States must make enemies visually legible before targeting them legally

Evidence

For the law to have an object of restriction, and for the state to have a foe, the constructed enemy must be made legible and identifiable in a common vernacular. It is in this sense that the visual cultures of popular representation create and target ‘‘the enemy’’ not only through images and appearances, but also through the meanings that are created when those images are juxtaposed within cultural, political, social, and historical frameworks. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 358