Global Capitalism's Function Today: To Monitor Displaced Populations

The prevalence of all kinds of warfare (civil war, international war, rebellions) today might imply that there are certain global capitalist institutions which benefit from the ongoing wars. From the 'rubble and ruin' of war, a new desiring subject may emerge, and this is an ideal scenario for global capitalist institutions that wish to create a consumerist society from ruins. In this post, we will look at the possibility that the traumatized refugee could potentially benefit global capitalist institutions. We will look at the possibility that the flows of knowledge and information in globalization do not stop at warfare, and indeed, as risky as it may be, these flows of information perform an important function to enable the perpetuation of conflict, even if they may prevent outright violence.

The traumatized refugee is mobile but without a destination; he/she is a transient, temporary subject, existing between two ruined destination...travelling from one ruins to the next. It is precisely because the refugee cannot do anything about where he/she will end up that he/she is a pure consumer: helplessly reliant on external forces to devise a permanent settlement; consuming whatever the outside help provides in the form of housing and food. Additionally, this traumatized refugee is the central character in the process in which new towns and new settlements are made: sooner or later, it is thought, that the Syrian tent city for instance will be replaced by an actual city. In a Lacanian sense, the traumatized subject is a pure subject of desire, he/she does not only want a safe place, but is ready to continuously travel, and travel without care (without food and shelter) till it arrives at the object of its desire...in Lacanian language, this type of subject who moves without destination or the concern for survival is someone “who does not give room to one's desire,” who is ready to pursue the impossible desire (for permanent peace and resolution) till the end of his/her life.

It is in the re-construction effort of building new towns and cities that we locate global capitalism's entry into the civil war of Syria and other wars elsewhere. Entire symbolic networks of people, systems of food provision and health care, among many other things, will have to be fabricated from the ground up, and that too by external powers. Global capitalist institutions want to enter into the war-torn territory because the traumatized refugee is a pure consumer: he/she wants a complete lifestyle change, longer-lasting peace etc and also must be provided with new things such as housing. At the stage of displacement in a warfare, capitalism works via encouragement: it encourages people to keep moving, to keep going towards what is thought to be safe—and at the end of this process is the creation of a “peaceful territory.” This peace via a new territory is just a fantasy: it is not actual resolution of the conflict but an escape from it. And what is the organ encouraging people to keep escaping war? Precisely the humanitarian aid agencies that help the refugees carry on by providing food and water. 

War is like a permanent scar for the refugees: usually it is not the case that when a war is over, the population may return back to its 'original' territories. Rather, the population is permanently displaced, unsettled, traumatized...it needs a new territory to fully recover from the trauma of war. Revisiting the sites of trauma is not to anyone's benefit, not because the ruins and rubble is disturbing, but because, quite concretely, the revisit to one's own ruins may cause another war, another disturbance, and another traumatic encounter with the victors who have already built their own territories over the previous ones. It is the possibility of another war, the permanent irresolution of the first conflict, which is most traumatic for a refugee. The war itself may not be traumatizing, but the underlying conflict causing the war suddenly becomes traumatic during the event of warfare.

In all this warfare, global capitalist institutions are monitoring and researching. They face the crises through the lens of the media and the on-the-ground presence of humanitarian aid agencies. In true globalizing fashion, the flows of people are followed by flows of knowledge and information (and out come research papers detailing the state of the humanitarian crisis etc.) Wherever refugees go, global capitalism follows, for it wants a stake in the new territories created for refugees, it wants a say in the post-traumatic new subjectivity. It wants to create people as consumers and it sees great value in people "starting all over again." Therefore, we should conceive global capitalism as the flows of money and knowledge following the flows of people.

But in the midst of all this is the refugee's persistent trauma...trauma which makes of the refugee a completely passive subject, who only wishes to consume rather than produce, who needs to find, with each act of consumption, a re-confirmation of the fact that life has positives. The trauma is what makes unexpected the outcome of the refugee's movement. With the traumatized subject, it is never certain what he/she desires. The traumatized refugee is not duped by lesser objects of desire, but knows his/her desire is the quite impossible desire for resolution, yet still he/she desires it. What all this means is that the flows of capital behind refugees may have to be given up, and outright intervention on the part of bigger powers may be necessary. The objective must be to stop the cause of trauma rather than any attempt to 'cure' the traumatized. Indeed, the role of watchdog goes to show the permanence of the underlying conflict and only goes to strengthen the refugee's trauma. Global capitalism must realize that what the refugee desires is resolution to conflict and not a new territory/consumable object.