No Borders and Binaries

Follow on Twitter - #Mumbai and DesiPundit has done a great job with the round-ups.

My concern is with this statement from Reuters.

A witness told Indian television that gunmen in Mumbai looked for British and U.S. passport holders.

“They wanted anyone with British or American passports,” a witness at the Taj Hotel, who said he was from London and was in India on business, told the NDTV news channel. He had smoke stains all over his face. “They wanted foreigners.”

Has this been confirmed? Dave states that “as nationality is the principal trait governments use to select targets, it should come as no surprise that the attackers searched for targets by nationality as well.”

This tactic of targeting ‘foreigners’ — representatives of Western civilization — challenges the concept of building higher walls, smarter borders, restricting immigration to protect Americans and keep out the terrorists, freedom fighters, whatever PC or non-PC term attached to these advocates of violence. In this era of globalization, with more people not living in their countries of origin, if attackers can target Americans outside of America, outside our guarded physical borders, can the nation-state really provide the necessary ’security?’ It certainly raises new questions about the responsibility of the nation-state and mentally redrawing our conception on physical barriers.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says:

“It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country,” he said. “We will take the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts. We are determined to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of our citizens.“

Who is behind this? For now, we know through a recovered phone from a slain terrorist that calls were made to Karachi. Lets not pin this on a country and step away from jingoistic calls to attack Pakistan. The Deccan Mujahideen have claimed responsibility for this while Pakistan has strongly condemned the attacks. There is also no need to scapegoat Muslims in India. None of this worked for the United States when it declared war on Afghanistan and started profiling Arab Americans — Al Qaeda is stronger than ever before and Bin Laden is at large, so declaring war on Pakistan, given MAD, would be even more stupid.

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