However, some of these criticisms, such as that offered by Anouar Majid, begin from the false premise that postcolonialism is merely the theoretical wing of identity politics and that “the postcolonial” is the inevitably compromised brainchild of those “comprador intellectuals” first picked out by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Arif Dirlik. In fact, “the postcolonial” is a description of our contemporary world condition, not a set of theories or an identity. It sums up life for many who wrestle with the legacy of historical colonialism and find their place in the world still acted on by controlling impulses of the powerful nations of the West. It also encompasses the willed amnesia with which these privileged First World nations continue to blame contemporary problems on recidivism or “fundamentalism,” read as inherent in subject peoples and nations, just as it was in the days of empire. Indeed, postcolonial perspectives have become even more salient in a post-9/11 world, where the justification and tactics of Western domination have reemerged with renewed force.

DEFINE: Clarifies what 'the postcolonial' actually names: a description of contemporary world conditions shaped by colonial legacy, not a set of theories or an identity.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 52