Abstract: Both the US and the UK societies are split in every imaginable way and yet they are extremely powerful. Both have two coexisting and mutually antagonistic democracies, the populist and the liberal. Both have developed two simultaneous and contradictory forms of government: one that upholds human rights and the rule of law and another that uses the concept of national security and the secret services to make sure that suspected terrorists can be eliminated offstage and without trial – with UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). This paper traces the development of US/UK’s Janus-faced democracy by focusing on the legacy of two pieces of legislation which were drafted as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks: the USA PATRIOT Act 2001 and the UK Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
Keywords: Binary oppositions, binarisation, doubling, parthenogenesis, Robert Jay Lifton, dualism, human rights, Guantanamo, Belmarsh, Bletchley Park , Snowden, NSA, GCHQ, Baroness Hale, Lord Bingham, Lord Hoffmann, Human Rights Act 1998, Articles 3, 5 & 15 of the European Convention of Human Rights, USA PATRIOT Act 2001, UK Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Draft Communications Data Bill 2012, Snoopers’ Charter, Investigatory Powers Bill 2015, Investigatory Powers Act 2016, state of emergency, national security, war on terror, psychosis, disproportionality, Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty, NATO’s Article 5, secret services, spy agencies, cyberspace, infosphere, Litvinenko, polonium 210, James Bond, Jekyll & Hyde, Isis, al-Qaeda.
Title: Guantanamo/Belmarsh and the Horror of Performative Memes
Author: Fred Perez
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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