The Post Colonial Arabic Novel “Cities of Salt”, Research Paper Example

Cities of Salt has often been read as at once an elegy for a disfigured space and society, and a chronicle of its transformation. How does Munif represent the encounter with and effects of global capital and its arrival? How are tradition, traditional social ties on the one hand, and the encounter with the foreign other represented? What are the limitations and potential problems of attempting to write such a work? Elaborate!

Abdelrahman Munif, a Jordinian born Saudi novelist, wrote a novel called ‘Cities of Salt’. It is a monumental novel that tells the story of the discovery of oil. Encountering the vicious arrival of the global, political and economic modernity to an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom is the main point of Munif in this novel. Munif described that the migration of that villager as their traditional lands are destroyed, and their way of living is thrown into disarray by the foreigners – Americans, through invasion of modern technology, cultural gaps, and a whole new bunch of the local economy. He has exercised an unconventional format in novel by declining a clear protagonist or even its mixture. Leading characters of the novel in its first dozen chapters are gone by the final third of the book, despite the formation of main characters.  The valley that is destroyed in the beginning and later the town of Harran that goes from a backwater to booming oil valley or town. Where the novel’s all fiction takes places after the pipeline is laid down from the valley to Harran coastline.

Munif has described among many passages that how masses had to watch the wheels of new machines – bulldozers, deracinating their trees, oases and the new life style in the world. By keeping a track on giant bulldozers the will and intentions of foreigners and co-team workers are expressed. Constantly, these new entrants do not consider the fact about what they have given significance to be a temporary, requisite trouble, the villagers forced for the indiviauls of these gifts, were shocked and speechless. A great leader and pamist – Najma al-Mithqal, has also reported her following philosophies:

From Wadi Al-Jean to A-Dalle and from Al-Sariha to Al-Mataleq, the things will not be the same. In desert areas, people will wait for the stars but the stars will not come to show them. They will search for a caravan, but the caravan will not be find by them. They will scream, but there would be no one to reply them or respond them… Roads and everything will be unresponsive and will be as hard as hearts. There would be no feelings for anyone.

From Wadi Al-Jean to Al-Dalle and from Al-Sariha to Al-Mataleq and far behind the respectable man will be weak and lose his power and the wrong but strong will eat his rights (1987: 164 – 165).   

Najma’s prophecies left thoughts of reality into the hearts of Arab individuals that are at once terrified and not ready to adopt the new style of life that came into a big chain of brutality and resistance to them. Arab individuals are gifted by a number of natural resources but still they had faced a hard era.

Munif’s fiction does not only chronicles the transfusion of the tribal ways of Arab society converting itself into a fast moving, oil producer, advanced nation, but it also focuses some of what has become famous about that an unnamed place kingdom. Arabs remain in depth suspicious about the superpower’s interests in their country, and yet “Cities of Salt” pointed that despite the denunciations of America, the desert kingdom’s fate is closely interconnected with America.

This fiction culminates with the Saudi workers of the oil industry rising up in the demonstration against the United States and corrupt local leaders with whom the foreigners collaborated, an act that Ellen McLarney linked with “the 1953 workers” strike  against Aramco in Dhahran incident” (195), but that Amitav Ghosh observed as an escapist fantasy that covers the real scenario of how oil companies in the Middle East have cashed such labor uprisings through use of workers in the developing countries. (147- 49)

Rather, the Munif’s novel is one line that helped to coherent and valid longstanding hegemonic European and West world idioms for scanning and controlling others, especially the Saudi and other Muslims, in the service of colonial or imperial rows. Where there is slight discussion about Saddam Hussain that he was a dictator, worldly recognized in the region that America’s foreign military and economic policies have absolutely implemented against democratic movements in the post-Ottoman and postcolonial Middle East and partially in Africa, and the United States has a marvelous history of supporting policies and some extent to individuals that follow and facilitate the interests of American capitalism. Undeniably, as Naomi Klein a reader – who responded to the Abu Ghraib snapshots of US sponsored torture as if it had ”never before” happed suffer from historical amnesia.

This fiction also shows an image of a third population deracinated by the oil encounter, giving voice to the bump discontent among the most volatile of the uprooted: the soldiers of migrant people drawn to the Gulf from under developing Islamic and semi – Islamic countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, Philippines and Yemen. In a time of reading the novel, one receives his feeling curdle into despair and rage. His lament applies is not just to the desert Gulf region. It also reached the oil rich & ruined nations, as Brunei, Indonesia and Nigeria. It has a resemblance in terms to any of the worlds less fuel authoritarian regimes.

Attempting towards the end of his volume 1, the Bedouin’s stage a strike is set against the US oil company and one from the back yard sets the entire oil field and base on fire, all fingers point to the ghost of Mutib al-Hardhat. The significance of volume two portions from the corporeal existence of the remote oasis, and the broad Al-Harran that was developed around it can be judge by its appearance. Muran (now Riyad – the capital of Saudi Kingdom). Unlike, Wadi Al-Harran, the main point of the capital comprised of a palaces cluster created with oil finance for family members of king’s. The crown main palaces are his increasing harem and settled as the locus of the most of the description in this book. A huge portion of this volume is devoted to explaining the personalities, their motives concerns and lifestyles.

Munif has also expressed limitations and potential problem in the some phrases of novel. The suitable is both of the ecological breed, recognizable in the modern usage of the term and the social, spatial variety. The common one is exemplified most forcefully in the scenario of US overseers and Arab workers working jointly to settle a pipeline through the desert between oil fields and the coast – the US set themselves against the particle of nature, “fussing” with generators whom a dust breaks down, in efforts to cool themselves that end up making them hotter, when the Arabs apparent a more unrefined mode of relevant to the land by using the open air and breezes to cool their tents during the day. As for social sustainability, the society of the Wadi Al-Harran oil base is untenable because it is divided into the separate and essentially unequal Arab Harran and American Harran, each of which is oriented around a value system that is at odds with the other. The Arabs, for example, are extremely surprised and disconcerted when a ship arrives in the harbor bearing foreigners who revel in what is received as extreme debauchery and dress in appallingly reveling swimsuits. Moreover, the remorseless drive to produce and the relative indifference of the US company toward the well being of their native workers contribute to the sense that their foreign presence poses a risk of social corruption.

On the other hand, it was also a complicated task to face Arab minds. The Arab psycho provides a few gear for understanding the emergence of non heteronormative sexual activities, communities and identities, generational rifts (with young people who are more socially traditional or more socially broadminded  than their parents); ideological disagreements: class and urban-rural differences, and so on. Moreover, ongoing cultural and moral debates in the Americans about abortion, gay marriage, the heterosexual family, divorce, homosexuality and birth control seem to force different comparisons between “Arab” and “Western” ways. These issues were not resolved in the America at the time Patai was writing. And remain controversial today. Specifically, rather than Patai’s easy combination of a collective Arab mind against an individualist Western self, notions of liberal individualism are historically contested in the US and continue to be so, especially for women, people of color, the poor, working class people, sex-gender minorities, immigrants, non-citizens, and intersections thereof. Neither the differences nor the similarities between Western and Arab or Muslim provides a basis for easy judgments of either as culturally or socially superior to the other.

Considering the space and scope, I only examine parts of Arab brains. Most declares about Arab personality and culture in the novel is overspent. Moreover, explanations of “the Arab” happen in negative contrast with an overtly superior Western mode and way of being, rather than being argued according to historical foundations, contextual operations, disputes, alternative practices, hybrids, plurality, and conversions. This is true despite Patai’s occasional folklorist warnings to the “we” readership not to judge the other by our standards. Not astonishingly given its reputation, The Arab brain is compelling in some of its arguments, not least of which because it makes some study based truth claims that reasonable people can agree with, and people with knowledge of Arab societies and people can be familiar with. Patai argues, for example, that there is a “national Arab muslim” character produced form shared culturally-bonded childrearing and socialization processes. What social constructionist, clinical psychologist, teacher, or feminist can disagree that the dominant childrearing and socialization techniques of a group impact self and subject formation? The problem with Patai’s formulations is that they are frequently historical, contextual, and over generalizing. Arab childrearing and socialization systems, for example, are understood by Patai to be rigid rather than flexible and variable, and all influential in impact rather than producing different individual course. In his words, there is a “hold (of) traditional values over the Arab minds”.

In this Arabic novel, Munif focuses his characters in terms that are both terrifying and strange. There is Abdu Muhammad, the bakery man, involved in love with an America lady. He used to see the pictures of women by telescope. After sometimes he gets a radio and all Harran marvels. “God willing,’ stated by a person in the coffee bar, ‘within a month a radio will be here, and we will be able to entertain her by the songs reaching the sky!”

“Cities of Salt” reminded us how powerful and wealthy the Arab world is in writing and how minimum about them we know. Munif’s novel experiences as the happenings are hundred times more gorgeous than the actors because actors/ characters that the reader forgets and will hardly remind them but the happening and events the reader never forgets if they are described in an attractive way. The author still entertains us and teaches us and in the queue informs us a great deal about how painful and hard the oil era has been to Arab socialites. There is no confusion about the hard times of Arab, but the good thing is they have coped up very well, and nowadays, they are considered an educated and among wealthiest nations of the world. It was really hard for them but the GOD has given them uncountable natural assets for their whole life, oil is one of the most important assets they own. Oil gives them approximately more than 70% of their total income. Few of the palmists says, that even they don’t work for centuries then only oil is enough to serve their nation till the end of this world. The author has highlighted different views of their lifestyle and their belongings in his writing.

Oil, being a consumable commodity has become one of the most important elements that build up the Arabian economy for many years. However, due to the fact that it is being exploited and consumed with less containment on how it is preserved, it is expected that in the coming ages, the Arab nations would find it harder to develop their nation accordingly. Nevertheless, the shifting of attention on several other riches of their land is seen to have a possible resolution for the situation being prevented in the long course of preventing oil resources from running out in the country. At present, the Arabian regions where oil reserves are found specifically give out a distinct reputation of wealth and worldly control. Arab nations are considered to be among the most prominent countries in the world as they do provide practically the most important commodity that the world needs. Even after the emergence of the September 11 incident, such reputation remains intact. Some countries may question their culture, their religion and everything else about the people, nevertheless, they cannot deny the fact that a large portion of their developmental needs come from the Arabian nations, holding them responsible of containing a relative relationship with the country to protect their own resource for their national sustenance of oil. This fact does not only go along with the situation or positioning of the United States but also that of the other nations around the globe.

Taking from the picture that Munif has painted verbally in his story, it could be realized how he used the history of the Arab nations to make a distinct indication on how modern living, technological development and commercial revolution has transformed the way the people lived their lives and how their national priorities have changed accordingly. Oil, being the nation’s ‘gold’ stands to be a strong element that identifies well with the desire of the people of the nation to prosper towards the future. Nevertheless, if the administrators of the nation would not be able to find other ways to assure the status of their nation as one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, their advancements would be just like cities of salt that would immediately be erased once the water level rises and sweeps the crystal salt castles. In a way, Munif tries to call out to the people that oil need not be the only source of wealth for the nation. In the coming generations, the country should be able to refurnish their path and create new ways of defending their position in the international market as one of the leaders of the world in wealth and in economy.

Works Cited

Tariq Ali. “Farewell to Munif” https://Library.cornell.edu.n.d

Keith Law. ”Cities of Salt” www.meadowparty.com, November 16, 2010