Transnational Revolutionary Alliances In My Revolutions And Mornings In Jenin: A Genealogy Of International Terrorism In The Age Of Empire
Keywords:
Postcolonial, terrorism, revolution, Empire, race, religion, transnational, political violenceAbstract
In this article, I analyze “global terrorism” as a postcolonial response to the supranational capitalist Empire, through a genealogical approach to the making of transnational revolutionary alliances in Hari Kunzru’s My Revolutions and Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin. I argue that in their pursuit of specific religious or nationalist agendas, for instance, transnational fundamentalist “terrorist” groups are strengthened through alliances with non-religious, local or international, revolutionary activists. Such revolutionary groups often seek to intersect their different programs, in response to the Capitalist Empire, an enemy that is so strong and transnationally-grounded that it controls the media and either renders invisible their struggle as in My Revolutions or distorts the truth and presents the oppressor as a victim as in Mornings in Jenin. Thus, despite their recurrence in discourses on contemporary terrorism, race and religion are but secondary categories in the ongoing violent confrontation between the West and the postcolonial world.
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