Predatory Identities the Duty to Remember and Forget / A Study in Arabian Novel

Abstract

Memory studies are among the studies that fall in the interdisciplinary field, and the need for them has arisen to address the present representations of groups and nations because of the collective memory of the groups that present a present perception of the past, and the issue of genocide and genocidal violence is one of the present topics in our contemporary reality. Therefore, this research seeks to find a literary and critical reading of the duty of memory. By raising the issue of genocide in literature through the concept of (predatory identities) by the anthropological researcher (Arjun Appadurai). Predatory identities are identities “whose construction and social organization require the extinction of other social groups close to them, identified as threatening the existence of a group (us)”. The feeling of threat is the first determinant of group building, and at the same time, the first signs of its predatory nature, confirming the existence of the other (the enemy) is a condition for building identity in general, and predatory in particular. Appadurai defines conditions for these identities, saying: “Predatory identities are generated periodically from the presence of two or more identities, which have a long history of friction and amalgamation, and a certain limit of mutual stereotyping. It is, but there must be some degree of discrepancy between the two groups in defining the identity.” The predatory identity claims to be the majority. It moves to achieve identity purity by getting rid of the other identity that hinders the completion of its purity.