File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1998/postcolonial.9805, message 261


Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 09:02:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Butz <dbmarley-AT-spartan.ac.BrockU.CA>
Subject: Re: .... Here we go



I (I suppose) began this thread a couple of weeks ago by forwarding
extracts from the Pakistan News Service. I have been intrigued by the
ensuing discussion on the list. But... to the extent that "the
postcolonial" is perhaps about "attending to the social and political
processes that struggle against and work to unsettle the architecture of
domination established through imperialism", I've been a bit perplexed by
the direction the discussion has taken. Certainly, listmembers have linked 
contemporary Western (read American) imperialism to the
the nuclear tests and (mainly) to the West's response... but not the
mischievious process of partition,etc.(either the events of 1947, or the
continuing efforts by the West to fan the flames of emnity between Indians
and Pakistanis). Can anyone help me conceptualise the links between
British Indian colonialism, the independence movement, the current Hindu
nationalist government, the nuclear tests, and almost everyone's (it
seems) indifference to the plight of Pakistan in all this? To what extent
is this a continuation of "the Great Game" played by the British (and
Russians, Chinese, Afghanis... and later Germans...) in the 19th and early
20th centuries in the Karakoram-HinduKush-Himalaya triangle? 

It seems that most of us can agree that (a) no one should have nuclear
bombs, and (b) if some countries can have them, India (and I presume
Pakistan) should be able to have them too... how does any of this help us
work towards "the postcolonial" as described above (or thwart effots to do
so)... either in theory or practice?

David.   



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