Insurgency

What is an “insurgency”? Who or what are “insurgents”? Are they different from “guerrilla” fighters or “rebels”?

I try to pay attention to the language of “media-speak”. When a word like “insurgent” is used to refer to people in Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia or Afghanistan, it is used to evoke a particular image. What do you see when you hear “insurgent”?

Mirriam-Webster’s definition of “insurgency” is this: “the quality or state of being insurgent; specifically, a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as belligerency.”

In other words, it’s a loosely organized rebellion by an indigenous population that does not agree with other nations’ recognition of the formal government under which they live, and who do not, themselves, constitute an internationally recognized nation or state.

It seems to me that “insurgency” has no real meaning outside the context of empire. It takes an empire to superimpose a government on people who prefer their own, more local traditions of governance.

When I hear the word “insurgent” spoken, it sounds to me like “insubordinate” or “insolent”. I imagine adolescent troublemakers who just make trouble for the sake of making trouble. They simply won’t accept the rule of authorities other than themselves. They resist change, and their idealism may be commendable but they are prone to behaviors that belie their underlying evil nature. They are also anachronistic, refusing to yield to the inevitable march of the Modern Materialistic Imperial Movement. The Emperor’s crocodile tears may flow, but insurgents simply must be crushed.

Matthew Hoh was a U.S. Marine captain who served tours in Afghanistan before leaving the Marines to work in Afghanistan as a civilian advisor to the U.S. Department of State. Last month he submitted his letter of resignation, and began campaigning in Washington, D.C. for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. In his letter (which is posted on www.npr.org), he gives extensive detail regarding his decision to resign. “The Pashtun insurgency”, he writes, “which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies.”

The Bush administration began the current phase of this “sustained assault” on the pretense of chasing Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and prosecuting the former president's “war on terror”. I see it as just one more case of imperial ambitions trumping the dignity and autonomy, rights and traditions of indigenous populations. If we're at all evolving as a species, it's time we put an end to the Age of Empire.