Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

altmuslim

Home
Muslim
Author Mohsin Hamid: Reluctant fundamentalists and unrepentant Westerners

Author Mohsin Hamid: Reluctant fundamentalists and unrepentant Westerners

Last updated on: June 5, 2007 at 10:05 pm by Irfan Yusuf

Author Mohsin Hamid: Reluctant fundamentalists and unrepentant Westerners 2007-06-05T22:05:00-04:00 Irfan Yusuf

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Author Mohsin Hamid

September 11 was a turning point for me, a time when I realised it was impossible for me to hate the Western culture and values I grew up with, no matter how much some expected this of me.

The timing of the attack couldn’t have reinforced my beliefs more. On the Saturday before the tragedy, I had spent the day in the western Sydney seat of Auburn. The local Member of Parliament had resigned, and both major parties were trying to woo voters in a seat where 1 in 3 residents were of Muslim background, faith or heritage.

During the weeks leading upto the Auburn by-election, a small team of us hosted meetings for candidates and party officials with local constituents. MP’s and activists from both parties came to realise that their long-term political futures lay in cultivating voters of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. That meant getting to know Muslims at a grassroots level.

On the Tuesday evening after the by-election, we had a debriefing session. We were pleased with the progress we’d made, and were planning further outreach work. At around 10pm, we called it a night. I drove home and walked through the front door to see my parents both awake, their eyes glued to the TV.

“Someone has attacked the Twin Towers. Sit down quickly and watch,” my mother said. I dropped my things and sat down with them, watching what seemed to be a scene out of a movie.

Over the next few days, it became clear that this was not going to be a repeat of Oklahoma. The Michigan Militia were nowhere to be found. The suspects were Muslim, even if Sikhs bore the brunt of the early reprisal attacks.

Like most Australians, I was swept up by the emotion of the event. The most appropriate response for me was to increase the level of my engagement with the mainstream. If Imam Hamza Yusuf could visit the White House, I could plant the seeds of an eventual move into federal politics. Within weeks, I took the first step by nominating for a hard-luck seat in which I had no chance of winning but every chance of achieving a good swing.

Yet I was horrified by the responses of some Muslims. One Palestinian Muslim wrote a letter to the editor of a major newspaper saying that the September 11 attacks represented rough justice for the dirty role played by the US in supporting Israel. I could not understand how these people could think like this.

A few days ago, I started revisiting these emotions when I picked up a copy of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Hamid recently visited Australia for the Sydney Writer’s Festival, and I was fortunate to have the chance of catching up with him to discuss the main character in his novel, a Pakistani-born New York business analyst.

Changez was a brilliant young man who topped his district in his high school exams in Lahore and received a scholarship to study at Princeton. Changez kept up his achievements, scoring no grade other than A’s in all his subjects. He is then recruited by a boutique New York firm specialising in valuation of firms ready for acquisition.

Like so many middle class Pakistanis, Changez is hardly a mullah. His occasional facial hair is more a reflection of laziness than adherence to the sunnah. Changez enjoys his whisky, and soon finds himself in a relationship with the troubled but wealthy Erica, who was part of the city’s arts scene.

Changez’s bosses are impressed with his tenacity, and he is sent to the Philippines on a major assignment. On his last day there, after spending time having drinks with his colleagues, Changez returns to his room. Here’s how Changez describes the scene:

“I turned on the television and saw what at first I took to be a film. But as I continued to watch, I realised that it was not fiction but news. I stared as one and then the other of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased.”

What kind of sick demented creature could smile watching buildings collapse and innocent people dying?

Changez worked in New York. His office was likely around the corner from the WTC. He perhaps knew people who worked there. More importantly, Changez had been accepted by America’s academic and corporate elite with open arms. Through Erica, he also had access to the artistic and cultural elite. Changez was in an enviable position, living what the clich calls the American dream. Is this how Changez, still to some extent a visitor, behaves to his hosts? Is this the thanks he gives for America’s generosity?

Hamid’s novel is a monologue. Changez stumbles across an American walking through the old Anarkali district of Lahore. He engages the man in what seems to be a day-long conversation, relating to the man his entire life story like some Forrest Gump character minus the southern drawl and plus the record of academic and professional success.

Hamid acknowledges his character is troublesome, a young man with a huge chip on his shoulder. Changez may have lived the American dream, but he could not shake off a sense of resentment and jealousy toward the United States. What made Changez smile was not the deaths of a handful of hijackers and some 3,000 innocent people but rather the destruction of a symbol of American power.

“I wanted to explore the kind of thinking and psychosis I saw in quite a few Muslims after 9/11,” Hamid told me. “I was troubled by it, but I also wanted to understand it. Many people simplify these feelings by labelling people like Changez religious fanatics. My job as a novelist is to complicate things and explore their reality.”

Changez is a character with a huge chip on his shoulder who feels jealous of what he sees as American power and arrogance. But Changez is no archetypal mullah. The only time he mentions God in the novel is when he successfully clinches his New York job. He happily drinks alcohol even in Pakistan. His family are of aristocratic stock, though the sources of their wealth are fast losing their income generating capacity.

Hamid is troubled by the growth of racism on both sides of the supposed civilisational divide. He wants to show that the “us” and “them” mentality doesn’t explain the complex emotions of those finding themselves swinging between both sides. “In reality, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. What we have on this planet are individuals with enormously complex mixtures of emotional and political attachments. Often these lead people to resent you or even hate you. But rarely will they harm you unless they have some underlying psychopathy or they are seeking revenge because they feel caught in a cycle of violence.”

Hamid is scathing of what he describes as the “We Hate Islam brigade of Muslim writers”. He includes in this category Somali-born ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who also toured Australia as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival to promote her autobiography Infidel. “I have no argument with her sharing the horrors of her childhood experiences. But when she claims 1.2 billion Muslims across the world are somehow to blame for all this, she is just engaging in racism. Still, we need to distinguish between her often valid critiques of Muslim cultures from the racist and reductionist tarring of all Muslims with the same brush.”

Despite living in the UK, Hamid still loves his home town and Pakistan. He wishes hostile critics of Pakistan would learn of its social sophistication. “Pakistan has more Muslims than any Arab country. Yet we have had a female Prime Minister and our most famous talk-show host is a transvestite!”

Hamid’s novel is evidence of the ability of fiction to deal with difficult and sensitive contemporary debates in a manner which enables all sides to understand each other more clearly.

Irfan Yusuf is an associate editor of altmuslim.com and a Sydney-based lawyer whose work has appeared in some 15 mainstream newspapers in Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia. He also writes regularly online for NewMatilda.com, Malaysiakini.com and Crikey.com.au.

Irfan Yusuf

Newsmakers

Previous Post

June 3, 2007

Author Ed Husain: “My qualm is with Islamism and not with Islam”

Next Post

June 7, 2007 Iranian dissent: Behind Iran’s new hostage diplomacy

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2012 Elections 30 Dayd 30 Writers (2017) 30 Days 30 Writers 30 Days 30 Writers (2015) 30 Days 30 Writers (2016) 30 Days 30 Writers (2018) 30 Days 30 Writers 2017 Ali Asadullah Ali Eteraz Alper Bilgili Arthur Richards Asides Asma Uddin Black History Month Briefings Charles Turner Commentary Cyrus McGoldrick Eman H Aly Fatimah Popal Hajj Hajj and Dhul Hijjah Hesham Hassaballa Hisham Hellyer Ibrahim Abusharif Inas Younis Irfan Yusuf Jalal Baig Junaid Afeef Laila Alawa Laila Alwala Mas'ood Cajee Muqtedar Khan Nakia Jackson Newsmakers Parvez Ahmed Podcasts Rabia Chaudry Rafia Zakaria Ramadan Reviews Safiyyah Ally Saud Inam Shahed Amanullah Svend White The Opinionated Oncologist Visions Wajahat Ali Zahed Amanullah Zahir Janmohamed Zainab Khan

Select a Month November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who is credited with predicting Cyrus by name, who would rebuild Jerusalem?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jeremiah Ezekiel Isaiah Zechariah