forget the incident. Repetition of the same events, which appear in these memories, do not always provide new information on the details of the
incident. To get the frame story and understand the events in The Reluctant
Fundamentalist as disconnected and unrelated, the pieces of the events should be arranged like puzzle. There are events that can be found to do,
but some are not. The story of Changez thoughts about Erika, and a meeting with the new old man clearly as Changez reason why he should
go home. “we assembled in Athens, having arrived on different flights, and
when I first saw Erica” Hamid 2007, 17 “the chief of the publishing company was an old man by the
name of Juan –Bautista” Hamid 2007, 141
Changez meeting with parents proved to be an event that is lost, not related to other events that affect the skeleton of the story.
There are elements of his past that is lost discontinuity because of the occupation, and there are elements that continued continuity form of
identity now. There are events, the colonial experience, and experience a painful tradition and want to be forgotten.
4.4 Odyssey and Nostalgia
Changez identity reconstruction is the process of positioning themselves against the influence of two cultures with which he was
educated and grew; Pakistan, Islamic, and European Culture. Identity formation is never finished. Changez identity reconstruction, as well as
search for identity, consisting of the odyssey and nostalgia to the roots of tradition.
5
Odyssey and nostalgia shows identity in the sense of Becoming and being, which transformed and have a history. Odyssey can be seen from
the hybridization Changez happens after the decision to continue schooling in America. After his meeting with European knowledge,
eventually Changez no longer be considered indigenous Europe, but also the natives who regard. European knowledge he has received, made him
critical of the two cultures to whom he introduced and taught. “But not on that day. On that day, I did not think of myself as a
Pakistani, but as an Underwood Samson trainee, and my firm’s impressive offices made me proud” Hamid 2007, 34
“I was not at war with America. Far from it; I was the product of an American university; I was earning a lucrative American
salary; I was infantuated with American woman” Hamid 2007, 73
Different educational background made him critical of the values of the roots of tradition and religion, and while critical of the civilizing
mission and a new culture offerred by Europe. Changez, to borrow the words of Bhaba, is testament to the failure of colonial discourse. Natives
who want to be conquered with its colonial policy in the end it becomes a threat. European knowledge that teaches him about the humanitarian and
ethnocentric views of Europe against the European nations are not visible from the way of looking to Europe and to non-European.
5
Latif,
Yudi. 2005. Kembara dan kembali: Renungan “Pujangga Baru” nan tua dan keinsyafan religiositasnya. Pengatar Achdiyah K. Mihadja. Manifesto Khalifatullah. Bandung
: Arasy. P. 24
“As society, you are unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into
myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the
world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family. Such an America had to be
stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own” Hamid 2007, 167-8
At first, he felt that Europe is a culture in which he freed himself from the perceived shackles of cultural origin. He found that Europe offers a
value-taught values of freedom, equality, and fraternity, in contrast to the Islamic religion and traditions of Pakistan that he had ever experienced as
a cruel and oppressive. “it seemed to me that America, too, was increasingly giving itself
over to a dangerous nostalgia at that time. There was something undeniably retro about the flags and uniforms, about generals
addressing cameras in war rooms and newspaper headlines featuring such words as duty and honor. I had always thought of
America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by its determination to look back” Hamid 2007, 160
His meeting with the European knowledge not only gives Changez ability to look at the culture of origin, but also look at culture that Europe
has offered. Changez decision to go to school in America, does not mean he
wanted to become Americans, stop being Pakistan and regardless of Pakistani peoples problems.Changez decision to study in America would
be disclosed as a form he cares of his homeland. The experience of colonization has made indigenous life changed.
Construction of a new indigenous identities will never be the same as
before, prior experience of colonization. Changez’s identity is now different from the identity before it is registered and studying in the
colonial school. However, his old identity construction, as a native of Pakistan and Muslims can be claimed back is not intact. This means that
Pakistan and Islam as an identity should be visited by a conscious act only as nostalgia pieces of identity.
“it seemed to me that America, too, was increasingly giving itself over to a dangerous nostalgia at that time. There was something
undeniably retro about the flags and uniforms, about generals addressing cameras in war rooms and newspaper headlines
featuring such words as duty and honor. I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was
struck by its determination to look back” Hamid 2007, 160
Nostalgia to the roots of the tradition that shows the strength of the relationship of Pakistan and Islam by Changez, looks strong in this novel.
Changez attachment to the past, Pakistan and Islamic tradition, can be seen. “I had been telling you earlier, sir, of how I left America. The
truth of my experience complicate that seemingly simple assertion; I had returned to Pakistan, but my inhabitation of
your country had not entirely ceased” Hamid 2007, 172
A nostalgia for the roots of tradition here does not mean only an act of remembering, but should be seen as an attempt to understand the pieces of
identity, understanding the continuity and the experience of discontinuity discontinuity with the roots of tradition.
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
In supporting colonialism, the Europeanwest spread of colonial discourse that assumes the native as an inferior representation of Europe in the
form of knowledge about the East in their stereotypes. The indigenous authors against these representations by writing his own about themselves and their
society, so that efforts to reconstruct their identities. Mohsin Hamid is one of the Pakistani natives who live in America when his homeland has always been
an interesting place to be colonized starting from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British and also American. Through the main character Changez, The
Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamids second work shows native picture that comes out of binary construction between European and non Europea, as
natives hybrid. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, natives hybrid displayed a superior
human being capable of opening up to foreign culture as a solution to get out of the nativist restrictions. The word hybrid in the native hybrid indicates a
difference with what he called the natives and with what is called Europe. Natives is a hybrid identity, a position taken by natives who create distance
between himself and the native in general, with the roots of tradition and religion, as well as with Europe. To show a hybrid of the indigenous natives in
general, Mohsin Hamid embedded Eastern stereotypes in the representation of 44
