“Otherized” Migrants in Contemporary Australia: Reflections from Michael Ahmad’s The Tribe (2014)

Abstract

This article provides a close reading of Michael Mohamed Ahmad’s The Tribe (2014), a Lebanese-Australian novel, which proffers perspectives on the experiences of racialized and ethnicized communities, namely Arab-Australian Muslims, who are subjected to anti-Arab racism and discrimination. The Tribe invokes different images of hostility against immigrants and their children in Australia. It studies these forms of racism and discrimination against immigrants of the Lebanese background in public spaces. Related, the question of linguistic terrorism is also discussed. This racism prompts us to ask questions about any Australian “multicultural approach”.