RE: Taliban & postmodernism?

["Brownson, Jamil" <JBrownson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

my original comment holds, as by post modern, I refer to polyvalent,
flexible post-fordist production, decentralized decision making, floating
signifiers, end of grand theories & hegemonic discourses, etc.

Taliban is a misconstrued label by bush/shrub's pitiful modernist attempts
to roll back the clock to some lost modernist vision of a dominant hegemonic
regime & grand discourse of "freedom" long laughed out of reality by
contradictory repressive and destructive actions taken in the name of
freedom meaning laissez faire rip off of all natural & human resources, damn
the consequences, lets do our American thing now & f*** the rest of the
world, who cares about the future, macho is good.

Like all contemporary fundamentalist movements, Taliban ideology is not
revanchist as there is no period of Islamic history that corresponds to
their images,which are postmodern in their bizarre interpretation of Islam.
Rather, it is a reaction against the failures of modernism, nationalism,
industrialization, capitalism, Soviet-Chinese versions of socialism,etc., to
actually improve the lives of most people in LDC's. Such extremism is
actually a pastiche, a facade, a masque that could not last long.

All that appears solid melts into air in this case because nothing was ever
solid, after the Russians were forced out, a motly crew of refugees from the
most despised lower class Pushtun tribes in the southern region was groomed,
armed financed & led by a consortia of US, Saudi & Pakistani agents to
extend Pakistani influence into Afghanistan. Such formations are common, the
Nothern alliance being very similar to the Taliban, a few small core groups
that coalesce into larger groups of fragments attracted by power, success,
charisma, and resources, only to refragment & realign according to pragmatic
circumstances.

Here i would refer you all to my top three most enlightened students of
Afghanistan, Louis Dupree, Oliver Roy, & Barnet Rubin, as well as a host of
other academic commentators on the history, anthropology and political
cultures of the region.

jb
chico CA
27/11/01


-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood [mailto:dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 9:07 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:20028] Re: postmodernism?


Rob Schaap wrote:

>polycentric (although he wrote it in English)

poly = a prefix meaning many

therefore:

polycentric = having many centers
polyamory = having many lovers
polymorphous = exhibiting many types or stages
polygon = having many sides
Poly Styrene = a punk singer from the late 70s

etc.

Doug