“Afterwards, while we are sitting on the sofa eating bowls of ice cream with his family, he asks me various questions about my life … He adds, “In the nineties, I read a book by Benedict Anderson called Imagined Communities and it was very important to me. We are indeed imagined communities. The concept of the nation is laughable: ‘This is the border and you cannot cross over it!’ Why? I was always asking myself, why I must sacrifice my life for my nation? My nation and the orders of my president.””
The Iraqi Suitcase by Laura Waddington
Source: Anil Ramdas interviews Benedict Anderson about his book Imagined Communities, 1994. Technograpgy (YouTube)