In today’s media, “fake news” is propagated for an audience to conform to an author’s biased interests. These interests may illustrate people, places, or events from a particular viewpoint, one that is often negative and misleading. A historical example of such propaganda would be Adolf Hitler taking advantage of his charisma to convince the people of Nazi Germany that they were of the master race and that Jews should be abolished. In the modern day, varying forms of media, such as books, do the same thing to different degrees. For instance, Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist revolves around a Pakistani man, Changez, who narrates his life as a young adult struggling with a new love and occupation in America. Throughout the novel, Changez’s character appears to shift from one that proudly embodied the American identity to one that seemingly resented the former. With that, he occasionally depicted America from a negative standpoint. It is evident that some of Changez’s anti-American beliefs are biased as he was part of a visible minority living in a nation that was recently terrorized by people who appear to be of similar descent. Changez’s development demonstrates that things may be viewed differently depending on the way in which they are defined by their “master narratives.”
Master narratives may construct prejudices around topics for better or for worse. One of the concepts that The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s master narrative embodies is the notion of “us vs. them,” as Tessa points out. Underwood Samson, the company which Changez works for, is a key symbol of this concept as they implicitly operate on the upper-class and capitalist thought that if they do not prosper as a company, others will. While working at this company, Changez gains a personal sense of “us vs. them” when he faces discrimination for having dark skin and a beard, the socially derived attributes of a terrorist. From then on, his perspective of America subtly takes a negative turn. For example, he begins to critique the United States for being a nation that is susceptible to a “dangerous nostalgia,” presenting him with a greater sense that he is a foreigner (p. 115). Through the interpretation that America is subject to both social and physical vulnerabilities—a physical vulnerability being something like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers in 2001—some of the country’s imperfections feed into the societal belief that America is often in the position of a victim. As Suvi suggests, events in the United States seem to receive excessive attention that they may not always deserve. This generates a paradox as a manifestation of Hamid’s novel is to add more attention to the existing scrutiny that the United States faces, precisely by highlighting some of its vulnerabilities through the outlook of a foreigner.
When stories are recounted, it may be easy for the narrator to alter a message based on their interpretations. However, it may be even easier for their audience to understand the story from an inaccurate perspective, especially if the storyteller intentionally modifies the meaning behind their words. For instance, how truthful were the 9/11 news reports that Changez and his colleagues witnessed while working in Manila? May Hamid have written his novel with a bias that favours Pakistani culture and traditions? As Aleksei identifies, “…these conservative and paranoid viewpoints are represented so much more loudly than others that they are very easy for a common, uninformed person to adopt.” I, for one, am an example of the “uninformed person” as I grew up indoctrinated with beliefs that favoured certain groups of people over others. In recent years, I have matured from those assumptions, allowing myself to recognize and challenge my own reasoning from broader perspectives. However, there are undeniably individuals who have not yet grown out of such close-mindedness, such as the gentleman who harassed Changez in a parking lot (p. 117). This ultimately begs the question of whether or not people will ever move on from divided societies and perspectives.
References:
Hamid, M. (2008). The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Anchor Canada.