Antony 1Antony 6Joseph AntonyInstructor: Amith KumarContemporary South Asian Literature28 February 2015Mid-term Assignment: Neo-colonialism and The Spirit of Fundamentalism in Moshin Hamids The Reluctant FundamentalistThe collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of the cold war has ushered in a new age of what post-colonial thinkers call Neo-colonialism. Neo-colonialism is the geo-political phenomenon in which economic and cultural imperialismnot necessarily war or direct military invasion--act as means for controlling and subjugating targeted countries. Undoubtedly, the central figure that occupies the core of modern neo-colonial empire is the United States. George Ritzer, the eminent post-modern social theorist, put this centrality of the United States in the current world order down to the McDonaldization of the global society. If terminology is the perfectly poetic moment of thought, Ritzers mcdonaldization is one that captures perfectly the hegemonic practice of neo-imperialism. It accounts for the almost seamless continuity between economic domination and cultural imperialism. Cultural Imperialism, in Weberian terms, is the instrumental rationality on which economic imperialism takes place; it constitutes the cog and spring of a system that sets the terms for modernity and civilization. As with any hegemonic practice, the neo-colonial empire also dictates who can participate in these discourses and who cannot. This is to say the various discourses in neo-colonialism operate within certain ethnic, racial and linguistic frameworksconsequently, leading to the alienation and resentment of some. This paper seeks to analyze and understand the various ways in which this alienation is felt by the characters in Moshin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and the intricate extenuating circumstances in which this alienation spawns fundamentalism. Hamids monologic love story is a complex interrogation of the American empire in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Hamids radical perspective is one that tries to reverse the vantage point to survey the post 9/11 situation with a post-colonial gaze. Rather than submit to a facile moral condemnation of terrorism, Hamids novel genuinely queries the set of conditions in which terrorism is produced. Like Jean Baudrillard, Hamid identifies terrorism as the core of the very culture that fights it. In other words, the spirit of terrorism is immanent to the alienation and subjugation of a visible schism that opposes the exploited and under-developed that fights against it. The terrorist hypothesis Baudrillard explains, is that the system itself suicides in response to the multiple challenges of death and suicide. Neither the system, nor power, themselves escape symbolic obligation -and in this trap resides the only chance of their demise (catastrophe). In this vertiginous cycle of the impossible exchange of death, the terrorist death is an infinitesimal point that provokes a gigantic aspiration, void and convection. Around this minute point, the whole system of the real and power gains in density, freezes, compresses, and sinks in its own super-efficacy. The tactics of terrorism are to provoke an excess of reality and to make the system collapse under the weight of this excess. The very derision of the situation, as well as all the piled up violence of power, flips against it, for terrorist actions are both the magnifying mirror of the system's violence, and the model of a symbolic violence that it cannot access, the only violence it cannot exert: that of its own death. (The Spirit of Terrorism and Other Essays) On the other hand, Moshin Hamids novel is a typical example of the diaspora novel as it is mainly concerned with questions of maintaining or altering identity, language and culture in another culture or country. What sets apart Hamids novel from the rest is the degree with which the characters experience this state of alterity. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is unique by virtue of how the narrative weaves this state of alterity into larger political questions of terrorism and immigration, taking on a new intensity with which the characters experience their identity crisis. In fact, the sense of rootlessness and cultural misrecognition felt by the main character Changez is what animates the entire novel. Right from the very beginning of the novel Changezs subject position is made clear through his relationship with Chucks friends in the soccer team. The other-ness of his being is revealed when he confesses that Chucks friends mostly liked him as an exotic acquaintance (18). Changezs interaction here is of paramount importance because he is already constituted as a national other even before the 9/11 attacks. Hamid, thus, is trying to show how the othering effect of a neo-colonial discourse was already in place; and hence, problematizes the largely held conception that takes the terrorist attack as the point of departure. A certain measure of self-exoticization can also be seen in Changez when he uses his ethnic exception to every model of etiquette. His acceptance of exotic difference is the psychological tension that the neo-colonial subject undergoes when placed outside the pale of cultural intelligibility in the empire. The exoticization of Changez also points to a re-signification of older forms of European colonialism that gets heightened as the novel progresses. Another instance of this cultural misrecognition can be seen when he is annoyed at the relative economic power American state power wielded. It also demonstrates how Changez had internalized his constitutive other-ness, and deep down in his psyche, a growing resentment towards American haughtiness had already taken shape:Often, during my stay in your country, such comparisons troubled me. In fact, they did more than trouble me: they made me resentful. Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians. Now our cities were largely unplanned, unsanitary affairs, and America had universities with individual endowments greater than our national budget for education. To be reminded of this vast disparity was, for me, to be ashamed. (28)The simmering psychic discontent then leads him down a path desperately seeking recognition from his American peers. Changezs notion that his ethnic exception might be to his advantage soon turns out to be his greatest impediment. At first he accepts his exotic other-ness thinking he might be able to integrate into the so-called multicultural cosmopolitanism of New York, but soon feels rejected by it. Although Changez did occasionally get irritated by the arrogance and self-righteousness of Americans, he was captivated by that cultural imago of the upper-class American achiever. Hamid brings out these psychic tensions brilliantly in developing Changezs character in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Changez narrates how he was annoyed at Chucks friends for how they treated the waiters with their typical American undercurrent of condescension. Respectability and dignity in personal conduct was important to him, which prompted Erica, his would-be lover to remark he was oddly polite. But the shift in Changezs character is evident as the novel progresses. Seeing as how he would never gain acceptance in American society with the ethnic exception clause, he is desperate to assimilate into the normative structure of American society. Changez ultimately throws away his guiding principles of dignity and propriety for a more brusque and american way of speaking. If before he was comfortable wearing his kurta in the subway, he now tries to hide his Pakistani identity in an expensive suit and car, all because of his desire to be a man of substance like Jim: I tried not to dwell on the comparison; it was one thing to accept that New York was more wealthy than Lahore, but quite another to swallow the fact that Manila was as well. I felt like a distance runner who thinks he is not doing too badly until he glances over his shoulder and sees that the fellow who is lapping him is not the leader of the pack, but one of the laggards. Perhaps it was for this reason that I did something in Manila I had never done before: I attempted to act and speak, as much as my dignity would permit, more like an American. The Filipinos we worked with seemed to look up to my American colleagues, accepting them almost instinctively as members of the officer class of global businessand I wanted my share of that respect as well. (48)Changezs appropriation of neo-colonial culture, however, fails to promise him equal footing with his American peers and as a result only adds to his frustration. Instead, it makes him even more aware of his abject position and thus fuels an aggressive disenchantment with neo-colonial culture. Homi Bhabas concept of mimicry here is an important tool to understand how this resentment is created. Bhaba argues that the colonial culture interpellates its colonial subjects to adopt its practices over native tradition by creating a false illusion of assimilation through the distorted image of subjects relation to the real conditions of existence. When a colonial subject is encouraged by the colonial structure to mimic its cultural habits, institutions and values what happens is not a reproduction of those traits: the result is a blurred copy of the colonizer which can never be the same as that of its true owner, which in the case of Changez is the American. Franz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks tries to explain in a similar vein the psychic alienation felt by the black man in a white culture. He argues that the black man as an other is produced not by his alterity of being black but not being the white man. The black mans ego is invested in the imago of the white man and thus becomes the sole means for his psyche to make sense of his place in the white culture. Bhabas mimicry is a power/knowledge strategy of the neo-colonial culture which sets as a desired goal for its subjects the approval and inclusion in the same. Thus the most pernicious effect of the neo-colonial culture on the colonial subject is the profound sense of worthlessness it institutes in him. In Changez we have a Pakistani man who by sheer hardwork and determination has hoisted himself up to the level of American culture of meritocracy but still cannot escape his race. When Changez visits Ericas parents, he is first and foremost treated as a Pakistani from a country rife with fundamentalism and feudalism, a picture that starkly reminds us of the eurocentric imagination of colonial days where the inferior native was posited as the backward other in opposition to the superior white European. Fanon explains in Black Skin, White Masks that such a division can never take place outside a power hierarchy. The inferiority that Changez feels is always a correlative to the Americans feeling of superiority.More importantly, the story also sees an overlap between its personal and the political dimensions. Changezs cultural misrecognition is densely entangled in into his personal relationship with Erica, the symbol of America. The failed love story between Changez and Erica follows a similar trajectory to his political existence in New York, and could be read as an allegorical tale that answers the larger questions of alienation and multiculturalism in the U.S. In fact, in many ways, its the personal relationship with Erica that ultimately helps Changez realize the true nature of his being in the neo-colonial empire. Changez, who is from one of the premier educational institutes in the U.S., joins Underwood Samson with a very promising career ahead of him and soon falls in love with Erica. However, his courtship with Erica falls flat as she is still emotionally attached to her dead boyfriend Chris. Chris in the story symbolizes European Imperialism, which is intimately connected with the creation of the modern empire state, and is the major constitutive element of the ethnic framework through which it views its subjects. As is the same in the story, Chris is also a major part of Ericas being, the symbol of American nationalism, which ultimately leads Erica to reject Changez. Changezs desperate attempts to free Erica from her shackles, and make love to her in the guise of Chris, is the tipping point of his misrecognition with America. Soon the realization hits him that he can never take the place of Chris, the white man who fits perfectly into the system of the empire:I felt something I have not felt before or since; I remember it well: I felt at once both satiated and ashamed. My satiation was understandable to me; my shame was more confusing. Perhaps, by taking on the persona of another, I had diminished myself in my own eyes; perhaps I was humiliated by the continuing dominance, in the strange romantic triangle of which I found myself a part, of my dead rival. (75)For Fanon, the black mans desire for a white woman is a subjective consecration to wipe out in himself and his own mind the colour prejudice he has been subjected to. Franz Fanon on the love between a man of colour and a white woman thus says: I want to be recognized not as Black, but as white. who better than a white woman to bring this about? Further, he says: By loving me, she proves to me that I am worthy of a white love. I am loved like a white man. Her love opens to me the illustrious path that leads to self-fulfilment (64). In the case of Changez, its the prospect of accessing complete equality with the illustrious white American culture, the undisputed master and ruler of the world that fuels his love for Erica. The failed relationship with Erica in the story is the critical point at which Changezs fundamentalism takes birth. The whole situation makes him think of the overall situation he finds himself in. He starts connecting the dots between his political alienation and his miserable failure in his love-life:Certainly I wanted to believe; at least I wanted not to disbelieve with such an intensity that I prevented myself as much as was possible from making the obvious connection between the crumbling of the world around me and the impending destruction of my personal American dream. (67)Up till the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the story is mainly centered around how Changez is building up for his newly found Third World sensibility. After the 9/11 attacks, the story shifts ground and suddenly Changez realizes that his loyalties lie elsewhere. When Changez comes to know of the terrorist attacks, he is somewhat happy that something was finally able to knock America off their perch, to hurt them. During the subsequent months, he is worried for his family back in Pakistan, fearing the U.S. retaliation would put them in the crossfire. Following incidents of racism against Pakistani cab-drivers and Muslims, the news of American invasion of Afghanistan, Changez is clearer about where he stands. He comes to understand that the heightened sense of nostalgia, the excessive show of national pride and self-righteous anger around the time, was only a harking back to a discourse of colonial racism that was already there. In the story, this feeling of nostalgia is reflected in Erica, who also is said to recede within herselfeven more at a remove from everything else around her. Ericas withdrawal within herself, for Changez, dovetails neatly with Americas own self-absorbed and self-serving foreign policy in Afghanistan:Possibly this was due to my state of mind, but it seemed to me that America, too, was increasingly giving itself over to a dangerous nostalgia at that time. There was something undeniably retro about the flags and uniforms, about generals addressing cameras in war rooms and newspaper headlines featuring such words as duty and honor. I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by its determination to look back. Living in New York was suddenly like living in a film about the Second World War; I, a foreigner, found myself staring out at a set that ought to be viewed not in Technicolor but in grainy black and white. (80)

Finally, since Changez cant assert himself as a Pakistani Muslim man in New York, and since it was almost impossible that neo-imperialist culture would recognize him, there was only one option left for him: to make himself known. The bombing and later bloodshed leaves Changez even more resentful with America as he views this aggression as a sign of arrogance. After Changezs meeting with Bautista, realizing how he is the modern-day janissary of the empire that so cruelly discriminates against other cultures including his own, he decides to quit Underwood Samson, the symbolic stand-in for American economic power in the novel. He also grows a beard as a mark of protest against American intolerance and soon leaves America for his native Pakistan after Ericas death. At this point, the wide chasm Changez felt all his life in America now turns into a full blown irreparable rift. He would go on to become a lecturer at a local university engaging widely with anti-american campaigns, radicalizing some of his students into extremist ideologies. The fundamentalist is born: I would like to claim that my final days in New York passed in a state of enlightened calm; nothing could be further from the truth. I was an incoherent and emotional madman, flying off into rages and sinking into depressions. Sometimes I would lie in bed, thinking in circles, asking the same questions about why and where Erica had gone; sometimes I would find myself walking the streets, flaunting my beard as a provocation, craving conflict with anyone foolhardy enough to antagonize me. Affronts were everywhere; the rhetoric emerging from your country at that moment in historynot just from the government, but from the media and supposedly critical journalists as wellprovided a ready and constant fuel for my anger. (112)

Hamids portrayal here of Changez is a modern-day representation of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The tension between the two cultures and the eventual breakdown of the relationship is a function of the power relation between the two. As long as America remains above the rest of the world in the way it conducts itself, it will never be able to accommodate different cultures and will continue to breed resentment and anger among those who live under its shadow, eventually paving the way for fundamentalism itself. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a seething critique of neo-imperialism that dominates world politics today. Hamids monologic novel, with its unidiomatic language characteristic of many non-native speakers of English, is also a post-colonial appropriation of English. To put it as Edward Said would have, Hamids novel is an attempt by the colonized to write back to the colonizer. The monoglossia of the novel is a deliberate attempt on the part of Hamid to reclaim Pakistans rightful place in the world as a modern state with modern aspirations; its an attempt to make heard the voice of the oppressed, which so often is lost in the din and bustle surrounding debates on terrorism.

References1. Baudrillard, Jean, and Jean Baudrillard. The Spirit of Terrorism ; And, Other Essays. New ed. London: Verso, 2003. Print.2. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Print.3. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grover, 2008. Print.