Whither societas civilis in the Asia–Pacific after 11 September: ideological absolutism and ethics in an age of terror

Abstract

Dominant discourses and strategies of the post-11 September ‘war on terror’ reflect an ideological absolutism that has left the democratic space of civil society in the Asia–Pacific severely curtailed and compressed. Recovery of this distinct space of freedom, so crucial to ‘civilisational’ amity, begins with the strategic deconstruction of the totalising logics and practices underwriting not only the words and deeds of religious militants but also those of state actors. Accordingly, amity is best sought not through uncritical fidelity to essentialist and exclusivist understandings of subjectivity, but acknowledgement and acceptance of the reality that the self is necessarily indebted to the other, to which the former must exercise an ethical responsibility.