MA Literary Project 2008

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Narrating the Empire: Nationalism, Memory and Gender in

Arab Postcolonial Novel, the Case of Tayyib SallehsSeason of

Migration to the North, Mohammed Berradas The Game of

Forgettingand Assia DjebarsLAmour, la Fantasia

Abdelghani El KhairatLiterary Studies

Utrecht University

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Paulo De Medeiros

Second Reader: Prof. Dr. Ann Rigney

February 2008

MA Thesis

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT...................................................................................................2

I. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................3

II. NARRATIVE WRITING IN CONTEMPORARY ARABIC LITERATURE.......7

III. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE ARAB WORLD IN

TAYYIB SALLEHS ......................................................................................................28

IV. THE MYTH OF NATIONALISM AND THE PRODUCTION OF CULTURAL

MEMORY IN MOHAMMED BRRADAS THE GAME OF FORGETTING ........49

V. THE SUBALTERN WRITES BACK IN ASSIA DJEBARS LAMOUR, LA

FANTASIA ......................................................................................................................70

VI. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................94

WORKS CITED...............................................................................................................99

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the people who assisted me in the

writing of this thesis and above all to Prof. Dr. Paulo De Medeiros for his valuable

advises and his constructive criticism during the different stages of writing this work.

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My special thanks go to Prof. Dr. Ann Rigney for her help, coaching and encouragement

during the last two years. I would like also to thank her for accepting to read and

comment on this thesis.

Once again, my sincere thanks go to Loes Vleeming for being passionate, supportive and

generous with me these years

Last but not least, I would like to dedicate this humble work to El Khairats and Zahers

family, especially to Latifa El Khairat and Abdelilah Zaher.

Thank you all.

I. Introduction

The decline of colonial empires after Second World War led to the rise of several

sovereign states in the Arab world and elsewhere. Most of these independent states have

been greatly influenced by imperialism and colonialism. Consequently, the need to

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achieve a functional reality was very demanding as was the need for re-creating national

identity, which had been partially or completely damaged, corrupted and marginalised. In

this context, a new mode of writing emerges as an autonomous literature that foregrounds

cultural conflicts and puts into question the relationship between the centre and the

periphery. This suggests that Arab literature produced after the colonial era significantly

and consciously questions and challenges Western cultural patterns of knowledge, which

played a crucial role in fixing the relationship between Europe and the Arab world; a

relationship based on naturalising the superiority and purity of Western civilisation and

the inferiority and corruption of Eastern one.

Re-considering the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world is one of

the dominating features in the three novels that I have chosen to analyse in this study:

Season of Migration to the Northby Sudans most famous author,Tayyib Salleh; The

Game of Forgetting, a novel written by the Moroccan critic and novelist Mohammed

Berrada; andLAmour La Fantasia, an outstanding narrative by the Algerian activist and

filmmaker Assia Djebar. In this thesis, I will discuss the relationship between Europe and

the Arab world, focusing more particularly on the genre of the novel as a form of writing

back to the centre and resisting the supremacy of European patterns of knowledge. I will

also try to show that the three novels problematisation of European colonial history

serves many purposes, some of which are to establish a dialogue with, and react against,

European models. In this respect, four issues will be highlighted, namely (a) Narrative

Writing in Contemporary Arabic Literature, (b) The Relationship between Europe and the

Arab World, (c) The Myth of Nationalism and the Production of Cultural Memory, (d)

The Subaltern Writes Back.

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The division of this thesis into four aspects dictates different ways of analysis. In

the first one, Narrative Writing in Contemporary Arabic Literature, I will try to shed

light on the current debate about the Arabic novel, in an attempt to point out the major

aspects of its development. To do so, it becomes necessary to talk about the beginnings,

and to trace out the influences of European literary models, especially the English and the

French.

As for The Relationship between Europe and the Arab World I will focus on

the East/West problematic in Tayyib Sallehs novel Seasonof Migration to the North. In

this novel, Salleh advances a dialectical relationship between European models and the

re-created independent local identity. Sallehs intellectual project starts from the

assumption that Western imperialism and colonialism are behind West/East tension. He

starts producing a counter narrative in which he reconsiders British colonial hegemony

and homogeneity. He recasts the history of the relationship between the coloniser and the

colonised, by problematising the key concepts that govern the relationship between

Europe and the Sudan.

In the Myths of Nationalism and the Production Cultural Memory, I will discuss

the use of literature in the production of cultural memory, focusing particularly on

Mohammed Berradas novel The Game of Forgetting.I will also try to provide an answer

to the question of how literature functions in relation to cultural memory; that is to say,

how the novel, as a work of art, can bear witness to the nations past and present and

contribute in establishing a cultural memory. I will show that the liaison between

literature and cultural memory is best manifested in The Game of Forgettingsince it

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manages to question, negotiate and reconstruct the past within the contemporary frame of

present-day Morocco.

The fourth and the last chapter entitled The Subaltern Writes Back deals with

Assia Djebars novelLAmour, la Fantasia. I will explain that Djebars choice to rework

the colonial history of Algeria aims at exploiting the tension between the centre and the

margin, by challenging the primacy of Western standards that assume universality. I will

examine how Algerian women have been affected, subjugated and influenced by Arab

patriarchal culture which denied them the possibility to have access to the institutions in

which power is exercised and transmitted, thereby reducing them to mere consumers, if

not subject to various forms of male oriented systems of manipulation. Furthermore, the

very act of challenging patriarchal and colonial monolithic discourse is part of Djebars

strategy of undermining the existing oppressive systems, which forced Algerian women

to fulfil the role of the subaltern, silenced and helpless victim.

To approach this topic from an effective analytical point of view, a theoretical

framework is needed. The suitable approach to analysethe theme of re-writing colonial

history is the discursive technique as proposed by postcolonial critics, who suggest that

colonial history is full of interruptions, lies and inadequacies. It is seen as a condensation

of narratives used by colonial authorities as a way to legitimise the exploitation,

subjugation and colonisation of other nations. Colonial historiography, in this sense, does

not only stand at the base of colonialism and imperialism, but also helps in manufacturing

and controlling the colonial others. The concept of cultural memory as developed by Jan

and Aleida Assmann, Ann Rigney and others will also be of great help to my analysis and

discussion since it helps us to understand how memory functions, so as to reconsider

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standardised history and propose other versions of the past missed from or dropped of

official historical records. In this context, memory opens up new perspectives in dealing

with the past; perspectives which can be defined in opposition to hegemonic views of

the past and associated with groups who have been left out, as it were, of mainstream

history (Rigney, Plenitude 13). I will also rely on some insights from Feminist Theory in

order to illustrate how Arab women, like any marginalised group, were and are still

affected and manipulated by the dominant patriarchal culture. I will use feminist

theoretical framework to uncover the system of thoughts that guarantee the supremacy of

patriarchy and the subordination of the female, especially the Arab.

II. Narrative Writing in Contemporary Arabic Literature

No discussion can be had about the emergence of modern Arabic novel without

considering the context of influence, opposition and interaction between Arab and

Western cultures. Since the end of the nineteenth-century, considered by many Arab

literary historians as the beginning of Arab cultural renaissance, Nahda, the Arab world

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knew exceptional literary enlightenments. Most of the writers of this period, mainly those

who wrote from the centre; Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, tried to catch up with the modern

world, by looking up to Western achievements in different fields of knowledge. Western

ideas and ideals, such as the French Revolution, democratic reforms, scientific findings,

played a crucial role in the 19th century intellectual awakening of Arabs. Wail Hassan

demonstrates that

It was not simply Arab intellectuals fascination with modern European

civilisation but also, and more urgently, its colonial threat that led to the

movement known asNahda (or revival) in the mid-nineteenth century. In the

wake of the short-lived French occupation of Egypt, Muhammed Alis first aim

was to build a modern army, and therefore the purpose of the educational missions

he began sending to France in the late 1820s was to borrow European science and

technology. Those missions eventually exposed Arab intellectuals to European

culture, thought, and literature. (57)

In the field of literature, for instance, new forms of expression took place. Poetry

became no longer synonymous with describing chivalric values, weeping the beloved or

praising the tribe, themes which had characterised Arabic poetry, but assumed new roles

where the interest lied on social and political issues. Alongside this thematic innovation,

a formal revolution took place in which traditional structures are replaced by Western

ones and archaic expressions by modern poetic diction. In this period of great inter-

cultural influence, the Arab literary scene witnessed the emergence of the genre of the

novel which was an unprecedented literary form with no roots in Arabic literary heritage,

unlike poetry which had a long and rich repertoire. Western narrative prose was

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welcomed in Arab literary circles because of its ability to capture and represent the daily

life within a complex network of relationships. Aspects of the novel, such as dialogism,

polyphony and irony, made it the literary genre which succeeded in representing the

reality of Arab societies and the life of its citizens more than any other existing form of

expression.

In this chapter I will try to give a general view about narrative writing in the Arab

world and how it manages to enrich political and cultural debates during a century. It is

no coincidence, then, that I have decided to divide this chapter into two major points, in

which the first one will be devoted to the rise of the novel and the second to current

issues. In the first part, I will provide a short history of the Arabic novel, by giving an

overview of the major stages and developments it underwent. I will also try to point out

the essential cultural and historical components that played a part in the implantation of

the genre of the novel in Arabs literary soil. Central to this section, will be the discussion

of Eastern examples, mainly those from Egypt and Lebanon. In the second part, I will

discuss the North African novel of both Arabic and French expression, particularly from

Morocco and Algeria. This choice is not contingent upon personal motives, the fact of my

being Moroccan, but by rather the hope to give a broaden view about Arabs literary

scene both from its centre and its margin, and also to show that other narrative writings

produced in the margin were (and still are) as important and worth of studying as those

from the centre. Narrative experience in these countries can also be seen as prototypical

of the rest of Arab nations whose literature is not considered part of the Arab canon. A

special focus is given to the issue of the choice of language for writing. In the case of this

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study, I limit my discussion about the Moroccan novel to texts written in Arabic and in

French in the case of Algeria.

The deep transformation of Arab societies during the 19th century posed

immediate challenges and causes urgent changes in all aspects of life from culture to

politics and from economics to education. Early narrative experiences have been greatly

influenced and oriented by Western models, thoughts and ideologies. Like their Western

masters, Arab writers tried to uncover the silence surrounding social conditions of the

individual and the community. Marxist and Existentialist ideologies fuelled the

revolutionary spirit of early Arabic novels during the 40s and the 50s:

After 1948, however, this trend gained a powerful momentum, which coincided

with the appearance in Arabic of the Existentialists. When Sartre and Camus (the

latter actually refused to be called Existentialist) were translated and studied all

through the fifties, they took Arab intellectual life by storm. Sartre was the special

favourite of Beiruts literary workshop, and the reaction in Baghdad and Cairo

was tremendous. One did not have to agree with everything Sartre said, but his

ideas became pivotal to the new generation of writers who sought involvement in

the political and social issues of their times. (Jabra 87-88)

In the 60s, however, the Arabic novel took another dimension due to many historical,

social and political factors, such as the emergence of totalitarian regimes in most of the

Arab countries, economic and social disorder in the post-independence era and Arabs

defeat in the war against Israel and its allies in 1967.

During its short history, the narrative genre knew important stylistic and thematic

improvements which enabled it to depict the worries and concerns of Arabs in a more

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remarkable way than any other literary expression. Its unique aspects made it also the

suitable literary genre which could absorb and reflect the major transformations and

frustrations of Arab societies. Socially speaking, it succeeded in uncovering the hidden

and forbidden terrain oftaboos in the Arab culture. Sexual issues, patriarchal culture,

position of women became not only subjects of popular, but also part of serious debates.

Besides, the emergence of the Arabic novel helped in raising the issue of language;

meaning how to give Arabic new dimension other than its expressive function; how it

could become operative by establishing a new relationship and dialogue between

tradition and innovation; between Arabic literary legacy and foreign texts produced in,

and imported from, other parts of the world.

Any attempt at speaking about the historical development of the Arabic novel

must take into account two components, one historical and the other structural. In the first

case, the genre of the novel has no historical roots in Arab literary tradition. It is, rather, a

Western mode of expression which has been imitated by Arab writers who had direct

contact with or learned European languages and culture. In less than one century, the

Arabic novel attained its literary maturity, a transformation which took about three

centuries in Europe. This abridgment of time did not affect Arabs narrative experiences,

but it allowed Arab writers to broaden their perspectives, learn from their Western

fellows experiences and be able to choose the appropriate way to convey their message

or to share their literary imagining. In the second case, Arabic narrative writing did not

form one coherent whole. It was rather a series of individual and regional experiences full

of diversities. Herein, one should distinguish between two stages.

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The first is referred to as theBeginnings, a period which lasted from the end of the

19th century till the 40s of the last century. Early narratives are strongly influenced by

Western models and characterised by mixing between literary genres; that is to say,

mixing traditional forms, like maqama, travel narratives, chronicles etc with imported

Western narrative techniques, such as characterization, plot, setting etc. As Jeff Shalan

remarks:

Without a clear antecedent in the traditional forms of Arabic prose narrativethe

maqama, hadith, sira, qissa, khurafa, usturait was for the most part a group of

Syrian Christians who first introduced the novel to the Arab world through

nineteenth-century translations of European works , often adapted to the rhymed

prose form of the maqama. But a consequence of the Syrian migration that

followed the Lebanese massacre of 1860, and the strict code of censorship

imposed by the Ottoman administration in Syria, the center of literary activity had

shifted by the latter part of the nineteenth-century to Cairo where the climate was

more conductive to literary freedom, especially after 1882, when the British

protected it by law. With a still small but growing readership, the popularityand

thus the demandfor these translations and adaptations increased, and this in turn

gave some writers the incentive to begin writing novels of their own. But by the

large, these early experiments in the genre were unable to break free from the

formal and thematic constraints of traditional prose forms. (217)

The question of identity was a dominating theme of the first novels. It was

expressed through reconsidering the relationship between the personal and the collective

history as well as questioning the very functionality of tradition in an era of immense

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inter-cultural interactions. Being greatly influenced by Western achievements, Arab

writers started intensifying their efforts to spread new ways of looking at the world; they

called for a society governed by democracy and freedom (demands which most Arab

countries did not meet yet). Representative works of these innovative tendencies are the

historical novels of Jurji Zaydan, Ali Al-Jarem, Mohammed Farid and others. What

brings these novels together is their sincere attempt to restore the collective identity. To

attain this aim, early Arab novelists tried to restore Arab chivalric values and glorious

acts of the forefathers, by reviving special historical moments, events or figures that

could trigger Arabs collective consciousness.

Although many names and works appear in different critical studies as

fundamental, most critics agree that Jabran Khalil JabransAl- Ajniha Al-Moutakassira

(1911-12) (The Broken Wings) and Mohamed Husayn HyakalsZaynab, which appeared

first under the name ofMisri Fallah (An Egyptian Peasant) in 1913, are the first mature

modern novels in Arabic language. These novels resemble in their structure the

sentimental and rural novels of 18th century Europe obsessed by the mission and ambition

of fixing right behaviour, reforming conduct and exposing social evil. Immediate issues

found their way to these novels, particularly the critical position of Arab women in a

male oriented community. In these narratives, Arab society, mentality and culture are

harshly criticized and condemned for marginalising and silencing Arab women who

suffered since the dawn of history from male oriented systems of manipulation,

oppression and domination.Zaynab, for instance, is a rambling and sentimental story,

with at its coreapart from sub-plots that are never rounded offthe predicament of a

peasant girl who dies of consumption after being made to marry the man her father

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chooses for her rather than the one she loves. It is also noted for its sympathetic depiction

of rural life, and for its bold use of the colloquial in parts of the dialoguenot

throughout, as has often been asserted, but in the context of everyday life (Cachia 113).

Though employing some traditional techniques, like empirical style, poetic language etc,

these works fulfil the requirements of a complete novelistic writing because they

successfully utilise the fundamental aspects of the novel, like everyday speech, dialogue,

characterisation etc.

As for the second stage, which can be labeled as the Mature Stage, narrative prose

writing declared an abrupt break with all forms of Arab traditional expressions, like

maqama,sira, hikaya etc, which allowed it a full adherence to the club of the pioneering

figures of the Western novel. The literary enlightenment of the 1960s was the outcome of

a number of complex aesthetic and formal formations and transformations of a

considerable number of Arab writers from different Arab countries. Unlike their masters,

modern Arab novelists this time tackled their subject matter in a crafted and profound

way.Reality was no longer seen from the narrow perspective of culture and history, but

from a broader angle that put these components into scrutiny and interrogation; Arab

reality was looked at not as the result of the instant moment, but as a process which has

roots in history and tradition. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra points out that

The leit-motifs of the new writers were: freedom, anxiety, protest, struggle, social

progress, individual salvation, rebellion, heroism. There was to be commitment to

humanity: a Third World was being born and writers were its prophets.

Altogether, there was something in the air rather akin to what had happened in

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England and France twenty years earlierin the Thirties. Hemingway, a novelist

of action, became belatedly almost as popular as Sartre. (88)

These elements appear clearly in the works of many modern novelists, like the Egyptians

Jamal Al-Ghitani, Najib Mahfuz and others; the Sudanese Tayyib Salleh; the Lebanese

Elyas Khouri; the Syrian Hani Arahib; the Palestinian Ghassan Kanafani; the Algerian

Tahar Watar; or the Moroccan Mohammed Berrada.

In comparison with the East, narrative writing in Morocco began to appear only in

the late 20s. Despite of this delay, one can safely say that the Moroccan novel succeeds to

gain important and prestigious position in Arab and world literary circles. It succeeds also

to formulate its own independent questions that respond to the worries and inquiries of its

readers. The genre of the novel has been first imported to Morocco from the Arab East

and later from the West, especially from France. Other influential elements that have

played a crucial role in the development of the novel in Morocco are local forms of

expression which were popular at that time, namely travel narratives, historical accounts

and autobiographical writings.

Like elsewhere in Africa and the Arab world, the Moroccan novel of the first half

of the 20th century was occupied by promoting national ideologies and spreading the

culture of resistance and struggle, for the sake of freeing the nation from foreign

occupation. A great deal of these patriotic ideas was fuelled by Salfistideologies. They

called for the return to Islamic teachings and heritage in order to intensify social, cultural

and political reforms and to break free from the constraints of colonialism and rescue the

national and Islamic identity from French cultural influences. In the post-independence

era, literary endeavours were oriented towards discussing and revealing immediate

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political and national issues. In this atmosphere, Marxist and leftist thoughts flourished

under the banner of eradicating social injustices and political corruption. Literature,

according to this perspective, should become an instrument that reflected the disturbances

in the social and political system and responded to the demands of the middle and lower

classes. In a word, In [] the postcolonial era, Maghrebian writers focus on unearthing the

negative factors that erode Maghrebian society (Mortimer,Maghrebian 5).

During its history, the Moroccan novel used to be dependent on Eastern literary

models. It used to imitate Eastern themes and forms of expression and to follow its

patterns. Abdellah Guenoune argues:

The situation in Morocco [in the mid-19 th and the beginning of the 20th century]

was not suitable enough to give rise to any other form of expression than those

which were popular at that time [] Therefore, intellectual and literary activities

remained stagnant, imitating classical works in everything: themes, form and

style. Writers composed their books in the same way as their ancestors and

employed the same archaic techniques. ([translation from Arabic is mine] 17)

Accordingly, these works had no literary value, for they lacked the spirit of creation and

innovation. Guenoune concludes:

Yes there were writers and critics but their relation with the past was stronger than

with the modern age. Their literary production did not differ at all from those

written three centuries ago, though their authors were our contemporaries.

([translation from Arabic is mine] 17).

After the 60s, Moroccan narrative writing knew important developments which

have led to the birth of well-written and socially committed texts which have relied on

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the power of the imagination to reflect individual and collective concerns. In comparison

to the founding masters, the writers of the 60s dealt with their social reality in a more

complex way. They were forced to reconsider their ideas and views about the formation

and representation of reality and redesign the boundaries between the social and the

political. From 1975 onwards, when the political regime managed to put an end to the

revolutionary spirit of Moroccan leftist movements and to establish with force social

peace, Moroccan novelists, as well as the rest of the population, felt deeply disappointed

and deceived by their own patriots who proved to be a duplicate of the former colonisers.

To avoid being censored or getting into trouble with the official authorities, Moroccan

novelists chose to alienate themselves from society and politics and sought refuge in the

vast realm of the imagination. The writers Selfformulated the chief theme of the novels

written in the 70s and the early 80s. 1

Understandably, then, the 60s was a turning decade in the history of the Moroccan

novel. For many commentators, the mid 60s, precisely 1967, witnessed the birth of the

modern Moroccan fiction.Jil Adama(Generation of Thirst), written by the Moroccan

writer and philosopher Mohammed Aziz Lahbabi, is considered by many Moroccan

literary historians as the first work which responds to the criteria of a good novelistic

writing. Like Tayyib Sallehs Season of Migration to the North, a novel which I will

discuss in detail in the next chapter of this study, the protagonist of Lahbabi, Idriss, is an

intellectual who returned to his homeland after a long educational journey in Cairo where

he got his MA and after that in Sorbonne University where he was granted a Ph.D. The

big dilemma of Idriss is choosing; choosing between the Self and the various others: his

1 For more information, see the second chapter of Ahmed Almadinnis bookAl-Kitabba Sardeya fi Al-Adab

Al-Maghrebi Al-Hadith, Rabat: Dar Almaarif Al-JAdida, 2000, especially from page 67 till 71; Abdelali

Bou Tayyib, Arriwaya Al-Maghrebeya Al-AanAlittihad Al-Ichtiraki 02 Sept. 2005


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own society and the West where he used to live: Since his return to Morocco six months

ago, he lived in a world of confusion and obscurity because he could not choose

([translation from Arabic is mine] 51). Like all those who came from Europe, Idriss is

brought suffering from a double pressure: personal and social. After his European

journey, Idriss found himself forced to break free from the feeling of doubt caused by his

direct contact with Western culture. He wanted to be convenient to his society, by

transmitting his knowledge (teaching at the university) without giving up his hope of

being a writer, a feeling which allows him to be in peace with himself. There are other

critics who believe thatFi Toufoula (In Childhood) (1957) by Abdelmajid Ben Jelloun

should be honoured as the first Moroccan novel. Others think that Thami El-Ouzzanis

Zawya (The Saints Tomb) (1942) marks the real beginning of the Moroccan narrative

experience. There are even some views that relate the emergence of the Moroccan novel

to Ibn Al-Mokat and his workArihla Al-Morrakochiyya (The Marrakechian Journey)

appeared in 1924.

From this short survey, one can notice that the Moroccan novel appeared late in

comparison with the East and the West. Ahmed Al-Madini, a leading Moroccan critic and

writer, describes this retard as a double handicap. He argues: Concerning the

Moroccan novel, the problem was big since it embodied a double handicap. The first

handicap has to do with the history of its emergence; the second with its imitation of

Eastern models which had in their turn imitated Western ones ([translation from Arabic

is mine] 40). This explains why the majority of early works were formally poor and

aesthetically weak, likeAmtar A-Rahma (The Rains of Mercy) by Abderrahmane El-

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Merrini; Ghaddan Tatabadalo Al-Aard(Tomorrow will Change the Earth) by El-Bakrri

Sbai; andEnnaha Al-Hayat(Thats Life) by Mohammed El-Bounani etc.

From all that has been written till the end of the 60s, there are only five titles

which are granted a permanent place in the Moroccan literary repertoire. These novels are

Azzawya (The Saints Tomb) (1942) by Thami El-Ouazzani;Fi Toufoula (In Childhood)

(1957) by Abdelmajid Ben Jelloun; Sabato Abouab (Seven Gates) (1965) by Abdelkarim

Guellab; Dafanna Lmadi (We Buried the Past) (1966) by Abdelkarim Guellab; andJil

Addama(Generation of Thirst) (1967) by Mohammed Aziz Lehbabi. The main

characteristics of these works can be summarised in three main points: the reliance on

autobiographical elements, the representation of the European Other and the use of

European narrative techniques

The first outstanding characteristic of the early Moroccan fiction is the presence

of the writers autobiographical elements in their literary works. For Abdelah Laroui, a

Moroccan novelist and philosopher, the circulation of the fiction genre was the result of

creative influences and a sign of an independent self. For this reason, the novel hosted the

unique form of autobiography, to the extent that novel writing was during a long time a

synonym of the autobiographical ([translation from Arabic is mine] 155). The second

specification of this period is the problematic relationship between the Self and the

European Other, who makes often an essential part of the main plot. This can be clearly

seen in the autobiographical work of Abdelmajid Ben JellounsFi Toufolla (In

Childhood), which speaks about childhoods memories of a child torn between two

distinct environments: England and Morocco. The representation of the European Other

was dictated by the spirit of the age characterised by intense cultural contacts and

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numerous clashes. This confused relationship between the two worlds is also apparent in

narrative prose produced in other Arab regions, such asRihlat Osfour Mina Achark(A

Voyage of a Bird from the Orient) by Tawfik Alhakim,Kandil Om Hachim (The

Candlestick of Om Hachim) by Yahya Hakki, orMawssim Al-Hijjra Ila Ashamal(Season

of Migration to the North) by Tayyib Salleh. The third element that distinguishes this

eras prose fiction is the successful employment of the techniques of the novel. The

remarkable achievements of the foundational novels are their well imitation of both

Eastern and Western classics: telling a story, respecting the linearity of narration, using

omniscient narrators etc. Though the quality of these early works is not satisfactory

enough, one can argue that they manage to establish the basis for a pure Moroccan fiction

and to pave the way for the coming generations of Moroccan writers.

Unlike the 60s, the 70s was an era of political turmoil. As a consequence of the

wrong and unjust policies of the post-independence governments, policies which have led

to terrible social, political and economic conditions, the majority of the population felt

deceived and cheated by their political elites2. This unstable situation was behind the

bloody confrontation, the so called the Years of the Bullets, between different

Moroccan ideological and political movements and the state; between those who profited

from the new situation and those who did not. Not only have national events left a

negative impact on Moroccan collective consciousness, but also other events that took

place elsewhere in the Arab world, namely Israelo- Palestinian clash and the negative

effects of the Arab defeat against Israel in 1967. Writers like Mohammed Zafzaf,

Abdelkarim Guellab, Mobarrak Rabi and Mohamed Choukri, were the representative

2 Ahmed Almadinni,Al-Kitabba Sardeya fi Al-Adab Al-Maghrebi Al-Hadith, Rabat: Dar Almaarif Al-

JAdida, 2000, pp. 67-71

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figures of Realism in the Moroccan novel: The new writers were interested on themes

which deal with their new society and the specificities of the historical experience. They

were interested on expressing their peoples thoughts and ideologies as well as their

misery, ignorance, poverty and backwardness. ([translation from Arabic is mine] Azzam

13). To name some aspects that marked this period, one can, for instance, refer to the use

of the problematic heromost of the time heroism is restricted to intellectuals from the

middle class; social and political criticism; the utilisation of a simple language that rejects

the stylistic extravagances of classical Arabic literature etc.

These socio-cultural conditions gave birth to modern literary ideas which

considered the innovation of Moroccan literary writing as an urgent priority. The interest

on narrative techniques and its various mechanisms became one of the main concerns of

the Moroccan novelists. Novels followed no longer the linearity of events and the

classical conventions of plot, but became highly fragmented and modernist. Indeed, they

adopted intra- and intertextual strategies. That is to say, modern experimental novels

employed meta-narrative techniques, such as dialogues between the narrator and the

characters or that of the narrator with the author as we shall see in the discussion of

Mohammed Barradas The Game of Forgetting, or engage in an intertextual relationship

with other texts through citing, alluding or parodying them as we find in a recent work of

Mohammed Berrada, The Woman of Forgetting(2001), which is a hypertext of his first

novel The Game of Forgetting(1987).

In addition to their interest on modern techniques, Moroccan writers relied on the

power of imagination as an essential source of inspiration. Old themes, such as

independence, colonialism, poverty, democracy, justice, backwardness, liberty, struggle

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etc, gave place to egocentric subjects, in which writers own inquiries and daily

experiences are made representative of the rest of the population. These innovative

qualities have helped in bridging the gap between writers and their reading public who

became interactive and participants in actualising the literary work. Contemporary

Moroccan readers became no longer passive consumers of Moroccan literary products,

but critical readers. Critical readers are meant by the critics and the intellectuals who

followed an academic education; this category forms a very small minority in a country

which suffers from a reading crisis and whose bestselling titles are less than 3000 copy.

Even more privileged than the Moroccan fiction is the Algerian, since it has been

influenced and strengthened by local, Arab and European elements that caused its

literature to obtain a remarkable position in Arab and world literary map. The fusion of

Berber local specificities and Arabo-Islamic spirit with the French language and culture

has added to the peculiarity of the Algerian narrative experience. According to Laroussi,

the use of French does not mark a historical movement, but a direct representation of

Algerian society:

La langue franaise nest-elle plus la marque dun mouvement historique (cent

trente deux ans de colonisation), mais une prsentation directe de la socit

algrienne, cest--dire un faux mouvement puisque depuis lindpendance la

culture arabo-berbre inverse le rapport de domination franaise sans le

supprimer. Il y a en Algrie une coupure irrationnelle entre se dire et tre,

do le climat durgence de sa littrature. (55)

In this rich cultural context, the Algerian novel in French developed, reflecting a history

full of diversity, contest and resistance, which explains the omnipresence of themes of

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nationalism and resistance in the Algerian novel in both French and Arabic. Mohammed

Dib, Kateb Yacine, Malek Haddad, Assia Djebar and others are becoming international

names who have a large reading public not only in their homeland Algeria, but in the rest

of the globe as well.

World literature is full of examples of writers who wrote in other languages than

their mother tongues. The Algerian novel of French expression is a special cultural and

linguistic phenomenon which succeeded in triggering important critical debate varied

from views which include it within the category of the Arab novel (its themes and subject

matters spring from Arabs socio-cultural context), whereas some views, and these

represent the majority, consider it as an Algerian novel written in French, for language is

the medium which indicates the identity of ones literature. Algerian writers refuse the

idea of categorising their fiction either within Arab or French literary tradition, for they

believe that the Algerian case and reality are unique. They believe also that their

relationship with French is that of embattlement, dismantlement and subversion. Farid

Laroussi points out:

[Le romancier Algrien] refuse lalternative entre tre un crivain arabe ou un

crivain moderne, parce que, justement, les normes de validation culturelles ne

sont pas intrinsquement et naturellement occidentales. A la violence de la

mission universaliste franaise, lauteur algrien cherche opposer celle dun r-

enracinement et ce en dpit des dissonances nes de lemploi de la langue

franaise. (54)

For many commentators, like Jean Djeux, the real beginning of the Algerian

novel in French took place in 1925 the date of the publication of Abdelkader Hadj

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Hammous novelZohra: la Femme du Mineur, where he tried to imitate the techniques of

Emile ZolasNaturalistic novel. This text and others, like that of Sliman Benbrahim,

Mohamed Oualdcheikh and others, were merely imitations of French colonial texts which

have portrayed the Algerian man as the exotic, backward and uncivilised Other who is

different, yet convenient to the French Self. For Hafnaoui Ba-Ali, early Algerian texts in

French are characterised by a clear linearity which presented the Algerians in the same

consumed exotic image as French colonial narratives. Technically speaking, these texts

were aesthetically and thematically poor, for they could not break free from presenting

simple love stories between the locals and the settlers. In these stories, the image of the

Algerian is either that of a nave and simple or of an evil and violent. Ba-Ali states:

These authors were writing for the French Other, trying to show them that

Algerians are able to write as good as any civilised European. But the inquiries

and the problems raised in these texts could not go beyond the simple exhibition

of theAlgerian as a context and subject of entertainment and folklore, with its

consumptive degrading meaning. The movement of the Algerian novel in French

started to establish for itself a literary repertoire which could reflect the Algerian

Self and the ambitions of this man who inhabited North Africa ([translation from

Arabic is mine] 3).

Other critics, like Charles Bonn, mentioned that the beginning of the Algerian

novel of French expression took place in 1950 which coincided with the publication of

Fils du Pauvre (The Poor Mans Son) by Mouloud Feraoun. Feraoun is considered as one

of the best North African novelists who write in French and his novel,Fils du Pauvre, as

an authentic celebration of the heroic qualities of the Kbayli Algerian man. The events

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took place in a small and calm village called Tizy, where the poor mans son, Forlo, was

born and grown up. The village is at the same time a prototypical space of a typical rural

community where life was still governed by traditional cultural norms handed down from

one generation to another. Central to this novel is the contest between the local cultural

identity and that imposed by the French occupier through his language, educational

system etc. Feraouns text is to certain extents an autobiographical novel which describes

the authors childhood and adolescence. Thus, the use of autobiography is an element

which is to be detected in most early North African novels of both Arabic and French:

Lmergence du je dans la littrature maghrbine de la langue franaise depuis

les annes 50 nest pas a comprendre comme une rduction purement et

simplement a notre personnalisme de plus en plus accentue des socits ne

faisaient pas suffisamment sa place a la personne (autonome et responsable) en

tant que telle. La cration romanesque dans lactivit scripturale est donc bien ici

lieu privilgie ou cette personne peut saffirmer et donc, par le fait mme ; entre

en conflit ; mais aussi sortir du communautarisme et du conformisme pour tre

une personne a part entire. (Djeux quoted in Kelly 26)

IfFils du Pauvre is seen as the real beginning of the Algerian novel of French

expression, Katib Yacines remarkable workNejma is described as one of the best

Algerian novels, for it managed to represent in a deliberate way the countrys critical

situation under the French rule. In this work, Yacine, through his central character

Nejma, is occupied with the idea of searching for his own homeland and identity. Nejma

is the spirit of the Algerian revolution; an emblem of the whole country, the maternal

space where lies ones roots and memories. The structure and the style of the novel are

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highly modernist as it can be seen in the use of stream of consciousness, myth,

fragmentation and the violation of standard conventions of classical writing. Postmodern

elements, like the subversion of French language, are also to be found in YacinesNejma.

This is what Larroussi noticed in his article about the genealogy of Algerian literature in

French:

Le phnomne dcriture post-modern possde, chez Kateb Yacine ou Rachid

Boujedra, le caractre d'une dmonstration idologique ; comme sil sagissait de

faire une seconde rvolution algrienne. Leurs romans, de par le choix de la

langue franaise, est une forme de reconnaissance que le sujet existe par ses actes,

mais quon ne peut lui prter les ides qui correspondent a ses actes quil

accompli: bref, se dire en franais pour ne plus tre franais, voila ou rside la

singularit. Comme dans le couple Prospro-Caliban il faut que le matre

europen cde au gnie indigne non-europen. Ce choix de franais, tout aussi

imposant quil parait, est donc le contraire dune adhsion. (56)

For Katib Yacine and other Algerian novelists, narrative writing is a form of resistance

against any attempt of cultural deformation or assimilation. It is a way to keep witness to

what happened in the historical experience as well as to give Algerian man and woman

their respect back.

Together with their male fellow citizens, Francophone Algerian women writers

have contributed to the development of the Algerian novel and the enrichment of the

discussion about crucial issues, such as race, language, identity, gender, ethnicity, culture

and nationalism. Writers like Assia Djebbar, Marie-Louise Amrouche and others

presented gendered views of Algerias personal and collective history during French

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occupation and after independence. Their literature came also as a reaction against the

imposition of colonial cultural norms which called for the rejection of traditional social

rules which organise the relationship between sexes. They rejected the idea of being

westernised. Meriam Cooke sums up the situation as follows:

Some strongly criticised the biculturalism inheritent in a [French educational]

system that promoted womens self-confidence and self-assertion outside the

home but crashed any sign of autonomy within. Indeed, it was those of Algerian

women who perceived the double standards of their education who were pioneers

of francophone fiction in the Arab world. Unlike the men who wrote just before

and after the revolution of 1954-61, the women did not write to distance

themselves from the French but rather to understand their situation in a bicultural

society. (141).

One of the outstanding themes of francophone Algerian novel now is the clash

between tradition and modernity; between ones culture and external influences. The

contemporary Algerian novel deals in a new way with these antagonistic components, by

reviving the glorious achievements of the national heroic figures; redefining the

relationship between the sexes; and asserting its aesthetic, linguistic and stylistic

autonomy as an independent literary form which opposed French cultural hegemony.

Indeed, it engages in a dialogue with the past and the present; with the colonial history

and modern Algerian society and in the midst the political and social disorder caused by

the armed confrontation between Islamist movements and political authorities. By doing

so, it aims at reflecting about the flaws, greed and blood thirst of the past and present,

opinions which so often can cause ominous danger to its writers.

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III. The Relationship between Europe and the Arab World in Tayyib Sallehs

Season of Migration to the North

Re-considering the relationship between Europe and the Arab world is one of the

dominating features in the novel chosen to be the subject of this chapter, Season of

Migration to the North by the Sudanese novelist, Tayyib Salleh. In this part, I will discuss

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the relationship between Europe and the colonial Others, focusing more particularly on

the genre of the novel as a form of writing back to the centre. I will also try to show that

the novels problematisation of European systems of thought serves many purposes, some

of which are to establish a dialogue with, as well as to react against, European models of

domination, by involving in a dialectical relationship between European colonial heritage

and the re-created independent local identity.

No Arabic novel attained much discussion and investigation as that of Tayyib

Sallehs Season of Migration to the North because it manages successfully to represent the

dichotomy and historical conflict between East and West and to raise the question of cultural

and national identity of the post-colonial Sudan.3Salleh aims in this work to describe the

reality of the post-independence Sudan by providing two distinct views of the Sudans

national identity. Though the novel does not give a clear answer to this question, one can

safely say that British presence in the region has led to a fracturing of Sudanese identity;

an identity torn between the material allure of modernity, egoism and materialism, and

the perceived spirituality, originality and purity of Arabo-Islamic legacy; between the fact

of a hybrid present and the myth of an authentic past; in short, an identity which is left

with no other choice but to forget about the past and cope with the modern reality.

According to Saree Makdisi,

The novel lies between the traditional categories of East and Westthat

confusing zone in which the culture of an imperial power clashes with that of its

3 This novel of Tayyib Salleh has been widely received in the Arab countries and the west. Many reviews,

essays and books have been devoted to the analysis and discussion of this work. A partial listing of these

works: Fatima Musa. Usfur min al-Janub aw Alam al-Tayyib Salih.Al- Majalla 164 (1970): 95-102;

Muhammad Zaghlul Salam.Dirasat fi al-Qissa al-Arabiyya al-Haditha. Alexanderia: Munshaat al-

Maarif, 1973: 428-437; Ahmad Said Muhamadiyya (ed).Al-Tayyib Salih: Abqari al-Riwaya

al-Arabiyya. Beirut: Dar al-Wda, 1976 etc. For a complete list, see Ami Elad-Bouskilas article Shaping

the Cast of Characters: the Case of Al-Tayyib Salih.Journal of Arabic Literature 19.2 (1998) pp. 59-60.

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victimsthe antithetical relationship between which provides much of its driving

force. This is the same dynamic that has generated many of the contradictions

now characteristic of other postcolonial societies that manifest themselves in the

clash between such categories as the modern and the traditional, the new and

old ways of life, and of course between Western and native cultures and values.

(807)

In Season of Migration to the North, Tayyib Salleh departs from the assumption

that the imposition of Western culture on the region has caused irretrievable damage at all

levels of life in the Sudan. He emphasises that British culture is foreign to the Sudan and

its people; a culture which is incompatible with the regions historical, social, religious

and cultural specificities. In this respect, Sallehs text comes as a reaction against the

bitter history of British colonial and cultural hegemony. In this counter-narrative, Salleh

tries to recast the history of the relationship between Britain and the Sudan, by

investigating the key concepts that govern the relationship between the two worlds.

These issues are embedded in the stories of two Arab citizens who return to their

homeland, the Sudan, after the experience of living in Europe. The first story, with which the

narrative opens, is that of a man, the narrator, who returns to his village at the curve of the

Nile after spending seven years in Britain, studying literature at one of its universities: It

was, gentlemen, after a long absenceseven years to be exact, during which time I was

studying in Europethat I returned to my people (1). The other story is that of Mustafa

Said, a former university teacher of Economics at the University of London, who appears

suddenly in the narrators small village, marries one of its women and becomes one of its

inhabitants: My father said that Mustafa was not a local man but a stranger who had come

here five years ago, had bought himself a farm, built a house and married Mahmouds

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daughtera man who kept himself to himself and about whom not much was known (2).

The portrayal of the narrator and Mustafa Said reflects on the conflicting options embodied in

their characters. One is moderate, the narrator, who seeks to bridge the gap between his

Eastern culture and Western norms, by pointing out that both cultures have strong qualities

and, at the same time, their shortcomings:

Yes, there are some farmers among them [Europeans]. Theyve got everything

workers and doctors and farmers and teachers, just like us. I preferred not to say the

rest that had come to my mind: that just like us they are born and die, and in the

journey from the cradle to the grave they dream dreams some of which come true and

some of which are frustrated; that they fear the unknown, search for love and seek

contentment in wife and child; that some are strong and some are weak; that some

have been given more than they deserve by life, while others have been deprived by

it, but that the differences are narrowing and most of the weak are no longer weak.

(3).

The figure of Mustafa Said, however, represents anti-West tendencies that call for revenging

against former colonial powers:

They [Europeans] imported to us the germ of the greatest European violence, as seen

on the Somme and at Verdun, the like of which the world has never previously

known, the germ of a deadly disease that struck them more than a thousand years ago.

Yes, my dear sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of the poison

which you have injected into the veins of history. (95)

The novels concern with serious issues such as colonial guilt and the issue of

national identity manifest the spirit of embattlement which characterises what Fredric

Jameson calls, third-world literatures, namely to [draw] upon the many different

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indigenous local and hybrid processes of self-determination to defy, erode and sometimes

supplant the prodigious power of imperial cultural knowledge (Aschroft, et al 1)4.

According to Frederic Jameson, all texts produced in the former colonies have the

specificity of being national allegories. This notion is made evident in the opening

statements which describe the experience of the return of the native from the West. This

return enables the character to reconsider anew the tension between colonial and colony

cultures; between Western values and Eastern ones:

For seven years I had longed for [my people], had dreamed of them, and it was an

extraordinary moment when I at last found myself standing amongst them. They

rejoiced at having me back and made a great fuss, and it was not long before I felt as

though a piece of ice were melting inside of me, as though I were some frozen

substance on which the sun had shonethat life warmth of the tribe which I had lost

for a time in a land whose fishes die of the cold. (1)

The narrators migration to the north opens to him new worlds. Not only does he enlarge his

intellectual capacities, but also gets acquainted with the culture of the former coloniser. This

northern experience has also offered him the opportunity to correct his ideas about Europeans

and to refashion his relationship with his own country and people. What can be deduced from

this prelude is that the narrators views towards Europe are not affected by any political or

religious ideologies and his northern journey has not shaken his singular and well-rooted

sense of identity (Geesey, Cultural130). He lived among Europeans without loving them or

hating them. For seven years he was occupied with one thing, to return back to his small

village and embrace his people.

4 Fredric Jamesons article Third World Literature in the Era of Multinationalism. Social Text 15 (1986),

is very questionable. For responses, see the remarkable article of Aijaz Ahmad, Jamesons Rhetoric of

Otherness and the National Allegory. Social Text17 (1987).

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Being open to both worlds and speaking from the in-between space, the narrator

fulfils the role of a mediator between his own Arabo-Islamic culture and the Euro-Christian.

Throughout the narrative, he keeps neutral. He never passes value judgments or criticises the

West as most of his fellow citizens. On the contrary, he asserts that European culture is like

any other culture in the world. It has good and bad sides at the same time and Europeans are,

after all, human beings who do not differ that much from the rest of the human species. They

are with minor differences, exactly like [his people] marrying and bringing their children in

accordance with principles and traditions, that they [have] good morals and [are] in general

good people (3). He seeks then to take distance from any ideology which contains deeper

significance other than what his words literally imply. That is to say, he did not feel at home

in England simply because he wanted to live where he belongs:

I looked through the window at the palm tree standing in the courtyard of our house

and I knew that all was still with life. I looked at its strong straight trunk, at its roots

that strike down into the ground, at the green branches hanging down into the ground,

at the green branches hanging down loosely over its top, and I experienced a feeling

of assurance, I felt not like a storm-swept feather but like that palm tree, a being with

background, with roots, with a purpose. (2)

The palm tree, deep rooted in the soil of the house, gives the narrator the impression of

stability, certainty and assurance. He tries to bring a link between his actual situation and

that of the tree. Differently put, after his long absence abroad, he could finally settle

down and have, like the palm tree, strong roots and a mission in life.

In this novel, Salleh encounters national discourse as an imaginative composite.

The sense of belonging which kept haunting Seasons narrator during his stay abroad or

the myths of nationalism which ruined Mustapha Saids life are imaginative and self-

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inventive constructs meant to free the self from the burdens of the colonial past and the

oppression of the deformed national reality. They aim also at reaffirming ones pre-

colonial culture and traditional ways of life in an attempt to give life in the former

colonies its local original specificity. The narrator ofSeasons nationalism has to be

understood by aligning it, not with self-consciously held political ideologies, but with the

large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which [] it came into being (Anderson

12). Moving from the metropolis to the countryside, the narrator starts revising the myth of

the Sudans cordiality. In the second day of his stay at the village, he begins reconsidering his

nostalgic feelings and romantic ideas about the paradise-like village and the angel-like

people. He discovers that the village that used to constitute his dreams and imagination is no

longer there. Instead, another transformed reality has taken place. In the new village,

pumps are used in place of water-wheels, iron ploughs instead of wooden ones, and

whisky and beer became the favourite beverage of the villagers instead of arak and millet

wine (100). He notices that the village has lost its peculiarity and charm and became a place

of contradictions. It is neither modern nor traditional, but hybrid:

From my position under the tree I saw the village slowly undergo a change: the

water-wheels disappeared to be replaced on the bank of the Nile by pumps, each one

doing the work of a hundred water-wheels. I saw the bank retreating year after year in

front of the thrusting of the water, while on another part it was the water that

retreated. Sometimes strange thoughts would come to my mind. Seeing the bank

contracting at one place and expanding at another, I would think that such was life:

with a hand it gives, with the other it takes. (5)

The invasion of Western modernity couldnt put an end to old and archaic practices,

such as patriarchy. A case in a point is the arranged marriage of Wad Rayyes, one of the

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inhabitants of the village known by his several marriages, with the widow of Mustafa Said,

Hosna Bint Mahmoud; a marriage which caused enormous chaos in the village when Hosna

killed Wad Rayyes and later her self. The village thus embodies the dual face of life in post-

colonial Sudan. The position of women in this changing world of the village/ Sudan remains

the same, for liberating women is not convenient for the male members of the community.

Therefore, they remain subject to marginality, oppression and silencing carefully and

systematically conducted by patriarchal dominated culture. They are not allowed the

opportunity to function and express themselves freely, but are controlled and spoken

about. Worse, they are considered as male properties; as something that belongs to men

(99). Reacting angrily against his grandfathers traditional views about the role and

position of women, the narrator affirms:

Anger checked my tongue and I kept silent. The obscene pictures sprang

simultaneously to my mind and to my extreme astonishment, the two pictures

merged: I imagined Hosna Bint Mahmoud, Mustafa Saeeds widow, as being the

same woman in both instances: two white, wide-open thighs in London, and a

woman groaning before dawn in an obscure village on a bend of the Nile under

the weight of the aged Was Rayyes. If that other thing was evil, this too was evil,

and if this was like death and birth, the Nile flood and the wheat harvest, a part of

the system of the universe, so too was that. I pictured Hosna Bint Mahmoud,

Mustafa Saeeds widow, a woman in her thirties, weeping under seventy-year-old

Wad Rayyes. Her weeping would be made the subject of Was Rayyess famous

stories about his many women with which he regales the men of the village. (86-

87)

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would wear a turban like the one the man is wearing. The British soldier laughed and

corrected him that what he has on is not a turban, but a hat: this is isnt a turban, he said.

It is a hat. (20). When the man wanted to do a favour to the child by placing his hat on his

head, Saids whole face disappeared inside it (20). This incident is symbolic enough as it

shows that colonial educational mission is meant by to demolish ones identity and make the

natives absorb and believe in the values and virtues assigned to them; to teach them to

submit, be convenient and say Yes. In her discussion of the novel, Benitta Parry remarks

that Saids educational history is a symbolic journey of natal displacement, alienation from

the English and revenge against the North, pieced together and reworked by the narrator from

the spoken and written words of a tormented immoralist and angry anti-colonialist consumed

by ressentimenta concept, according to Frederic Jameson, devised by late-nineteenth

century ideology to explain not only the revolt of mobs, but also the revolutionary vocation

of disaffected intellectuals (74).

Mustafa Said assigns himself the mission of revenging to his people from the former

coloniser, by causing pain to British women. The body of his British lovers becomes the

arena where Said has conducted his violent revenge. In his discussion of the novel, Saree

Makdissi notices that Saids reaction against the violent crimes of imperialism is fought on a

personal level and powered by Arab war metaphors. Makdisi points out that Saids

conquests are couched not only in terms of military operations in general, but in terms of

traditionalArab military campaigns in particular: going to meet new victims is described in

terms of saddling his camel; the process of courtship is compared to laying siege, involving

tents, caravans, the desert, and so forth (811). By doing so, he wants to bring back to the

British their disease of violence and invading them in the heart of their country: Yes, my

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dear sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of the poison which you have

injected into the veins of history (95).

Another element which highlights the novels reactionary spirit against the colonial

rule is the investment of historical registers of religious confrontations between Muslims and

the Crusaders. The symbolic importance of recollecting this historical process brings to light

East/West sensibilities and what Samuel Huntington called the clash of civilisations.For

ages, Muslims and Christians consider each others as a real danger that threatens ones

religious and cultural identity. Since the invasion of Spain by the Arabs at the 8 th century

and that of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the two poles and religions were never in peace:

For a moment I imagined to myself the Arab soldiers first meeting with Spain: like me at

this instant sitting opposite Isabella Seymour, a southern thirst being dissipated in the

mountain passes of history in the north (42). Similar memories are going to come to the

surface when Said was judged for murdering his English wife: I hear the rattle of the swords

in Carthage and the clatter of hooves of Allenbys horses desecrating the ground of

Jerusalem (94-5). Within this context of embattlement and misunderstanding emerged

Saids extreme attitudes towards the West. His hatred and revenge are inspired by ancient

hostile sentiments which have a history. For Saree Makdisi, the date of birth of Mustafa

Said is linked with an important moment in the history of the Sudan. 1898, the date of

birth of Said, is the year of the bloody defeat of Mahdist forces by Kitcheners army in

the battle of Omdurman, which signalled the final collapse of Sudanese resistance to

British encroachment (811). Symbolic enough is the year 1956Said disappears in this

year, may be drowning in the Nile, but we are never sure. To be precise, on January the

1st , 1956 the Sudan becomes an independent country. It seems, then, as if Mustafa

Saids resentment plays itself out in accordance with Frederic Jamesons account of

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Nietzsches negative category as the revenge of the slaves upon the masters and an

ideological ruse whereby the former infect the latter with a slave mentality () in order

to rob them of their natural vitality and aggressive, properly aristocratic insolence

(Parry 80).

To carry out his historical revenge, Said relies on his academic knowledge so as to

dismantle and subvert the systems of power that give rise and contribute in the formation

and emergence of British colonial power. After the dubious disappearance of Said, the

narrator wants to solve the enigma of Saids past; therefore, he decides to enter Saids

private room reserved to his souvenirs and private collections. When he gets in, he finds

an enormous collection of books from different fields of knowledge: poetry,

mathematics, history, economics, psychology etc. Among these books, he finds a number

of publications written by Mustafa Said himself:

The books I could see in the light of the lamp that they were arranged in

categories. Books on economics, history and literature. Zoology. Geology.

Mathematics. Astronomy. The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Gibbon. Macaulay.

Toynbee. The complete works of Bernard Shaw. Keynes. Tawney. Smith.

Robinson. The Economics of Imperfect competition. HobsonImperialism.

RobinsonAn essay on Marxian Economics. Sociology. Anthropology.

Psychology. Thomas Hardy. Thomas Mann. E.G. Moore. Thomas Moore.

Virginia Woolf. Wittgenstein. Einstein. Bierly. Namier. Books I had heard of and

others I had not. Volumes of poetry by poets of whom I did not know the

existence. The Journals of Gordon. Gullivers Travels. Kipling. Housman. The

History of French Revolution Thomas Carlyle.Lectures on the French Revolution

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Lord Acton. Books bound in leather. Books in paper covers. Old tattered books

that looks as if theyd just come straight from the printers. Huge volumes the size

of tombstones. Small books with gilt edges the size of packs playing cards.

Signatures. Words of dedication. Books in boxes. Books on the chairs. Books on

the floor. What play is acting this? What does he mean? Owen. Ford. Madox

Ford. Stefan Zweig. E. G. Browne. Laski. Hazlitt.Alice in the Wonderland.

Richards. The Koran in English. The Bible in English. The Economics of

Colonialism Mustafa Saeed. The Cross and Gunpowder Mustafa Saeed.

Prospero and Caliban. Totem and Taboo. Doughty. Not a single Arabic book. A

graveyard. A mausoleum. An insane idea. A prison. A huge joke. A treasure

chamber. (137-8).

Foucaults concern of the link between knowledge and power helps in setting up a

linkage between Saids massive book collections and his revenging mission5. Singling

out the intellectual mechanisms that play part in the emergence and elaboration of British

colonial mission, Said formulates, thanks to his readings, his own anti-colonial strategies;

a corresponding conceptual system through which he could problematise the different

forms of domination that settle underneath British colonial discourse. The thesis that Said

wants to prove is that British colonial body of knowledge condenses statements and ways

of dealing, thinking and seeing the Sudan which in turn help in the emergence of the

colonial power. British presence in the area was not driven by any noble motives, such as

5 After the failure of the leftist uprising in May 1968, Michel Foucault aimed this time not at investigatingthe social conditions of knowledge as elaborated in his book, The Order of Things, but at investigating the

practice of power through social systems. In his inaugural lecture, The Order of Discourse, after his

appointment to the Collge de France in 1970, Foucault drew up the major lines of his future work, by

stating that discourse is a complex network of social, political and cultural relations in which become

apparent the ways by which language, at the level of signs, is produced as a discourse, carrying beneath its

surface power and danger. For more information, see Rosi Braidotti,Nomadic Subjects, Cambridge: Polity

Press, 1991.

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that of civilising and educating the brutes as claimed by one of his professors at Oxford:

You, Mr Saeed, are the best example of the fact that our civilizing mission in Africa is

of no avail (93). For him, British presence in the region was purely for economic and

political reasons, as the American-Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, developed later in

his bookOrientalism (1978): my contention is that without examining Orientalism as a

discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which

European culture was able to manage and produce the Orient politically,

sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-

Enlightenment period (3). If Britain has used knowledge and its advanced weapons to

claim power over his people, Said also used similar strategies, but this time by employing

his intellect and his sexual capacities to accomplish his campaign.

Saids domineering personality causes him big troubles in his life. As the outcome

of his suspicious love affairs with a number of British women ended up with an act of

murder and a trial, Said loses his job at the university and was forced to leave London. In

the narrative, there is a parallel between the situation of Said and that of Shakespeares

Othello. While seducing his English victims, Said identifies himself with Othello. He

asserts that he and Othello share the same origin and belong to the same race: Im like

Othello Arab-African (38). Like Said, Othello is a Moor, an Arab hero who managed to

obtain a high military and civil position in the Western Venetian society. He is also the

product of European civilisation that turned him from a historical enemy, to a servant of

European interests. He, too, was married to a European and killed her out of revenge. Though

Said shares with Othello these qualities, he believes that the character of Othello is simply a

lie; a stereotypical representation of Arabs as unreasonable and hot tempered folk, which

evokes the complex confrontations of Self/Other. According to Ferial Ghazoul, the

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relationship of the modern Arab World to modern Europe is based neither on equality nor on

fraternity, but on dependency and subjugation, the literary dialogue between the two is

likely to be sharp and polemical. The history of a text like Othello will necessarily show a

variety of such reactions, starting with pleasure derived from the presence of the Self in the

canon of the Other, to anger and the deformation of the Self in a distorting mirror (1).

However, Said, while in court, starts to think again when he sees that his lawyer,

Professor Maxwell Foster-Keen, pictures him as a helpless victim of the colonial process;

as a person who has no command on his behaviour: Mustafa Saeed, gentlemen of the

jury, is a noble person whose mind was able to absorb Western civilisation but broke his

heart. These girls were not killed by Mustafa Saeed but by the germ of a deadly disease

that assailed them a thousand years ago (33). As a reaction against this parallelism,

though implicitly, between his case and that of Othello, Said thinks to himself that his

situation is different. It occurred to him that he should stand up and say to them: this is

untrue, a fabrication. It was I who killed them. I am the desert of thirst. I am no Othello. I

am a lie. Why dont you sentence me to be hanged and so kill the lie? (33). In a later

instance in the novel, the narrator recalls Saids words he wished he had uttered at the

court: Yes, my dear sirs, I came as an invader into your very homes: a drop of the poison

which you have injected into veins of history. I am no Othello. Othello was a lie (95).

Said insists that Othello does not exist, a lie, because he is a fabrication and a product

of Western imagination that exoticises and estranges the Other in order to show that this

Other stands in the opposite side of the European Self, as unreasonable, immoral and

untrustworthy. Saids invocation of Othello either as a weapon for seduction or as a

mental note expressed in defence is a pivotal concept for understanding the notion of

cultural contagion forSeason of Migration to the North (Geesey, Cultural 134).

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The traditional cultural struggle between East/West, coloniser/colonised,

master/slave and Self/Other is at the core of Sallehs narrative. This dialectic between

these distinct and contradictory worlds is part of the discourse of postcolonialism and

characteristic of nations having been affected by the experience of colonialism and

imperialism. Said resists the idea of being coined with Othello because he does not want to

inhabit an in-between space; to become hybrid as Othello, who is an archetypal mirage that

stands between the cultures of the West and the East (Geesey, Cultural 135). As an

intellectual, he is aware of the trap of hybridity, for he is by no means an emblem of cultural

hybridity, whose character is the resulting offspring from the colonial union of Great Britain

and Arabo-African nation of the Sudan [] a less than happy intermingling of East and

West as Patricia Geesey suggests (Cultural 129). On the contrary, Said represents a pure and

uncontaminated spirit of the Sudan; one of the warriors ofOmdurman who did not give up

but continues the struggle against the invaders till dropping them out of the land. He

disappears only after establishing peace and restoring life in the Sudan to its earlier order

before the coming of the British. The only character in the novel who is hybrid is the narrator

because he is the one who is affected by East/West cultural contact. Unlike Said, the narrator

inhabits the third space or the in-between space since he carries the mission of mediating

between two extremes. He passes perfectly in Bhabhas formula of third world or

postcolonial intellectuals. Homi K. Bhabha argues:

It is significant that the productive capacities of this Third Space have a colonial or

post-colonial provenance. For a willingness to descend into that alien territory

where I have led you may reveal that the theoretical recognition of the split-space of

enunciation may open the way to conceptualising an international culture, based not

on the exoticism or multi-culturalism of the diversity of cultures, but on the

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inscription and articulation of cultures hybridity. To that end we should remember

that it is the inter the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the in-between,

the space of the entre that Derrida has opened up writing itself that carries the

burden of the meaning of culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging national,

anti-nationalist, histories of the people. It is this space that we will find those words

with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity,

this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of

our selves. (209)

In addition to negotiating between his Oriental self and the Occidental Other, the

narrator fulfils the position of Derridas entre modernism and traditionalism. Not long after

his arrival, the narrator discovers that the characteristics which used to give the village its

special peculiarity start to fade away, giving place to other modern aspects. Though he feels

for a while disappointed, the narrators stand remain neutral with regard to these

transformations, for he is aware of the fact that his village could not remain forever authentic

and unaffected by the wind of change. Actually, what upsets him most and makes him

reconsider his idealistic ideas is the double face of the village. As Mahjoub, a friend of the

narrator, affirms, some things have changed pumps instead of water-wheels, iron ploughs

instead of wooden ones, sending our daughters to school, radios, cars, learning to drink

whisky and beer instead of arak and millet wine yet even so everythings as it was (100).

The allusion here is to the practice of patriarchy, deep rooted in the villages culture. In a

mocking voice, Mahjoub tells the narrator that it is an out-and-out impossibility to

eradicate such practices. The villages reaction to Hosnas murdering of her imposed husband

Wad Rayyes shows that life in the village is still governed by traditional customs. Being a

woman, Hossna is left with no other choice but to marry that old man, even though she hates

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him, simply because her father could not withdraw his promise: A week or ten days after

you went away her father said he had given Was Rayyes a promise and they married her off

to him. Her father swore at her and beat her; he told her shed marry him whether she liked it

or not (122). For the villagers, Hosna is associated with the devil because she does not

accept to continue playing old roles (108). She wants to assert her own identity as a free

woman who can decide for herself. Her decision finds no response either in her life or after

her death; her act is covered with a complete silence and becomes one of the villages taboos

since Its the first time anything like that has happened in the village since God created

(124). After knowing the reasons behind Hosnas act of murder, the narrator starts revising

his ideas towards his village and people. They are no longer the people we recall from the

early pages of the narrative, but a mad folk: Hosna wasnt mad, the narrator says, She

was the sanest woman in the village its you whore mad (132).

Immediately after this discovery, the narrator decides to seek revenge from Mustafa

Said. For him, it is Said, who should be blamed for what happened, because he brought with

him the seeds of European violence:

The world has turned suddenly upside down. Love? Love does not do this. This

hatred. I feel hatred and seek revenge; my adversary is within and I needs must

confront him. Even so, there is still in my mind a modicum of sense that is aware of

the irony of the situation. I begin from where Mustafa Saeed had left off. Yet he at

least made a choice, while I have chosen nothing. (134)

After the tragic incident, the narrator realises that he has to step back from the space of in-

betweeness and take a position. To do so, he figures out that he needs to confront himself, by

making a journey deep into his self. The secret room of Said is made symbolic of the

narrators dark side of his psyche. Inside Saids dark room, it appears to the narrator that

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Mustafa Said was emerging out of darkness and teasing him with a devilish smile. Moving

towards him with hate in his heart, he discovers that the image of his adversary Said is an

illusion. The image he saw is of himself, not that of Said: It was my adversary Mustafa

Saeed. The face grew a neck, the neck two shoulders and a chest, then a trunk and two legs,

and I found myself standing face to face with myself. This is not Mustafa Saeed its a

picture of me frowning at my face in the mirror (135). This realisation echoes that the

narrator has a dual personality (his personality and that of Said) and embodies dual cultures

(East/West) and two ways of life (traditional/modern). To Muhammed Siddiq, the reflection

of the narrators face in the mirror inside Mustafas room is a typical feature of the double in

literature (85). Siddiq suggests that the novels web of correspondences point out that Said

is indeed the narrators alter ego. He concludes that

The motif of the double is reinforced by Mustafas leaving the key to his private room

to the narrator, making him guardian of his children, and the narrators falling in love

with Mustafas widow Hosna. One stylistic element in particular contributes to this:

throughout the novel not one extended dialogue takes place between Mustafa and the

narrator. They exchange a few sentences here and there, but in the main either one or

the other is alone at the centre of the stage. After Mustafas death the two voices

begin to coalesce until it becomes virtually impossible to tell with certainty which one

is speaking. (87)

Playing the game of forgetting is what the narrator ofSeason conforms to at the end.

After cleaning up the dark space of his psyche, the narrator de

Documents

MA Literary Project 2008