The story usually told about the practice of enforced disappearance begins in Argentina, where Madres of the Plaza de Mayo protested endlessly against the military regime that had disappeared so many of their loved ones. But where did the Argentinian military get this idea to “disappear” its opponents? New research indicates that the origins of enforced disappearance as a state practice are based in French counter-insurgency tactics used against the Algerian resistance. This paper draws on newly conducted archival research in France and Algeria, to present findings on the development of enforced disappearance as a state security practice during the French military occupation of Algeria in the final years of that country’s war for independence.

My paper will be discussing the “diasporization” of the intelligentsia as a product of heightened securitization in Middle Eastern countries like Iran and Turkey in the post-9/11 era. In 2009, Iran experienced mass protests to the contested presidential election. In 2013, the Turkish people mobilized to contest Erdogan’s authoritarian regime. Both protests were interpreted by the governments as counterhegemonic and informed by Western imperialism. While militarization and securitization have had a long history in Iran and Turkey, the post-9/11 era signaled a shift in government oversight of citizens: a sophistication in surveillance mechanisms. Iran and Turkey began to witness intense scrutiny and persecution of the intelligentsia in the shape of control over university syllabi, book and newspaper publications. This securitization has then developed into total control over personal freedoms in the public space and cyber space, which inevitably led to forced mass migration and exile of the intelligentsia. I will be referring to Foucault (1983; 1995), Arendt (1973), and Gramsci’s (1999) theories on state power and argue the modern Iranian and Turkish states justify the securitization of their societies by claiming that the nation is under threat of terrorism and counterhegemonic movements. Based on these events, I argue that the Iranian and Turkish states enabled, or even facilitated, the plight of the intelligentsia as part of their strategy to maintain power without contestation and as a show of their might. Without the Gramscian intellectual, the states take comfort in the fact that there would be no dissident bodies to mobilize the masses and revolt against the regime. I will also be referencing Michaelsen (2017), Özgün E. Topak (2017), Haideh Moghissi (2006), William Safran (1991), and Brian Axel (2002) to link the events occurring in Iran and Turkey to the theories of diaspora in relation to violence and persecution of bodies.