>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Third-World nationalism often mobilizes the idea of the nation that
> > masks class & gender oppressions
>
>Isn't this a bit circular? I don't mean to be frivolous. And nationalist
>discourse that hopes to succeed must sublimate class etc oppressions by
>means of/via narratives of solidarity which actually do serve to make 'the
>nation' more successful in competition with other nations. That living
>standards are actually raised (in some cases) within national contects and
>through the mobilising power of nationalist rhetoric, is a true fact and not
>just another mystification.
>
>Mark
I don't dispute the fact that "living standards are actually raised
(in some cases) within national contects and through the mobilising
power of nationalist rhetoric" at all. What I'm saying is that in
the course of mobilization the nationalist rhetoric has often limited
the role of women to patriotic mothers or mothers-to-be (women who
didn't fit into this role, as well as gay men, often have had a hard
time claiming the rhetoric of nation-building & inflecting it so as
to meet their needs & desires). The politics of reproduction that
subordinates women's interest to the perceived interest of the nation
and the need to build unity (e.g. the Sandinistas' inability to
enshrine reproductive freedom in the Nicaraguan constitution), the
politics of sexuality that casts gay men as "subversive" (as it
happened, for instance, in the early stage of the Cuban Revolution,
ironically mirroring sexual discrimination in the early Cold War
America), etc. are the kind of problem that I am concerned about. My
criticism, however, does not imply the rejection of the nationalist
rhetoric as such. It has to be judged case by case as it is used by
different movements.
Yoshie
