From Colonial Silencing to Post-9/11 Stereotypes: Reclaiming Pashtuns’ Voice in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (2014)

Abstract

Since the colonial era, Pashtuns have been subject to persistent stereotyping, a pattern that intensified during the War on Terror. Once created by the British Raj’s historians as colonial tropes about Pashtuns, these stereotypes have been revived and reproduced during the last two decades by global media, academia, and policy narratives. Pakistan in itself is the victim of the War on Terror; but, Pashtuns as an ethnic group in Pakistan faced double marginalization: internationally as well as domestically within Pakistan. Pashtuns are often depicted by Pakistani media as violent and terrorists after the War on Terror. Apart from the deaths and displacement of thousands of Pakistani Pashtuns in the wake of War on Terror, they also suffered emotional and psychological pain due to their negative stereotyping in the international world as well as within Pakistan. The present study employs Spivak’s (1988) “Can the Subaltern Speak?” as theoretical framework, to investigate Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone as an attempt to reclaim Pashtuns’ marginalized voice since colonial era to their post-9/11 stereotyping. Shamsie tries to reclaim voice of Pashtuns in A God in Every Stone as subaltern ethnic group in Pakistan against their negative stereotyping in the wake of War on Terror. The novel tries to reclaim Pashtuns’ voice by representing the nuanced image of Pashtuns through their portrayal as peace-loving, cultured, and talented people. In contrast to the current stereotyping of Pashtuns as extremists, intolerant, and uncivilized, an attempt has been made in the novel to reclaim Pashtuns’ voice through their historical linkage with an ancient civilization and by portraying the Peshawar of colonial India as center of religious and cultural harmony.

Keywords: A God in Every Stone (2014), The War on Terror, Pashtuns’ stereotyping, Epistemic violence, Textual analysis