Vanderbilt Library Open Journals
Not a member yet
819 research outputs found
Sort by
A Beating Worse Than Death: Imagining and Contesting Violence in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Get PDFBetween 1995 and 2005, it is conservatively estimated that over 3,600
migrants died while trying to cross clandestinely into the United States
from Mexico. Unsanctioned crossings of the U.S.-Mexico boundary have long been dangerous. But the number of deaths has increased significantly over the last several years. Despite the large and rapidly growing death toll, these fatalities have received little critical public scrutiny--especially
when compared with other acts of violence involving unauthorized immigrants and state authorities. In trying to ascertain why, this paper compares and contrasts the reaction to two incidents in southern California in early April 1996: the beating of two migrants by police officers, and the deaths of several migrants killed while fleeing the U.S. Border Patrol. This paper argues that the reasons for the unevenness in terms of response relate to hegemonic and interrelated notions regarding national territory, the "illegal" immigrant, and violence. These assumptions reflect and reproduce particular notions of security and rights that conflict with those of
migrant, and thus make it difficult to perceive and challenge the factors
ultimately responsible for the deaths
Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: Reactionary Revolutionaries in the New Political Islam
No full textWith the events of September 11th, an unfamiliar terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda announced its presence, its capabilities, and its willingness to engage in massive violence to the world. Americans, generally poorly informed on the history of the Middle East and blithely unaware of serious foreign threats in the post-Soviet era, were not well equipped to assess the threat. This essay, utilizing a critical analysis of Al-Qaeda’s communiqués as well as the increasingly vast body of secondary literature, defines this new threat through an exploration of the sources of its animosity and proposes a more effective means of combating the threat, all while placing the issue in a larger historical context and filling the knowledge gap for non-specialists. Among the most notable findings is the realization that Al-Qaeda’s core objective is a political one and a purely militaristic counterterrorist strategy will have a low probability of success. It may even worsen the situation by contributing to the public appearance of a clash of civilizations. Additionally, there are preliminary indications that the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, though significant, is ultimately self-destructive
