1 00:00:00,030 --> 00:00:06,060 Well, hi, everybody. I was here today with Dr. Mario Rashied. 2 00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:10,560 Welcome to the seminar today at the Oxford South Asian Studies Seminar Programme, and this is, I think, 3 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:19,380 the second seminar off the term, and we're here with Dr. Mario to talk about her outstanding book Dying to Serve. 4 00:00:19,380 --> 00:00:23,730 I really, really enjoyed reading this book, so I'm sure the presentation will be really interesting, 5 00:00:23,730 --> 00:00:29,430 and I'm sure we have a great discussion at the end of it. Just to tell you a bit. 6 00:00:29,430 --> 00:00:36,810 Dr. Cheese is a research fellow at the UCLA Social Research Institute previously. 7 00:00:36,810 --> 00:00:41,070 Dr. Archer did a Ph.D. exercise in, I Think, in 2018, 8 00:00:41,070 --> 00:00:48,360 and her book I think probably a product of that research eventually was it called Dying to serve militarism, 9 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:52,440 affect and the politics of sacrifice in the Pakistan Army? 10 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:59,160 It's a really interesting ethnographic study of sort of this idea of militarism and the politics of sacrifice. 11 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:06,330 And it was also shortlisted for the IOC to national political sociology book The War A Section's Book Award. 12 00:01:06,330 --> 00:01:11,550 So it comes highly acclaimed. It's a great read, and it's going to be a very exciting presentation. 13 00:01:11,550 --> 00:01:21,360 So we'll have Dr. Ratchet present her work and talk about her project, her book, and that will have opened it up for a Q&A after that. 14 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:25,800 So I guess we can probably get started now. 15 00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:29,890 Oh yeah, and I think there'll be slides coming up as well for you to report to see. 16 00:01:29,890 --> 00:01:34,260 So okay, so should I take it from here? 17 00:01:34,260 --> 00:01:37,950 I think so. We're just just making sure that the slides come on. 18 00:01:37,950 --> 00:01:44,130 But yeah, yeah. And ask Nora to put on the slides as I speak and I want the presentation. 19 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:47,580 So let me just start there. OK, thank you. 20 00:01:47,580 --> 00:01:56,760 Thank you, Dr Yasuda, and and thank you to the Oxford Ageing Study Centre for this invitation to talk about my work, 21 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:05,940 which is which came out last year. And what I'll be doing today is really presenting certain sections of specific material within the book and 22 00:02:05,940 --> 00:02:13,560 hopefully present to you a somewhat old argument that all affect and centrality of ethics within militarism. 23 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:21,630 And I draw specifically upon two sections within the book, one that deals with military commemorative politics. 24 00:02:21,630 --> 00:02:26,820 And so. So I talk about a certain dead body, dead body politics, if you may. 25 00:02:26,820 --> 00:02:32,280 And I argue that this ritualistic practise of mourning acts as an effective technology, 26 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:40,620 a pool that constructs the apparently willing soldier and the complicit families that also be sent as cannon fodder for wars. 27 00:02:40,620 --> 00:02:46,140 And I was representing an ethnographic exploration of military depth, and through that, 28 00:02:46,140 --> 00:02:57,300 I try to present to you that the gap that I I contend that exists between the everyday experiences of families that mourn the 29 00:02:57,300 --> 00:03:05,340 dead and in rural Pakistan and the very idealised image of the marker that saturates national representations in Pakistan. 30 00:03:05,340 --> 00:03:16,470 And since I have about, you know, for 40 minutes or so to talk to you and we do signpost, I talk because and please let me know my voice becomes, 31 00:03:16,470 --> 00:03:21,210 you know, there's a lag or if I freeze up because we I know we have some internet issues going on. 32 00:03:21,210 --> 00:03:26,900 So I look to you for pointing that out. I'm just talking into a void and nobody can hear me. 33 00:03:26,900 --> 00:03:34,510 We're all good so far. Great. So, so let me for us to talk a little bit so that you know what's coming up. 34 00:03:34,510 --> 00:03:43,320 So I first speak about military commemorations, specifically in the context of the more recent unpopular war that the Pakistan military fought 35 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:48,750 within its own borders in its northwest region as part of the war on Terror and a war that, 36 00:03:48,750 --> 00:03:56,820 as you would be aware, that has escalated after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and escalation that is likely to continue. 37 00:03:56,820 --> 00:04:01,650 And my interests lie in how spectacular ritualistic military practises of grief are 38 00:04:01,650 --> 00:04:09,750 made possible and why they are deemed important by the institution of the military. 39 00:04:09,750 --> 00:04:15,810 And I'll follow this up with a tracing of grief and how it explodes in the world today 40 00:04:15,810 --> 00:04:20,970 and where the bulk of the soldier class in Pakistan is drawn has historically been gone. 41 00:04:20,970 --> 00:04:27,840 And so really the rituals of mourning within the open spaces and then I'll continue to talk and present my broad arguments around what it 42 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:37,350 means to use affect as an analytical lens and what this lens adds to our understanding of what militarism and our potential to challenge it. 43 00:04:37,350 --> 00:04:41,470 So again, this is a South Asian studies sort of group. 44 00:04:41,470 --> 00:04:46,140 I'm assuming most of you are familiar with the context within which I speak. 45 00:04:46,140 --> 00:04:53,550 So the Pakistan military specifically very briefly, has fought for cross-border wars with India and has fought many, 46 00:04:53,550 --> 00:05:00,940 countless counterinsurgency operations within the country. It is a volunteer force and has never had to resort. 47 00:05:00,940 --> 00:05:09,470 Of approximately one hundred and thirty thousand two hundred and forty thousand apply every year until we study to 40000 selected, 48 00:05:09,470 --> 00:05:19,820 and this sort of desire to enlist me is has been explained as a function of economic desperation and lack of alternative 49 00:05:19,820 --> 00:05:28,820 livelihood opportunities and has also been attributed to historical sort of good politics of these which are tied into race. 50 00:05:28,820 --> 00:05:35,660 The hangover of the Pakistan Army so close to 50 years after partition, we continue to draw from these areas. 51 00:05:35,660 --> 00:05:39,950 This is changed to some extent now, but of yes, so so. 52 00:05:39,950 --> 00:05:49,700 Pakistan Army itself has ruled directly or indirectly since Pakistan's creation and so boundaries being civil between the military 53 00:05:49,700 --> 00:05:56,570 and civil political institutions are potent but shifting and and very rarely do they shift in favour of civilian dominance. 54 00:05:56,570 --> 00:06:04,250 So and there is there is considerable scholarship on the Pakistan military, specifically on military civil relations. 55 00:06:04,250 --> 00:06:07,190 And so what? My role is slightly different from that. 56 00:06:07,190 --> 00:06:15,200 So in a sense, it's trying to understand Pakistani militaries, holdover imagination and the loyalty of Pakistani society. 57 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:27,080 And I'm sort of arguing my work that it's also this sort of pushes us to address our look beyond policy power of the military and 58 00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:36,110 try to identify the more insidious ways that the military and its norms and its tactics make their way into Pakistan's side. 59 00:06:36,110 --> 00:06:41,960 So Joseph Mazar. 60 00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:48,830 So this question of is, is it time to look at how the military produces a certain politics rather than how it it's just related to it? 61 00:06:48,830 --> 00:06:54,860 So my what I think lies in that sort of in that kind of view. 62 00:06:54,860 --> 00:07:01,220 So in terms of again, another context which might be relevant is this particular one that I speak about in the book, 63 00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:04,710 which is kind of the time period in which I did my research. 64 00:07:04,710 --> 00:07:12,680 So 2006 onwards as military operations, which were part of the global war on terror intensified in northwest Pakistan, 65 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:16,550 practises of commemoration took on a new political salience. 66 00:07:16,550 --> 00:07:21,290 So new ceremonies to commemorate the soldiers dying in these wars were instituted largely in 67 00:07:21,290 --> 00:07:26,780 response to the growing nervousness around this war that was being waged against the Muslim enemy, 68 00:07:26,780 --> 00:07:32,360 and fatwas were issued by religious and political parties that soldiers dying in 69 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,620 these wars were not shaheed or martyrs because they were fighting America's war, 70 00:07:36,620 --> 00:07:42,320 and that these bodies should not be buried in Muslim graveyards. And so much of Pakistan's history, 71 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:49,520 even though ethno nationalist conflicts within its borders have resulted in multiple military operations and casualties. 72 00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:55,640 This was the first sustained water effort against an enemy that claimed religion as its primary identity. 73 00:07:55,640 --> 00:08:02,330 So the military declared a separate day of marking the war dead and the military public relations being instituted. 74 00:08:02,330 --> 00:08:09,770 What with all the yarmysh of the Martyrs Day ceremony. So 2010 onwards, as this unpopular war reached on. 75 00:08:09,770 --> 00:08:16,280 We saw these annual national mega ceremonies apprehend within the general headquarters in India, 76 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:22,670 and the Amish orders were presided over by the chief of Army staff attended in large numbers by the next of kin of the dead, 77 00:08:22,670 --> 00:08:27,950 civilian government officials, media representatives and foreign dignitaries and and so on. 78 00:08:27,950 --> 00:08:32,210 And they were being live across the nation on all private and state-run channels. 79 00:08:32,210 --> 00:08:37,880 And the visibility of wives and mothers of soldiers, which is already a focus of nationalist and military symbolism, 80 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:47,060 was accentuated further as military PR strategies struggle to amplify grief and sympathy for the casualties of this war. 81 00:08:47,060 --> 00:08:50,030 So what I'm going to do is read a short portion of the book, 82 00:08:50,030 --> 00:08:57,500 which describes the sort of the ambience of these ceremonies and its product your day if you put your the first and second slide, 83 00:08:57,500 --> 00:09:04,660 and I'll just read through this short section to give you an idea what these ceremonies are like. 84 00:09:04,660 --> 00:09:11,940 And this is a reading of ethnographic reading of the ceremony that I attended. 85 00:09:11,940 --> 00:09:19,060 Yeah, so what's happened with what you've just done is that I've lost my spleen, which I was going to read from. 86 00:09:19,060 --> 00:09:30,070 Let me see. Can you just give me a second? 87 00:09:30,070 --> 00:09:33,910 Yeah, and back. Yes. So, OK, 88 00:09:33,910 --> 00:09:39,580 so it was a pleasant balmy evening with thunderous rows of chairs laid out in particular cemetery 89 00:09:39,580 --> 00:09:45,040 on the green expanse of a perfectly manicured lawn at the Pakistan Army general headquarters. 90 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:54,430 The Green Pakistan Army emblem nestled between the majestic white marble triangles of the Scottish monuments national colours of the evening. 91 00:09:54,430 --> 00:09:59,890 The monument rests on a massive state surrounded on all sides by giant elevated screens. 92 00:09:59,890 --> 00:10:06,730 Familiar patriotic anthems blared from loudspeakers by smartly dressed men and women in uniform, 93 00:10:06,730 --> 00:10:12,400 ushered in an audience of a couple of thousand people to do 2015 on my shoulder. 94 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:18,940 And now the military commemorative ceremony is about to commence. I see it in the next of kin enclosure during the programme. 95 00:10:18,940 --> 00:10:21,730 Seated here was the group from the village of Panopto, 96 00:10:21,730 --> 00:10:27,700 which had lost five young men in military service, three in the ongoing war in northwest Pakistan. 97 00:10:27,700 --> 00:10:33,100 Near the end of the ceremony, the colourful stage and larger than life screens went dark. 98 00:10:33,100 --> 00:10:36,850 The music stopped playing and the master of ceremonies announced to the hushed 99 00:10:36,850 --> 00:10:41,860 audience that the next on stage would be the mother of a shaheed father's widows. 100 00:10:41,860 --> 00:10:46,060 Daughters and sons of dead soldiers had already appeared on stage, 101 00:10:46,060 --> 00:10:51,310 and the finale in this commemorative ceremony had been reserved for the destiny of the mother. 102 00:10:51,310 --> 00:10:58,480 She walked onto the stage, stood confidently at the dais. Eyes glisten with tears as she spoke lovingly of her son. 103 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:02,830 At times, she stopped, took a deep breath and visibly steadied herself. 104 00:11:02,830 --> 00:11:07,780 But when she spoke, her voice did not favour. She spoke with pride and points ahead. 105 00:11:07,780 --> 00:11:10,090 Hentai, her grief hung in the air, 106 00:11:10,090 --> 00:11:17,890 but more touching to watch with the resolve ability to stand firm and resolute against the overwhelming loss that this death had brought. 107 00:11:17,890 --> 00:11:26,110 It was a powerful moment. The camera lingered on it and then swung to the audience, with some watching, all while others sobbed, cried side. 108 00:11:26,110 --> 00:11:33,310 I sat with Yasmeen, the mother of a young soldier who had died in South Waziristan in 2009. 109 00:11:33,310 --> 00:11:40,600 As Yasmeen watched the mothers speaking on stage, I remember the conversation we had back in her village about these testimonies. 110 00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:46,150 We had been sitting in a courtyard, a house filled with money received as compensation for her son's death, 111 00:11:46,150 --> 00:11:50,050 and Yasmeen had said to me, the army leaves after the funeral. 112 00:11:50,050 --> 00:11:54,490 It doesn't look that it was innocents into battle and says we'll fight. 113 00:11:54,490 --> 00:12:00,730 How would they know what happens inside the walls of the home? It is not so easy to accept this. 114 00:12:00,730 --> 00:12:06,460 Women will say we must send another son into the army. And then she paused. 115 00:12:06,460 --> 00:12:12,280 I don't know who these women are. So when the mother on stage made the predictable offering of another son, 116 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:17,890 Yasmeen turned to me with a raised eyebrow and the shape of my head and said, Look how easily, she says. 117 00:12:17,890 --> 00:12:19,660 A smile was rueful, and I wondered, 118 00:12:19,660 --> 00:12:28,240 if you do remember the earlier discussion within the hush of the case and to hear the rhetoric of continued sacrifice for the nation. 119 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:37,690 The section of the show that had the most resonance for the rest of the audience seemed to reverberate, reverberate the least and invokes cynicism. 120 00:12:37,690 --> 00:12:45,070 I felt surprised. A sense of canon is heightened by the dramatic affective register on stage and the response it seemed 121 00:12:45,070 --> 00:12:51,910 to invoke within spectators in other interviews that watch these performances and wars from afar. 122 00:12:51,910 --> 00:12:56,200 The surprise was directed not at what was initially unfolding before me, 123 00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:00,670 but days of glory and heroism and willing sacrifice woven around the dead in 124 00:13:00,670 --> 00:13:05,710 battle are nothing new and common to all national militaries across the world. 125 00:13:05,710 --> 00:13:10,780 What intrigued me instead, was not just the recognition of the force like nature of the spectacle, 126 00:13:10,780 --> 00:13:16,210 the force within the role upon ceaseless rule of families of military soldiers. 127 00:13:16,210 --> 00:13:21,880 But the impulse of these families to lend themselves to these orchestrations around death. 128 00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:30,430 So, yeah, so if I can, you can switch the presentation off if you like that. 129 00:13:30,430 --> 00:13:40,120 So so the figure of the mother on the magnificent stage that I just spoke about offering at the son to the nation and the 130 00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:49,060 overflowing mass of people in the next of kin enclosure at these ceremonies fairly obviously hint at the tragedy of death in words. 131 00:13:49,060 --> 00:13:58,360 But more importantly, I believe it tells us something about the almost casualness of life, the apparent ease with which it is offered to the military. 132 00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:05,470 These are subjects of violence that are willing to endure violence not only on their own bodies, but also on the bodies of the ones that they love. 133 00:14:05,470 --> 00:14:13,150 And for any definition of militarism world, it must consider the complicity of large numbers of soldiers and their families 134 00:14:13,150 --> 00:14:17,590 in these projects of war and their apparent willingness to suffer violence. 135 00:14:17,590 --> 00:14:23,860 And this attention to the complicity of subjects of militarism is important for obvious reasons because 136 00:14:23,860 --> 00:14:29,740 standing armies are integral to the ability of many militaries to survive and they will be forced. 137 00:14:29,740 --> 00:14:37,210 Time to come, despite all the technological advances that we see, so understanding this complicity is also necessary, I believe, 138 00:14:37,210 --> 00:14:46,210 for grasping the symbolic significance of these relationships and the associated themes for the need to sacrifice and die for the nation. 139 00:14:46,210 --> 00:14:51,790 Because these ceremonies also hold thousands who watch as spectators and to their affective responses, 140 00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:56,890 I believe become locked in a emotive relationship with war, violence and the military. 141 00:14:56,890 --> 00:15:05,230 And these soldiers and the families stand at the centre of war. And they make war not only possible, but they also make war seem worthwhile. 142 00:15:05,230 --> 00:15:13,390 So what I am proposing in my work and what I'm presenting today is that aspect is not just a ruse or propaganda or an embellishment for me, 143 00:15:13,390 --> 00:15:20,650 but is the substance of governing projects where statecraft is not opposed to the objective, which is more concerned with its mastery. 144 00:15:20,650 --> 00:15:27,820 So a notion similar to usual proposed notion of government can do with so the military sort of concerns itself 145 00:15:27,820 --> 00:15:34,720 with the distribution of sentiment and seeks to control both its excessive expression and the absence of it. 146 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:38,380 So it wants a certain amount of grief, but it does not want too much. 147 00:15:38,380 --> 00:15:46,120 So acquisition aspect and not as inconvenient facts of war that need to be managed by the central domenici's in Pakistan. 148 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:54,760 And I examine these stages of mourning as sites with complicity to the project of militarism is created and I borrow from. 149 00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:59,440 Those of you might be familiar with it who speaks about the political appropriation of dead bodies 150 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:05,110 and who suggests that dead bodies are great symbolic because one bodies cannot speak for themselves, 151 00:16:05,110 --> 00:16:09,100 which can be spoken for. And this ambiguity makes them very useful. 152 00:16:09,100 --> 00:16:16,810 And second, the bodies by dead bodies inspired or as they bring to surface questions of fears about the meaning of life and death, 153 00:16:16,810 --> 00:16:22,720 something we relate to. And they allow for an engagement with everyday afflicted emotions. 154 00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:31,300 And I extend these claims in my work to include the families of dead soldiers who was grief acts as a powerful symbolic capture 155 00:16:31,300 --> 00:16:39,640 and remains central to how the narrative of sacrifice service to the nation is kept alive by the Pakistani military that state. 156 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:49,330 So, however, AFG does not mean. I also would like to present the affect is not coming a purely disciplinary technique of mentality, 157 00:16:49,330 --> 00:16:55,870 but also has the potential to linger too long to have an afterlife and of being two things at the same time 158 00:16:55,870 --> 00:17:03,850 of being produced and harnessed by disciplinary frameworks and yet having the ability to exist outside them. 159 00:17:03,850 --> 00:17:11,380 So so for to understand the cynicism that I spoke about with regards to this mother earlier. 160 00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:20,220 We need to acknowledge the spaces that may be populated by a range of subject positions, those that allow for both disengagement and complicity. 161 00:17:20,220 --> 00:17:32,470 If not, I would ask you to put on the town tonight, so I'm going to speak a little bit about how these shows are made possible and this is. 162 00:17:32,470 --> 00:17:39,820 So this is the third slide which has writing on it. 163 00:17:39,820 --> 00:17:48,350 Yes. I could read it out as valid, but not sure what happened. 164 00:17:48,350 --> 00:17:52,700 OK. Yeah. You come up. Yeah, yeah. 165 00:17:52,700 --> 00:18:02,300 Thank you very much. So this is like an excerpt from an interview that I did with a military officer who was in charge in planning these ceremonies. 166 00:18:02,300 --> 00:18:05,780 So he speaks about why these ceremonies are important and what they do. 167 00:18:05,780 --> 00:18:12,590 So, he says in the show with the organisers, are talking about two things purpose and feeling the sentiment towards the nation 168 00:18:12,590 --> 00:18:17,480 and the feeling towards those families from sacrificing their loved ones. 169 00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:21,440 So you have to give these families space for expression of these feelings, 170 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:28,220 for these relations and space, for feeling that we, the audience have with these families. 171 00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:33,050 And this is how we can see that the sacrifice was, but this was a purposeful thing. 172 00:18:33,050 --> 00:18:37,370 And so and then he goes on to talk about that. It was speaking about a widow and state. 173 00:18:37,370 --> 00:18:42,800 So he says it was a brilliant moment when she stood there with her three children, the youngest in their arms, 174 00:18:42,800 --> 00:18:47,450 and she said she wanted my son to go into the military like his father, so attached to God. 175 00:18:47,450 --> 00:18:52,940 It was a very emotionally charged moment and it is to be at such moments of these commemorations are done. 176 00:18:52,940 --> 00:19:00,350 So this kind of speaks to the heart of what these events are about. So hear the sentiment of the family members towards their loved one. 177 00:19:00,350 --> 00:19:07,610 His or her grief is central to the grieving body of the family member is becomes the conduit to which the military speaks to the nation. 178 00:19:07,610 --> 00:19:16,430 So the widow is this image which is created for consumption of the nation and the appeal to the nation is made an effective active duty in sight. 179 00:19:16,430 --> 00:19:24,620 So, so if you deconstruct the craft of these shows beyond the Strip, which is the script or the narrative is what is said, what must be said. 180 00:19:24,620 --> 00:19:31,730 And so the script and the narrative speaks to discourses of kinship, gender and religion, 181 00:19:31,730 --> 00:19:35,750 which is forces to which we know the national subject is imagined, right? 182 00:19:35,750 --> 00:19:40,850 But it's what I pay more attention to is the craft or how it is to be said or 183 00:19:40,850 --> 00:19:45,560 the creation of this ambulance that is critical for the script to be delivered. 184 00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:52,970 And so maybe talking about the effect that is produced within these performance inspectors, if you could go on to the next slide. 185 00:19:52,970 --> 00:20:04,450 Laura, thanks. So, so there's there's a fair amount of construction that goes on backstage for testimony by family members to happen. 186 00:20:04,450 --> 00:20:12,630 And so I think Clara, could we have the next slide? 187 00:20:12,630 --> 00:20:20,430 OK, so, so so this is another sort of short excerpt from another interview with another 188 00:20:20,430 --> 00:20:25,080 military officer who's also in charge of looking at and developing these programmes, 189 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:34,980 we talked about prepping this father for or fought for this well, giving his testimony on steroids. 190 00:20:34,980 --> 00:20:42,030 He says it is a hard job because this gets the Senate has died two years ago and we want him to relive it again. 191 00:20:42,030 --> 00:20:49,140 We have to give the right dose injection because he can't continue to break down for two days at his father, who kept trying. 192 00:20:49,140 --> 00:20:54,780 It's a delicate task, just the right emotion and some amount of acting. It has to be a mix. 193 00:20:54,780 --> 00:20:58,500 We tell him his grief is not just his grief. His son is not just his son. 194 00:20:58,500 --> 00:21:03,170 He needs to think beyond grief about beyond. Needs to think about grief beyond him. 195 00:21:03,170 --> 00:21:07,780 He asked to share his grief so others can also breathe and know what it feels like. 196 00:21:07,780 --> 00:21:15,100 So and then he speaks about a father who had been difficult to breath for Dawn State's testimony, and he speaks about what happened on stage. 197 00:21:15,100 --> 00:21:19,500 So he says on the stage, you did a good job and spoke well and the whole audience was crying. 198 00:21:19,500 --> 00:21:21,330 He didn't cry just a little bit. 199 00:21:21,330 --> 00:21:27,600 And then as he walked back, he made a thumbs up sign with me, and it was a strange moment because it showed that he was acting. 200 00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:31,950 It's a mixture of grief and two percent of acting. And that's the way it is done. 201 00:21:31,950 --> 00:21:40,230 It is a performance that uses real emotions. So this is an exchange with a very raw and personal emotions become material for state 202 00:21:40,230 --> 00:21:47,430 scrutiny and casting a testimony made possible to an integrity of the fake and the authentic. 203 00:21:47,430 --> 00:21:50,160 And yet, even as the fake and the authentic life together, 204 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:55,860 the ability to recognise the fake remains the thumbs up sign that the old man speaks to that community. 205 00:21:55,860 --> 00:22:05,070 So this is what's happening on stage and backstage, but I talk a little bit about the audience and then we move on to the next space. 206 00:22:05,070 --> 00:22:16,290 So so this property of a political spectacle, which gives people a feeling of participation or inclusion without really being obligated to respond. 207 00:22:16,290 --> 00:22:27,270 There's been work on this by and order. Adams and I agree with what obviously I've learnt and sort of build upon the work that they've done, 208 00:22:27,270 --> 00:22:34,590 but I argue for a more fluid sort of relationship between the participant and the spectator. 209 00:22:34,590 --> 00:22:39,360 And so for more fluidity that the people move from one position to the other. 210 00:22:39,360 --> 00:22:47,130 And I posit that the audience in these spectacles plays a distinct, if carefully, the whole role. 211 00:22:47,130 --> 00:22:48,960 So the audience is often Indias, 212 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:55,620 and the camera captures this display of emotion and it shifts from the stage with remarkable and almost obsessive frequency. 213 00:22:55,620 --> 00:23:01,800 And what is often mocked and typical in these spectacles is a composure, despite heavy grief of these families. 214 00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:09,150 So families resonate with emotion that simmer on the surface bends over, and this emotion spills over into years. 215 00:23:09,150 --> 00:23:13,290 And yet the speech never forces and the words never go off script. 216 00:23:13,290 --> 00:23:19,800 And this composure is often at odds with the unbridled and jaded display of peers in the audience. 217 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:26,310 And there's a need, therefore, to project the devastation of loss and grief so that the nation can be better and worse can be justified. 218 00:23:26,310 --> 00:23:32,640 And yet, the families do not fulfil that function because that destabilises the script of billing and people sacrifice. 219 00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:40,980 And so to hit the audience, become the audience by becoming participants in the show fulfilled this function, 220 00:23:40,980 --> 00:23:46,650 and the grief and sacrifice becomes a part of the Pentecost quote-unquote tropes through 221 00:23:46,650 --> 00:23:51,930 which the military and the nation then communicate start to communicate with each other. 222 00:23:51,930 --> 00:24:02,670 So this was the first section and move on to the role of space now, so we couldn't possibly turn off to slide it you or your dad. 223 00:24:02,670 --> 00:24:07,530 And then I'll just continue. OK, so so are you been good with the sound, right? 224 00:24:07,530 --> 00:24:14,380 As we know. All good so far, yes. 225 00:24:14,380 --> 00:24:22,450 OK, so, so so this I talked briefly about the practises of belief in the landscape with most 226 00:24:22,450 --> 00:24:26,620 of these families live and I trace grief around the death of the Soldier Infantry 227 00:24:26,620 --> 00:24:33,070 Temple is marked by how the private movement shifts into the public space and yet retains 228 00:24:33,070 --> 00:24:38,170 and interiority even as it moves in sync with the demands of military discipline. 229 00:24:38,170 --> 00:24:42,040 The first is the news of the death. The point at which the body arrives in the house. 230 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:48,760 And the second is the funeral. And the time is when grief is infused into everyday, ceaseless, mundane existence. 231 00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,060 So grief part one is the manner in which the death is announced. 232 00:24:52,060 --> 00:24:58,660 And this is especially important for the military because it sets the tone for the relationship between the family and the military, 233 00:24:58,660 --> 00:25:08,260 and that emerges at this particular moment. And it's an interesting relationship because for the military that the very normalcy of death 234 00:25:08,260 --> 00:25:13,180 it's very expected and its own preparedness for it is in sharp contrast with the very intimate, 235 00:25:13,180 --> 00:25:18,460 permanent structure that the families experience and to the military administrative machinery 236 00:25:18,460 --> 00:25:23,940 doles out preordained standard operating procedures that include stuff like You know, 237 00:25:23,940 --> 00:25:32,290 who who. And who in the military will inform this question, how many people will go to the funeral with unit being mobilised, 238 00:25:32,290 --> 00:25:34,750 how the body will be transferred and so on and so forth? 239 00:25:34,750 --> 00:25:40,450 What instructions will be given to the village cleric for the reading of the prayer and so on? 240 00:25:40,450 --> 00:25:47,800 So at the same time, the military also plays. Somebody pays very careful attention to the emotional toll of this incident, 241 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:58,770 which is an almost negotiated stance that will discipline aspect and yet tolerate excesses and even superficial benevolence management on. 242 00:25:58,770 --> 00:26:02,130 And management is very gendered with the masculine military, 243 00:26:02,130 --> 00:26:08,910 manages the external business of dying and tolerating and tolerates the excess excesses of the naive feminine, 244 00:26:08,910 --> 00:26:20,020 which are personified by the family, men and women. And the village was grief is must be met and. 245 00:26:20,020 --> 00:26:25,330 They're doing good and tomato mourning for the shaheed is discouraged. 246 00:26:25,330 --> 00:26:32,080 And this is a religious group that is defeated by the village clinic and actively appropriated by the military and especially discourage. 247 00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:39,880 And yet, perhaps because of this, when mothers spoke about news and the funeral they spoke with. 248 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:56,470 In the terms of. Margaret, you've just frozen a bit, I think hopefully it'll come back soon in the second. 249 00:26:56,470 --> 00:27:29,930 He might be worth turning a video of Maria. If you could just give it a minute, hopefully it be back home soon. 250 00:27:29,930 --> 00:27:35,100 Might be the internet connexion or something just went down for her, so hopefully she'll be back on it in a minute. 251 00:27:35,100 --> 00:28:08,900 So if you can just be patient? Sorry about that. I'm assuming there is rejoining the inner circle about this. 252 00:28:08,900 --> 00:28:19,480 Yes. I think just coming back on this problem with, I guess, a connexion from, you know, remote connexion sometimes have these problems. 253 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:30,330 But hopefully it should be should work out. Yes, we can now you can on camera off to be on the safe side. 254 00:28:30,330 --> 00:28:33,710 Sounds good. Yeah. Let's keep it off for a bit. Yeah. 255 00:28:33,710 --> 00:28:40,730 Apologies for this, and I'll just continue, so I'm speaking about martyrdom and mourning and how that's discouraged. 256 00:28:40,730 --> 00:28:47,390 So, for example, professional beepers, which are very much part of cultural practise of dying in Punjab, 257 00:28:47,390 --> 00:28:50,900 are not allowed for this funeral because vans, 258 00:28:50,900 --> 00:28:57,530 which which is like a Punjabi mourning ritual, are especially like an energy which is read out for the dead. 259 00:28:57,530 --> 00:29:02,810 And it involves wailing and crying, especially discourage at this point in time. 260 00:29:02,810 --> 00:29:11,150 And yet, in my encounters with women, especially mothers, many did sort of break into when they spoke about their sons and the choice of words. 261 00:29:11,150 --> 00:29:17,570 And this energy was often one of deep anger and rejection of the narrative of meaning for death. 262 00:29:17,570 --> 00:29:26,240 And I think it was one that is one of the book itself, and some expressed the wish the son had died when he was a child. 263 00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:31,760 That would have been less meaningful, perhaps, but more acceptable to them. 264 00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:40,200 Then you have another way of managing aspect is the access the families allowed to the body, so the bodies mutilated as may. 265 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:47,150 Maybe in the case of the explosions, which was which were very, very common and still are in this particular context. 266 00:29:47,150 --> 00:29:50,570 The coffin is nailed shut and the family is not allowed to touch it. 267 00:29:50,570 --> 00:29:57,500 And the mothers often remember this moment and this helplessness of not being allowed to touch their son for one us for the last time, 268 00:29:57,500 --> 00:30:02,150 and for some, it was a regret that they lived with, and for others it became a moment of defiance. 269 00:30:02,150 --> 00:30:09,990 Of example, this one woman speaks about. And I write about this in the book, where she speaks about using a player to open, 270 00:30:09,990 --> 00:30:19,070 sort of trying to put the lid on the glass lid and touch the face of her child before he was buried. 271 00:30:19,070 --> 00:30:30,670 So, so that's sort of the various ways in which the military tries to control affect at the time of the arrival of the body in the village. 272 00:30:30,670 --> 00:30:40,570 And then then there is the funeral itself, right? And if Klara, if you're there, would you put their two slides towards the two slides, 273 00:30:40,570 --> 00:30:45,010 which will give some various cities give a glimpse of what consumers are like, 274 00:30:45,010 --> 00:30:55,720 so and so these tightly choreographed ceremonies and I was not blessed to be able to see a funeral, but I was doing my fieldwork covered. 275 00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:03,660 A lot of these families make phone videos or sometimes even professional videos of these very, very spectacular events that are held in villages. 276 00:31:03,660 --> 00:31:05,950 So I was able to see a number of those. 277 00:31:05,950 --> 00:31:12,760 And what I read out now is another small section of the book, which which is like a would sort of describe what I saw in these videos. 278 00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:17,050 So this is one of the videos, and I just read that section. 279 00:31:17,050 --> 00:31:24,220 So the first shot of the recording of the funeral for a soldier from the village is often a dead body, shall we? 280 00:31:24,220 --> 00:31:30,460 It is not a sitting body. The face is mutilated with black sutures around the mouth, possibly to stop it from leaving. 281 00:31:30,460 --> 00:31:35,680 The white shroud has two distinct bloodstains stains. The idea is discoloured, swollen and bruised. 282 00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,640 The shot captures the body from all sides dragging over the disfigurement. 283 00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:45,850 The lingering gaze of the camera is in direct opposition to how the military protocol demands of the body remain covered. 284 00:31:45,850 --> 00:31:54,310 The persistence and recording the man's body that the army wishes to build defies the narrative of the glorious body dead in service. 285 00:31:54,310 --> 00:31:58,810 It is a body of someone, not a beast, so possibly in much pain when he died. 286 00:31:58,810 --> 00:32:05,590 It is no sound at this point. The bodies inside a coffin, but the lid has been opened hardly once the lid is closed, 287 00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:10,660 the body's not too safe, with only a small portion of the face chewing through the glass section. 288 00:32:10,660 --> 00:32:14,890 As if this distancing was not enough, a flag is draped over the coffin. 289 00:32:14,890 --> 00:32:21,310 The second shot is of an all new crowd of villagers carrying the coffin to the uneven, dusty terrain of the village. 290 00:32:21,310 --> 00:32:27,130 In the background is the sound of bitter, weeping, possibly from a woman standing close to the person filming. 291 00:32:27,130 --> 00:32:30,760 There is no audio to this crowd of mourners, at least to the onlooker. 292 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:35,290 It seems it is not a central group holding the coffin while others swirl around it. 293 00:32:35,290 --> 00:32:41,170 It is the sound of men chanting a verse from the put on a dull little sound and repetitive. 294 00:32:41,170 --> 00:32:46,450 The coffins progress is not even it stops, apparently for no reason, and then starts again. 295 00:32:46,450 --> 00:32:47,830 It almost meanders through the field, 296 00:32:47,830 --> 00:32:53,200 giving the impression of a lack of weapons as though the group doesn't know where it's going and is in no hurry to arrive there. 297 00:32:53,200 --> 00:33:00,560 The man in the front, or at least some of them are visibly distressed, even as they chant on by post from the eyes women follow at the back, 298 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:05,170 separated from the main crowd, hesitant and scattered yet very much there. 299 00:33:05,170 --> 00:33:08,530 These women have come to see the gymnasium, which is a funeral, 300 00:33:08,530 --> 00:33:13,450 and unlike the men who have come to lead the funeral and be part of the funeral procession. 301 00:33:13,450 --> 00:33:20,080 Many women are perched on rooftops that dot the landscape, the more colourful floats providing relief from the rather gloomy, 302 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:24,670 drab and colourless procession that moves forward, seemingly going nowhere. 303 00:33:24,670 --> 00:33:34,000 So there's a slide off of, I think of women sitting on rooftops, at funerals and at the graveyard. 304 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,480 At one point, the camera swerves and we acknowledge a new presence. 305 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:45,250 Men dressed in combat camouflage the Pakistan battle dress uniform and stand out different out of place on the fringes of the crowd. 306 00:33:45,250 --> 00:33:52,340 They look deferential, almost hesitant. They downcast eyes and posture, totally at odds with what is to follow. 307 00:33:52,340 --> 00:33:59,230 Another swell of the camera and we see three army vehicles one large truck and the other two motorbikes and small busts. 308 00:33:59,230 --> 00:34:02,650 There is no metal road here, just dusty, marked unmarked trains. 309 00:34:02,650 --> 00:34:07,720 The presence of these could stand up after the earlier chanting the silence follows. 310 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,270 The nomadic genocide is almost deafening. 311 00:34:10,270 --> 00:34:18,280 The body has been handed over to the military after the scene repaired around the newly dug open gave the villagers are seated in an auditorium. 312 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:25,270 Watching and waiting for soldiers now carry the coffin to the graveyard from the large field with a few hundred families. 313 00:34:25,270 --> 00:34:31,690 Gone is the studied nonchalance. These smartly dressed men are charged with toddlers as they march in unison, 314 00:34:31,690 --> 00:34:37,150 pass the tombstones through a corridor of soldiers and dwarves to name a few. 315 00:34:37,150 --> 00:34:42,100 Villagers are in sight as the coffin moves forward through the corridor. 316 00:34:42,100 --> 00:34:47,020 Soldiers salute by changing the position of their guns. The coffin is carried ceremoniously. 317 00:34:47,020 --> 00:34:52,450 Each step is measured in marked contrast to how we had earlier. 318 00:34:52,450 --> 00:34:59,140 Earlier, the men carried it, but carrying it without breathless, grief stricken, almost to the point of impotence. 319 00:34:59,140 --> 00:35:04,870 But here it is said that is order and here there is meaning the coffin is placed on the ground. 320 00:35:04,870 --> 00:35:13,120 The men carrying it mortuary and four other men walk up to untie the flag draped over the coffin, which is ceremoniously folded and put aside. 321 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,680 The coffin is now carried to debate the two men on itis on each side, 322 00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:23,980 loading it with religious and family members join in the process and as the coffin is lowered to capture, 323 00:35:23,980 --> 00:35:29,760 the camera captures it descending into the sound of someone sobbing and continuous, monotonous crying. 324 00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:36,210 Someone says maybe, but you, my child. But these are inconsolable, disjointed sounds, almost as an aside. 325 00:35:36,210 --> 00:35:39,030 No one takes much notice and no one joins in. 326 00:35:39,030 --> 00:35:48,360 There's a brief shot of a man sitting next to an open meeting, steady crying sound, and there is a flash of colour. 327 00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:54,180 A woman at the grave. Maybe the mother. Or maybe a sister. But the camera doesn't linger on and life on the national stage. 328 00:35:54,180 --> 00:36:04,170 Women are conditioned to image. So and now briefly talk about phase three, which is what I spoke about once the army leaves how, 329 00:36:04,170 --> 00:36:11,100 what, what, what, what, what is sort of unfolding, how that progresses. 330 00:36:11,100 --> 00:36:18,000 And so, so villages are full of images of the states that seemingly set up by villagers themselves. 331 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:24,660 So there's a village crossroad, which are often named after the people who've died in the various wars they are boards at village 332 00:36:24,660 --> 00:36:29,970 entrances that have pictures of these showed us that the graves themselves are very ornate, 333 00:36:29,970 --> 00:36:34,800 and they're painted as they're painted buses from to put on their symbols of the state, 334 00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:42,030 such as the flag off in the name of the unit, the back in the day, and also inscribed on the tombstone by seeds, which are annual, 335 00:36:42,030 --> 00:36:49,170 sort of mourning the death anniversaries, which are very much part of cultural religious practises in Punjab, 336 00:36:49,170 --> 00:36:55,020 but that they have a distinct military flavour. So these are sites and practises that vilify the state. 337 00:36:55,020 --> 00:37:08,280 We are subject to subjugate themselves and will reduce is clearly gone through the music fields. 338 00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:14,760 And yet once the army trucks leave, that is when Prince really starts to unfold and and side by side. 339 00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,230 Reapplication, uncivilised, defiance and ambivalence, some of which I spoke about. 340 00:37:19,230 --> 00:37:24,600 So there are many stories being added to speak of practises of driving that are not in sync with 341 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,820 military narratives of sacrifice and a threat that seems to surface in narratives of families. 342 00:37:29,820 --> 00:37:36,240 It's one of the exact regrets that the son went into service regret. 343 00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:46,560 Can you hear me? Is there a problem? You can, you know, you find this part. 344 00:37:46,560 --> 00:38:01,150 OK, so, so sorry. So this is often what surfaces in these narratives is this sense of regret that the son went into service to get that 345 00:38:01,150 --> 00:38:08,610 they didn't insist that he deserved them so that they can save him if and when the son did express a desire to leave. 346 00:38:08,610 --> 00:38:09,780 So they spoke about it. 347 00:38:09,780 --> 00:38:17,370 Some wistfulness, I mean, angered, some deeply saddened about his father continuing with the Amazon story and spoke about the mother earlier. 348 00:38:17,370 --> 00:38:24,330 So he'd earlier expressed regret that he did not have the resources to take his son out of the army after his deployment to a combat zone. 349 00:38:24,330 --> 00:38:30,870 And he told me, he told The Guardian reported him after his son's death that if he had done sons, he would give them to the army. 350 00:38:30,870 --> 00:38:35,610 And so, you know, obviously I was trying to connect the two narratives and asked him why. 351 00:38:35,610 --> 00:38:40,410 He said that when he'd expressed his regret at not being able to save his son. 352 00:38:40,410 --> 00:38:49,770 So he expanded this compulsion to me. But through using this phrase, which other I found a lot of other family members also use, 353 00:38:49,770 --> 00:38:55,020 which is gain upper hand, which is, you have to say it, it's your comfort that you have to do this. 354 00:38:55,020 --> 00:38:59,580 So acknowledging almost that, what he said in this moment is almost rhetorical. 355 00:38:59,580 --> 00:39:05,580 So the phrase Ganapathy up that high signifies an awareness very demystification. 356 00:39:05,580 --> 00:39:09,510 So the question then becomes Why do these subjects and hold on to these masks? 357 00:39:09,510 --> 00:39:14,850 And and one one sort of response to that is economics and material benefits is obviously 358 00:39:14,850 --> 00:39:19,410 one way to explain the military's obvious an extraordinary hold on these populations. 359 00:39:19,410 --> 00:39:25,440 The fear of the military apparatus is another and very practical repercussions of making the dissonance known. 360 00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:32,100 But this is only half the story because in these villages, it is also about grief and the strong emotions of Genevieve's, 361 00:39:32,100 --> 00:39:36,810 as well as a need to make meaning out what has been lost so that their loss can be justified. 362 00:39:36,810 --> 00:39:43,200 So religious fluctuate between criticising the military and betraying annoying and seeing that they express to offend, 363 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:47,580 even as they actively perform the desired steps of jihad and for deletion. 364 00:39:47,580 --> 00:39:53,700 So family attitudes and speak of and what I call affective affective residues that haunt them. 365 00:39:53,700 --> 00:40:02,340 Regret about the inability to save the child. Violent death and guilt at their own insistence that they go into military service in the first place. 366 00:40:02,340 --> 00:40:11,820 So ideology or the belief in the narrative of sacrifice operates not to help the families evade social reality, which is the death of a loved one, 367 00:40:11,820 --> 00:40:22,230 but helps to build a social reality that is seen as meaningful to escape from this traumatic realisation of their implications of this death. 368 00:40:22,230 --> 00:40:26,190 And that is what I believe makes the discarding of the mask almost unthinkable. 369 00:40:26,190 --> 00:40:33,330 So it is the substance that makes militaristic narratives come alive and to attention to it, to its afterlife and residues. 370 00:40:33,330 --> 00:40:40,200 We can also become a bit of the disjuncture that exists between hegemonic projects and its reception within its subjects. 371 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:48,360 So affect not only makes these fantasies possible, but it also makes them forever fragile and never at ease and in need of constant reaffirmation. 372 00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:56,580 So this very phrase, the number that he speaks in the sense of constant doing a perpetual fixing of meaning. 373 00:40:56,580 --> 00:41:00,990 So these moments that hold the potential for challenge moments that that affect them, 374 00:41:00,990 --> 00:41:07,080 whether it's contestation, paradoxically become the very gestures that allow for the consolidation of powers. 375 00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:14,550 So the next of kin recognises the utility of wars and the use of blood to serve a construct that they may not believe in yet, 376 00:41:14,550 --> 00:41:18,150 except this violence of themselves and on the bodies of those that they love. 377 00:41:18,150 --> 00:41:21,780 They stayed because they know the military is watching and the desire is continued. 378 00:41:21,780 --> 00:41:29,530 Patronage is saved because otherwise the son's death would be futile and the brief to great sense of the. 379 00:41:29,530 --> 00:41:38,230 It's dream of a nation in glory. And they say, because they need to say to avoid the realisation and get that the risk taken was perhaps too great. 380 00:41:38,230 --> 00:41:43,150 And I'm not going to thank you. I just have a couple of comments to make. 381 00:41:43,150 --> 00:41:48,970 So, so, so really, so what does it affect? Events add to understanding of more militarism. 382 00:41:48,970 --> 00:41:58,090 And so, so so I propose that I look at the experiences and motivation of foot soldiers of those who die and lose their loved ones. 383 00:41:58,090 --> 00:42:08,680 Die opens up a more intimate place which to study militarism and the work of communities of focus on the affective domain enables an 384 00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:17,290 understanding of how ethic associated with military that can act as a formidable deterrent to any challenge of the militarism project. 385 00:42:17,290 --> 00:42:22,750 This ability of epic to stifle dissent within a month the direct subjects of militarism or within 386 00:42:22,750 --> 00:42:29,770 citizenry is important to recognise because if you investigate anti-war at anti-war activism, 387 00:42:29,770 --> 00:42:37,300 you'll see that criticism is often weakened by a desire to show respect for the families of the deceased and the sentiments of soldiers. 388 00:42:37,300 --> 00:42:41,110 So even when state policies have led that have led to combat have been challenged, 389 00:42:41,110 --> 00:42:46,570 limits are placed on these critiques by an emotional appeal that demands that protesters might support soldiers. 390 00:42:46,570 --> 00:42:54,310 It's not the war. And we see this time and time again in anti-war protest or activism, be it Pakistan, be in the UK, 391 00:42:54,310 --> 00:43:02,320 US specifically in the context of the recent, somewhat, you know, quote-unquote Unpopular War and then at lunchtime. 392 00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:10,360 So the question then is does any challenge to the war project becomes sealed inside the epic attached to the grief and suffering of death? 393 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:16,240 And I have outlined in my work the many times that despite overt compliance with ethics unit regulation, 394 00:43:16,240 --> 00:43:25,900 the ethics of soldiers and families escapes discipline, and it's expressing itself through emotion that feeds it to challenge regimes of power. 395 00:43:25,900 --> 00:43:32,530 So I think it's being so appropriate for consolidating militarism all over its subjects 396 00:43:32,530 --> 00:43:37,690 becomes a very medium that allows subjects to express discontent specifically to, 397 00:43:37,690 --> 00:43:41,980 you know, various to the troops through grief. 398 00:43:41,980 --> 00:43:50,740 And although these ambivalent acts of protest are very much ambivalent because they are now subverting to exist alongside complicity, 399 00:43:50,740 --> 00:43:55,780 they nonetheless reveal an interesting trajectory that allows subjects to escape subjection. 400 00:43:55,780 --> 00:44:00,580 And regarding these dissonances therefore becomes an important exercise to understand power. 401 00:44:00,580 --> 00:44:10,900 So it's an important theoretical exercise, and it can also be become a deeply political one to understand resistance against these projects. 402 00:44:10,900 --> 00:44:16,960 So, so I offer that more militarism operates to a blending and mixing of spaces. 403 00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:25,510 The line between civilian and the military are constantly drawn. Events that commemorate Wal-Mart does represent an abandoned civilisation of 404 00:44:25,510 --> 00:44:29,950 military spaces opposite to what is normally studied in military military studies, 405 00:44:29,950 --> 00:44:32,590 which is a militarisation of civilian spaces. 406 00:44:32,590 --> 00:44:39,250 And this mixing of the civilian with the military creates a powerful engine of participation, compliance and support. 407 00:44:39,250 --> 00:44:44,470 And this alliance between the victims of war and its perpetrators therefore goes unquestioned because to challenge 408 00:44:44,470 --> 00:44:51,670 these spectacles is to refute or dishonour the very genuine aspect of families on display and the Pakistan military, 409 00:44:51,670 --> 00:44:57,950 for example. This is the case study that I'm presenting, and other militaries do this as well create a false equivalence. 410 00:44:57,950 --> 00:45:03,640 Just as painted grief and loss cannot be questioned, the state also becomes unquestionable. 411 00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:11,080 So if you are to understand militaries ability to establish reparation for what is normal and necessary and to demand second phase, 412 00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:18,810 it is important to expose the mechanisms through which it makes sense to me that I've argued in my book and today, 413 00:45:18,810 --> 00:45:26,140 hopefully that it is deliberately entangled with the bodies of the dead and the ethic that is associated with it. 414 00:45:26,140 --> 00:45:31,060 So I'll stop here. And yeah, and I hope you all stay here. 415 00:45:31,060 --> 00:45:33,076 We can then continue to talk.