The Place of Narrative and Its Importance Part 2

8/13/2019 The Place of Narrative and Its Importance Part 2

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The Place of Narrative and its Importance Part 2

In part one I explored the relationship between ideology, narrative, and discourse. The hypothesis

f orwarded there was that these modes o f thought form the mediating structures by which raw sensations

turn into perceptions. By positing this description I hoped to show that social change could be generateddiscursively, since it f ollows t hat if the way we see something conditions our response to it , a change in

the structures that shape our seeing will aff ect responses. In this essay, I will make a case f or us ing

narrativity as a means of af f ecting responses. There are two key reasons why narrativity is an important

arena in which to engage, not least because it is an arena less considered in both general dawah and

specif ic Muslim ef f ort s in the current climate o f hostility. First ly, narrative (as outlined in the previous essay)

sits in between ideology and discursive f rameworks. It is the channel through which ideology

(Weltanschauung) is expressed and through which discursive f rameworks are established. Hence, a change

in narrative ripples through into everyday perceptions and carries with it precepts of an ideology.

The second reason is that narratives have the power to shape the self -perception of those whom it

represents. Narrativity that is, the act of narrativising is an important mode of ref lection since it

combines the power to articulate ones sense o f being with the imaginative capacity to break out o f

boundaries set by other narratives about t he self . This as a proposition needs to be assessed carefully

and the first section of this essay looks to do exactly that. However, if this is true, the process of

narrativity f or Muslims t oday is very important.

In the second section of the essay I concentrate upon the material shape narrativity can assume and

critique our present emphasis on non- f iction mediums. Narrative, as t he word suggests , incorporates a

degree of f ictionality both in terms o f reflecting elements o f f iction at the level of composition, and finding

material actualisation in modes through which stories are actually told. For example, narratives are about

histories, characters and their interiority, the ways in which circumstances and human actions collude toshape events , and the manner in which the nature o f the world is ref lected through events. Secondly,

narratives are expressed in narrative art (novels, plays, films), documentaries, biographies, and history

books. However, due to a lack of space this essay only points to the need for Muslims to be involved in

and to arrest the modes o f narrative production, which lie essentially in the cultural indust ry. Thus this

essay does not explore what kind of narratives Muslims should construct and how they should promulgate

them; that task may be gleaned tangentially f rom other essays. For a detailed loo k at the ro le of f iction

(specif ically novels) in assisting change in social realities, see Darwins displacement of religion or grounds

for a new religious experience. In that essay I explore the way in which despite Darwins complex and rather

phlegmatic style, the theory of evolution spreads through novels to dif f erent strata of society, especially

the non-science reading public. Another essay, Muslim Weekly and the like: the importance of independent

medialoo ks at the poss ible ro le Muslim newspapers and magazines can play in af f ecting social change.

If read individually, these essays seem to point in a number of directions, but if taken together I hope they

provide a substantial theoretical methodology. Yet none are to be taken prescriptively since they merely

describe possibilities. Whats more, none attempt to even describe content f or that is currently a step too

f ar f rom our present condition. To fully appreciate the spectrum of to ols at our disposal seems to me a

wiser and safer terrain to t read. It is in this spirit t hat this essay is written.

Narrative, the self, and society
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Narrativity is a capability that we all have. From the child who tells his mother that he f ell down, to the

employee who explains to his boss why he is late, we are all engaged in narratavising. In this sense

narratives are the stories we tell or, more precisely, the vehicles we use to convey stories. Narratives

theref ore are universal and, according to Fredrick Jameson, the central f unction or instance of the human

mind1. Abbot t t ells us that many psychologists have observed the coincidence of the onset in infancy of

both autobiographical memory and narrative capability2, and Peter Brooks expresses the notion that Our

very def inition as human beings isbound up with the stories we tell about our o wn lives and the world in

which we live.

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It is not too f ar a conceptual leap then to move f rom this to the idea that human beings arenarrativised beings. {quotes}What this means is that our sense of our self is part o f a narrative of which

we are subject and in which we are object.{/quotes}

We are subjects in so f ar as we are the percipient being who know of objects, to whom the knowing of

something is assigned; to whom belongs the unity of being such that t o it may be given a history and a

temporality. We are objects in so f ar as we locate o urselves in a world, which, though dependent o n us t o

be knowable, is nonetheless independent of us so that we are bound in it spatially. To not grasp this is

the Idealist s error. Like all other objects human beings are part of the world and we know this through the

realities o f birth and death. The fact that we are aware of it means that we are more than object; we are

subjects too.

David Berman illustrates this cleverly in his introduction to Schopenhauers key t ract, The World as Will and

Idea.4 If I am thirsty, the knowing of this can be of two types. One type is the outwardly exhibited

knowledge of my thirst : if I reach fo r a glass o f water, you and I can see the action and comprehend that I

am thirs ty. But I, as a subject, can experience my thirst and thus know of it in a more inward and less

mediated way. I do no t have to perceive my perched lips o r the movement o f my hand to know t hat I am

thirsty. In this second regard I am purely subject who knows and not object that is known. My world at that

moment is in a kind of duality.5There is a reality of an outside world in which the action has taken place and

an inward world in which I have realised my thirst and thus acted. I can occupy both positions

simultaneously because I am at once aware of myself as being inthe world while being separate to it. This

metaphysics o f being is the basis on which we may imagine men as narrat ivised beings. We know of ourself both as part of a f abric (object) and as conscious agents within it (subject).

{quotes}What bridges these two dimensions is the f act that all human beings are social beings, so that my

inward world and the outward world bare inf luence on o ne another.{/quotes}

In this sense, the f act that man is a narrativised being should be understo od not purely in an individualistic

sense but in a broader cultural sense, concluding thereby that we do not merely locate ourselves in our

individual narratives, but in broader narratives woven over time by a culture so that it t oo may come to know

itself . This not ion that identity is produced through an interaction between individuals and society is t he

product o f symbolic interactionism and has become the classic sociological conception o f the issue.6 It

also begins to intimate why narratives may af f ect human beings. If who we are is given to us through

narratives and these narratives are in turn const ructed within the matrix of society, then society bears a

degree of inf luence in the way we see our self and the way in which we behave. The f act that we project

ourselves, writes Stuart Hall, into identities that are shaped dialogically with a culture means that we

internalise cultural meanings and values, all of which helps to align our subjective feeling with the objective

places we occupy in the social and cultural world.7


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Simply put, human beings tend to locate themselves in concentric circles: an individual a family an ethnicity a

nationality a histo ry. In this sense (and in the sense of the metaphysical schema sketched above) the

individual is an object within the given narrative since he or she is accounted f or through it. At the same

time the individual as subject senses that his or her lif e is their own and so he or she generates a sense

of self as independent. Yet their sense of self requires recognition and so t hey loo k again to the narratives

that help build individuals through representation: a man a husband a f ather an Englishman a Briton British

History. This taut dialectic hides many realities such as those who have power over the means o f narrative

production can ef f ectively inf luence people. Conversely, those at the margins o f cultural power and thus

less able to inf luence narrat ive production are disadvantaged considerably. For example, an American study

in the late seventies showed that the way in which a person is charged for breaking the law is not a

st raightforward process.

When a young person is arrested, he or she is handed over to a juvenile officer who decides

whether or not to prosecute. This decision is based on a process of negotiation between the

juvenile officer, the person arrested and his or her parents. Crucial to the outcome of this

negotiation is the picture juvenile officers have of the typical delinquent. In their eyes the

typical delinquent is male, from a low income household in an inner city area, belongs to an

ethnic group, comes from a broken home, rejects authority and is a low achiever at school. Ifthe suspect fits this picture, he or she is more likely to be charged with an offence.

Middle class parents are often more skilled at negotiation than their working class counterparts.

They start with an advantage their child does not fit the picture of a typical delinquent. They

present their child as coming from a stable home, as having a good background and a

promising future. They promise cooperation, express remorse and define the offence as a

one off due to high spirits, emotional upset or getting in with the wrong crowd, all of which

tends to remove blame from the young person. As a result, the statistics show that delinquency

is mainly a working class problem as young people from middle class backgrounds are typically

counselled, cautioned and released. Thus what ends up being called justice is negotiable.

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Similarly, the democratic ideal enshrined within the right to be t ried by a jury of ones peers may be

compromised f or t hose on the periphery of a culture by the power of narrative. It may seem at this point

that the picture I am painting presents every person charged or convicted as having been done so

wrongfully. Though that would be a misunderstanding of my point which is that the processes by which

we convict people or imagine criminality is not so rational or pure it is also not entirely inaccurate. Having

presented a metaphysics in which the individual is bound within narrative representations, and shown

thereaf ter that narratives are constructed through interaction with society, I wish to make a f urther claim

that the way in which narratives const ruct people ef f ectively draws those people into a closer simulation of

its representation.

Narratives are modes of representation t hat provide us a kind of mirror through which we can see

ourselves and perceive how others see us. Where narratives do not provide immediate ref lection they

provide a general picture o f the world in which we can locate ourselves. Either way a narrative is intimately

connected to how we understand our self . Once identif ication begins between the narrative and the self ,

the values and norms ref lected in the narratives, as well as the view of the world they project, begin to be

internalised. This process is long and uneven, presenting opport unities f or the emergence of counter-

narratives as disruptive forces in the process of internalisation. But if the narrative is periodically

reinfo rced, and through various mediums rat if ied, it poses such st rong compulsive force that an individual

acquiesces to it . Behaviour then is more than a simple case of actions determined by individual agency orsubconscious impulses; it is in f act the outcome of a complex identif ication process with the meaning and

the value of self as f ound within narratives.


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This internal dynamism of a narrative enhances the perception of its accuracy vis- -vis its representations .

Once the process begins, a type of reciprocity builds up in which a persons behaviour st arts to ref lect the

behaviour represented in the narrative. As well as this, ot her people begin to react to the perso n according

to their understanding of the narrative, which f urther ratif ies that perso ns self - image and draws him/her

closer still to the representation. This process can also occur with entire social groups, in which case the

group draws closer to one another. And if they happen to be a group lacking social capital (gypsies,

convicts etc), they can derive comfort f rom one another and further endorse the groups representation.

This model of narrat ive determinability of behaviour is based roughly on Beckers labelling theory. Inlabelling theory, a label defines an individual as a particular kind of perso n9. The label however is laden

with cultural meanings and associations and so sutures the individual with a narrative that is evoked by the

label. As such the label operates as a master status in the sense that it colours all the other statuses

possessed by an individual.10{quotes}For example, Muslims today are considered alien, threatening and an

inassimilable community, meaning that if one is identif ied as a Muslim they are seen within political

dimensions, be they a Muslim docto r or a Muslim student.{/quotes}

The upshot of the labelling process according to Becker is that f or the individual who is labelled, the label

can become the contro lling one11. Once this happens, their behaviour and their views begin to conf orm to

the label.

In his novel By the sea, Abdulrazak Gurnah explores the psychological pull colonial narratives had on the

colonised subjects of the British empire. Saleh, the central character, explains how these narratives f iltered

down:

In their books I read unflattering accounts of my history, and because they were unflattering,

they seemed truer than the stories we told ourselves. I read of the diseases that tormented us,

the future that lay before us, about the world we lived in and our place in it. It was as if they had

remade us, and in ways we no longer had any recourse but to accept, so complete and well

fitting was the story they told about us.12

It is cultural products books in this case that carry the narratives produced by the colonisers, which,

to gether with the power they wield and the constancy they can af f ord to lavish on production (time and

money), over time ratif ies the narrative. What is of interest is that Saleh seems to consider these well

f itt ing and as such, so complete that they remake him and his contemporaries in ways they cannot

avoid but be pulled into a self -recognition through them. About the indigenous narratives he says,

The stories we knew about ourselves before they took charge of us seemed medieval andfanciful, sacred and secret myths that were liturgical metaphors and rights of adherence, a

different category of knowledge which, despite our assertive observance, could not contest with

theirs.13


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What I am not positing is a closed narrative determinism, but at the same time it is also untrue that an

imposed narrative can simply be rejected, since even in the act o f rejection there is a curious mimesis in

play. Anecdotally, the res istance by the Nation of Islam to the t renchant racism of America at the s tart of

the twentieth century, borrowed a flavour and to ne f rom the very narrative it rejected (a point later

redressed by Malcolm X when he admitted not all whites were/could be devils). Similarly, many Indian

expatriates during the Raj rejected colonial rule and colonial narratives and had adopted what Gandhi called

a suicidal policy and the Indian schoo l of violence14. Oddly enough, such attacks and f rustration only

conf irmed premises within the colonial narrative about the irrationality of the natives. By the late nineteenth

century, imperial ideologues had canonised ideas about the stabilising ef f ect European presence made in

places like India and Africa. Along with this they propagated the idea that the empire improved the so cieties

it colonised. The earlier cruder theological and quasi-scientif ic expressions of the right of the white man to

rule other people had, by this t ime, subsided f or many to the margins o f intellectual acceptability. Yet these

new not ions were not adopted because they were truer; they served to recast and contro l native resistance

that was growing toward the late nineteenth century. {quotes}If the empire existed f or necessary and

altruistic reasons, resistance to it spoke of the irrationality of the natives, their mental immaturity, or, in the

case of violent resist ance, the essentially violent nature of the natives.{/quotes}

Hence Gandhis characterisation o f such Indians who advocated violent t actics as intoxicated by the

wretched modern civilisation15. Those who took part in such acts would no doubt have objected to such adescription, but what Gandhi was at pains t o show was that unwitt ingly, these people had fallen into the

colonial trap of espousing its civilisat ion, or what I am calling narrative constructions.

Writing in the Indian Opinion soo n af ter t he assassination by Madan Lal Dhingra of Sir William Curzon-

Wyllie, a political aide de camp to Lord Morley the then Secretary o f State for India, Gandhi said,

I must say that those who believe and argue that such murders may do good for India are

ignorant men indeedEven should the British leave in consequence of such murderous acts,

who will rule in their place? The only answer is: the murderers Is the Englishman bad because

he is an Englishman? Is it that everyone with Indian skin is good?16

The propositional even if attests that Gandhi did not believe such a methodology would work in f reeing

India of her colonial yoke. For Gandhi, only a dif f erent narrat ive about Indian civilisat ion and its core values

could instil a pride and power in his compatriots that would be able to both gain independence and sustain

it over and above intellectual and cultural imperialism.

Edward Said makes a similar point in Culture and Imperialism. He begins by criticising the over scale images

of terro rism and fundamentalism that insist on the subordination of individuals conf orming to dominant

norms of the moment. The irony, he says, is that instead of uniting the West o n a conf irmation of itsvalues of moderation and rationality and thus informing its actions, the hype imbues us with a righteous

anger and defensiveness in which others are f inally seen as enemies, bent on destro ying our civilisation

and way of life. He then says,

these patterns of coercive orthodoxy and self-aggrandisement [that] strengthen the power

of unthinking assent and unchangeable doctrineare slowly perfected over time[and are]

answered, alas with [a] corresponding finality by the designated enemies. Thus Muslims or

Africans or Indians or Japanese, in their idioms and from within their own threatened localities,

attack the West, or Americanisation, or imperialism, with little more attention to detail, criticaldifferentiation, discrimination, and distinction than has been lavished on them by the West.17


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Like Gandhi, I assert that such reciprocity is the result of a narrative hold on t he imaginations and vision o f

people who are caught in a ref lexive relationship with est ablished narratives. What is more, if the narrative

that one is caught in is not o f ones own construction, then such a person while engaging in action is

essentially pass ive.

Yet if narrat ives can catch people in their representat ive grip thus making them more malleable and

contro llable, the key to break through is provided by the act of narrativity. By accessing our narrative

capacities we enliven, what Homi K. Bhabha may call a liminal space that contains the potential to re- imagine

ourselves. But unlike Bhabhas somewhat abst racted realm where boundaries of given binaries overlap andproduce sites of hybridisation, I want to imagine this space as one where we locate our imagination and

use its subversive capacity t o question, invert and alter the f ixtures o f a particular narrative. In this liminal

space the act of narrativity provides the power not only to inf use a narrative with a sense of ones cultural

and individual self , but also draw from it a bett er understanding of the self . However, because we are social

beings as stated earlier, this act o f narrativity must be enacted collectively and it is f or t his reason t hat

Muslims need to arrest the means o f narrative production. With this t hought in mind and with Bhabha as a

reference point, we move into the next section.

Narrativity, Cultural Products, and Change

[One] must acknowledge the force of writing, its metaphorcity and its rhetorical discourse, as a

productive matrix which defines the social and makes it available as an objective of and for,

action.18

The force of writing to which Bhabha refers is writings capacity, both as object and process, to o pen up

liminal spaces in which the imagination can contes t and reconstruct given f ixtures. But if writing has this

capacity it is because it is one way in which narrativity materialises and so it is narrativity that carries f ort h

this potent ial to open up interst itial spaces. It is because of this potential that narrativity has grown to be a

widely used practice in psychological treatment.19But Bhabha makes a further point : writing has the power

to def ine its o bject and therefo re produce an impetus f or action. {quotes}What he does not tell us however

is how we move from writing as a descript ive and def ining practice to being modally linked to

action.{/quotes}

To bridge this gap I again parallel writing with narrat ivity. First ly, the power of representat ion inherent in both

these modes of ref lection lends them the capacity to af f ect action a point discussed in greater detail in

part one of this essay (the relationship between narrative and discourse). There is another dimension

though to how writing and narrativity can generate action, and that is to do with the f act that as ways o f

producing narratives, they produce their own f ixtures. What this means is that while they are able to open

up and deconstruct moments o f closures, they also t end towards synthesising new closures. While this canf urther explain how actions grow out of writing and narrativity a f ixture provides a point f rom which to

orientate, navigate, and determine action it also problematises the purist ic view of narrativity we have

thus f ar pursued. If narrativity can contest exist ing narratives, the very same act can decentre the

narratives that emerge in their place. What this means is subtle but important. Narratives need f ormulation

through repetition and reinf orcement meaning that t he public space becomes a space of constant traf f ic of

narrat ives all competing and conf licting, and it is o nly when the public domain is viewed in these terms does

the meaning of the colonisation o f the public space make sense. It is in this context that t he act o f

narrat ivity can provide exactly the kind of empowerment by which minority communities can resist narrat ive

domination. But f or them to do so they must become agents of narrative production and it is exactly this

that is lacking in the Muslim community.

In the 2007 issue of Islamica Magazine, the editor makes a lucid observation in his editorial. Admitting a

deep-seated bias against Islam in the mainstream media he says,


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At the same time, the Muslim world has by and large failed to recognise the importance of

communicating its ideals, values and culture in the English language. For some strange reason,

Muslims demand accuracy of others in representing their views, but invest little or nothing to

ensure this happens.20

The investment the edito r has in mind is explained a f ew lines later. Given that f reedom of the press is

almos t non-existent across many parts o f the Muslim world, it should come as no surprise that t he

intellectual inf rastructure necessary to t ell the Muslim story to the rest o f the world is at best , limited.21

Though the edito r implicitly links and in my opinion limits the intellectual inf rast ructure to the press, his

observat ion is not wrong. Muslims have f allen into a blinkered epistemology in which we have designated

certain f orms as the exclusive forms of knowledge presentat ion, foremost amongst which are the non-

f iction boo k and the medium of lectures. Taking this t ogether with the implicit exclusivity given to the press

i n Islamicas editorial, however, means something more still. Muslims, it is possible to deduce, see non-

f ictional modes as t he only proper modes o f knowledge/information transmission. I theref ore want to go

even f urther than Islamicas editor in two respects. One, I want to open up the idea of an intellectual

infrastructure so as to include a diverse range of cultural products, and two, I want to suggest that no t

only is there an impasse in communication when such products are absent, but our ideals, values and

culture remain invisible even to ourselves.

A diversif ication of mediums by which we narrate our st ory is import ant not just because each medium has

its own merits , which is t rue enough, but because with diversif ication we can reach a wider range of people.

It hardly needs saying that if this happens communication becomes s trengthened.22 But a call to

diversif ication is also a call to o pening up our intellectual inf rast ructure to f ictional-dramaturgical-

narrative production. {quotes}These can include as broad a range of approaches as hist ory boo ks,

biographies, novels, poems, f ilm, drama and documentaries, and as modes o f narrative production they are

all special f or two reasons.{/quotes} All of these deal in one way or another with people and their interiority,

a point that is important in helping others see something f rom the eyes of another. They can also capture

events and meld what happened or is happening with a way of conceiving the world. Joan Rockwell makesthis po int when she comments on t he theme of marriage in literature.23 The change f rom arranged

marriages as the norm to a belief in the right of individuals to court o ne another she says, ref lected and

reif ied the changing values and worldview of the early modern period of European society, as it moved f rom

the pressures and requirements o f f eudalism to those of bourgeois capitalism.

The significance of these mediums also becomes apparent when one asks, as Earnest Fischer does inThe

Necessity of Art, why so many people read or go to the cinema? To say they seek distraction, relaxation,

[or] entertainment, he says, is to beg the question.

Why is it distracting, relaxing, entertaining to sink oneself in someone elses life and problems?

Why is our existence not enough? Why this desire to fulfil our unfulfilled lives through other

figures, other forms, to gaze from the darknessat a lighted stage where something that is only

play can so utterly absorb us.24


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Though Fischer does not himself answer this question, its answer can be fo und elsewhere. John

Rutherford f or example, suggests that such mediums present themselves as having something important

to say about human experiences that the f ictional worldstands in some special way as a microcosm of

the world of real experience25 and that through it we come to a better appreciation o f ourselves. He

explains f urther that such mediums operate through a network o f asso ciations because they lay emphasis

on associative meaning over and above conceptual meaning. The word toad, he says, appearing in the

context o f literary discourse, is likely to stand fo r qualities that in our experience [or in our culture] are

common to t oads (baseness, ugliness, repulsiveness, wretchedness, and so on) in the f irst place, and only

secondarily f or a tailless amphibian of the genus Buf o.26 Associative meanings therefore can be

understoo d as t he mechanism by which interstit ial spaces are opened up, and to ref rame a point made by

Virgina Woo lfe such mediums make us know our species bet ter because we can locate o urselves in

those interst itial spaces and view things f rom another viewpoint.

But t hat isnt all. Roland Barthes claimed that literature and for o ur purposes, o ther f ictional-

dramaturgical mediums was like a machine, a point that Joan Rockwell also stresses when she claims

literature is part of the so cial machinery. Such a view of these mediums suddenly opens them up to not

only being vehicles by which mere stories are to ld but proponents of narratives as I have been

conceptualising it a species o f ideology. Keeping this in mind we can begin to see that such narrative

mediums can assist in assimilating individuals with an ideology. Of course, the converse o f this is equallytrue. If these mediums are absent amongst Muslim communities and if the Muslim community is not in some

respect in cont rol o f narrative production, then f or many Muslims their ideals, values and culture are

vague and perhaps even invisible. The need f or Muslims t o arrest the means o f narrative production

theref ore is no t o nly important in communicating to non-Muslims, but a way of resist ing ideological

intrusion by o ther narratives and making sure our own Weltanschauungis bet ter inscribed in us. {quotes}We

may have the The Ideal Muslimbut we lack the ideal Muslim represented.{/quotes}

One may well reto rt at this point and suggest that if representation is as essential as I am claiming it to be,

then in fact what has actually gone ast ray is the pedagogy of the Muslims. This is because f or a Muslim,

the ideal Muslim has always been made available in the f orm of the Prophet (saw) and, as if that was notenough, in the shape of the numerous Companions [sahaba] (ra). Thus, they may conclude, what is needed

is in fact a rigorous f amiliarisation of Muslims with hadith literature and stories o f the companions. This no

doubt is an essential part of marking a Muslims identity and generating a sense of his or her belonging to

Islam, but it is not what I have in mind fo r two reasons. Firstly, f or a lot o f Muslims these traditions have

moved into a type of mythic past and so long as t hey remain f ixed in this psychic space they lack the

necessary vigour f or contest ing contemporary colonising narratives emerging f rom quarters antagonist ic to

Islam and Muslims. As such, a narrative is needed itself to re-inscribe these traditions back into Muslims

lives. In order to do this, and this brings me to the second point, we need a narrative that is ref lective of the

present landscape and which represents present Muslims and their lives. There is no reason why the

traditions o f the past, st ories of the Quran, or even the Quran itself as symbol cannot be used as positive

regenerative devices in our narratives.

A goo d example away f rom present pract ices is the novel by f irst time novelist Randa Abdel-Fattah called,

Does my head look big in this?With good humour and generosity she presents the picture of a teenage girl

growing up and experiencing life, with the twist that the protagonist is Muslim and one of her dilemmas is

wearing the hijab. Though amateurish at times, the novel plays a mimetic game with the reader who is

encouraged to f eel the dilemmas as their own by making possible either an identif ication with the character

or her lif e, or just the modern urban surroundings which ref lects those o f many diaspora Muslims. In doing

this, the resolution, the conf idence, and a sense o f voice witt y and self assert ive become, in between

the pages and ones inner reading voice, ones own. {quotes}At the same time, the picture presented to

non-Muslims gives access to the interiority o f a Muslim f orcing them to recognise a 3D-ness that othernarratives deny or manipulate.{/quotes}


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A year ago the novelist Martin Amis gave an interview to the Sunday Timesin which he said that the Muslim

community will have to suf f er until it gets its house in order27. By conf lating an entire community and its

concomitant complexities within the metaphor of one house, Amis underscored the manipulation o f the

dominant western narrative in which, an evil ideology becomes the get out of jail card f or Western foreign

policy. And while there is usually a proviso that the majority of Muslims reject t his ideology, the lack of a

political context as Arun Kundanani notes, makes it impossible to explain why this ideology has come into

existence.28What happens by def ault then is t hat the problem comes to be seen as a uniquely Muslim

problem of adapting to modern values not only in the Middle East or Asia, but also of Muslim communities

in the West. As a novelist, Amis accentuates that narrative even while writing or speaking in other mediums

because his non-political occupation lends his analysis a quasi- insight that is harder to achieve if youre a

political commentato r on Newsnight.

Couple that with a recent article by Mark Tran in The Guardian, which quotes Lieutenant General James

Matt is, a war veteran of the f irst Gulf war, discussing the importance of the sof ter aspects o f power.

This is a battle where perception is more important than reality where it is our narrative versus

their narrative. The real battle is for the will of the people.29

Hearing Mattis and Amis together should make us all sit up and pay attention. It is now primarily culture

through which the western world establishes its hegemony, even while political resistance dismantles the

polit ical dimensions o f colonialism. In such a context, Muslims absence in the cultural domain makes them

vulnerable both internally in terms of building conf idence around their Islamic identit y, and externally in terms

of how they are perceived. What is more, a deep understanding of the relationship between ideology,

narrative, and discourse opens up a methodological approach in which the force of narrativity assumes

centre stage. The step af ter this is f or scholars and Muslim thinkers to systematise the Islamic boundaries

around a possible Muslim cultural indust ry: because the battleground in the West, as both parts of this

essay have shown, is t he psyche.

htt p://www.mart inamisweb.com/documents/voice_of _experience.pdf

The Place of Narrative and Its Importance Part 2

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Transcript of The Place of Narrative and Its Importance Part 2