Fluid rather than militant identity makes a novel’s critique palatable to liberal Western readers

Evidence

The fluidity of identity implied here means that Changez’s marginality is always to some extent recuperable for a Western audience who might have been alienated by actual confessions of terrorist activity or a sudden discovery of religious conviction. The fact that Changez ends up the figurehead for a broad coalition standing up against American meddling in South Asia and not a foaming Islamist militant allows for his critique to find its target audience—primarily liberal Westerners who are more likely to accept criticism that comes from within a narrative of secular nationalism. This is not to suggest that Hamid is being deliberately duplicitous or consciously tactical. Rather, being such a figurehead is an approved function of the Third World cultural representative, one whose sanctioned role is to speak from a place nominally “outside” hegemonic discourses and to present the hegemon with uncomfortable truths about itself. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 455

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s hinge reading of Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist — whether Changez’s ambiguity contests or quietly reinforces Islamophobia for liberal Western readers.
• SEED: Angle for the reader’s own essay/project: testing whether Hamid’s recuperable marginality is what lets him reach liberal audiences — does contestation require this compromise?
• DEFINE: Introduces the notion of the ‘approved function’ of the Third World cultural representative whose critique is sanctioned by the hegemony it addresses.