the practice of global democracy -- as seen both in the problematic nature of the Security Council structure itself and in the basic fact that the state does not necessarily represent its peoples -- has become visible to all.

  Second, the defense of democracy must begin here and now, and the focus must be on, "What kind of restructuring is our society undergoing?" or even more basically, "What kind of society is being formed in the course of the current war on terror?" We should ask what impact the war is having on our "political order" and not just oppose one particular war or emphasize the globalization of the anti-war movement or the need to link up with the rest of the world.

  In terms of the development of democratic politics, one of the most obvious impacts has been the series of post-Sept. 11 actions to strengthen measures for security and control in society. If we observe how the media has maintained an air of spellbound fascination in reports about security and the way in which the security issue has shaped political debate (such as in last year's elections in France and Holland), it isn't difficult to see the outline of how the US and Europe limit freedom.

  Meanwhile in Taiwan, the mechanism by which the secure society is maintained is through the supposition of internal enemies operating in collusion with external ones -- precisely the same as a virus: unknown, hence omnipresent -- thereby mobilizing the intelligence and security system, as well as the national security discourse, of the former martial law period for the new task of internal security based on identity checks.

  In other words, so-called "politics" has already been reduced to "policing" -- inside the nation, on its borders, and on the international scene -- and no matter which kind of police it may be, the goal is always to survey and maintain the "boundaries of order."

  Dr. Didier Bigo, a French sociologist studying transnational police structures, has pointed out that the goal of this mechanism is "securidentity" -- primarily (but not solely) aimed at "foreigners" of all sorts. In Taiwan, this includes the registration and confirmation of the identities of foreign laborers and foreign brides, as well as camps set up to manage illegal aliens.

  We have seen many different groups and individuals participate in recent anti-war demonstrations. Among them are some who wish to take the anti-war demonstrations as an opportunity to establish a "foreigner's" political alliance. Given Taiwan's political environment, in which the unlimited airtime given to unification-versus-independence discourse only supports the expansion of the security apparatus and excludes/incorporates all other discursive possibilities, an alliance of "foreigners in Taiwan" is irreducibly significant simply because Taiwan's demographics have in fact already become "internationalized." Perhaps the joining together of foreigners can reveal the reductionist violence of the "securidentity" structure. If this political alliance is to remain effective after the war ends, the alliance may have to more fundamentally challenge the distinction between "natives" and "foreigners" (rather than reproduce the logic of "securidentity" and thereby paradoxically share complicity with the existing security system) as well as point out and respond to the problem of distinctions inherent to the construction and maintenance of "foreigners" as such (specifically, that between laowai, i.e., "Westerners," and wailao, i.e., "non-Western labor").

  Perhaps the question we should be asking now is not where the boundary between "natives" and "foreigners" lies, but rather, what kind of terrorist order and "securidentity" mechanism delineate and preserve this boundary?

  Lin Shu-fen is an assistant professor in the department of political science at Soochow University. Jon Solomon is an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute for Futures Studies at Tamkang University.

  Translated by Ethan Harkness
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