Necropolitics

Martin Manuel Professor PhD Jodi Kim Final Prompt 2013 ETST 170

The most of the worlds focus is on biopolitics. Literally this terms means the politics of life. To get more in-depth it means the control of populations by fostering, cultivating, and protecting it. Many debates on abortion can be found that deals with biopolitics. Little does one hear about its contrasting term, necropolitics. Analyzing the word, it literal definition is the politics of death. However, one can think of it as the power to control who dies. Now one can say how controlling who dies and who does not is a way to control the population. So the question now is how do these two terms differ. Biopolitics wishes to create life and see it prosper for its intended life span. Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe definition, the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not. (Necropolitics 27) Contrary to the rest of the world this essay will focus on necropower, the power to control who should live and who should die. Lets expand on Achille Mbembes definition of necropolitics. In his article Necropolitics one is able to observe how he is concerned with those in authoritative power whose main objective is the generalized instrumentalization of human existence and the material destruction of human bodies and populations. (14) He truly believes that sovereignty definitely calls for the risk of death (16) and how sovereignty uses politics as the work of death expressed predominantly as the right to kill. (16) Mbembe tries to reveal how those in power make lives of other human beings so impossible to live out that eventually they voluntary kill themselves. Taking the responsibility of a humans death out of their hands. Mbembe describes the process as, First, the human negates nature; and second, he or she transforms the negated element through work and struggle. In transforming nature, the human being creates a world; but in the process,

he or she also is exposed to his or her own negativity and describing human death as essentially voluntary. It is the result of risks consciously assumed by the subject. In these risks the animal that constitutes the human subjects natural being is defeated. (14) He goes on in his article to state how some countries and organizations implement such a despairing exploit. Mbembe points out how racism has become one of the dividing factors of who lives and dies. Racism has a notable history of groups using the basis of race to justifiably kill other humans. One group in particular chosen by Mbembe is the Nazi state [being] the most complete example of a state exercising the right to kill. (17). The way the Nazi state tried to force the Jewish in accepting death was through fear of the gas chambers and concentration camps. Mbembe states, The gas chambers and the ovens were the culmination of a long process of dehumanizing and industrializing death. (18) Mbembe continues to expand on necropolitics by demonstrating how necropower does not only occur in the presence of death, but also be seen in life. Continuing with our history lesson, Mbembe points out the life of a slave. The slave has no rights, freedom, or sense of ownership to anything. During the days of the plantation, their only goal in life was to serve their master. Their masters using violence and terror to submit them into accepting their role in the world. Mbembe argues if this can really be called living. According to Mbembe, the slave condition results from a triple loss: loss of a home, loss of rights over his or her body, and loss of political status. This triple loss is identical with absolute domination, natal alienation, and social death. (21) With Mbembe expressing his thoughts of Slave life, in many ways, is a form of death-in-life. (22) This is where necropower comes into effect. Using the master and slave example. The master obviously has control over the slaves life. Akin to how in todays world where those in power can have more influence in another persons life than the person himself. In essence humanity itself is dependent on those in sovereignty. Achille Mbembe would

agree how a persons humanity is dissolved to the point where it becomes possible to say that the slaves life is possessed by the master. (22) An additional example of necropower described by Mbembe was the apartheid in South Africa. The apartheid in South Africa was a system or racial segregation enforced by the legislation of the National Party governments, the ruling party at the time. Mbembe enlightens us on how the government came into the town and just started taking over everything enforcing its power on the defenseless half starving town. Giving way to a new definition of sovereignty, sovereignty means the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not. (27) Getting into little more recent events, Mbembe brings to light the occupation Palestine. With all the advances in technology being used as a medium to instill fear. Mbembe sees the occupation as a concatenation of multiple powers: disciplinary, biopolitical, and necropolitical. (29) Allowing for the government to rid not just those who pose a threat in Palestine, but annihilate all those with in it. Or as Mbembe would say, Entire populations are the target of the sovereign. Moving the subject onto how Mbembe believes current warfare has changed from subjugation or procurement of territory. Using the Gulf War and the campaign in Kosovo as examples, he argues, Wars of the globalization era therefore aim to force the enemy into submission regardless of the immediate consequences, side effects, and collateral damage of the military actions. (31) Mbembe describes todays warfare as crippling the enemy army by taking out its major resources and thus making it hard for them to support their army. This relates to necropower because those in authority use todays advanced weaponry to control whole categories of people. Delving deeper into in Mbembes article on necropolitics he starts to evaluate the experience of surviving. He tells us the survivor is the one who, having stood in the path of

death, knowing of many deaths and standing in the midst of the fallen, is still alive. (36) He goes on to state how the lowest form of survival is killing. (36) In that at humans basic instinct, if it came down to it, they will kill other human beings if it means they survive. Mbembe describes it more profoundly with, It is the death of the other, his or her physical presence as a corpse, that makes the survivor feel unique. And each enemy killed makes the survivor feel more secure. (36) The logic of survival is that you live out your enemies. This could be the reason for why people in power enforce their necropower among those below them. The death of others gives them assurance of their survival. This is where Mbembe offers an alternative for those dying, a way to resist the necropower of the sovereign people. Mbembe proposes martyrdom as a means to an end. If a person is setup to eventually die anyways, why not chose your own time to die and take out a couple of enemies while youre at it. Mbembe explains that the logics of surviving and martyrdom arent really contradictory. If someone were to kill you, your freedom would be taken. Choosing to sacrifice your life may actually mean you gain freedom. For death is precisely that from and over which I have power. But it is also that space where freedom and negation operate. (39) For those being segregated and oppressed Death in the present is the mediator of redemption and could be use as a release from terror and bondage. (39) Concluding Mbembes article he states, the notion of necropolitics and necropower to account for the various ways in which, in our contemporary world, weapons are deployed in the interest of maximum destruction of persons and the creation of death-worlds, new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead. (40) Basically Mbembe iterates how he has summed up necropolitics in todays world and how biopolitics by itself is inadequate in accounting for the way a human may live their life. Necropolitics covers the rest that biopolitics does not, where

fear and terror controls them to the point where it can be questioned if they are really living. There are numerous literature books and movies that deliberate on Mbembes idea of necropolitics. One book in particular is Brown Girl in The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. In short this novel depicts how the living can use the idea of death for gaining power and in turn use that power to decide who lives and dies. Throughout the book death is present with the notion of spirits and living dead walking about. The antagonist of the story Rudy, a drug dealer and leader of the post-apocalyptic Toronto, gains his power through death. Rudy actually controls the spirit of his daughter so she may do his bidding and kill who ever needs to be killed. His daughter MiJeanne reveals this in the novel, I is the duppy that Daddy does keep in he calabash. I could only inhabit my own body when Daddy let me out to do he dirty work for he. Is my soul he bind to get he power. Is my sight he twist into obeah, into shadow-catching for he. (160) It is found that Mi-Jeanne body is actually still in the physical world, but her spirit has been taken from it. Very similar to how Mbembe describes a slave. Mi-Jeanne has no home nor needs one, any political rights she had are now worthless, and most obviously lost the control of her own body. She has actually by Mbembes words become the living dead. With this power to kill anyone Rudy sees as a threat to his rise in power, Rudy climbs the social ladder very quickly. Like anyone in power, he wants to stay there. How does he do it? Rudy accomplishes this by killing other innocent people and taking their youth for his own. That is other people youth he wearing, youth he steal from them when he catch their shadows to put in he duppy pot. (122) How does one kill a druglord with the power to control spirits? Well Mbembe solution to fight death with death is a good one. Mi-Jeannes daughter, Ti-Jeanne, eventually learns to contact the spirits as well. Using this newfound power to call on her ancestral spirits, she asks them to kill Rudy by making him experience all murders he had committed. There was one death in particular that

pushed Ti-Jeanne to confront Rudy. That was the murder of her grandmother, Mami. The reason for Mamis death is traced all the way back to the beginning of book. Two different factions had formed before after Torontos economic downfall. It could basically be seen as the white rich folk separating from the poor black people. The leader of the white society is in need of a heart and asks Rudy to procure (kill a citizen) one for him from his faction. Attesting to Mbembes belief of how people in power do not take from their own, when they can so easily obtain from those below them. The character asking for the heart actually states Rudys people as beneath them. (5) Now if this is not a case of a group of sovereign people using necropower then I do not know what is. They basically saying we will not kill our own people, but would be ok with killing one of the poor black citizens. Ultimately deciding the fate of who dies and lives. In the end, the leader of the white society has Mamis heart transplanted into their body. However, something goes eerie and the heart sort of attacks the leaders body. Mamis heart takes over the leaders spirit and gives the leader a change of heart on how human organ transplant should be practiced. Ultimately, deciding to change status quo of society and start funding small business owners. Implying how the stolen heart has the power to change the city of Toronto for the better. I see this as another option to resist necropolitics. Before adding more death to the body counter, one should simply stand up to the application of necropower and confront the leader who is enacting it. Try to push the leader into seeing what he is doing is immoral and gruesome. If he does not understand the consequences of what he is doing, then by all means go ahead and kill the man like Ti-Jeanne did. Keep fighting back until you can a get a person in power that understands the perils of necropolitics. One movie that comes to mind that explores necropolitics is Dirty Pretty Things written by Steven Knight. This movie is about two illegal immigrants trying to survive in London and

gain some sense of freedom. Okwe and Senay are two immigrants who work for hotel full of other immigrants. They are confined to the hotel and see it as a prison, which they can never leave or risk being sent back home. While the guests come and go as they please enjoying every pleasure the hotel and London has to offer. Multiple times Senay is forced into a bad situation that contains a hint of necropower. She has a visa to stay in the country, but only if she does not work. Of course the immigration officials come to check on her at the hotel, forcing her cease work at hotel and find work at a sweatshop. Eventually the officials check the sweatshop also, but this time Senays employer hides her and agrees not to tell the officials of her presence if she gives him oral sex. One can observe how Senays body is no longer her own and must go on with the act in order to survive. Senay ultimately makes a deal with one of the workers at the hotel, to make her a visa in exchange for an organ. That worker being in the position of power to give out visas sees Senay in her vulnerable state and also takes advantage of her by taking her virginity. Okwe, being a doctor, believes the organ transplant taking place in hotel is sketchy. He firmly believes the workers who are getting their organs taken out are only brought to the country for their organs and left to die without proper care. The people paying for the organs do not care where they cam from as long as they get them intact to use. Okwe knows this and does not want Senay to experience this. He volunteers to perform the operation on her himself if they both get a full pledged visa. In a plot twist, Okwe instead lures the worker giving out the visa into becoming the organ donor involuntarily. Stealing the visas and leaving with Senay to a safe place. Necropower is in full effect in this movie. The immigrants at hotel know full well that they have no power of their own when they come into the country. The only way to get citizenship may be death. I believe the sovereign people know this and allow it to happen since it is a majority of organ supply. The citizens of London do not want to take organs from other people of London,

but believe it is fine to take it from foreigners. Okwe resists necropower by not letting the people in power get what they want from those without power. Providing another excellent option in resisting necropower. There are by far more people without power than there are people with power. If someone were to find a way to band together all these people, then possibly they could resist the influence of necropower.

Work Cited Necropolitics Achille Mbembe - Duke University Press 2003 Brown Girl in the Ring Nalo Hopkinson, Warner Books, 1998 Dirty Pretty Things Steven Knight, Buena Vista International, 2002