Coded historical digressions can smuggle patriotic just-war rhetoric into contestatory texts

Evidence

Then there are the text’s peculiar digressions—the most memorable being the non sequitur chapter containing an account of Henry James’s support for the First World War. Following almost immediately after a section commenting on the futility of the Iran–Iraq War and the bogus rhetoric of martyrdom surrounding Iranian soldiers, we are regaled with James’s anguished but steadfast support for Britain in its war against Germany almost one hundred years earlier and his efforts to encourage America to become involved, too. Extracts from James’s journals and letters chime strangely with the justifications of the contemporary war on terror, as if to indicate that there can indeed be just wars. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 238

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘just war’ historical allusion as a device that quietly re-legitimizes military intervention while the text pretends to critique contemporary war propaganda.
• XREF: Connects to Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist where historical/cultural allusions and the frame of dialogue figure legitimacy questions.