Military forces weaponized poststructuralist theory to control urban guerrillas.

Evidence

Gandhi’s appearance here in the category of ‘prophets and priests’ is odd. Meanwhile, the affirmation of ‘nationalism’, here as in several other places, stands in curious relation to the debunking of national identity which we shall see in the other essay. My immediate interest, however, is in the list – compiled in the genre of the postmodern pastiche – of nine names, joined in the infinite category of ‘others’, bringing together communists and anti communists, pacifists and Marxists, five of whom actually either led or participated in guerrilla warfare, all mobilized to posit the idea that imperialism is mainly a cultural phenomenon to be opposed by an alternative discourse. What is important about Cabral, evidently, is his discursive position, not that he launched and led the armed struggle which brought about the liberation of his country and contributed decisively to the liberation of all the Portuguese colonies in Africa, not to speak of the collapse of fascism in Portugal itself. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 382 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nationalist theory translations were politically deployed to intervene in local conflicts — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 828; Pastiche citation lists obscure guerrillas’ actual role in anti-colonial liberation — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 382

Broader Connections

• Pastiche citation lists obscure guerrillas’ actual role in anti-colonial liberation #complicates (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 382