How Post-colonial British Literature Deals With Identity.

Cultural hybridity and identity formation in the contemporary British novel.

Identity formation is an ongoing process of developing oneself. James Clifford (1997) theorises that in this development, there must be an understanding of the relationship between an individual s roots and their future routes , rather than choosing one at the expense of the other. Therefore identity formation is just as much about being one thing as it is about becoming another. Hybridity is a principle that deconstructs the notion that individuals are just one thing and cannot be something else, also. The cultural hybrid individual does not choose between a single cultural identity, but also occupies a third space this formation of a new cultural identity reinforces the theory that identity formation is an ongoing evolutionary process.

Minaret (Aboulela, 2005) looks at the lives of Muslims in Britain, many of whom are migrants, and examines the ways in which they form their identities in the modern, Western world. I will show how the novel represents the process of identity formation as a constant journey which requires the reclamation of agency, and very often leads to the development of a culturally hybrid identity, as a way of navigating through the complexity of life in a new cultural environment.

Najwa s journey of migration and her social transformation is used to show that identity formation is a journey. The novel shows how her migration experience prompts her to embark on a quest for her identity, and how this is a process of continual development, reconciling the past, present and future.

After Najwa s father is arrested and eventually executed following a military coup, Najwa is forced to flee Sudan with her mother and brother, taking refuge in Britain. As a result, Najwa and her family are stripped of their wealth, class and social status.

The themes of transnationalism and migration in the novel are narrated alongside Najwa`s social migration from upper to lower class, and her personal decline. Aboulela s recurrent use of the motif of falling (Aboulela, 2005, p. 56) highlights Najwa`s personal decline. Najwa has plunged (p. 239) from a great height which her migration and economic decline parallels. The novel opens with the prologue that reads, I`ve come down in the world. I`ve slid to a place where the ceiling is low and there isn`t much room to move (p. 1). Now as the subaltern character, who has come down (p. 1) from her place of high social standing and stability, Najwa has fallen.

Najwa experiences a heightened feeling of vacancy in her diasporic experience in Britain. Anshuman Mondal describes this as a, void brought on by dispersal (Mondal, 2008, p. 116) Najwa describes the empty space called freedom (Aboulela, 2005, p. 174) and does not revel in this free, secular environment, but longs for the regimented restrictions and security of religion. In this new place, Najwa`s emptiness prompts her to seek solace by negotiating and transforming her identity.

The turn in Najwa s downward spiralling journey is shown in her statement, I look up and see the minaret of Regent s Park (Aboulela, 2005, p. 1). Najwa`s uses religion to lift herself out of her decline, by forming a new identity in it. Religion is the solution for Najwa, similar to Sadia Abbas descri ption that, religion is seen as a means of healing the shattered totality of life in [colonial] modernity (Abbas, 2011, p. 432). The trauma of her experiences causes a type of reverse integration for Najwa where upon settling into immigrant life in the West she develops a religious identity, rather than a secular one. If she had not migrated- geographically, economically and socially- she may not have sought to form a new religious identity, as Esra Santesso says, Before her spiritual rebirth [she] must go through an economic one (Santesso, 2013, p. 86). By paralleling these journeys, the novel shows how the trauma of her decline has produced a journey of the formation of a restorative, religious identity.

The narrative arc of the novel further emphasises the correlation between Najwa`s physical and social movement, and her identity formation. Aboulela employs the strategy of jumping back and forth with the narrative, mixing episodes of Najwa`s old, secular life in Sudan and Britain, with those of her new life of religious piety in the UK. This nonlinear narrative arc reflects the nonlinear nature of identity formation itself. By jumping back and forth in time, and interweaving moments from Najwa`s old and new life, the novel demonstrates how Najwa`s different selves are both discontinuous with one another, yet interlinked. This shows the complexity of identity formation, and demonstrates Clifford`s (Clifford, 1997) theory of roots and routes , as it shows that Najwa will always embody aspects of her old roots , even as she routes her way to a new identity.

During Najwa`s time in Sudan, being neither completely religious or secular, Najwa embodied a hybrid identity as neither one thing, nor the other, but both. As the narrative jumps back and forth between this past, liminal time in Najwa`s life, and her present identity in her religious resolve, it shows that her past and present identities are still linked. Najwa says, hijab is a uniform the outdoor version of us. Without it, our nature is exposed (Aboulela, 2005, p. 186). Najwa s reference to different versions of herself reveals the presence of her former self alongside her new self, which is all a part of the ongoing journey of her identity formation

Najwa`s development of her identity, as a liberated woman in Britain, provides a counter narrative to the idea that Muslim women are an oppressed group, but shows that they are free to form their own identities, as autonomous individuals. The novel represents identity formation for Muslim women as a process of self-fashioning, and not something that is dictated by others. By presenting the novel through the voice and experience of a female, Muslim migrant herself, it counters the anti-Islamic discourse in contemporary Britain, which misrepresents Muslim women as a group without agency.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and the July 7th bombings in London, anti-Islamic sentiment in Britain increased. This narrative, grounded in Islamophobia, has been perpetuated by legislation and media misrepresentation. Mondal describes this as a new form of racism, saying, cultural racism establishes forms of hierarchy based on cultural differences rather than skin colour (Mondal, 2008, p. 74). Alongside this, the belief that, just because Muslim women dress in a certain way, they are not agentic individuals (Abu-lughod, 2013, p. 9) is also widespread in contemporary Britain.

Placing the novel in contemporary Britain where these attitudes are common, and by narrating the story through the first person perspective of a practising, Muslim female protagonist, the novel counteracts the ways in which Muslims are othered , and presented in a negative and reductive manner.

One of the ways in which the novel provides this counter narrative is through its presentation of the veil. Identified in Minaret (Aboulela, 2005) in its various forms hijab (p. 134), chador (p. 29), scarf (p. 247), tobe (p. 134), the veil is adopted as a literary trope for empowerment, instead of its Western representation as a sign of domination over the Muslim woman. In the novel the veil signifies a way in which the Muslim woman exercises her freedom of choice. The view that Muslim women who wear the veil are oppressed by Islamic patriarchy, and are regressing, back to the Middle Ages (p. 29), is not supported by the novel, and instead the novel recasts the veil as, an emblem of resistance- both against male domination and also against Western feminism (Santesso, 2013, p. 83) empowering those who choose to adopt it.

Najwa willingly adopts the veil as both a personal and public show of her religious identity. In Britain she has no family to dictate her lifestyle, and she adopts the veil under no pressure or obligation from any religious, male influence she explains, We were free (Aboulela, 2005, p. 165). In fact, the first time she speaks about putting on the veil, there is much emphasis on the freedom of personal choice. She recalls, Scarf or no scarf? Which made me look attractive? ... I threw it on the bed. I was not ready yet I was not ready for this step (p. 245). Here, Aboulela highlights Najwa s agency. Najwa has a new freedom in Britain, she can decide if and when she is ready for the veil, yet she still chooses to wear it. When Najwa does wear the veil, she chooses to go from focus on the outward aesthetic, to an emphasis on non-visual, self-reflection. The veil gives her strength, and shows, The skill of concealing rather than emphasising, to restrain rather than to offer (p. 246). The novel shows that through the agency and personal choice of veiling, Muslim women make their own choice in forming identities that emphasise concealing rather than revealing. This change in the outward presentation of her identity is a personal choice. The veil is recast as an agentic form of self-fashioning, and shows that Muslim women who willingly choose to adopt it are forming their own identities, autonomously. Through its use of the veil as a literary trope for agency and ontology, the novel represents identity formation for Muslim women, as a process of self-fashioning, done through agency, and not dictated by others.

My final examination of how Minaret (Aboulela, 2005) represents cultural hybridity and identity formation in contemporary Britain, is how the novel shows the articulation of race, class, gender and religion, and how these affect the Muslim migrant, influencing the formation of a culturally hybrid identity.

Both first and second generation migrants from Muslim countries living in Britain are often classified into one of two groups British patriots, or Muslim radicals, with little room given to any identity that falls in between. These restrictive cultural expectations can cause them to feel as though they do not belong, nor truly have a home in Britain.

The novel shows how these migrants are alienated and displaced in both British society, and their own communities. Intersecting ideologies regarding race, gender, class and religious practise, all within the Muslim migrant community in Britain, causes a sense of displacement for the migrant, who already feels displaced in wider British society, and struggles to find their place within the Muslim migrant community itself.

Najwa s loss of wealth and her new job as a maid places her low on the hierarchical class structure, and she says of her superior, Lamya, She will always see my hijab, my dependence on the salary she gives me, my skin colour, which is a shade darker than hers (Aboulela, 2005, p. 116). Through Najwa`s descri ption we see how these divisive factors intersect and alienate her from fully belonging even amongst the community of Muslim migrants in Britain. She also mentions her shitty-coloured skin (p. 174), expressing her alienation from the wider British society because of her race.

By exposing the various discriminations and divisions that alienate and displace the Muslim migrant, Aboulela dismantles the idea that there is a purist culture for any community or place. There is no fixed cultural identity for being British, or Muslim. In this, Benedict Anderson`s theory that nation is an imagined political community (Anderson, 1991, p. 5) a cultural construct, is highlighted.

Because there is no definitive national or cultural identity, when Najwa asks Tamer if he feels Sudanese, he responds, I`ve lived everywhere except Sudan My education is Western and that makes me feel that I am Western So I guess, no, I don`t feel very Sudanese though I would like to be (Aboulela, 2005, p. 110). Tamer feels that he does not fully inhabit a Sudanese or British cultural identity, and both he and Najwa agree that they have formed a new identity because of this, as Najwa says, I just think of myself as a Muslim. (p. 110) The formation of this identity as just Muslim, substitutes for a lack of identity (Mondal, 2008, p. 116), and gives a name to a new culturally hybrid identity.

Cultural hybridity dismisses the exclusive concept of homogeneity, and becoming just a Muslim creates a secure place of belonging. It is a stable and safe place, this, cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy (Bhabha, 2004, p. 5). This new place of belonging for Najwa and Tamer is as part of the ummah the international Muslim community. The ummah becomes the answer to the problem of class, gender, and race divisions. Abbas describes, within the ummah, nationalism can be swallowed up by a placeless Muslim universalism (Abbas, 2011, p. 440). The concept of the ummah is to unite all Muslims, ensuring none are displaced.

The formation of this hybrid identity as just a Muslim, is a way that Najwa resolves her conflicts and feelings of displacement. However, as we have seen earlier, this new culturally hybrid identity does not deny the existence of her old identity she acknowledges that there are multiple identities that run alongside her religious one, but chooses to express Islam as the principle component of her identity. This is demonstrated with other practising Muslim women in the novel This one looks Indian, as if the hijab made me forget she was Indian (Aboulela, 2005, p. 186). We see here that religion subordinates other markers of identity. For Najwa and the other women, cultural hybridity through identifying just as Muslim is all part of an effort to reconcile both sameness and difference'#148 (Mondal, 2008, p. 29), and does not mean repudiating the existence of all other identities.

The reconciliation of dual identities is key in understanding identity formation and cultural hybridity, and Aboulela employs the medium of narrative to present this. The novel shows that identity formation is an independent, self-defining journey, and that the process of becoming Muslim, is not a destination to be arrived at, but it is an ongoing journey, which takes place over time.

Bibliography:

Books

Aboulela, L. (2005) Minaret. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Abu-lughod, L. (2013) Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edn. London and New York: Verso.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. (2002) The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (New Accents). 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge.

Bhabha, H. (2004) The Location of Culture. 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge.

Clifford, J. (1997) Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. USA: Harvard University Press.

Mahmood, S. (2005) Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Mondal, A. (2008) Young British Muslim Voices. Oxford: Greenwood World Publishing.

Santesso, E. (2013) Disorientation: Muslim Identity in Contemporary Anglophone Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Journal articles

Abbas, S. (2011) Leila Aboulela, Religion, and the Challenge of the Novel , Contemporary Literature, 52(3), pp. 430-461.

Al-karawi, S. and Bahar, I. (2014) Negotiating the Veil and Identity in Leila Aboulela s Minaret , Journal of Language Studies, 14(3), pp. 255-268.

Hunter, E. (2013) The Muslim Who Has Faith in Leila Aboulela s Novels Minaret (2005) and Lyrics Alley (2009) , Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, 25(1), pp. 88-99.

Raj, P. (2014) Postcolonial Literature, Hybridity and Culture , International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Studies, 1(11), pp. 125-128.