England, The Immigrant Experience, And ‘The Buddha Of Suburbia’ And ‘The Black Album’ By Hanif Kure Essay, Research Paper
This paper is an investigation of the way in which ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’
and ‘The black Album’, both by Hanif Kureishi deal with the 1980-90s
second-generation immigrant experience of South Asians in British society.
To do this, the assistance of three questions have been employed to guide the
answer: what are the consequences of embracing the borderlessness of hybridity
for the main characters? what is achieved for the main characters whether by
gain or loss, from creating borders in tradition of authenticity? And finally,
where can political agency be located if not in resistance to some border, be it
morality, religion or philosophy?
By examining these questions within their contexts and through exploration of
the language of both texts the (dis)location of resistance that develops out of
second-generation immigrants’ dual experiences of discrimination and upward
mobility have been compared; realising the basic stance of both novels is to
imply acceptance of the reality of people of colour by White Britain (both the
establishment and the working classes).
In this paper the subject of the second generation immigration experience of
the South Asians in British society is explored, in the context of ‘The Buddha
of Suburbia’ and ‘The Black Album’ by Hanif Kureishi, primarily in the decade
between 1980 and 1990.
This is a period after the surge of immigrants to Britain from the 1950s and
60s from the New Commonwealth countries: West Indies, India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh, who came in search of a better life in a thriving economy, for the
hope of finding employment and success through the superior education system.
Also purely for the prestige that is automatically attached onto them for living
in the United Kingdom, especially in London, Birmingham and Bradford.
” … Dad was sent to England by his family to be educated … Like Gandhi
and Jinnah before him, Dad would return to India a qualified and polished
English gentleman lawyer and an accomplished ballroom dancer.” – The Buddha of
Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1990, page 94
This extract from ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ illustrates Kureishi’s intentions
to establish the psychology and circumstance behind his character which provide
the background from which the proceeding actions are caused. This also allows
the reader to understand the stance of the character and his respective view
point, hence the reader can associate with the character and his subsequent
behaviour. The idea of going to Britain and being educated in the western style
and living among Westerners assumes a great deal about the future of this
action. From this quotation the assumption is clearly to do with upward-mobility
in society, both in England and the home country. Yet whether this is degrading
of the pursuers own culture is an argument to be considered. An extract from
‘The Black Album’, portrayed as an opinion of a character, opposes the ideas
presented in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ directly.
” … he asserted that Papa’s generation, with their English accents, foreign
degrees and British snobbery, assumed their own people were inferior. They
should be forced to go into villages and live among the peasants, as Gandhi had
done.” – The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 91-92
It seems that this upward-mobility of the characters sacrifices their
cultural background, and in some respects, it leaves them vulnerable to such
attacks as above. However, to take Gandhi as an example, as he features in both
quotations, it is possible to move up in the ladder of life and social-literacy
without loosing the essential cultural background that is ones identity.
This form of description is carried out in both books and seems to be a
characteristic of Kureishi’s writing; his in-depth references to actual people,
events and literature (which has the same strength of interest in both Karim and
Shahid), brings greater ‘realism’ and background to the novels’ ideas as their
history coincides with the characters’ daily lives.
The immigrants who first came to Britain were ambitious, and also na?ve as to
the hardships and difficulties to be endured in city life. An example of such an
ambitious character is that of Shahid’s father in ‘The Black Album’:
“…Papa hated anything ‘old-fashioned’, unless it charmed tourists. He
wanted to tear down the old; he liked ‘progress’. ‘I only want the best,’ he
would say, meaning the newest, the latest, and, somehow, the most ostentatious.”
- The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 39
Chili (in the same book) is the eldest son of the ‘ostentatious’ father, who
has adapted with encouragement from his father to life in the city.
” … In Chili’s hand were his car keys, Ray-Bans and Marlboros … Chili
drank only black coffee and neat Jack Daniel’s; his suits were Boss, his
underwear Calvin Klein, his actor Pacino. His barber shook his hand, his
accountant took him to dinner, his drug dealer would come to him at all hours
… Now Chili claimed that the family business had to expand – to London.” – The
Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 38
Here, as well as describing the physical appearance of the character,
Kureishi also appoints a life-style to him which reflects the second generation
immigrant’s conformity to, and acceptance of the western materialistic society
that dominates around them, rejecting their own traditions of home and family -
where Chili is reluctant to live with his wife Zulma, and prefers the company of
more promiscuous women. Despite these traits Chili is “rarely disrespectable,
and he never hit her’, so showing the reader he is not wholly without morals,
and also that the second generation immigrant is not a ‘bad’ person but a
disillusioned one. Riaz refers to him as ‘a dissipater’ because of his
promiscuous nature, money-hungry attitude and dealings with drugs; Kureishi
chooses this word to form the idea of a rebel who does not conform to his own
kind, but indulges merely in pleasure, possibly without necessary cause or
greater understanding. Coming from moderately well-off families (such as
Karim Hassan’s father in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’) these immigrants expected
life in Britain to be as good if not better. However, politicians such as Enoch
Powell spoke out against immigration, making life very challenging if not
difficult for them. To provide a context for the events of the decade between
the 1980s/90s and so clarify the situation around which both of the novels and
based, some social history is referred to:
During the 1980s/90s four thousand miners were made redundant, and British
shipbuilding hit an all-time low. The overall mood of Britain was a mixture of
bitter-hatred and longing for better times. The job-losses were made harder to
bear as the areas affected were already ones of high unemployment. In addition
to this, in keeping with past political philosophy, the Conservative Party
announced a programme of privatisation, selling public assets to private
shareholders. Mrs. Thatcher’s popularity fell, and people became more interested
in materialistic, technological products. The British Nationality Act was put
into operation to keep immigration under control in 1983, most of whom were
channelled into manual employment and racial discrimination was evidently
abundant in housing, education and public life. It was during this period that
the commission for Racial Equality was set up to bring harmony to race
relations. Still, social unrest pursued in the form of serious race rioting
mainly in Birmingham, Bradford, London, Leeds and Wolverhampton. In both of
his works, Kureishi refers to the unrest of racial conflict, enhancing the
’cause’ through religious belief and political stances – in ‘The Black Album’
Shahid, Riaz, Hat, Chad and other boys and girls from the college go to ‘guard’
a Bangali family from the deep-racial harassment they faced from twelve and
thirteen year olds: ” … The husband had been smashed over the head with a
bottle and taken to hospital. The wife had been punched. Lighted matches had
been pushed through the letter-box. At all hours the bell had been rung and the
culprits said they would slaughter the children.” – The Black Album, Hanif
Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 90
And in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’, Karim is restricted from seeing his friend
Helen by her father:
” … ‘We don’t like it,’ Hairy Back said. ‘However many niggers there are,
we don’t like it. We’re with Enoch. If you put one of your black ‘ands near my
daughter I’ll smash it with a ‘ammer! With a ‘ammer!’ ” – The Buddha of
Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1990, page 40
Kureishi moves on to question whether violence can be attributed to ‘living
in ugliness’. In the estate where the Bangali family is being guarded, there is
a high level of racism; could this be due to unemployment, powerlessness, lack
of food and under-education? Dr. Brownlow, Deedee Osgood’s ex-husband and the
students’ lecturer, defends this as the problem. He is contended against by
Riaz, the fundamentalist and leader of the student revolutionaries, who argues
how privilaged they are living in Britain; to be able to vote, ‘have housing,
electricity, heating, TV, fridges, hospitals nearby’, while “‘ … our brothers
in the Third World, as you like to call most people other than you, have a
fraction of this …’” yet they are neither “‘ … racist skinheads, car
thieves, rapists … No they are humble, good, hard-working people who love
Allah!’”- The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 95
Kureishi developes the idea of religion as an integral part of politics and
as a requirement for liberation, equality, and racial unity. He underlines the
importance of faith in the second generation immigrant as a ‘tag’ that makes
them human, and shows
in harmonised respect and trust towards Allah, and a sense of belonging.
” The religious enthusiasm of the younger generation, and its links to strong
political feeling, had surprised him.” – The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber
and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 91
The second generation’s faith in ‘The Black Album’ is much stronger than of
the first, this is apparent as neither Shahid nor Chili had been taught about
religion (is this also a reason for Chili to be labelled a dissipator?) by their
parents. Kureishi portrays these ideas through the eyes of Shahid, who’s
ignorance towards religion provides an unbiased insight as to its ‘workings’.
“Observing the mosque, in which all he saw were solid, material things, and
looking along the line of brothers’ faces upon which spirituality was taking
place, he felt a failure.” – The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber
Ltd, 1995, page 96 Shahid is uncertain and doubtful, but realises that:
“…faith, like love or creativity, could not be willed. This was an adventure
in knowing. He had to follow the presciptions and be patient. Understanding
would surely follow; he would be blessed.” – The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi,
Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995, page 96
Even this seems to be the wrong way to approach faith towards God, and the
author himself feels it is a fruitless endeavour when one seeks faith because it
is popular to do so, or because one feels left out without it. Kureishi’s
depiction of Shahid’s uncertainty in his religion makes the reader, who
associates with him as the central character, doubt what Riaz and his posse
stand for in general because the questioning brings forward the lack of evidence
which is involved in faith to God. The reader finds him/herself in the same
position Kureishi puts Shahid in, tempted by passion of sex, the lure of drugs,
the reader feels he has been cheated in some way for his/her own beliefs, taken
in by a deception.
Karim is also absorbed by his father’s spirituality, affectionately calling
him ‘God’ for his accomplishment at conducting yoga sessions with Eva and a
hoard of other converts in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’. But, like Shahid, Kureishi
puts Karim not without doubt, and distances from the core of belief. The
children of the first immigrants have come to find themselves living in a
divided world, in a state of limbo between cultures and traditions. They were
seen as unwelcome outsiders by the White majority and shunned by their families
back in their own countries for being too western. They were labelled as
‘coconuts’ and ‘paki’, degraded, hated for their colour and rejected for their
‘hybridised’ cultures.
‘ … Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and
there, of belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored … I was
looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and sexual interest I could
find.’ – The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1990, page
3 All of this furthered and increased the (dis)location of resistance in the
relationship between the second generation immigrant and the dominant culture of
the white citizens; which is based around ‘a background of raves, ecstasy,
religious ferment and sexual passion.’. This is observed when Shahid and his
lover and lecturer Deedee Osgood go out into the night-clubs of London -
resistance is directed towards religious disbelief on the part of Shahid, and
Riaz responds to preach: ” … ‘Must we prefer this indulgence to the
profound and satisfying comforts of religion? Surely, if we cannot take the
beliefs of millions of people seriously, what then? We believe in nothing! We
are animals living in a cesspool, not humans in a liberal society.’” – The Black
Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1995
Both of these novels consider a genre preoccupied in both conserving and
disrupting conventions, and political and religious borders through the process
of hybridity – a popular culture derived from implications of racial and
cultural mix vie with spiritual practices and orientations from many corners of
the world to indicate paths by which one may further ‘realise’ ones experiences
- and authenticity as practised by the second generation of immigrants.
In both novels the experience of ethnic discrimination govern the social and
economic order of the nation to ‘determine’ (not ’cause’) the whole cultural
life of society, and create a need for resistance which is only further
complicated by the simultaneous yearnings for upward mobility – the need for
recognition – within the economic and social-cultural structure. So, what are
the consequences of embracing the borderlessness of hybridity for the main
character? What is achieved for the main character whether by gain or loss, from
creating borders in tradition or authenticity? Where can political agency be
located if not in resistance to some border, be it morality, religion or
philosophy? To answer these questions one must fully determine Kureishi’s
focus on the subjects of ethnicity and class as well.
A reader of ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ may feel it is appropriate for the
narration to be done by the main character, giving him a chance to express his
deeper, more personal emotions and thoughts throughout the story; also keeping
in mind ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ is a comedic novel, this provides the
opportunity for Kureishi to explore the humorous and absurd innuendoes within
every-day life itself, deliberately forcing the reader to enter the characters’
mind and perceiving through his eyes, taking what is said to be fact without
questioning.
In ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ the focus is perceived through a seventeen year
old Karim Amir, a mixed child of an immigrant from Bombay and a lower-middle
class English woman, Haroon and Margaret, driven by hormones and lured by the
sense of danger in seeking release from the status quo. Kureishi identifies the
character of Karim as being a ‘new breed’ as the second generation of the
immigrants living in England; a direct product of transmigration and interracial
marriage creating an almost chaotic jumble and confusion of feelings within him,
and a non-linear – contrary to tradition – set of beliefs/principals that
present an inherent restlessness and the need for change and resistance.
Kureishi constantly flips between the lives of the characters and the
perception of life as experienced by Karim. he is placed in the midst of a
polarised society; where radicalism is contradicted by convention, to be
different is to be cool; two ideas presented through Margaret (the
traditionalist) and Mrs. Eva Kay (new-age spiritualist and radical); and a
transition (a disruption) in the family mainly induced by his father’s renewed
and revitalised interest in spiritual practice in conjunction with Eva. Hanif
Kureishi’s exploration and critique of the stigma’s of progression as seen in
both novels and continuity of the western tradition cross-fertilising with a
multitude of cultural and religious beliefs, for instance, the teachings of
Buddhism. The desire to shift toward novel, foreign, or iconoclastic teachings -
or to reconcile more familiar faiths to unfamiliar ones – expresses a timely and
healthy impulse to include a wider world in to humanity.
By making the character firstly accept his own predicament by stating it,
Kureishi goes on to develop Karim, as well as introduce the reader to the
differing facets of his life: friends, sexual interests, family, and so on.
In ‘The Black Album’ focus is perceived through the eyes of Shahid Hassan who
is a teenage student of a rundown inefficient college in London, and a Muslim
second generation immigrant. Kureishi introduces the reader and Shahid to
hybridity – the Multi-culturalism – present all ready in London’s streets and
society; we are made to observe the compact way in which the different cultures
fit together, obscured further by the disordered nature of the college students.
For both immigrants and native-born members of the working and lower-middle
classes, notions of culture and class authenticity help to demarcate borders for
both progressive and conservative forces. Resistance based on authenticity,
however, often flounders when it becomes an officially sanctioned site of
marginality within the dominant culture. Hybridity reflects both groups’
investment in the dominant culture, but can obscure the borders which mark the
unequal power relationship between ethnic groups. The fate of Kureishi’s
second-generation, upwardly mobile characters in both novels interrogates both
the alteration of traditional radical resistance through hybridity and the
culture-wide transformation potential created by the upward mobility of the
second-generation within the dominant cultural system, realising the basic
stance of both novels is to imply acceptance of the reality of people of colour
by White Britain (both the establishment and the working classes).
It seems that when one is promised new kinds of experience, one is led to
suppose that one has long been involved in illusion, ignorance, or error. One
may regard both oneself and the patterns and meaning of the world’s claims upon
one’s life as at fault: so if one awakens it will be because one has somehow
escaped from (or struggled above) what one has become used to – and often the
shakles are named to be the entire western tradition.
Bibliography
? The Buddha Of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd., 1990 ?
The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi, Faber and Faber Ltd., 1995 ? Mastering
Economis and Social History, David Taylor, The Macmillan press Ltd., 1988 ?
A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Raman Selden, The Harvester
Press, 1985 ? Comparative Religion, A.C.Bouquet, Penguin Books, 1960s ?
Anti-D?hring (Herr Eugen D?hring’s Revolution in Science), Frederick Engels,
Foreign Languages Press Peking, 1976 ? http://www.ibo.org/archives.htm
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