by Ewan Keenan
Conceptualizing a time when America was merely an extension of the British Empire, rather than the red-white-and-blue, gun-toting, eagle-loving, land of the free some proudly proclaim it to be today would be quite the undertaking. The national identity of the USA is far more potent than that of any other country worldwide. Be it due to its overwhelming presence in the global entertainment industry, its economic and military presence across the world, or just the ear-splitting volume of its culture, America has certainly distinguished itself on the world stage. This is not always for the best. In fact, America’s distinct national identity more often than not lands the country in the ire of world politics. Mohsin Hamid seems to share some of these anti-American sentiments, which are put on full display in his novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A significant portion of the country is characterized by an identity of exclusion: there’s an in-group and an out-group, you’re an American or you’re not. However, as Changez (the narrator of Hamid’s novel) finds, there is for a moment in time a corner of the nation which welcomes all into its bustling streets and monoliths of glass and steel: New York. Functioning as a sort of global city, Changez feels that he holds a place in New York—that he belongs: “I was, in four and half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker” (Hamid 33). This does not last, though. That exclusionary force that plagues so much of the nation returns in full force after the 9/11 attacks. Widespread Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism infects the country, and being at ground zero, Changez’s new home is no exception. While the characters in the novel are fictional, the events and themes that it presents are harrowingly real and many conclusions drawn in the text echo the theses of other contemporary thinkers. In examining both Hamid’s novel and the world that it is reflecting, it becomes clear that for Changez and many people like him, the “America” of New York, that global city, died in 2001. Further autopsy finds the cause of death not to be the tragedy of the Twin Towers itself, but rather the bolstering of a national identity built upon a dangerous mix of fantastical nostalgia, sentiments of cultural supremacy, and reactionary preconception.
When speaking about New York and America in this context, it is imperative that the abstract be separated from the concrete. In Hamid’s novel, New York does not simply denote the municipality of New York City but rather works to define the notion of a global city mentioned above. New York here is the concept of a place within which anyone from anywhere could find themselves at home. This is what the term “New York” will be referring to going forward. America at large embodies an identity quite contrary to that of New York, one which this investigation seeks to explore. As such, the term “America” will also refer to a grander sense of identity in much the same way New York does, though instead built upon the nostalgia, supremacy, and preconception that are to be further defined. To speak of the actual physical country itself, the abbreviation of the country’s proper name, the USA, will be used.
When a city of forward motion such as New York is seized by a strong inclination to look back, its spirit withers and the elements of its greatness go with it. Such is the role of nostalgia in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, Changez remarks on how the nation as a whole began to lose itself in wrathful visions of a stronger, safer, more American past: “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” (115). When the dust settled at ground zero, New York was “invaded” (79) by a uniquely American aesthetic, one rooted in a history of “dominance […] of safety […] of moral certainty” (115), which is to say an era of cultural homogeneity. This supposed history leaves Changez with very little place to go, as he demonstrates through his observations at this time: “that they were scrambling to don the costumes of another era was apparent. I felt treacherous for wondering whether that era was fictitious, and whether—if it could indeed be animated—it contained a part written for someone like me” (115). This nation that had taken Changez in for his potential excellence, via Princeton’s international scholarship program (4), had now turned its back on him, its eyes swimming in daydreams of a past that perhaps never even existed.
It is hard to think of this relationship Changez has with New York and the nation in general and not immediately call to mind the analogue of Erica. While Erica does not reflect the same senses of superiority and preconception that are to be explored later, on the topic of fantastical nostalgia there is no figure with more parallels. While Changez and Erica spend many happy days together at the outset of their relationship, time finds Erica still longing for Chris, her dead boyfriend. This leaves Changez in a difficult position, in love with a woman who is “disappearing into a powerful nostalgia” (113). While Changez is there in front of her, she is losing herself in memories of a past which Changez comes to doubt the accuracy of: “perhaps theirs was a past all the more potent for its being imaginary. I did not know whether I believed in the truth of their love; it was, after all, a religion that would not accept me as a convert” (114). It is from here that the parallel between Erica and the increasingly nostalgic America begins to elucidate its use. Erica became sexually stunted after Chris died, so much like an immigrant sacrificing pieces of their culture to appease American society, Changez pretends to be Chris during sex. While she could not be aroused before this, when Changez was himself in bed, she is, in this moment, able to feel pleasure while he emulates her dead lover. The experience was almost as real for Changez as it was for Erica, with him claiming, “I did not seem to be myself” (105). However, unlike Erica, when they had finished Changez found himself feeling “ashamed”, as though he had “diminished [himself] in [his] own eyes” (106). Drawing the parallel to America, it is clear how unwelcoming the nation is to those not fitting with their delusions of the past. Changez as himself could not please Erica, it was only by taking on the guise of Chris that he could be with her. So too is the experience of those coming to America, having to warp themselves into the expectations of the nation’s boundless nostalgia.
These nostalgic delusions also give birth to this strange sense of faith in and loyalty to the American system which harms more people than it benefits, something best exemplified by Jim in the novel. Acting as a sort of mentor figure to Changez, Jim does a lot of vouching for the American Dream (this being the promise of equal opportunity integral to American culture). He grew up in poverty and as such feels he can relate to Changez being in this strange position of power despite originating from a place of marginalization. As he puts it, “We came from places that were wasting away” (97). It is also important to note the implications of Jim’s sexuality, readable through his possession of several phallic artworks (119), as this understanding of his character elucidates further the importance of his attachment to the American Dream and thus the role of nostalgia in the novel at large. Having hailed from poverty and potentially living as a closeted homosexual, Jim’s success would appear to be, if anything, proof that America, and New York especially, is indeed the land of opportunity it claims to be. However, Jim is an invisible minority. Unless he were to tell someone his past or show them his collection of “male nudes” (119), Jim could function entirely as a straight white man with all the privilege that entails, which is precisely what he does. Changez, obviously, does not have this same luxury. Jim’s consistent reminders to Changez about how one can surpass their station in life given the meritocracy of capitalism are as blindly nostalgic as Erica’s dreams of Chris. He fails to see that he only got this far by, to some degree, hiding his un-American features. Jim also places a great emphasis on progress. “Time only moves in one direction”, he says to Changez, “Remember that. Things always change” (96). Once again, this notion of progress appears counterintuitive to the claim of Jim’s nostalgia but given the reality of the political climate in the USA, this idea of progression is evidently one of daydreams. When in Chile, Juan-Bautista awakens Changez to the unchanging tune of American “progress”: “Juan-Bautista’s words plunged me into a deep bout of introspection. […] I was a modern-day janissary, a servant of the American empire at a time when it was invading a country with a kinship to mine” (152). While Changez becomes disillusioned with these falsehoods of progress and opportunity, Jim, blinded by memories of his own rags-to-riches fairy tale, holds on. It is this breed of nostalgia, this faith and loyalty to the system, that prevents any real change and hinders progressive politics, thus culminating in the discriminatory landscape of post-9/11 America.
From these daydreams of a fantastical past and illusions of a system that “just works” is born the political framework that delivered New York its death sentence. While the focus here remains on the fallout of the 9/11 attacks as is documented in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it would be negligent not to observe the more contemporary example of Trump-era nostalgic politics that Bryan D. Price explores in his essay, “Material Memory: The Politics of Nostalgia on the Eve of ‘MAGA’”. Recalling the Charlottesville demonstrations in 2017, as well as former president Donald Trump’s cult of personality, both the invention of a preferable past and the nostalgic faith in a corrupt system are on full display well beyond 2001. Price describes this phenomenon, which he refers to here as “Trumpism”, as a “revanchist need to reclaim the hegemony of a largely patriarchal whiteness lost to liberalism’s meddling desire to topple it” (Price 104). It is here that the true danger of nostalgia reveals itself. With various hate groups (primarily those centred on white supremacy) rallying behind the “deeply nostalgic slogan Make America Great Again” (104), it becomes undeniable that visions of a “pure America” rooted in fanciful history breed the kind of hatred and violence that not only soured New York for Changez and others like him but that plagues the whole of America to this day. The situation was perfect. With disaster comes the need for comfort, and there’s no better comfort than the promise of returning to a better time. As Price puts it, “As anxieties rise, wealth falls, jobs are lost, homes are abandoned, and debt piles up, nostalgia, because of its terminological slipperiness, becomes a seductive conceptual framework through which to view politics” (110). Nostalgia functions as a foundation upon which campaigns of hate and exclusion can be built. When the world is frightening, be it due to a terrorist attack or economic devastation, particularly charismatic individuals appeal to that fear and offer the respite that nostalgia craves. The deified presence of figures like Donald Trump gives these nostalgia-drowned constituents a reason to remain loyal to the American machine, especially when these figures are in power. Similar conditions were present during the Bush administration during which time Hamid’s novel takes place.
With this nostalgic connection to an idealized American history and unwavering faith in those promising to deliver it, the second aspect of American identity takes hold: supremacy. When the Twin Towers were destroyed by international terrorists and America fell into a daze of its rose-tinted (or, perhaps, whitewashed) past, the already present sentiment of America’s position over the rest of the world was heightened to a concerning degree. Changez recalls these heightened sentiments shortly after 9/11:
Your country’s flag invaded New York after the attacks; it was everywhere…They all seemed to proclaim: We are America — not New York, which, in my opinion, means something quite different — the mightiest civilization the world has ever known; you have slighted us; beware our wrath. (79)
Hamid is not the only one to observe these patriotic sentiments of superiority. In an article titled “Beyond Orientalism and Islamophobia: 9/11, Anti-Arab Racism, and the Mythos of National Pride,” Steven Salaita corroborates Hamid’s thesis, claiming, “most Americans who would consider themselves patriotic formulate the mores of their national identification in opposition to the sanctified mirage of Arab barbarity” (Salaita 246). While the tragedy of 9/11 accentuated the element of contrast in American patriotism, Hamid displays the sense of American supremacy existing well before the attacks. For instance, when he and his colleagues are in Manila, Changez finds his Pakistani self in a position of inferiority. Not only was his new home in America wealthier than his origin, but even the likes of Manila outshined Lahore (Hamid 64). To combat this inferiority, Changez “attempted to act and speak, as much as [his] dignity would permit, more like an American” (65). It is clear, then, that this air of American supremacy was established prior to the 9/11 attacks.
The implied inferiority of Lahore is itself also essential to understanding Hamid’s exploration of America’s superiority complex. Early in the text, as Changez is addressing the American to which he recounts his life story, he alludes to the diversity of inhabitants abundant in Lahore; he only recognizes that this man is American by his “bearing” (2). Throughout the novel, Changez takes breaks from weaving his tale to speak of the city surrounding him and the mysterious American, often praising it and its inhabitants, the “lovely buildings” (170) and beautiful women (16). It quickly becomes clear how Changez is drawing parallels between New York and Lahore. After leaving New York and returning to his home city, Changez wishes to portray Lahore as a global city, one which will remain so, unlike New York. By the mere virtue of his efforts, however, it appears that he has internalized a certain degree of cultural inferiority in comparison with America. He has to prove to the American why Lahore is just as diverse and sophisticated as New York, despite him having dozens of valid reasons for making such a claim. This informs the aforementioned incident in Manila where Changez tries to emulate his American colleagues as best he can — he too has been infected by that facet of American identity which preaches its supremacy over all else.
Returning to New York post-9/11, it is clear that this sense of superiority was only strengthened in the light of such tragedy. With the boost in nostalgic delusion after the attacks, Americans had more reason to believe in their own might, simultaneously raising their perception of themselves and lowering that of all outside their patriotic in-group — particularly those they associated with the attackers, which is to say, Arabic people. Salaita explains, “conservatives, particularly neoconservatives, invoked 9/11 as evidence of Arab perfidy and later as evidence of the need to retain George W. Bush to protect ‘us’ from ‘them’” (Salaita 251). The grandeur captured in the nation’s memory of a better America fostered this sense of superiority which itself would go on to place the final nail in New York’s coffin: reactionary preconception or, perhaps more simply, violent bigotry. Positioning themselves as superior to the radical Muslim terrorists, those considered “real Americans” (largely white Americans), took to profiling all individuals with brown skin, especially those with beards. Salaita also observes this divide: “the totalized pronoun ‘they’ is exclusionary and imbues American-ness with assumed criteria of whiteness and Christianity for which Arabs do not qualify, even if they are residents or citizens of the United States” (259). Changez, who makes no substantial reference to religion in the text and has no personal link to the aforementioned terrorist organization, is quickly met with such treatment. He recounts one such instance where he is accosted by a pair of men he had never met before:
I was walking to my rental car in the parking lot of the cable company when I was approached by a man I did not know. He made a series of unintelligible noises… and pressed his face alarmingly close to mine… Just then another man appeared; he, too, glared at me, but he took his friend by the arm and tugged at him, saying it was not worth it. Reluctantly, the first allowed himself to be led away. “Fucking Arab,” he said. I am not, of course, an Arab. (Hamid 117)
Strangers in a parking lot took it upon themselves to berate Changez for an identity he never claimed on only the basis of his physical appearance. He experiences similar profiling, if less belligerent, among his peers: “My colleagues greeted with considerable — although often partially suppressed — consternation my reappearance in our offices. For despite my mother’s request, and my knowledge of the difficulties it could well present me at immigration, I had not shaved my two-week-old beard” (129-130). This city where he once felt entirely welcomed within its diverse ranks, where he could board a subway train in a kurta without drawing a single eye (48), now ostracized him for the mere presence of facial hair.
Devastatingly, official FBI hate crime statistics provide a picture of the uptick in violence against Muslim people and immigrants in general. In the year 2000, there were 36 victims of anti-Islamic hate crimes and 453 victims of hate crimes against those of other national origins, Hispanic immigrants excluded (2000 Hate Crimes 7). In 2001 those numbers leapt to 554 and 1,822 respectively (2001 Hate Crimes 9). These are only the hate crimes that were reported and officially documented by the FBI; there could very well have been more. As Salaita writes, after 9/11 “preexisting anti-Arab racism evolved from a troublesome but politically immaterial phenomenon into a discursive participant in countless issues of great national import (e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act, invasion of Iraq, elections, support for Israel, homeland security)” (Salaita 252). American identity has always involved exclusionary and reactionary tenets, ones which do evolve into violence, but after 9/11 this became far more central to the national identity. On top of this, as Salaita mentions, these reactionary tenets were weaponized to further the profit-motivated ventures of the Bush administration, namely the invasion of Iraq. This facet is further explored in Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, exemplified by Moore’s voice-over midway through the film: “They just wanted us to be fearful enough so that we’d get behind what their real plan was” (Fahrenheit 9/11 1:07:43). The public may have come to their bigotry through the evolution tracked in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but it was the government that facilitated its growth and perpetuation. Needless to say, the America which promised many immigrants that they could be successful and happy and loved, the one which New York had been so emblematic of, was dead and gone. In its place was an empire of preconceived notions, unwarranted hate, and bigoted violence, all serving the interests of the American capitalist machine.
The September 11th attacks were undeniably tragic. Thousands died. It’s this tragedy that makes Changez’s confession of pleasure at the sight of the collapsing buildings all the more chilling. However, with how violently America turned on a substantial part of its immigrant population, a population which was already at a place of disadvantage, one might sympathize with Changez’s cathartic joy at the sight of someone “so visibly [bringing] America to her knees” (Hamid 73). Though New York had once opened itself up to the likes of Changez, the destruction of the Twin Towers entirely turned the tide. The global city was swallowed by American nostalgia, dreams of a time when no one dared step to the might of the world’s most powerful nation, awakening a sense of cultural superiority over all those not visibly American. Hatred festered within this veneer of supremacy, and everyone who did not so outwardly bleed red-white-and-blue was exiled from the in-group. They were hated, accosted, and attacked. Inextricably tied to the nation’s beating heart was this fervent bigotry. In Salaita’s words, “Ridding the United States of anti-Arab racism requires nothing less than a rejection of all that is now considered fundamentally American” (Salaita 265). There could be no America without hate. Being a New Yorker meant nothing anymore. New York was dead. The American Dream, as it was promised to Changez, was dead. In its place was the USA, a nation of profit, of power, dreaming sweet dreams of what they never were at the expense of what they could have been.
Works Cited
Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2000 Hate Crime Statistics – Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Fbi.gov, https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2000.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2001 Hate Crime Statistics – Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Fbi.gov, https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2001.
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Anchor Canada, 2013.
Moore, Michael, director. Fahrenheit 9/11. FLIC Distributors, 2004.
Price, Bryan D. “Material Memory: The Politics of Nostalgia on the Eve of ‘MAGA.’” American Studies, vol. 57, no. 1/2, 2018, pp. 103–15. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44982666.
Salaita, Steven George. “Beyond Orientalism and Islamophobia: 9/11, Anti-Arab Racism, and the Mythos of National Pride.” CR: The New Centennial Review, vol. 6 no. 2, 2006, p. 245-266. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ncr.2007.0011.