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DO NOT LOOK AT BOX 4.2 until you have read the next few lines.
First, make a column of numbers from 1 to 12. Second, get ready to look at the list of
countries in Box 4.2. Don’t look yet. I want you to read the name of each country in
turn and write the first word that comes into your head—no matter what it is. The key
to this exercise is not to think too deeply, and not to worry about what you are writing.
Tip: don’t write the name of the country, just move through the list quickly. Go!
1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
51
6
7
8
9
40
1
2
3
4
5111
R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S O F G E O P O L I T I C A L C O D E S
83
Once you have written the list you can consider the following questions:
1
What are the sources of the images or ideas behind the word you wrote?
Think of movies, news reports, books, lectures, magazines, songs that have created
a picture of a country for you—one positive and one negative.
2
Do these images reflect particular groups in society? In other words, do you think
the image comes from a male or female perspective, a white or other racial posi-
tion, an elite or non-elite group?
3
What are the implications of these images to the foreign policy of your country?
In other words, do these particular images and the response they generated in your
mind facilitate particular policies?
4
Which terms or words that you came up with lead to justification of foreign policies
that were either violent or required no action?
This simple exercise is trying to suggest that we all carry around “knowledge” of
countries that we probably know very little about. This “knowledge” is gained from the
most dubious sources, primarily Hollywood movies and television shows, and comple-
mented by songs, jokes, and comedy routines, etc. It is nothing new. As a boy of about
seven or eight years old, I can remember my grandfather playing a recording to me by
a comedy duo, Flanders and Swan. One of their songs was called something like “The
English are best, I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.” It was a list of all the
I N T R O D U C T I O N T O G E O P O L I T I C S
84
Figure 4.1
World War II memorial, Stavropol, Russia.
peculiar faults and traits that are supposedly possessed by different national groups, and
in the process expunges any negative characteristics from each and every English person.
This may seem harmless, but it is powerful because it is pervasive and everyday.
Listening to the record of an evening was “family fun,” that just happened to instill a
belief that my country was obviously superior to any other. Such “humour” was the
basis for a geopolitical understanding of Britain’s “right” to tell other countries, using
force if necessary, what to do.
My whole generation grew up in England on a steady diet of “Irish jokes”: contin-
ually painting an image of all Irish people as hopelessly stupid. How could I then, as I
grew older, begin to think there was a historical basis for Irish nationalism? A deeper
understanding of this conflict, and others, had to be actively sought by myself despite
the obstacles of the “common knowledge” provided by mainstream media sources and
cultural attitudes. My knowledge of the Irish had been created by the English media and
the telling of Irish jokes at the back of the bus; what else did I need to know? The play-
ground, the bus stop, and the couch in front of the TV were (and still are) very important
arenas for an understanding of geopolitics. The basis for these images was not just
schoolyard jokes passed down from older to younger siblings, but also the result of
cultural products such as movies, books, magazines, and songs.
In the Gramscian sense of power, we carry with us “knowledge” of the world that
is often of the must dubious and partial nature, but the knowledge is powerful nonethe-
less. Its power comes from it being taken for granted as “common sense,” on the one
hand, and in the way that knowledge is the foundation for the “ideals” used to justify
geopolitical actions. For example, if whole swathes of the world are deemed “anarchic”
then policies combining non-involvement in some cases (such as Rwanda) or military
intervention (such as Afghanistan) in other cases may be implemented with little need
to explain or defend them. Of course, production of the cultural common sense under-
lying foreign policy cannot be left to the imagination of playground humorists; the media
industry is heavily implicated.
1111
2
3
41
5
6
7
8
91
10
1
2
31111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
30
1
2
3
4
51
6
7
8
9
40
1
2
3
4
5111
R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S O F G E O P O L I T I C A L C O D E S
85
Box 4.2 Geopolitical word association
1 United States
2 North Korea
3 France
4 Columbia
5 Afghanistan
6 China
7 Turkey
8 Iraq
9 Japan
10 Democratic Republic of the Congo
11 Pakistan
12 Great Britain
“Freedom,” “slavery,” Hollywood, and the
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