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Diverse Possibilities at the In-Between Space:
Postcolonial Critique of Safi Abdi’s Offspring of Paradise
and A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds
Andrew Nyongesa Department of Literature Kenyatta
University
Abstract
Migrant characters who resist discrimination in foreign countries by hybridity
adopt diverse strategies to survive in host countries. Unlike cultural essentialism, which
is a fixed form of resistance, hybridity entails fluidity and change that enables the
character to negotiate existence in a culturally polarized setting. The cultural mix that
characterizes migrant hybrid identities gives them certain advantages in their dealings
with both essential groups, namely, fellow conservative immigrants and the dominant
host group. This paper examines the different ways employed by migrant characters at
the in-between space to survive in a polarized cosmopolitan society. Using Homi
Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, the researcher analyses the instability of hybrid
characters in Safi Abdi’s Offspring of Paradise and A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds.
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November 2nd, 2017
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Statement of the Problem
Migrant characters that enter the hybrid space manifest multiple identities in their attempt to
negotiate for their existence in host countries. Whereas the two essential groups have their
fixed positions in a binary opposition to each other, hybrid identities occupy the third space
where they maintain cordial relations with both. Bhabha (1994) asserts that hybridity is the
ambivalent site where attributes of two essential groups are synthesized (p. 227). This paper
examines the different ways employed by migrant characters at the in-between space to
survive in a polarized cosmopolitan society. Using Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, the
researcher analyses the instability of hybrid characters in Safi Abdi’s Offspring of Paradise
and A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds.
Theoretical Frame Work
Bhabha defines hybridity as the ambivalent site where attributes of two essential groups
are synthesized. He refers to hybrid identities as “in-between” identities, defined as identities
in which humans are not “this or that” but are both “this or that” and neither “this and that”. He
stresses that hybridity is “a constant state of contestation and flux caused by differential
systems […] the unstable element of linkage” (227). At one point African migrant characters
behave like white characters and other times like black characters thereby vacillating on the
identity continuum, which results in psychological problems.
Deliberate Instability and Shrewdness in Hybrid Identities
There are migrant characters who vacillate between the culture of host community and
that of their countries of origin in Abdi’s narratives. Although some instances are unconscious,
others are deliberate acts of cunning to exist in cosmopolitan communities. Little Hirsi is a
migrant character in Offspring of Paradise who interprets for a Christian organization known as
Carriers. At the in-between space, he exhibits diverse possibilities of survival.
His name, Little Hirsi, signifies the two cultural worlds to which he belongs: Western and
Somali. He converts to Christianity and supports the carriers in their endeavor to assimilate
Muslim immigrants “to exact copies of themselves”. With excitement, Helen says that Hirsi is
“no doubt one of the carriers” (587), she knows of what help he has been in her business to turn
Muslim youth away from their religion. The claim that Hirsi is a reformed robber, drug addict
and a murderer is a concrete fruit of their efforts. He has acquired the English language to
bolster his middle ground by interpreting for carriers during their evangelistic missions in
Mogadishu. Consequently, he moves around the unreached world with the carriers to facilitate
their systemic mode of assimilating immigrants. His appearance validates their credibility to
Somali cases being pursued. For Hirsi, his relationship with the carriers is invaluable such
that although he cannot read, he just receives Helen’s pamphlets to please her. In return, they
give him and his siblings the much needed material support. Later we realize that Hirsi is not a
dedicated Christians; his faith is curtain
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behind which he conceals his true nature to survive in the Christian dominated society.
He tells Hana that the quicker the immigrant can pick the foreign captive’s tongue, “the
quicker you can cash your ransom money” (193). His tone is sarcastic, which hints at
his attitude towards his Christian faith. The assimilation is just a sham; Hirsi, like Hana
and Anisa, is at the ambivalent site. Whenever he meets Hana, he reverts to the more
ethnic hybrid identity, sometimes mocking Helen and other carriers. His identity, like
other similar immigrants depends on the social context. No wonder he tells Hana,
“game of survival, girl” (193), as a hint to his duplicity. In actual sense of the word,
Hirsi’s conversion and long testimony of having been a sinner are a ruse to appease the
dominant group for material benefits; otherwise he has never reformed. He tells Hana
that her “medicine woman” (Helen), has not got the “right remedy” for his sins because
there “is a place in his heart” that Helen has never touched” (199), and Hana
sympathises with Helen. With Hana, Hirsi is a Somali but with Helen and Jason, he is a
“saved Christian” who is quite instrumental in the evangelical vision of the carriers, and
that is the essence of the in-between hybrid identity. As a consequence of this fluctuation
on the identity continuum, Little Hirsi has sustained a psychological condition that
causes insomnia. He tells Abdirahman that he is “night owl” (346) because “sleep
evades” him, so he has to wander in town at night.
`While investigating ambivalence among adolescent immigrants in the diaspora, Zubida
et al remark that immigrant children face conflicting social contexts in which they
attempt to incorporate “here” and “there” into meaningful sense of the “self ”. Portes
and Rubiin (2005) write:
Among adolescent immigrants, this process is more complex and often entails
the juggling of competing allegiances and attachments. Situated within two
cultural worlds, they must define themselves in relation to multiple reference
groups (sometimes in two countries and languages) and the classifications in
which they are placed by their native peers, schools, the ethnic community and
larger society. (304)
Hana and Anisa reach the Western cities in their adolescent period, a time when they
are forming their personal identities and confront rival cultures in the cosmopolitan
environment. As they struggle with their identity crises, during puberty, they must also
define themselves in relation to the multiple cultures around them; consequently, they
end up with contradicting identities with loose boundaries. Bhabha (1995) refers to
these identities as “in-between” identities, defined as identities in which humans are not
“this or that” but are both “this or that” and neither “this and that”. He stresses that
hybridity is “a constant state of contestation and flux caused by differential systems
[…] the unstable element of linkage” (227). It is quite difficult to predict Hana and
Anisa’s positions on the identity continuum; at one point they exhibit more ethnic
hybrid identity, other times shared sense hybrid identity and yet other
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times Western skewed hybrid identity.
When she arrives in the United States, Anisa sticks to her Islamic traditions: prays five
times a day well aware that salat is “the connection between the Creator and the creature” (33),
she is not materialistic and it does not surprise her when Floor remarks that “she has so little
herself ” (39), Anisa loves the arranged marriages, polygamy marriages, including widow
inheritance in her culture and defends it against Floor’s criticism. She says that “a man can
have more than one wife […] it is preferable to mistresses, family break ups, child neglect and
child neglect” (42), common in the West. Although she had earlier on detested polygamy,
Anisa “sees the wisdom of it after the death of her father” (43), insisting that it ensures the
security of the orphans. Her tendency to refer to the Islamic religion to back up her arguments
with Floor proves that she is of the more ethnic hybrid identity: a devout Somali Muslim in a
Western, secular environment. She tells Floor that “Muslims are bound by Allah to help the
helpless, the old and the orphans” (43), to depict her unwavering dedication to her culture.
However, as the story unfolds, Anisa’s conduct proves that she is not the conservative Somali
we have just witnessed. The narrator says that “her letters” became “less and less detailed
about her non existent spiritual life” (53). Anisa loves the West, her “uncle’s pleas to return
home for holidays fell on deaf ears” (53). She spends her leisure times with “friends at discos”
and the Isha prayers of her high school days had become a thing of the past” (54), by reason of
the Western individualism that eats into her Somali soul. At this point, Anisa is neither Somali
nor white, neither Christian nor Muslim; she is entering the ambivalent site, the in-between
space. Her reasons for not praying is given as: “[s]he still respected her folks, but she had
come to believe that her prayers and social life were now things that concerned only her,”
(54).The individualism she alludes to here is a salient feature of Western culture, which is
inconsistent to the communalism she defended earlier on when she was a more ethnic hybrid.
Anisa’s love affair with Mike is another sign of her shifting identity. They date many times,
meeting at nightclubs and disco joints, stifling the ethnic identity by arguing that she was not
the only one making the shift towards integration: “[a]nd she was consoled by the fact that
they were also no different from her. Like her, they went to the nightspots and disco joints. So
brazen were they in their ways and mode of speech that you couldn’t set them apart from their
hosts,” (54). In speech, Anisa now twangs like the white hosts and she cannot be distinguished
from them; she has moved far away from what can be specifically described as more Somali
hybrid identity and stands at the Western skewed hybrid stave. But as earlier emphasized,
identity is flexible and unstable at the in- between space and being at this space Anisa is in a
constant state of “becoming”; she is neither “this nor that”. When Mike proposes marriage, she
blurts: “You are Kafir, Mike, that’s what is wrong- nothing that we can see in the water” (65).
Anisa has now shifted from the Western skewed hybrid identity to the more Somali hybrid
identity. It is astounding and heart chilling for Mike who has loved her so much this long as
she adds more aspersions that magnify
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the difference:
My dear Mike, let’s quit pretending. You are an unbeliever and you are very much
aware of your condition. It isn’t as if you didn’t know your kufr. You know you are
unbeliever and there is nothing you relish more than the state you are in. and so
does everyone else know. (65)
Anisa cannot recall that she has also participated in Mike’s heathen life style:
dancing at discos together, taking wine together, not reciting the Quran together, not
fasting and not praying together. In the ensuing conversation, Anisa talks to him about
Islamic traditions like prayer: “people must be doing maghrib,” she says, and adds that
Muslims should pray five times a day. Mike says he has never found her doing it. But
she insists, “[w]e are supposed to pray to the Almighty five times a day” (69), she blurts,
almost raising her voice. When Mike replies that he may never understand her prayers,
Anisa breaks down and cries. The in-between hybrid identity shifts her mind from one
identity to another on the identity continuum thereby causing a struggle within her. She
now is at the middle ground where she is not Somali, not white but is partially Somali
and partially white as opposed to Mike who by has shared sense hybrid with both white
and Somali. Elliasi B. (2013) observes that “immigrants’ modes of belonging are often
questioned and challenged by dominant subjects because they experience the problem of
where they belong and not knowing where one belongs” (53), and so is Anisa’s case; at
the middle ground, she does not know where she belongs. Her identity construction
process is on and as Clifford (1997) puts it, immigrants (such as Anisa) “construct
identities outside the national time and space in order to live inside” (251). They are the
belated citizens who try to catch up with the rest of the indigenous citizens albeit with a
baggage of traditions from the country of origin yet determined to fit in the nation. The
construction of the migrant’s identity is therefore a painful process and it is worse when
the immigrant does not understand the “self ”. Anisa is one such immigrant that does not
understand the self; she is not aware of what she is experiencing. When Mike asks her
why she is crying, she replies, “[i]t’s nothing, […] could be I am coming down with flu”
(69). She is not aware that her hybrid identity under the process of construction and her
psychological trauma is bound to escalate. Peter and Jan (2009) emphasize that “the
relationship between the ‘self’ and identity is crucial because self influences society
through actions and society influences self through shared language and meanings that
enable the person to take the role of the other” (128). Consequently, Anisa (self ) is
acting on the society (by relating with Mike) and she has to understand “the self”
(herself ) to understand society (Mike).When she returns to Rako Island on vacation,
Anisa turns into a defender of Western culture from all the criticism by her friends and
relatives. Her friend Faiza exclaims at Mike’s picture saying it is “chalk white” (79),
Anisa retorts, “and pinky- cream, silly, there is blood in those veins” (79). When Faiza
insinuates that Mike worships dogs, Anisa replies
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that “he is allergic to dogs” (80), she criticizes Sa’id, Faiza’s husband for visiting a Western
city without deigning to step in a disco joint and listen to Michael Jackson’s latest album. She
says that it proves “his lack of style” (84), and to this category, she adds Sayid Jibreel, the
suitor her parents have chosen to marry her. Anisa bluntly tells him that she has come to Rako
Island for vacation and she can find a suitor without the “matchmaking of your aunts” (92),
hence choosing Mike instead of him. Faiza’s attempts to put in some good words for Jibreel
meet her resistance; Faiza’s defense is based on identity question: as a Muslim, Jibreel will
wake Anisa up for prayers, but “Mr. Paterson can’t forsake his bed for the sake of the spirit”
(96). Faiza cannot understand Anisa’s identity situation; she has now shifted to the Western
skewed hybrid identity where the West is the favourite culture. While disputing fixity among
immigrants, Frederic Cooper and Rogers Brubaker define identity as “one’s sense of who one
is, of one’s social location and of how one is prepared to act” (17). Anisa is prepared to reject
Somali culture in this social situation basing on the values she has acquired in the West in the
recent past. She understands herself from the Western perspective and locates herself
differently in spite of having exhibited ethnic identities in a recent past. She blurts, “[g]ive me
a break, I can perfectly take care of myself,” (97), and immediately develops an acute migraine,
a symptom of the inner conflict resulting from her identity split. The Anisa who a few weeks
before criticizes Mike as a heathen now defends him before Faiza to the extent that she crowns
him better Muslim than both Faiza and Sayid Jibreel. She says, “Mike will embrace Islam and
might even become a better Muslim than you Faiza,” (95), and upon return to America, she
weds him in a civil marriage.
After Mike’s and Anisa’s wedding, the reader expects Anisa’s identity instability to
come to an end, assuming that she has fully integrated into the white society. But one evening,
Anisa demands that Mike converts to Islam in a manner that reveals a lot of agony and inner
turmoil. “There is every reason to hurry things up. You promised” (116) and she weeps. Anisa
asserts that she is not married because they have not had an Islamic wedding. She has now
abandoned the Western skewed hybrid identity and reverted to the more ethnic hybrid identity,
and the two contradict each other. Mike is shocked when she tells him that she suffers “the
uncomfortable feeling of living in sin” (117), and she follows it with weeping, to reveal her
inner conflict. Her ethnic identity reasserts itself and from now up to the moment she flees
back to Rako Island, Anisa exhibits the more ethnic-Somali hybrid identity. She tells Mike that
he “must be crazy to think that the feelings she has for him can be compared to the love she
has for her “Maker and my beloved prophet” (119). Although Anisa now believes that she has
restored her ethnic identity, we are aware of her double identity; when Mike returns to the
Island towards the end of the story; she welcomes him and promises to live with him as he is.
They in fact wed afresh and she says it is time “for friendship and they will not be suspicious of
each other” (464).
In Offspring of Paradise, there are migrant characters who vacillate at the ambivalent
space to negotiate their existence in Western cities. Hana, the
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heroine of the story, is one of these characters who faces “conflicting social contexts”
and attempts to “incorporate “here” and “there” into meaningful sense of “self ” (
Ericksen, 2002, 220). In his research on Kurdish immigrants in Sweden, Sulyman
(2014) comes across a Kurdish immigrant, Shilan, who having migrated to Sweden at
six months sometimes feels “full Kurd” and other times “in- between” and other times
just “different”. She says:
There is a difference when you are between them, in which many things are said
and happen that makes you feel a stranger. I always identify and consider myself a Kurd
when I think of myself personally and never considered myself for a moment as a Swede
and I do not know the reason. However, there are things that might make me look like
them, and I have learnt from them because of the society and environment surrounding
me. I can say I am a Kurd but not like those Kurds in Kurdistan. It is like in-between. I
feel “full Kurd” at home but when I am outside, I have some Swedish culture upon me.
(28-29)
At least Shilan feels “full Kurd” at home; on the contrary, Hana becomes a
stranger at home, after her grand mother’s demise. Hana rejects Mulki’s surrogate
parenting accusing her of having been responsible of Zahra’s death. Nonetheless, like
Shilan, Hana sees herself as “full Somali” and Muslim; Rune tells Helen that despite
losing everything, she always rushes home to fulfill salat (prayer) as a pillar of Islam.
Rune says, “[h]er religion is about the only thing that she’s got left” (207); this is a proof
of her firm attachment to her cultural heritage and alterations she has made on her
identity. Hana attends a Christian mass at school and when the priest gives her
sacrament, she “immediately spat the wetted stuff into a paper napkin” (150), to signify
a rejection of Christianity. Ironically, she resents Mulki and casts aspersions at fellow
Somali migrant characters, the very people she claims to identify with. Mulki warns her
against keeping Helen’s company but she retorts that she should mind her business.
Hana rejects Usman’s advice when he warns her against keeping Helen’s company; she
says, “[a]t the end of the day, it is really upto me and not to anyone else. And prayer
never hurt anyone. But guns do. So good bye” (229). Apparently, Hana deserts the more
ethnic hybrid identity and stands at the Western skewed hybrid position. Hana’s
relationship with her fellow Somalis can be described as suspicious, sarcastic and hostile,
for example, she tells Usman, “the kind of brother we could all depend on. Bravo
Somali brother! Where was your bravery when your brothers dumped me here in the
cold! Brave man!” (230). Of Abdirahman, her Quranic teacher, she says that “he too is
a man, a Somali man so he too must share in the punishment,” (233). She even goes a
step farther to vouch that she would never let a Somali man to know her mother’s
whereabouts. She does not mind that Helen, the Christian carrier knows where her
mother is.
Hana keeps a diary in which she records things in her own version, she
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asserts that she does not record things the Somali way, “[n]ot in a Somali women’s fashion,”
(237). Neither would she do anything in a Somali man’s fashion because the Somali man has
let her down. Hana’s claim to the idiosyncratic manner of doing things is an unconscious
proclamation of the Western skewed hybrid identity at which she temporarily stands. The
denunciation of betrayal, trouble making and suffering by the Somali man is a feminist notion
she has imbibed from the dominant white society. Hana now enjoys the company of white
friends, for instance, she goes for a retreat with Helen at The Hunters, a ranch and palatial
home owned by carriers. Rune’s clarion call for patience to permit Hana’s gradual
assimilation does not go down well with Helen who resolves to compel Hana to choose
between Western culture and death. She plays the Jesus Film and Hana’s ethnic identity is
ignited. She feels uncomfortable and says, “I really don’t need the film to love Jesus. Any way,
I can’t see what Jesus got to do with that actor in the film […] I told you I don’t like that film,”
(264). Helen who has got used to Hana’s Western attributes gets shocked and resorts to the use
of force. Hana does not budge; she has reverted to the more ethnic hybrid identity that rejects
Christian influence. Helen plays a documentary that “starts of with news clippings of stolen
food convoys by some crazy clansmen somewhere in Somalia” and shouts, “shame! Shame!
Thieves!” (270); it is a racist portrayal of Somalis as lazy thieves. Hana is incensed by the
documentary and tells Helen to think about the “Bosnian woman raped and tortured by
Christian Serbs to the extent of losing her sense of hearing” (271), yet not a single
documentary has been produced to tell the world the story. Hana is no longer the assimilated
passive listener to Helen’s stories. Hana goes back to Mulki, a symbolic return to the ethnic
identity that she has sometimes criticized. The identity shift causes her inner turmoil and
sustains psychological problems. When she visits the doctor, his report reveals “a very
disturbed young woman behind the pleasant mask” (342), and though we expect her to blame
Helen, she skips to her side saying: “My people let me down. And it is them that I should
blame, not Helen. By the time I came to the gates of this nation, I was a reject and Helen found
a reject. I can’t blame her for wanting to take over a reject. So what is the big deal?” (342).
Hana is at the ambivalent site where identity as aforementioned depends on the circumstances.
Conclusion
Hana’s and Anisa’s and Hirsi’s identity constructions at the in-between space reiterate
Ahmed et al views that the process of identity construction overseas “changes according to the
immigrants history, position, language and the opposition in their life” (1-2), the immigrant
instantly constructs identity depending on the current situation, the choice of words being used
by the host and the problems being faced at the moment. As Bhabha asserts, this identity is
“unstable element of linkage” (227), it is neither here nor there, not this or that or both, which
comes with devastating psychological effects on the immigrant.
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REFERENCES
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Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Eliassi, B. (2013). Contesting Swedish Identities in Sweden: Quest for
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Ericksen, H. (2002). Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives.
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Peter B., & Jan S. (2009). Identity Theory. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
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Zubida. H., Lavi L., Harper A. R, Nakash O. and Shoshan A. (2014).
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