MAPPING TERRORISM: AMORPHOUS NATIONS, TRANSIENT LOYALTIES Ritu Saksena, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006
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ABSTRACT Title of Document: MAPPING TERRORISM: AMORPHOUS NATIONS, TRANSIENT LOYALTIES Ritu Saksena, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Directed By: Professor Sangeeta Ray Department of English Terrorism has a predilection with nations and nationalism and it plays on the symbiotic relationship between nationalism and violence. But “forgetting” this violence and bloodshed was crucial to the perpetuation of the myth of civilized nations. While Postcolonial Studies has offered incisive justifications for anti- imperialist movements and the creation of new nations within the colonizer/colonized paradigm, there is now a need to critically examine terrorism with its demands for new nations with its narratives of violence. This dissertation, Mapping Terrorism: Amorphous Nations, Transient Loyalties is a comparative study of the narratives of terrorism in specific texts that invoke the re-imagining of the narratives of the nation and the re-configuration of national subjectivities. Furthermore, since globalization has extended the national imaginary beyond borders, it has forced us to engage with the implications of diasporic populations that have sometimes attributed to the formation of transnational communities of violence (both real and imagined). Through my analysis of fictional representations of terrorists, terrorism and terrorist acts in cinema and fiction and using the rubric of Postcolonial Studies, I locate these narratives within a discursive space framed by the interstices of dominant discourses, where nation and state do not collide. For my larger overarching argument in theorizing terrorism, I introduce a new category of (anti)nationalisms that includes all forms of variant nationalisms like sub-nationalisms, ethnonationalisms, counter-nationalisms, fundamentalisms, extremism, secessionism etc., each of which is uniquely different but all of which define themselves using the discourse of Nationalism as its oppositional ‘Other’. Using this overarching category of (anti)nationalisms offers us a new space – an in- between space, to talk about variant nationalisms that are not necessarily congruent with terrorism. Doing so, offers us the opportunity to address each of these variant nationalisms in depth without having to engage with issues of ethical implications of these imaginings. It is my assertion that (anti)nationalisms are the geneses of all terrorist activities and conversely, terrorism can be argued as constituting the performative aspect of the political agenda of (anti)nationalisms. My dissertation thus addresses a broader need for theorizing terrorism through cultural representations within the framework of Postcolonial Studies. MAPPING TERRORISM: AMORPHOUS NATIONS, TRANSIENT LOYALTIES By Ritu Saksena Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006 Advisory Committee: Professor Sangeeta Ray, Chair Professor Regina Harrison Professor Zita Nunes Professor John Fuegi Professor Carol Mossman © Copyright by Ritu Saksena 2006 Acknowledgements This dissertation has benefited greatly from all the support I received, from many quarters, in the writing of it. I would like to thank Sangeeta for all her insightful comments, for the invigorating discussions and mostly for her immensely inspiring and constant passion for research. To my committee members, Reggie, Zita, John and Carol, I am grateful for all your support through this process and for raising very incisive questions that opened up more possibilities for research and that enriched my dissertation. Reggie and Carol, thank you also for your help and support in all matters academic. I owe a debt of gratitude to my mother for her continous support, her unwavering faith in my potential and her love for learning. Mom, because of you, I am. To my other pillar of support, Himanshu, without you, this process would never have been completed. Your endless patience with me while I debated and discussed contentious ideas over glasses of wine and on long drives, in a discipline so different from your own, often gave me the clarity of thought I was looking for. Reena and Rahool, your love has kept me going. Finally, I owe so much to Aruna and Ramesh, who gave me so many more reasons to come back to MD repeatedly and for making it home. And to Maira, in your little being, I am reminded of everything beautiful. ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................. 1 Dissertation Organization ....................................................................................... 10 Chapter 2: (Anti)Nationalisms And Terrorism........................................................... 15 Theorizing (Anti)Nationalisms ............................................................................... 16 Contextualizing the Discourses of Nationalism...................................................... 22 Nationalism in the Postcolonial Context................................................................. 30 Gender, Class and Ethical Questions...................................................................... 34 Transnational Terrorism.......................................................................................... 44 Terrorism as a Trope in Cinema ............................................................................. 51 Chapter 3: Religious Fundamentalisms ...................................................................... 61 Defining Communalism and Religious Fundamentalism....................................... 74 Social Structures and Conflict in Pre-Independence India ..................................... 78 Communalism in present day India ........................................................................ 87 Riots: Identification of Spatial Categories.............................................................. 89 Configuring the Muslim as the Other ..................................................................... 96 Communalism as a new Nationalism against Modernity ..................................... 102 Subaltern Secularism ............................................................................................ 110 Chapter 4: Reaffirming the Nation: Bollywood and Terrorism................................ 118 Framing Terror Narratives in Bollywood Cinema................................................ 120 iii Trauma Films........................................................................................................ 140 A Third Kind of Nationalism as an (Anti)nationalism ......................................... 155 The Conflict between Nation and Nation-State.................................................... 162 Chapter 5: The Theater of Terrorism....................................................................... 184 The Siege: Jihad in New York City ...................................................................... 194 Three Kings: The Global in the Local .................................................................. 209 Chapter 6: Conclusion............................................................................................... 232 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 241 Filmography.......................................................................................................... 241 Secondary Texts.................................................................................................... 243 iv Chapter 1: Introduction Terrorism has a predilection with nations and nationalism and it plays on the symbiotic relationship between nationalism and violence. Violence has always been inherent in the birth of new nations. In 1882, Ernst Renan, in his seminal essay, “What is a Nation?” declared, “Historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origins of all political formations, even those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity is always affected by means of brutality…”(11). But “forgetting” this violence and bloodshed was crucial to the perpetuation of the myth of civilized nations. Similarly, even as this symbiotic relationship between nationalism and violence was echoed in the anti-colonial resistance against imperialism and the birth of new nations in the postcolonial era, it was the collective forgetting of violence in the exuberance of the immediate postcolonial moment that was crucial to the myth of nation building. Although this violence and trauma was initially suppressed in collective public memory, its displacement into the discursive public sphere came when it eventually emerged in fictional narratives, biographical accounts or stories transcribed from oral lore to be subsequently examined with academic rigor. But several decades later, newer narratives of violence in the form of terrorism have emerged and their intersections with the discourses of nationalism raise crucial questions about the legitimacy as well as the ethical implications of such 1 imaginings. While Postcolonial Studies has offered incisive and powerful justifications for anti-imperialist movements and the creation of new nations within the colonizer/colonized paradigm, how do we begin to critically examine terrorism with its demands for new nations and its narratives of violence within the framework of Postcolonial Studies? When Nationalism is invoked through fictional