The Reluctant Fundamentalist In the text ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid, the protagonist Changez is slowly revealed as an unreliable narrator through the progression of the framed narrative. Mohsin Hamid has written this piece as an extended monologue and used it create security within the reader and the details of the story, but then slowly shifts the whole situation and little by little continues the development of Changez being an unreliable narrator. Slowly but surely, as the novel progresses, the reader is shown the comparisons that the narrator Changez makes between cultures, the views that he has and racial prejudice he develops towards Americans when talking to the unnamed American tourist. It is also gradually revealed to the reader that Changez has forgotten many details of his story when recounting it, also exaggerating parts and giving his views on certain things, hence making him an unreliable narrator. It is very easy to believe everything that Changez says in the beginning, because of his likeable characteristics, but the more and more one connects with the narrator, the harder it becomes to be so gullible.
Individuals have also made good arguments about the negative outcome that racial profiling might bring to our society. Obviously it has led the dominant race to have superiority to the minorities – racial discrimination. James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute have made a point that he have seen a lot of dark skinned people being searched and treated with humiliation, which is really wrong – Racial Relations. David Harris, a writer and Professor at Toledo College, have already written a couple of books about racial profiling. He states that law enforcers think that they would be more accurate in targeting a suspicious group, but in reality, what happens is the total opposite wherein officials have inaccurate results in targeting the suspect—Race Relations.
The use of monologue facilitates Hamid’s viewpoints to assume a conversation between two people with different cultures, and to engage and elicit the participation of the reader by drawing the reader into the narrative by using a silent character to mirror that reader. Changez addresses the American with the second person pronoun ‘you,’ giving the impression that the conversation is directed to the reader. When Changez first encounters the American and says ‘Ah, I see I have alarmed you,’ this immediately engages the reader and puts the reader in a position to adopt the persona of the American, drawing their participation in the novel. Hamid’s narrative structure is no doubt one of the ways in which he actively involves the reader and implicates the reader in the story from the very beginning, however, the use of monologue also depicts another way the reader is involved. Though the novel ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is purely a work of fiction, it incorporates an actual terrorism event that was felt worldwide.
Jihad is supposed to be an internal struggle however; people often confuse it with an external struggle in which they use violence for dominance. “Despite the fact that Jihad is not supposed to include aggressive warfare, this has occurred. Jihad means to counter such threats and assert the predominance of Islam.” Intercollegiate Review; Spring2002, Vol. 37 Issue 2, p24-32, 9p Just and Unjust War in the Terrorist Age. Many people consider Jihad to be a movement which causes a problem in the Muslim community because of the misinterpretation of the religious beliefs.
Primarily, it is clearly geared towards its receiving audience, namely well-to-do traditional American families. As a result, it definitely holds a biased position that requires it to appeal to its readers and pander to popular opinions beyond simply informing the general public of newsworthy events regarding the war. The second document also exhibits bias, although of a completely different sort. This underground newspaper promotes radically different, liberal, anti-war ideas and is obviously not geared towards ameliorating its professional image or really pandering to its audience. Its unofficial status makes it less put together while perhaps ensuring greater freedom of information.
Americans want to be accepting of foreigners, but the fear of offending a person of another race sometimes prevents them from starting an interaction. Dumas disguises this masterful emotional manipulation as a witty rant. The author describes her struggle between being called Firoozeh and Julie in an intensely comedic way: “I felt
The World: One Quarter Terrorist The article “Don’t Fear Islamic Law in America” by Eliyahu Ster is a short, general article about how a high percentage of people in America believe that at least some, if not all, of the Shariah Law should be prohibited in the United States because it poses a threat to the American people. Ster, an assistant professor of religious studies and history at Yale, also compares the treatment of American Muslims to that of Jews in the 19th century Europe throughout the article. The author is definitely against discrimination of any kind toward Muslims and thinks taking away their religious rights “ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation.” When reading the article, I could not stop thinking to myself, “are there really that many people out there in the United States that do not have the same stand on this issue as this author?” The fact that people are
Fadl further illuminates the dangers of such misunderstanding and an absence of historical understanding and context in which a passage is written through the examination of the passage “fight those among the People of the Book who do not believe in God or the Hereafter, who do not forbid what God and His Prophet have forbidden, and who do not acknowledge the religion of truth- fight them until they pay the poll tax with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (13). Fadl discusses the reference of the poll tax, pointing out that it was common inside and outside of Arabia to levy poll taxes against alien groups. Classical Muslim jurists then argued that the poll tax is money collected by the Islamic polity from non-Muslims in return for the
Every Muslim goes through this problem in his/her life. In this research paper I will be discussing the world’s attitude towards the Muslim community and how they deal with these crises. But we must remember that it is not always the Muslims who face identity crisis. Anyone who has been previously colonized has to deal with this problem. This happens mainly because the imperial politicians try to create identity problems and use it as a weapon against the colonies.
A prime example of linguicism is southerners’ accents. Religious prejudice of the Muslim religion strongly exists today. Many feel that those who do not believe in their faith are bad and potentially harmful. For example, individuals feel Muslims are terrorists or bad due to their past during the September 11th terrorist attacks and other incidents. Furthermore, Christians are viewed as close-minded due to their conservative