To the rest of the world, they are merely statistics of persons drowned at sea while trying to reach Europe in illegal voyages. But these are real human beings, with complex lives, pursuing a dream.
If belonging is articulated in rigid exclusionary terms, where everyone however mobile, is considered to belong to a particular homeland somewhere else, a place they cannot outgrow and which they must belong to regardless of where they were born or where they live and work, then South Africa can only belong to one group of people, those who were there before everyone else: the San.
To maintain their relevance, African rights groups will have to become more innovative and nimble. They must keep their ears to the ground, forging new and more creative partnerships with the activists of new social movements.
The book examines how repeated failed counter-terrorism operations throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia have led to broader interventions and the promotion of the military and intelligence theorists who concoct these operations.
