The Reluctant Fundamentalist: The Re-territorialisation of the Encounter between America and its Muslim 'Other(s)'

Abstract

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a novel that explores several issues related to the relationship between America and the Islamic world in the contexts of post 9/11. In this politicised climate of intensified nationalistic attitudes characterised by fear and suspicion of the ‘other’, Hamid’s novel foregrounds the acrimonious encounter between America and its Muslim other(s). The text seeks to reverse the dominant rhetoric of the West, and create a space that allows the Muslim ‘other’ a chance to speak; a gesture that also illustrates the process of disillusionment. The novel accomplishes these manoeuvres through the literary trope of migration, whereby a story of exile and return becomes a vehicle for new understandings as the homeland is revalorised. The novel’s dialogic form further complicates this narrative through its use of a confessional mode coupled with the suspense of a political thriller. The novel’s significance within a body of fiction that addresses the contingencies of 9/11 lies in how its engagement with contemporary political and ideological tensions re-positions the dynamics of the encounter. Its success is achieved through its embedding of a political critique within a series of dialogues that reproduce the conversational realism of a chance ‘encounter’ between a Pakistani and an American in a Lahore teashop. Hamid’s novel takes a rather pessimistic view of global affairs and of the relationship between the two opposing positions it sets out: within the text America and the Islamic world seem caught up in a pervasive mood that mobilises a reconsideration of national and cultural boundaries. As Pakistan is the ground on which the confrontation is ultimately played out, it suggests a movement from the centre to the margin – from America to Pakistan – unsettling the conventional global hierarchies of power. In the tense climate of the contemporary world the protagonist, Changez, drinks tea with an anonymous American visitor, to whom he narrates his experience of living in the U.S. During his time there he becomes a successful business analyst in a New York company after graduating from Princeton, and enjoys the trappings of his capitalist and materialistic lifestyle. The sense of home and belonging experienced by the migrant are complicated in the novel by specific political events which lead the protagonist to a wider examination of his relationship with his adopted home and its place in the world. His unrequited love of Erica, who becomes increasingly introverted and consumed by the mythology she constructs around her dead lover, is a further allegory of this relationship and representative of America’s withdrawal and self-protective policies in the post 9/11 climate. Following his denunciation of America, Changez returns to Pakistan to become a university lecturer and his attitude towards his former adopted home becomes increasingly hostile. The return of Changez to his home nation symbolically reasserts Pakistan as a locus of belonging. The gesture endorses Pakistan’s cultural and intellectual boundaries. The novel subtly maps out some of the problems that Pakistan faces, whether economic, social or political, yet the narrative is balanced by images of a nation rich in its own culture and vitally aware of its own recent history since brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk