Subversion of neo-imperialist hegemony: A postcolonial study of Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif

Shouket Ahmad Tilwani, Ahdi Hassan

Abstract


Although the erstwhile colonies in the Third World are free from the colonial occupation, the imperialist hegemony continues, to be resisted in the societies. For, such enterprise has provided the pretext for the concepts of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ followed by occupation, a reign of violence and terror loosened upon the natives. This paper aims to study Red Birds (2018) a novel by Mohammed Hanif to highlight the plight of the ‘Other’ with their aggressive vitality and fervor of resistance to counter the imperialist agenda-hegemony. As qualitative research, it employs the postcolonial method, while seeking theoretical insights from the arguments of Orientalism by Edward Said, and the theory of hegemony by Antonio Gramsci to be interpretive in nature to analyze the text. It explores how the text, gleaned selectively from the novel offered, like Orientalism a fabric of textual analyses that is highly critical of the Eurocentric notions and hegemony of the Western world. It underlines the ways and practices sketched by the novel through the troubling encounter of the characters from the East to the West to offer a subversive narrative to the failure of the efforts and narratives of the West. For better analyses of the text to underline the American neo-imperialism and the native dreams of subversion, it takes to the tone of Gramscian precepts to conclude that the powerful subjugates through hegemony–the geo-political method used to gain indirect imperial dominance which is maintained mainly through ideology instead of using means like economic force, or coercive strategies.

Keywords


eurocentrism; center and periphery; hegemony; ‘self’ and ‘other’

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ahsan, K. (2020, January 6). Mohammed Hanif, Red Birds. Chicago Review. www.chicagoreview.org/mohammed-hanif-red-birds/

Akbar, M. J. (2003). The shade of the swords: Jihad and conflict between Islam and Christianity. Lotus Collection.

Alatas, S. H. (1977). The myth of the lazy native. Frank Cass Publishers.

Anjum, M. T., Rehman, S., & Samad, A. (2021). Representing Muslims: A postcolonial study of Mohammed Hanif’s Red Birds. Global Educational Studies Review, 6(1), 48-54. https://doi.org/10.31703/gesr.2021(VI-I).05

Aslam, I. (2018, September 28). Mohammed Hanif on ‘Red Birds’: Mohammed Hanif says Red Birds is set in a war-torn and half-forgotten place located in his head. The Hindu. www.thehindu.com/books/mohammed-hanif-on-red-birds/article25066822.ece

Aslam, N. (2008). The wasted vigil. Alfred A. Knopf.

Aslam, N. (2013). The blind man’s garden. Faber and Faber.

Aslam, N. (2017). The golden legend. Alfred A. Knopf.

Athitakis, M. (2019, May 31). ‘Red Birds’ is a blistering and funny critique of America’s military meddling. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-birds-is-a-blistering--and-funny--critique-of-americas-military-meddling/2019/05/30/a01d1524-6c20-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

Burney, S. (2012). Edward Said and postcolonial theory: Disjunctured identities and the subaltern voice. Counterpoints, 417, 41-60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42981699

Butler, J. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso Books.

Butler, J. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable? Verso Books.

Charney, C. (1987). Political power and social class in the neo‐colonial African state. Review of African Political Economy, 14(38), 48-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056248708703713

Chenoweth, E., & Stephan M. J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. Columbia University Press.

Crehan, K. (2016). Gramsci’s common sense: Inequality and its narratives. Duke University Press.

Cudjoe, S. R. (1980). Resistance and Caribbean literature. Ohio University Press.

Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). Grove Press.

Farhan, M. (2019, March 14). Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif. World Literature Today. www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2019/spring/red-birds-mohammed-hanif

Freund, W. (1984). The making of contemporary Africa. Princeton University Press.

Fried, T. L. (1999, March 28). A manifesto for the fast world. The New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/28/magazine/a-manifesto-for-the-fast-world.html

Gordimer, N. (1973). The black interpreters: Notes on African writing. Ravan Press.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. Lawrence and Wishart.

Gramsci, A. (1992). Prison notebooks. Columbia University Press.

Hamid, M. (2000). Moth smoke. Penguin Press.

Hamid, M. (2007). The reluctant fundamentalist. Harcourt.

Hamid, M. (2017). Exit west. Riverhead Books.

Hanif, M. (2018). Red birds. Bloomsbury.

Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the making of the world order. Simon and Schuster.

Karim, A. (2020). Mohammed Hanif’s Red Birds: “Anti-colonial textuality” and beyond. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 56(6), 747-760. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2020.1782250

Marrouchi, M. (1999). Fear of the “Other”, loathing the similar. College Literature, 26(3), 17-59. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112474

Nair, S. (2018, October 6). ‘Red Birds’: Mohammed Hanif’s most sorrowful novel is swallowed up by its grief. Scroll.in. https://scroll.in/article/897036/red-birds-mohammed-hanifs-most-sorrowful-novel-is-swallowed-up-by-its-grief

Nayeri, D. (2018, October 10). Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif review–a thrilling satire of US foreign policy. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/10/red-birds-by-mohammed-hanif-review

Naz, B. (2022). American imperialism, third world, and the politics of violence and decolonization: A Fanonian reading of the colonial world of Red Birds. PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 19(1), 49-82. https://archives.palarch.nl/index.php/jae/article/view/10654.

Nkrumah, N. (1965). Neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism. Thomas Nelson & Sons.

Sadaf, S. (2022). Benevolent violence: Bombs, aid, and human rights in Mohammad Hanif’s Red Birds. Postcolonial Text, 17(2&3), 1-17. https://www.postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/2740/2543

Saha, S. (2019). Mohammed Hanif’s Red Birds: A wildly satiric, piercingly real and darkly humorous narrative. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 11(3), 1-14. https://dx.doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v11n3.08

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Patheon Books.

Said, E. (1993). Culture and imperialism. Chatto and Windus.

Said, E. (1997). Covering Islam. Random House.

Sartre, J. P. (2015). Preface. In F. Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (pp. 7-31). Grove Press.

Sassoon, A. S. (1991). Hegemony. In T. Bottomore, L. Harris, V. G. Kiernan, R. Miliband (Eds.). The Dictionary of Marxist Thought (2nd ed. pp. 229-231). Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Sehgal, P. (2019, May 14). A new novel stars the dupes, villains and victims of America’s forever war. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/books/review-red-birds-mohammed-hanif.html

Shakespeare, W. (1958). The tempest. Harvard University Press.

Shamsie, K. (2007). Home fire. Bloomsbury.

Sugirtharajah, R. S. (2011). Exploring postcolonial biblical criticism. Wiley Online Books.

Tilwani, S. A. (2015). New perspectives in Muslim literature in English: A study of selected works of M. J. Akbar, Mohsin Hamid and Kamila Shamsie [Doctoral dissertation, Maulana Azad National Urdu University. The Shodhganga@INFLIBNET Centre. http://hdl.handle.net/10603/339352

Tripathi, S. (2018, November 1). Mohammed Hanif’s Red Birds brims with anger at the absurdity, ugliness and human cost of war. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2170837/mohammed-hanifs-red-birds-brims-anger-absurdity

Vaughan, A. (1991). Shakespeare’s Caliban. Cambridge.

Veyret, P. (2021). The ethical re(turn) in postcolonial fiction: Narrating the precariat in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and Mohammad Hanif’s Red Birds. Postcolonial Interventions, 6(2), 106-138. https://zenodo.org/records/3924531

Young, R. J. C. (2016). Postcolonialism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v11i1.31206

Article Metrics

Abstract view : 0 times
PDF - 0 times

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Print ISSN: 2355-2794, Online ISSN: 2461-0275

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


View Journal Stats