Terrorism as a construct for subjugation in selected east African novels

Abstract

Terrorism as a concept has had shifting codes of meaning across both time and place. The rejection of a universal meaning and the multiplicity of official and unofficial opinion suggests a possible constructedness of terrorism as a concept. The shifting arises from the tendency of authorities and powerful groups to mediate trends in the discourse(s) within their own contexts. As such, the meaning-making in the discourse remains fluid and susceptible to manipulation by these sections of society to advance personal interests. This study is a literary exploration of the hegemonic manipulation of the terrorism discourse as a tool to create, maintain and extend power and privilege over subaltern classes. To achieve the objective, the study undertakes a comparative analysis of the portrayal of terrorism both at home in East Africa and in the West using postcolonial theory propositions as advanced by Gayatri Spivak’s (1989), Edward Said (1978), Frantz Fanon (1967), and Achille Mbembe (2021). Using the case of Nuruddin Farah’s Hiding in Plain Sight and North of Dawn, and Giles Foden’s Zanzibar, the research focusses on race and ethnicity/nationality, religion, and gender as defining attributes of the Self and the Other in the hierarchy of power. The texts demonstrate that groups positioned differently on the power ladder are interpreted subjectively in the official state and mainstream terrorism narratives, with authorities and other powerful and privileged groups manipulating the narrative(s) to define and control the subaltern. In the end, the subaltern is dislocated from the centre of power and relegated to the periphery, and the subsequent power struggles feed into the terrorism discourse that further justifies this marginalisation and oppression.