Tenacious diasporic homelessness in Moroccan Dutch writing: A. Benali's 'May the Sun Shine Tomorrow' and H. Bouazza's 'The Crossing' as a case of study

The highly estimated reception of Abdelkader Benali's debut Wedding by the Sea and Hafid Bouazza's Abdullah's Feet in the mid-1990s is the hyped celebration of multiculturality by the Dutch establishment. Because of attributed to stories' apparent embedment in the native backgrou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African and black diaspora 2015-01, Vol.8 (1), p.25-38
Main Author: Elboubekri, Abdellah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cosmopolitanism
Cultural identity
dialogic cosmopolitanism
diasporic homelessness
Ethnicity
Homelessness
multiculturality
Nationalists
Roads
routes
Transnationalism
Weddings
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Summary:The highly estimated reception of Abdelkader Benali's debut Wedding by the Sea and Hafid Bouazza's Abdullah's Feet in the mid-1990s is the hyped celebration of multiculturality by the Dutch establishment. Because of attributed to stories' apparent embedment in the native background (Moroccan exotic village), the writers were hailed as successful models for the Dutch multicultural society that was based on the policy of integration (while retaining one's own cultural identity). This paper argues that those exotic proses are imbedded in the culture of routes rather than the rhetoric of roots which is centered on otherness and ethnicisation. The narrative structure of the debuts is undergirded by a discursive disruption of the centripetal moves toward unified autochthonous belonging. It is suggestive of the precariousness of the migrants' homes and their sense of origins. More importantly, A. Benali's 'May the Sun Shine Tomorrow' and H. Bouazza's 'The Crossing' are produced in a different context dominated by the New Right nationalist demand for sameness and critique of the pluralist discourse of correctness. Nevertheless, it is contended here that in displaying a persistent accent on migratory experience and full incorporation of foreigners in society as equals rather than identical, the short stories maintain the obstinate immersion of the writers in the poetics of homelessness. As such, Bouazza and Benali are claimed to enunciate a diasporic transnational position which resists social exclusion and sees dialogic cosmopolitanism as an adequate home for identities that are constantly on the process of emerging.
ISSN:1752-8631
1752-864X
DOI:10.1080/17528631.2014.966954