The past few weeks we have been discussing the book ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid, a novel describing the experiences of a Pakistani immigrant, Changez, in the United States pre and post 9/11. Told by a narrator to an unnamed American, Hamid gives an account intended to provoke – how do we think about events such as 9/11? What reactions are appropriate? What is America’s role on the global stage? How is this perceives by others? Are we right to assume?

One of the themes of the novel is nostalgia. This is unsurprising, as the US has kind of wrapped itself up in patriotism and longing for the ‘good old days’ in the period after 9/11. Just look at Trump’s campaign slogan: Make America Great Again. There is undeniably a culture of nostalgia in the US (and the west), especially on the political right.

The novel depicts nostalgia not just in America, Changez often experiences such a longing for Pakistan. Throughout, we see this feeling as an inhibitor to progress – for the US (portrayed through Erica, and her longing for Chris), and for Pakistan.

Personally, I feel nostalgia is really important to discuss at the moment. We spent a large portion of the previous term discussing the way in which a society remembers – what we forget, what we readdress, and what we need to readdress. While nostalgia looks in the same direction as remembering, it certainly has a very different result. The nostalgia used by many on the right speaks of times when minorities were significantly oppressed, diseases were incurable, and poverty was much more widespread. I’m not sure that’s a society we should be aiming for. When we discussed remembering, we thought of the things that were excluded from the narrative – like the internment of Japanese in the US and Canada during World War Two.

Over the break, my dad and I streamed a German language film (I know, Netflix in the UK is far more limited) called ‘Labyrinth of Lies’, which depicts a German public prosecutor finding out about the holocaust in 1958, and embarking on a mission to prosecute those involved. At the beginning of the film knowledge of what the Nazis had done was limited, and Germans were not aware of the atrocities at camps like Auschwitz (and if they did know, they did not discuss them), and it is only by meeting a Jewish man who was a survivor of the camps did this prosecutor uncover the truth. The film’s entire theme is remembering – why it’s important, and how society and individuals can accept it. The prosecutor is seen struggling with why people don’t seem to care, and coming to terms with how his own nation could commit such terrible acts. In reality, it was not until much later that Germany truly came to grips with its past – most public memorials only being created since the 1990s.

To watch a film which contemplated and highlights the issue of remembrance in such an overt manner during a time of what feels like complete and utter forgetting was startling. The nostalgia throughout the west – now embodied by the man in the most powerful position in the world – is dangerous. Hamid shows us this, as those wrapped up in nostalgia and longing for a perfect past that does not truly exist cannot progress.

‘Labyrinth of Lies’ is really good and I recommend you see it even though you have to read subtitles (but we are Global Citizens after all).