| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the aftermath of 9/11, out of the numbness resulting from the horror
of the events and the desperate attempts to go on with "business as usual"
in the midst of a new, altered reality, there emerged in the United States a
representation of a world order disrupted by terrorism-a world order based
on the opposition between good and evil or, in the words of then-president
George W. Bush, "us" and "the terrorists." Ironically, this interpretation of
"the 'mother event', the pure event that concentrates in itself all the events
that never took place," as Jean Baudrillard put it, was an attempt to reframe
the event in the context of traditional representations, such as those that
led to the old mind-set of American "manifest destiny" to bring the "good" of democracy to non-democratic countries.1
The persistence of expressions
such as "rogue states" and "axis of evil" in political discourse, as well as
continuing efforts to turn Afghanistan into a peaceful, democratic country a
decade after 9/11, attest to the vividness of such representations.
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