Irish Studies in International Affairs

ABSTRACT:

In this paper I argue that the self-evident sustainability of the changes wrought by anti-terrorism law since the 11 September 2001 attacks are rooted in our colonial past, a past that is littered with such laws. I further argue that in the post-colonial period those laws were then carried over into the Cold War era, where they were too useful in the struggle against radical dissent ever to be completely jettisoned—even by those newly liberated countries whose leaders had suffered under their coercive power. The paper ends with some brief reflections on how the 'problem' of 'terrorism' became globalised in the post-colonial period. My examination of its origins led me to believe that the 'War on Terror' was easy to entrench because liberal democracies had had decades of practice at it.