بیوتن: روایتی از دیگری فرهنگی

مقاله حاضر به بررسی مقوله «دگرشدگی» در بیوتن، اثر برجسته و پرفروش رضا امیرخانی، می پردازد. نویسنده مقاله با استفاده از رویکرد چندفرهنگی و با بهره گیری از نظریه منتقدانی نظیر ژیژک در پی پاسخ به این پرسش بنیادی است که آیا امیرخانی بازتاباننده گفتمان چندفرهنگی است یا آن را به چالش می کشد؟ بدین منظور دو مفهوم «دیگری» و «دموکراسی» مفاهیم بنیادی گفتمان چندفرهنگی مورد بررسی قرار می گیرند. چنین استنباط می شود که اثر امیرخانی «ضدروایتی» است که درهم آمیختگی مرزهای نژادی، مذهبی و فرهنگی، چندگانگی هویتی شخصیت ها را به معنای فروپاشی «کلان روایت » بنیادی گفتمان انسان گرایی لیبرال نمی داند، بلکه آن را اقدامی صرف در راستای حفظ نظام سرمایه سالار برمی شمرد. جهان بیوتن، در حقیقت، می تواند نمایشی از جامعه «پساسیاسی» به تعبیر ژیژک می باشد که در آن «تبیعد» ویژگی بنیادی پساجهانی شدن و «سرمایه» (به جای «جغرافیا») تعیین کننده مرزهای «خود» ا ز «دیگری» است. در چنین فضایی تاکید بر«دموکراسی» نه تنها عاملی است در راستای پنهان کردن ساختار سلسله مراتبی «غرب»، بلکه راهکاری هوشمندانه برای گریز از شناخت «اقلیت نامرئی» است.

The Stateless (Bivatan): A Narrative of the Cultural Other

This article focuses on Reza Amir Khani’s The Stateless ─ Bivatan ─ (2008) in an attempt to find out whether Amir Khani reflects mulicultural policies or criticizes them. To this end, two major themes of “othering” and “democracy” are examined through the perspective of cultural studies and the deployment of Žižek’s theory of the postpolitical world. It is argued that Amir Khani offers an antinarrative in which the hybridity of racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural notions does not imply the collapse of liberal humanism’s metanarrative of ‘self/other’; on the contrary, it offers a front to protect liberal capitalism. Such a world is discussed to be a version of Žižek’s postpolitical society where ‘exile’ is the basic condition of postglobalization, and ‘capital’ instead of ‘geography’ does the mapmaking. In this world, Democracy is presented not only as a masque for the current hierarchical system but also as a deliberate strategy to deny ‘recognition’ to postglobal exiles. Extended Abstract 1. IntroductionWhile multiculturalism is believed to have developed simultaneously with the advent of globalism in the second half of the 20th century, rarely has the world witnessed the collapse of geographical, cultural and racial boundaries, on the one hand, and the breakup of national and ethnic identities, on the other hand, as it does today. This has resulted in ambivalence and hybridity in the West, as inseparable elements of postmodern life. Yet, it seems that the West is still obsessed with its colonial discourse and treats minorities based on the Hegelian masterslave system. Following the September 11 events, with the onset of the socalled “war on terror” policy in the West, conflicts were reduced from culturalracial wars to wars between religions and led to the “double otherness” of minorities – especially Muslims – and their visibility. Writers and critics have been concerned with multiculturalism globally and challenged the postpolitical world. Reza Amirkhani is among the first Iranian writers to have focused on contradictions in multiculturalism in the form of migrant literature and dealt with it in his novel Bivatan [The Stateless] (2008). 2. Theoretical FrameworkThe present article draws on the New Left discourse – especially the ideas of Slavoj Žižek and Giorgio Agamben as two prominent figures – which was developed in the late 20th century to criticize the discourse of multiculturalism. This discourse, by deconstructing democracy as a lever used by the power discourse to suppress “the other”, tries to introduce multiculturalism as a new version of the colonial discourse, which instead of employing violence, politicizes cultural differences based on the liberal humanist discourse. The ideas of postcolonial critics, such as Homi Bhabha, are also relied on in the present study as the ideas of both group of thinkers overlap in many ways. 3. MethodologyIn the present study the multicultural approach and ideas of New Left critics are adopted to discuss the concept of the nonWestern “other”. By rereading the text of the novel, the author tries to deconstruct the power discourse and open up a new intellectual horizon to the West from the viewpoint of “the other”. 4. Findings and DiscussionReza Amirkhani’s Bivatan can be regarded as an account of the life of a man who, impressed by propaganda and scientific progress of the West, seeks “life” in the US but is eventually sentenced to “death”, in the figurative meaning of losing all values, freedom and humanity, because of the crime of “otherness”. This novel is in fact a representation of the contemporary society of the postpolitical era in which the capitalist system has been able to replace older concepts such as “ethnicity”, “nationality” and “identity” with modern myths such as “multiculturalism”, “democracy” and “citizen rights” and thus develop new criteria for the evaluation of personal, cultural and social values, which are based on “utilitarianism”, “relativity” and hierarchical relationships. 5. ConclusionThe US described by Amirkhani represents a society that, contrary to its claims regarding freedom and democracy, is policedominated and controlling. In such a society, which is revolves around the imperialistic “self/other” dichotomy, the “other” is always a threat that should be controlled at any price so that the civilized Western “self” is not endangered. Tyranny and suppression are inseparable from this society and the main prerequisite for accepting people is adapting oneself to American logic and Western values. In fact, this represents the commitment of American society to maintaining the colonial logic that is reflected in the speech made by George W. Bush, following the September 11 Attack:  “either with us or against us”.