Reflections on Homeland and Security

Homeland Security. A brilliantly simple phrase, for who among us does not desire, above all, to be safe in our own home? And who would not take such measures as may be necessary or expend all available resources to protect it?

In the context of the United States' current War on Terror, this concept has been consistently invoked to justify the expenditure of billions of dollars, the sacrifice of thousands of American lives and untold hundreds of thousands of others' lives, and the imposition of increasingly expansive and repressive governmental powers. Such measures have not gone unchallenged, but the discussion has focused on the particulars: Which liberties are we willing to sacrifice and for how long? Will more access to personal information lead investigators to potential terrorists? How can immigrants be more carefully screened and tracked? Can citizens be detained indefinitely without charge, or should some time limit apply? Under what circumstances is torture acceptable?

In so focusing our discussions, we accept certain premises without thought, presume certain truths to be so fundamental as to need no scrutiny. But when we see the most basic of constitutional protections evaporate in the face of unsupported assertions of an urgent need to protect national security, it behooves us to consider what is being protected, for whom, and at what cost.

One set of foundational truths embedded in the Weltanschauung that underlies the terror wars¹ in which the United States is currently engaged can be distilled as follows: the homeland to be defended is the United States, defined by clear territorial boundaries; the "we" being defended are U.S. citizens and our invited guests; the threats to our collective well-being come from outside and are embodied in foreign enemies and their agents. It is upon this premise that resources are allocated; funds expended; laws passed; persons detained, interrogated, or deported; and public support, or at least acquiescence, obtained. But does this framework survive because it reflects reality or because we are engaged in a process, explicit or implicit, of collective denial?

The Homeland

Columbus Day is a national holiday. It is indisputably understood that in 1492 this continent was already home to more than 400 nations of indigenous people, yet children continue to be taught that the United States owes its existence to the discovery of America by Columbus. The historical truths of the genocidal policies, wars and massacres, fraudulent and broken treaties, and mass internments that were required to clear the land for Euro-American colonization have been widely published.² The continuing effects of this process are not only documented but readily available to anyone who bothers to look: American Indian peoples are still here, they have not conveniently disappeared as a result of contact with a more "advanced" civilization; they continue to press their claims for land and other treaty-guaranteed rights; and as a result of their dispossession, they are today the most impoverished subgroup of the U.S. population, with all the attendant—and entirely predictable—consequences of poor health, substandard housing, unemployment, inferior education, extraordinarily high suicide rates, and concomitant disintegration of family and community structures (Strickland 1997, 53).

Every year, there are protests of the continued celebration of the man who embodies this ongoing legacy of genocide, slavery, dispossession, and colonization. Yet they are poorly attended by those outside indigenous communities, reflecting a more general attitude that these are not serious political concerns but fringe issues best left to the dream-catcher/vision-seeking/healing-circle crowd. On the whole, self-proclaimed liberals, leftists, and progressives who readily denounce racism, economic inequities, environmental degradation, sexism, and homophobia at home and are quick to criticize wars, imperialism, globalization, and U.S. support of corrupt regimes elsewhere respond to indigenous issues within the U.S.-claimed boundaries with a stunning silence.

Faced with questions about the nature, legitimacy, and implications of the continued occupation of this...