The reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a novel that explores several issues related to the relationship between America and the Islamic world in the context of post 9/11. The climate and attitude between these countries have intensified since after the attack of Twin tower and Hamid characterized this relationship in a sense of danger to each other. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the protagonist Changez is a Pakistani who has lived and studied in America, looking forward to a successful career in the corporate world. His notion of identity takes a turn after 9/11 when he starts to feel misjudged, misunderstood, and alienated in his adopted country.
As we have known from Persepolis, pre 9/11 the idea of Islam as a hostile, inferior, and strange culture was already deeply entrenched in the minds of westerners, post 9/11 world, there has been a stark change in the attitude and approach towards the Muslim community. It has led to a stereotyping of the Islamic community as terrorists and antithetical to the American way of life in a profound way. The Muslim culture has been sought to be projected as fundamentalist and uncivilized, fostering extreme reactions like terrorism as a counter-response to western attitudes. This stereotyping has also led to a sense of insecurity among Muslims especially amongst those living in the United States of America since there has been a dramatic change in the world’s focus on them and every Muslim is viewed as a potential terrorist, fanatical and violent, giving rise to what is known today as Islamophobia.
When America was proved that it was not immune to national threats after 9/11, there has been a drastic change in the entire security system in the US, and the airport is one of the major areas. Before the attack on twin tower, passengers used to be able to arrive at the airport just minutes before a flight, keeping their shoes and coats on as they went through a simple metal detector, and virtually anyone could go right to the gate without a boarding pass or even showing an ID. After the horrific event, airport security has changed forever, making it strict and harder to pass without proper documentation, standing in line for hours for security checks making it mandatory for passengers and luggage to go through high-resolution screening. In addition, people who looked like Islamic are being othered and bitter reality, they are facing judgement and lengthy security checks in airport.
After reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the context presentation, what are your thought on how America’s view has changed on the Islamic world and how they are being othered in the US?
Sources
Grafton, D. D. (2009). Reading Their Book of Faith: North American Muslims and Their Interpretations of the Qur’an in the Post 9/11 Era. Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 48(3), 257–266. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1111/j.1540-6385.2009.00469.
https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/how-the-u-s-general-public-views-muslims-and-islam/
As someone who was born in 2002, I was never able to see or know firsthand how things were before 9/11. I didn’t get to see how Islamic culture was viewed or how their people were treated. What I have seen is how America views the Islamic world post 9/11, which is often a very unfair and hateful view.
I was also born shortly after 9/11 so I did not know what American perceptions were about Islamic countries and people. However, I can say without a doubt that I was exposed to an overwhelmingly negative view of Islamic people. I think that American education systems should very carefully consider how they present the history of 9/11 to students. The system needs to do a better job at explaining that the people who did the attacks cannot be used to classify Islamic people and countries as a whole.
Hey Tara, I found your presentation to be really interesting. I loved the way you connected Persepolis with this novel. Now, I feel like the relationship United States has with other Islamic countries is way better than used to be in 2002. It has been over 19 years and I believe time heals everything.
I enjoyed the insight and the context you showed us about 9/11 and the reaction in the US. It is a difficult issue in society to tackle the biases we have, and politics makes it much worse. I feel like discrimination was prevalent after 9/11 because a lot of fear was attached to the Muslim identity, along with the fact that they are minorities. But it is good today that there is more tolerance.
I really enjoyed reading your in depth analysis on the after effects of the 9/11 attacks. I hear so much about what the moments, days and weeks after were like, but it was interesting to hear it affected all people, not just devastated Americans. It was also interesting to think about how this changed the attitude that the rest of the world had towards us.