The state conceals rather than reveals actual political practice

Evidence

The state is not the reality which stands behind the mask of political practice. It is itself the mask which prevents our seeing political practice as it is. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 633

Categorization

• DEFINE: Inverts the common ‘mask of state’ metaphor to redefine the state as itself the obscuring mask.
• DEEPTHINKING: An aphorism-grade reformulation of state theory that reframes the entire security-state analysis to follow.
• XREF: connects to: A head of state governs only as a simulacrum of himself — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 95; The hyper-militarised state deceives itself before deceiving its citizens — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1449