Words do not label pre-existing political objects but must be made real through interpretation

Evidence

Marsafi’s own purpose was to interpret the ‘real meaning’ (haqiqa) of every word he treated, and from there to see that meaning ‘realised’ (haqqaqa, tahaqqaqa) in political life. The political world was not a posited object, independent of written language. Words were not labels that simply named and represented political ideas or objects, but interpretations whose force was to be made real. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430

Categorization

• QUESTION: A striking pre-Derridean theory of language from 1880s Cairo — worth verifying whether Marsafi’s haqiqa framework circulated beyond his own lectures.
• XREF: connects to: Political discourse redefines contested terms so opposition becomes definitionally impossible; Seeking correct definitions is itself politically subversive — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 514; Sublation of the propositional form demands explicit expression, not mere content. (+9 more)