Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Ambivalent Affiliations and the Postcolonial Condition: The Fiction of M. G. Vassanji

Author(s): Amin Malak
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Spring, 1993), pp. 277-282
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40149067
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Ambivalent Affiliations and the Postcolonial Condition:
The Fiction of M. G. Vassanji
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish

By AMIN MALAK One of the most crucial ques- and North America. As Vassanji's narrative indicates,
tions the postcolonial/Third this second wave of migration by his characters is
World writer faces today in- prompted by racial tension (between native Africans
volves the demanding affiliations that manifest them- and those of South Asian ancestry) and socioeconom-
selves at emotional, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or ic changes as the now mostly South Asian comprador
political levels. Neither static nor uniform, post- class finds its privileges radically curtailed or threat-
coloniality, whether a condition of reality or a state ofened with the rise of African nationalism.
mind, is often compounded by the exigencies of exile, This saga of global uprootedness and unstable mi-
migration, and double migration; in such an environ- gration is dramatized in the three works to date of
ment the writer's sensibility is naturally challenged Vassanji's fiction: two novels, The Gunny Sack (1989)
by a multiplicity of affiliations that avail or imposeand No New Land (1991), and a collection of sixteen
themselves. Writers as diametrically diverse as V. S. stories, Uhuru Street (1992). Significantly, these three
Naipaul and Salman Rushdie acutely probe, negoti- works are interlinked by cross references to episodes,
ate, and represent varied degrees of ambivalence to- events, and characters that appear in more than one
ward these multiple affiliations within contexts of work, as if suggesting that such is the impact of
shifting values and constant flux. The ensuing discur- certain experiences and images residing in private
sive formations, often hybridized, are illuminated by and/or collective memory that they have the power to
an awareness that postcoloniality is, in essence, a emerge and reemerge indefinitely.
destabilizing situation of "in-betweenness" which The instigating narrative impulse for The Gunny
confronts the writer with the polemics of ethnicity, Sack is a gunny sack bequeathed to the narrator by
history, politics, and immigration/exile, on the one his feisty grand-aunt Ji-Bai; the sack crowdedly con-
hand, and textuality and narrative strategy on the tains an infinite number of stories, chronicling the
other. Anyone who studies the works of Canadian private and communal histories of four generations of
writers whose roots are in the Third World - Austin an Indian family that immigrated to East Africa. The
Clarke, Michael Ondaatje, Neil Bissoondath, Rohinton narrator Salim (an echo of Salim Sinai in Salman
Mistry, M. G. Vassanji - would notice a striking pre- Rushdie's Midnight's Children) gives focus, drama, and
occupation with the shifting boundaries of "in-be- diversity of tone to this otherwise seemingly random
tweenness," articulating in the process a complex phe- recuperation of temps perdu. That Salim interfaces his
nomenon that I wish to call "ambivalent affiliations." Proustian recalls with the sack's stories about his
What distinguishes M. G. Vassanji's work from family's and community's collective histories, not all
that of other Canadian writers is its vibrant, affection- of which are pleasant or dignified, illustrates the
ate depiction of the double migration of his South casting of the narrator's lot with the fate of his ethnic
Asian characters. These, mainly Indian Muslims of group. This strategy represents one of the common
the esoteric Shamsi sect,1 make their first voyage to features of Third world/postcolonial narratives,
East Africa in the late nineteenth century as part of whereby characterization signifies not an exercise of
the labor mobility within the British empire, work- isolation but a deliberate endeavor at contextualizing
ing as semiskilled laborers, small traders, and junior an individual's destiny within that of a family's, an
colonial functionaries. As such, they are installed as a ethnic community's, or a nation's.
buffer zone between the indigenous Africans and the The narrator's effortlessly astute blending of the
colonial administration. The second voyage begins in private and the public is enhanced by his self-con-
the sixties from postcolonial Africa toward Europe scious attempts (verging occasionally on the metafic-
tional) to present an elliptical, unofficial, unorthodox
history through mingling modes and moods, intro-
Amin Malak, a native of Iraqi Kurdistan, teaches English and realistic details of high drama to be closed off
ducing
Third World literatures at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton,
fancifully and anticlimactically, and interjecting fic-
Alberta, Canada. He received his doctorate from the University of
tional fabrications with historical facts and figures.
Alberta, has published numerous articles on postcolonial fiction
and discourse, and is currently working on a book on the Breaking
Third away from conventional models - set, say,
World dimensions in Canadian fiction. by nineteenth-century English novels - the narrative

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278 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

begins not from the beginning, as narrator's

the narrator's
preoccupation with the corruption and in-
English schoolteacher Miss Penny Mrs. efficiencies
Gaunt of would
postindependence institutions, on the
probably exhort him to do, but from one thehand,
end; and the racial conflict between native
instead
Africansour
of introducing a hero or a major character, and Asian-Africans
icono- on the other.4 We get,
clast of a narrator introduces a sack. for instance, graphic details about the cruelty and
carnage of a racially motivated coup in Zanzibar in
Memory, Ji-Bai would say, is this old sack here, this poor
1964, an event that struck terror into the heart of the
dear that nobody has any use for any more. Stroking the
narrator's
sagging brown shape with affection she would drag it community.5 One can interpret this "gloss-
ing over" the oppression of the British period as an
closer, to sit at her feet like a favourite child. In would
indication that a significant segment of the South
plunge her hand through the gaping hole of a mouth,
and she would rummage inside. Now you feel this thing Asian community in Africa was enjoying a relatively
here, you fondle that one, you bring out this naughty convenient modus vivendi with the colonial authori-
little nut and everything else in it rearranges itself. ties.6
Out This situation seems to have evolved as a result
would come from the dusty depths some knick-knack ofofthe tried and true colonial practice of "divide and
yesteryear: a bead necklace shorn of its polish; a rolled-
rule," whereby a minority is given a semblance of
up torn photograph; a cowrie shell; a brass incense
privilege in discrimination against the subjected ma-
holder; a Swahili cap so softened by age that it folded
neatly into a small square; a broken rosary tied up jority. Correspondingly, such a practice naturally
crudely to save the remaining beads; a bloodstained finds a receptive response from a minority commu-
muslin shirt; a little book. (3) nity keen on survival and security.

Appositely nicknamed Sheru, after the resourceful Among the trading immigrant peoples, loyalty to a land
or a government, always loudly professed, is a trait one
heroine oiAlf Lay la wa Lay la: 1001 Nights, the sack
can normally look for in vain. Governments may come
assumes henceforth a centrality parallel to that of and go, but the immigrants' only concern is the security
Shehrazade.
of their families, their trade and savings. Deviants to this
Now Ji-Bai's bones clatter in my sack. code come to be regarded and dismissed as not altogeth-
It sits beside me, seductive companion, a Shehrazade er sound of mind. (G*S, 52)
postponing her eventual demise, spinning out yarns,
Consequently, a stark cleavage is created between the
telling tales that have no beginning or end, keeping me
native Africans and the Asian- Africans, leading to an
awake night after night, imprisoned in this basement to
which I thought I had escaped. understandable resentment on the part of the first
(There should be no misunderstanding. This drab group, who may regard the second as an "exploiter
gunny is no more Shehrazade than I am Prince Sheh- class, a dukawallah, mere agents of the British, these
oily
riyar. She is more your home-grown type, a local version, slimy cowardly Asians" (GS, 228). Indeed, this
good at heart but devoid of grace - yet irresistible racial
- conflict becomes a major motif in The Gunny
whom I name this instant Shehrbanoo, Shehru for short.
Sack and in several stories in Uhuru Street, specifically
Shehrbanoo, Shehrazade, how close in sound, yet worldsin "Breaking Loose," "What Good Times We Had,"
apart.) (5-6) "Ebrahim and the Businessmen," and "Refugee."
The Asian community's implication with the colo-
Anthropomorphizing the sack is certainly no inno-
cent or minor register; it represents an affirmation,nial establishment (albeit at a subservient or, at best,
an umbilical linkage to the narrative tradition ofjunior level) and its real or perceived unwillingness
Islam, with which the narrator feels esthetically andto integrate with the indigenous Africans became the
emotionally at home.2 two condemning counts struck against it.7 Balancing
Since the gunny sack configures emblematically as off the seemingly privileged perspective accorded the
the embodiment of the community's collective mem-Asian community, the narrative presents the alterna-
tive point of view through Amina, the militant Afri-
ory, one needs to investigate the criteria whereby the
narrator chooses and displays the historical data. Ascanist with whom Salim falls in love. The following
dialogue cogently illustrates the issue:
the new historicists would affirm, the study of history
is a process: selective and fieri ve. A narrativized 'Why do you call me "Indian"? I too am an African. I
history such as The Gunny Sack is no exception. Forwas born here. My father was born here - even my
instance, although the narrative depicts the harshness grandfather!'
of German colonization of East Africa (especially its 'And then? Beyond that? What did they come to do,
cruel, humiliating system of whipping: the notorious these ancestors of yours? Can you tell me? Perhaps you
khamsa ishrin),3 there are scant references to the atroc-don't know. Perhaps you conveniently forgot - they fi-
nanced the slave trade!'
ities of British colonial rule. Ngugi's Grain of Wheat
'Not all of them-'
readily comes to mind as a clear contrast to Vassanji's
'Enough of them!'
depiction of the same period. Of course, "history is in '. . . And what of your Swahili ancestors, Amina? If
the eye of the beholder or projector; we do not havemine financed the slave trade, yours ran it. It was your
one history but histories" (Malak, 182), which are people who took guns and whips and burnt villages in
products of perspectives. This conscious, selective the interior, who brought back boys and girls in chains
amnesia/recall process becomes further evident in the to Bagamoyo. Not all, you too will say. . . .' (211)

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 MALAK 279

ple struggling,against
Moreover, Amina articulates her resentment fighting, loving: surviving. And she was
one of those people. People, bound by their own histories
white-supremacist humiliation of Africans.
and traditions, seemed to her like puppets tied to strings:
'Do you know what it was like to be an butAfrican in
then a new mutant broke loose, an event occurred,
colonial times, Indian? It was to be toldand
that
lives no matter
changed, the world changed. She was, she
what you achieved, you were ultimately a servant.
decided, Miss (US, 88)
a new mutant.
Logan our headmistress once took me aside and told me,
Although
"Amina, my ayah has gone away, could you help methe narrative
for a in The Gunny Sack and
few hours today?" My ayah has gone away. . . After
Uhuru Street all
is predominantly focused on the South
this, what of self respect? How many years
Asians before
and their we
construction of a self-defensive co-
regain it? I look at an Indian or a European, and I coon, the narrator assumes a degree of ironic distance
wonder, "What really does he think of me?" How can
in this complex, politically charged discourse. What
one not be militant?' (211)
ultimately emerges is a discernible sense of ambiva-
The Salim-Amina relationship assumes a symbolic, lence, whereby loyalty, commitment, or affiliation is
ideological signification, yet the fact that it goes mutant and not fixed, interim and not everlasting,
nowhere indicates the difficulty of integrating the relative and not absolute. Phenomena such as histori-
two communities. However, in the conclusion of the cal transience and flux are dictated by the exigencies
short story "Breaking Loose" the possibility for "try- of postcolonial ethos rather than by universal abstrac-
ing to break away from tribalism" (US, 90) appears tions or private volition.
more promising. Earlier in the story the heroine, This condition of ambivalent affiliation is repli-
Yasmin, is chided by her mother for befriending an cated in No New Land, where the Asian-African
African: "With an Asian man, even if he's evil, you immigrants in Canada are shown negotiating the
know what to expect. But with him?" (US, 87). Signif- sense and status of their belonging to yet another
icantly, Yasmin resists her mother's edicts; her continent, country, and culture to which they once
epiphany comes about through an educated aware- more had to immigrate. Unlike The Gunny Sack, in
ness of change as a donnee. which "Vassanji combines an encyclopaedic memory
The world seemed a smaller place when she went back to with magisterial literary technique" (Birbalsingh,
the University. Smaller but exciting; teeming with peo- 102), his second novel is concise, condensed, and

I
f
3
M. G. Vassanji

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280 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

"crystalline," to borrow an Iris Murdoch Nurdin,

term;standing
it is ofnear the window, played along, ges-
turing at the
a lesser scope and ambition, but nonetheless Master in mock seriousness. 'Come, Mis-
equally
sionary, No
engaging and refined. In a certain sense, I willNew
show you.'
The Master, with a smile and twinkle in his eye, got
Land commences where The Gunny Sack closed off,
up and walked through the congregation and stood
despite the introduction of a fresh cast of characters.
beside Nurdin. There,' said Nurdin, pointing out the
The novel succeeds by projecting an image of a
window into the distance. There is our god. But he is a
community beleaguered in yet another deep harsh, alien
one. Mysterious.'
environment, if only superficially polite. It tells
The Master the 'Ah, the CN Tower. I have been
chuckled.
experience of a South Asian family newly arrived
to the top of it, manyin years ago. Excellent restaurant.'
Canada from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;8 (186)the narrative
projects primarily the perspective of the father, Nur-
din Lalani. No New Land opens with More important,
the Missionary settles, rather blithely
startling
and cavalierly,
revelation that Nurdin has been charged with sexu- one of the key questions that runs
through he
ally assaulting a woman, when actually Vassanji's fiction:
tried to namely, when and where
this flux The
offer her help on seeing her in distress. of mutation
tragi- is going to cease. Canada,
despite all its imperfections,
comic story of the Lalanis is complemented by the proffers the odyssey's
introspections and insights of their conclusion: "He sat back with a satisfied sigh. Cana-
contemplative
da to him wasprivate
friend Nanji, who lives his own complex, a veritable Amarapur, the eternal city,
the land of the west in rac-
drama concerning frustrated love, intimidating quest of which his community
ism, and an inordinate preoccupation had embarked some four hundred years ago. This was
with existen-
the finaland
tialist angst. Nanji's ruminations refine stop. He was very happy" (198).
elevate
the discourse toward conceptual and abstract However, this idyllic of
levels finale - filled with hope, har-
expression; his sharply nuanced sensibilities mony, and humor -speak
does not conclusively clarify the
for Nurdin's inarticulate bafflement with a new cul- central issue of affiliation to and with the new land.
ture in which he is not sure how to fit. The narrative This indefiniteness, this ambivalence is understand-
trajectory operates by correlating and blending these able in the case of Vassanji's characters. The insta-
two segments, progressing toward its closure with thebility of double migration - hopping continents,
final arrival of a long-awaited avatar, appropriately
trading cultures, and negotiating marginality - has
named Missionary, who, in the manner of a deus ex prevented them from establishing roots. They have
machina, happily helps settle all outstanding scores.
become, to use Rushdie's phrase, "bastard [children]
Like its predecessor, No New Land is permeated by of history" (Homelands, 394). It is not that the immi-
a sharpened sense of history. The first chapter con-grant or the exile does not desire affiliation, but often
cludes with a crucial statement about the need to he or she wishes it on convenient terms; and even
make peace with the past prior to proceeding ahead: then the sociopsychic situation is such that he or she
"We are but creatures of our origins, and however cannot fully, firmly belong. Neither does such an
stalwartly we march forward, paving new roads, equivocation
seek- represent arrogance or cowardice, but
ing new worlds, the ghosts from our pasts stand rather
not a forced phenomenon of human reality. More-
far behind and are not easily shaken off" (9). over,
Mis- this condition of ambivalent affiliation is
sionary's function involves liberating Nurdin fromprompted and/or complicated by ugly racism.
the ghost of his autocratic father, inescapably "oper-
Blatant or subtle, racism has been a dominant
ating] like fate" (20).9 By the end of the novel,
theme in the works of almost all Canadian writers of
deliverance is achieved.
Third World roots. Vassanji's characters - whether in
Missionary had exorcised the past, yet how firmly heAfrica,
had in Europe, or in North America - are
also entrenched it in their hearts. hounded and haunted by racism, real or perceived; it
Before, the past tried to fix you from a distance, and
hinders their progress and cripples their emotional/
you looked away; but Missionary had brought it across intellectual growth, leading them to give survival an
the chasm, vivid, devoid of mystery. Now it was all over
exceptional priority in their lives. Although perpetual
you. And with this past before you, all around you, you
striving for survival in the hostile currents of muta-
take on the future more evenly matched. (207)
tion is not necessarily joyful, it can promise rewards
The interplay of the past with the present evolves and excitement for the feisty (like the showy lawyer
through the eye imagery: while the stern look of the Jamal in No New Land). Modest figures such as Nanji
father pierces through the portrait in Nurdin's
and especially Nurdin, "one of literature's 'small'
Toronto apartment, the CN Tower, "the concrete godmen" (Blaise, El), are not so self-assured, and they
who [doesn't] care" (176), "blinks unfailing in the have to find shelter, comfort, and inspiration from
distance" (59). Missionary not only redeems the past within the collectivity.
but also anticlimactically demystifies the dominantThis regress into the communal cocoon is an in-
symbol of the new. nate strategy for survival. Significantly, it affects the
narrative trajectory in such a way that Vassanji pre-
As he sat down on the sofa he called out playfully, 'Eh,
sents - consistently and concurrently - bifocal im-
Nurdin. I see you've installed a goddess in your building,
downstairs. Where is the god?' ages of private dramas within communal crises. In a

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 MALAK 281

provocative review of No New Land ken Neilloose" (to use the title of Vassanji's story) of
Bissoondath
observes a weakness in this blending process
ethnic of the hegemony: cultural inter-
and geographic
private and the public: he argues that pollination is a forceful facet of life in the age of
Vassanji "often
globalization
fails to present his background material with and instant communication. As Salman
suffi-
Rushdie puts
cient subtlety, so that community submerges it so colorfully, we need to celebrate
charac-
ter (i.e. the individual)" (44). He further elaborates
"hybridity, on intermingling, the transforma-
impurity,
what he labels as Vassanji's "problem controlling
tion that comes of his
new and unexpected combinations
material," manifested in of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies,
songs"; we need to rejoice "in mongrelization and
. . . the background becoming the foreground for no
[fear] the and
apparent reason save authorial self-indulgence absolutism
that of the pure. Melange, hotch-
headstrong urge to present community instead of lettingand a bit of that is how newness
potch, a bit of this
enters
community present itself. This problem the world.
with pointItof
is the great possibility that mass
view is troubling, for the reader begins migration
to question giveswho
the world" {Homelands, 394).
The appeal
is telling the story, Nurdin or this anonymous of Vassanji's work thus mainly resides
omniscient
voice. The result is an unfortunate distancing, causing
in its ironic ridicule of the claim of ethnic or reli-
the book to read like a tale observed rather than experi-
gious purists: half-castes, mixed ancestries, syncretic
enced, and diminishing its urgency. ideologies
The sociological
and beliefs (Shamsi rituals being an inter-
eye, interested but unimplicated, weighs rather Hinduism
breed between too and Islam [GS, 7-8]), and
heavily on the narrative. (45)
cross-cultural relationships or marriages preoccupy
The criticism, if germane, strikes me his
as narrative with varying degrees of prominence.
rather severe,
overstating its case. As narrative constructs, Despite his characters'
Vassan- instinctive equivocation to-
ji's characters (especially the two protagonists, ward "others," andNur-despite their justifiable gravita-
din and Nanji) project a vibrancy and tion toward their
integrity, ethnic shelter, the narrative dis-
con-
vincingly distinct from their context. course suggests that the human in us is too outgoing,
Besides,
Bissoondath does not take into consideration the resilient, and receptive to be boxed into a single,
tribalistic identification, snug as that may be. Gone
validity of the author's keen concern for correlating
character with community to the desirable degree then
of are the days of unicultures, monoidentities; in
his imaginative option: "I wanted," Vassanji would come the ethos and mores of multiplicity, cross-
pollination, interbreeding. This brave new world may
retort, "to write a kind of people's history, but make
it personal" (Smith, 29). For his intents and pur- induce ambivalence, at times even confusion, but that
is our lookout, our challenge.
poses, Vassanji succeeds "briskly" (New, 4) in blend-
ing the private and the public, the local and the Grant MacEwan Community College, Edmonton
universal, the serious and the ironic, thereby estab-
lishing himself as an accomplished Canadian writer
1 The Shamsis are Vassanji's fictional representation of the
of distinct voice, vision, and technique. What weIsma'ilis, a subsect of Shi'ism, one of the two great branches of
have here then is an exciting divergence of perspec-
Islam (the other being Sunnism).
tives about authorial intention. Unlike Bissoondath,2 For Vassanji's characters, as with Rushdie's, Islam, while pro-
Vassanji gives an emphatic sociocultural role toviding
the a source of self-definition, is more an ethnocultural quali-
writer fication than a theological Weltanschauung.
3 The following passage illustrates the horror of the punishment;
... as a preserver of the collective tradition, a it
folk
also typifies Vassanji's style of fusing moods and modes, closing
historian and myth maker. He gives himself a history;offhe
in the fashion of magic realism: "German justice was harsh,
swift and arbitrary. In return, you could leave your store unat-
recreates the past, which exists only in memory and is
tended without fear of robbery. Thieves had their hands chopped;
otherwise obliterated, so fast has his world transformed
insubordination was rewarded with the dreaded khamsa ishrin,
[sic]. He emerges from the oral, preliterate, and unre-
twenty-five lashes from a whip of hippo hide dipped in salt, which
corded, to the literate. In many instances this reclama-
would never break however much blood it drew. It was said that
tion of the past is the first serious act of writing. Having
the streets of Dar es Salaam were clean because even the donkeys
reclaimed it, having given himself a history, he liberates
feared to litter them - you only had to whisper those words 'kham-
himself to write about the present. To borrow an image sa ishrin' into a donkey's ears and it would straightaway race to its
stable to empty its bowels" (GS, 14)
from physics, he creates a field space - of words, images
4 In the short story Refugee the narrator presents a synoptic,
and landscapes - in which to work with, and instal the
sociopolitical report: "There was a time, not many years ago, when
present. ("Postcolonial," 63) a bread cart would go creaking down Uhuru Street, pulled by one
man in front, pushed by another at the back. It would stop at the
This is certainly a tough task and a tall order, but street
the corners and boys or servants would run up and buy bread for
sincerity of commitment is evident. the evening or the following morning. Hot steaming loaves hud-
Let me conclude by returning to the conceptdled
ofin the cart under a green tarpaulin cover. . . . // Now there
were daily queues for bread and sugar; milk came in packets from
ambivalent affiliation by way of venturing the follow-
the new factory, diluted, sometimes sour. There were rumours that
ing proposition. The century that is coming to a close
boys would be recruited to fight Idi Amin, the tyrant to the north.
is not only the century of exiles, as George Steiner
And others that Amin would send planes to bomb Dar. // The body
once proclaimed, but also the century of multiple
of an Asian woman had been found on a beach, mutilated, hanging
identities. Humanity's diverse heritages have "bro-
from a tree. Another, an elderly widow, had been hacked to death

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282 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

by robbers in her flat" (US, 122). In the tragic story ironically

dimension. In the epigraph for part 2 of his novel Sweet a
titled "What Good Times We Had" the emigrating heroine
Milk Farah con-
quotes Wilhelm Reich: "In the figure of the fat
authoritarian
templates the sorry, frightened fate of the Asian state in
community has its representative in every family, so t
Africa: "Life wasn't easy where she would soonfamily becomes
be but its most important instrument of power
it couldn't
be so bad. There was a price for everything here. And after all that,
there was no peace to be had even at night time for fear of robbers.
They lived on the edge, not knowing if theyWorks
would Cited
be pushed off
the precipice the next day - or if the hand of providence would lift
them up and transport them to safety" (US, Birbalsingh,
93). Frank. "South Asian Canadian Writers from Africa
and the recall
5 Vassanji's graphic scenes of carnage in Zanzibar Caribbean." Canadian Literature, 132 (1992), pp. 94-106.
Rush-
Bissoondath,of
die's compelling description in Midnight's Children Neil.
the"True
1971Expatriate Love." Saturday Night, June
massacres in Bangladesh committed by the Pakistan1991, pp. Army.
44-46.
6 According to a newspaper interview with Blaise, Clark. he
Vassanji, "Voyages of Discovery." Globe and Mail, 4 May 1991,
is cur-
rently working on a novel "about British Eastp.Africa
El. during the
First World War" (Kirchhoff, E2). Farah, Nuruddin. Sweet and Sour Milk. London. Heinemann. 1980.
Kirchhoff,
7 In an informative essay, Charles Ponnuthurai H. J. "Figuring
Sarvan thus That Words Are the Way to Go." Globe
describes the situation of the South Asians in and Mail, 4"Although
Africa: May 1991, p. El.
geographic proximity had led to an interchangeMalak, Amin.
between "Reading the Crisis: The Polemics of Salman Rush-
Africa
and India that went back several centuries before Christ,
die's The British
Satanic Verses." Ariel: A Review of International English
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rian." a
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intenselyuse the abbreviation US wher
political

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