The jihadists are coming! Abyssal thinking and spatial politics of un/knowing in Ghana’s terrorism discourse

ABSTRACT

Coastal West African countries are in a threat anticipatory anxiety mode: over the fear that subaltern violent “jihadist” groups (SVJGs) are breaching their borders and heading south from across the Sahel. In Ghana, this fear has led to a build-up of commentaries, political statements, and counter-extremism/counterterrorism programs. This article interrogates the terrorism discourse in this West African country at the intersection of critical security studies and the politics of space, by applying securitisation theory and critical discourse analysis. In what is the most comprehensive academic review of news articles on the terrorism discourse in Ghana yet, I contend that the discourse evokes what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls ‘abyssal thinking’ and creates cognitive and physical spatial abyssal lines. On the invisible side, insecurity within Ghana gets “normalised” by the discourse. On the visible side, however, SVJGs are securitised as abnormal, foreign, and uniquely threatening. This nature of the discourse effectively places events and conditions in the country that are either terroristic or constitutive of terrorism on the invisible side of Ghana’s security priorities. The discourse, therefore, hides much about the reality of insecurity and political violence within the country. These arguments advance the frontiers of security/terrorism knowledge and practice in West Africa by demonstrating the pervasiveness of “global war on terror” systems of representation, two decades after their inception and despite their flaws and adverse implications for human and national security.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghana
• terrorism
• abyssal thinking
• spatial politics
• securitisation theory
• Sahel region

Acknowledgments

The author expresses his gratitude to three anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions and comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. It remains essential to keep stressing that the usage of terms such as “jihadism” and “Islamism” (and others like “Salafism” “Salafi-jihadism”, and “Wahhabism”) remains speculative and prejudiced or, worse, cloaked in calculated ignorance. I use subaltern violent “jihadist” groups (SVJGs) instead, to bring some nuance and to avoid some of the problems associated with practices of un/naming. Where the term “jihadist” has been used, they must always be read as being in inverted commas.

2. Some of these policies and frameworks are the Ghana National Security Strategy (Government of Ghana 2020), the National Framework for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism in Ghana (NAFPCVET) (Government of Ghana 2019), and a Practitioners’ Guide on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (The Commonwealth and National Peace Council 2022). In 2017, Ghana hosted several West African countries leading to the Accra Initiative (AI), a West African sub-regional security mechanism to address common concerns. The AI has launched a multilateral task force to counter violent extremism, terrorism and transnational crime. Another is establishing the Counterterrorism and Fusion Centre in 2020, with assistance from the United States, to help the country and others improve border security.

3. To access these news articles, copy and paste the URL into the browser’s address bar or search by the titles.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Dan Suleiman

Muhammad Dan Suleiman is a research associate and IR lecturer in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Muhammad’s research interests include how dominant interpretations and practices of politics and conflict detract from human security in Africa.