Abstract anti-imperial critique stays palatable to Western readers where concrete grievance does not

Evidence

In the end, all these would-be motives for Changez are played down. He prefers to talk more generally about “empire” in the abstract and euphemistically of those “tantrums” (168) through which America rocked the world after September 2001. The result is a story more palatable to an international but mainly Western, English-language readership: much more the kind of fair that can raise acceptable and limited criticisms of the West based on what it does rather than ontologically what it is, the kind that can unsettle the liberal reader but need not disturb his or her sleep. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 469

Categorization

• XREF: This is the hinge concept the reader wants: the distinction between contesting and quietly reinforcing — a novel can unsettle without disturbing. Directly applicable to judging whether Hamid’s and Naqvi’s work critiques or flatters. — connects to: Academic displacement of anti-imperial struggle substitutes literary critique for lived resistance. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 871; Exile intellectuals’ critiques transfer authority to right wrongs from affected societies to Western readers. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 705; Said frames anti-imperial resistance chiefly as cultural discourse and identity — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 851
• DEFINE: Identifies an operational marker distinguishing contesting fiction from reinforcement: critique of what the West does vs. what it is.