The Advocate

The Other Partisans

Gerasimos Karavitis

In their recent coverage of the battle in Fallujah, a number of New York Times reporters consistently referred to the people who fought against the US led military coalition as “insurgents.” Assuming that it was not ideologically driven, their word choice was suboptimal. There is more reason to refer to those who fought against the US led coalition at Fallujah as “partisans.”

According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, an “insurgent” is “a person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government.” Thus, we may use the word when we wish to signify a person who satisfies two, specific conditions. For one, he or she must “rise up in revolt,” or engage in activities that manifest his or her unwillingness to be the subject of oppression. Secondly, he or she must orient these activities against particular types of political institutions, which are represented through the concepts of “civil authority” and “established government.” If we were to use “insurgent” to signify a person who does not fully satisfy both of these conditions, then, strictly speaking, our use of the word would be erroneous. If we were to use to the word to signify a person who satisfies these conditions only in part, then our use of the word would be warranted only if the English language lacks a more suitable word for our purpose.

The use of “insurgents” to define the people who fought against the US led forces in Fallujah succeeds in identifying the acts of these people as acts of revolt, but fails in assuming that these acts were oriented against a “civil authority” or an “established government.” While it is difficult to deny that the people who fought against the US led coalition in Fallujah did so in a revolt against what they perceived to be an oppressive other, it is not difficult to deny that this other constitutes a “civil authority” or an “established government.” Authority exists in social and political relations when a superordinate commands a subordinate with the consent of the subordinate, while in Iraq today there are no existing channels for the voicing and measuring of such consent. Moreover, no governing ensemble—neither in Iraq, nor anywhere else—can reasonably be viewed as “established” in a country that is ravaged by a precarious foreign occupation and a continually escalating civil war.

Instead of “insurgents,” the word we should use to define those who fought against the US led coalition forces in the battle of Fallujah is “partisans.” Citing Webster’s again, a “partisan” is “a member of a body of detached light troops engaged in making forays and harassing an enemy” [italics added], or “a member of a guerilla band operating within enemy lines and engaged chiefly in demolition, incendiary, sabotage, and diversionary tactics in advance of regular army formation.” According to this definition, the ensemble that the individual partisan belongs to is defined solely on the basis of technical determinations: its numerical size, its military objectives, and its modes of operation. By extension, the individual partisan is defined solely in reference to his or her military project: his or her particular identity in a narrative of war, his or her role in the overall operation of a military system. That is to say, in contrast to “insurgent,” “partisan” does not define its target subject in relation to the subject that the partisan combats. And if a definition of the partisan fighter’s enemy were to be inferred from the definition of the partisan, then it would have to be limited to a description of the technical potentials and attributes of this enemy (ex. resources available, objectives, mode of operation, etc.).

“Partisans” is more appropriate as a signifier than “insurgents” because the groups of people who fought against the US led coalition forces in Fallujah satisfy the conditions of the former word to a greater extent than they satisfy the conditions of the latter. As military factions, these groups were “detached”—in the sense that they did not constitute the body of a regular army, and “light”—as attested to by the fact that most of the insurgents managed to escape to neighboring cities at some point before, during, or after the actual battle. Moreover, the militants fighting against the US led coalition at Fallujah could not have intended to prevent the US led forces from taking Fallujah, but only to corrupt the morale of (i.e. “harassing”) the coalition’s soldiers; one need not be an expert in military affairs in order to know that the mouse is by instinct prevented from fighting a war of position against the cat. Now, it is true that these groups of people did not “make forays” in “advance of a regular army,” for no “regular army” of Iraqi resistance fighters exists. In this respect, “partisans” is also an imperfect signifier for our purposes. Nevertheless, it is superior to “insurgents” because it does not require us to assume the existence of a “civil authority” or an “established government” in Iraq; it does not, in other words, force us to construct an understanding of the militants on the basis of premises that are demonstrably false.

Why then did The New York Times reporters choose to use “insurgents?” “Partisan” is usually not used as the dictionary dictates it should be. Rather, it is used to signify groups of people in various European countries (France, Italy, Spain) who engaged in armed struggles against 20th century fascism. Is it possible that Times reporters did not at all consider the possibility of using “partisans” to define the resistance in Fallujah? It’s possible, but it’s unlikely given the centrality that the subject has to their news articles. Assuming, therefore, that they did consider the possibility of using “partisans” and consciously chose not to, the reporters must have reckoned that by using “partisans” they would be suggesting a relation between those who signed their names in the most glorious pages of Western democracy’s history books and those who today stand as the alleged enemies of all Western political values; they feared that they would be suggesting an association between angels and devils, heroes and villains, and, by extension, a more controversial association between the conquerors of today and the conquerors of yore.

The manner in which we define the people who fought against the US led coalition forces in Fallujah is very important to our overall assessment and evaluation of their politics. The Times reporters who defined them as “insurgents” did so in error, for, as a signifier, “insurgents” assumes the existence of institutions that do not exist in Iraq. Although it is itself imperfect, “partisan” is a better signifier for the occasion. It is more legitimate to define those who fought against the US led coalition in Fallujah as “partisans,” despite the great historical, political, and methodological differences that distinguish them from…the other partisans.

* I am thankful to Alejandro Alonso—a friend and Graduate Center colleague—for sharing his views on some of the ideas that appear in this article.

Gerasimos Karavitis is an MA student in Political Theory.