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

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.