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Abstract

In this article, I, as a subaltern, offer a reverse gaze on White security plans to rescue the world from the tide of violent extremism. Violent extremism has been identified as a global security threat by the United Nations, which announced a Plan of Action to combat the threat in 2016. Education has been considered a valuable tool for preventing violent extremism. In 2017, UNESCO published a policy guide explaining how education can be used to prevent violent extremism. This article offers a critique of the UNESCO policy guide, using the construct of White ignorance as explained by Charles Mills and Jennifer Mueller’s Theory of Racial Ignorance. This critique, coming from a location (Pakistan) where education has been under intense White scrutiny since 9/11, owing to its alleged link with violent ideologies, provides an inverse perspective on the problem of violent extremism. Using Mills’s concept of the epistemology of ignorance, I argue that international security policies view security as maintenance of White hegemony and refuse to listen to the people labelled as a security problem by White epistemic authorities. I contend that it is the White security policy that needs to be educated to prevent violence and maintain durable security.

Keywords

Epistemic violence Pakistan preventing violent extremism security policy subaltern White ignorance

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A subaltern gaze on White ignorance,(in)security and the possibility of educating the White rescue plans

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Keywords

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