9/11 and the Dilemma of Pakistan's Image: Rereading Hamid's Response in Reluctant Fundamentalist and Discontent and Its Civilizations

Abstract

The contemporary age is of globalization that is engulfing smaller cultures and their local values into today's big Americanized fold of cultural and economic domination. Pakistan, after 9/11, has been the worst victim of cultural hegemony and economic depression besides loss of invaluable lives despite being front line ally of America in its global war on terror. Mohsin Hamid's is the strongest,unapologetic, and culturally rooted response to the multifarious crisis Pakistan has been experiencing. He is being realistic towards the cultural clash and overlap not only exposes how the Pakistani indigenous value system is being distorted as well as acceptance of the new technophobe.Himself a Pakistani Muslim, he fictionally and critically creates space for the voice of Pakistani Muslim margin against the westernized framing of the overseas media for the global center. This article studies how he has addressed the challenges to Pakistani, cultural, national, ethnic, and religious identity in his imaginative and factional works.