Identity of the Zanzibari Arabs in the Diaspora: A Reading of Selected Works of Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abstract

This paper explores ambivalences and ‘unsatisfactions’ that the diaspora elicits among the migrant Zanzibari Arabs as delineated in selected texts of Abdulrazak Gurnah. The diasporic adventure of the Zanzibari Arab community resulted from disconnections and disruptions caused by the politics of colonialism and the coming of independence in Zanzibar which were characterized by antagonisms against the Zanzibari Arabs and the compromises they had to make in order to survive the assaults that resulted from the politics of both colonialism and independence. Their migration to Britain were in the forms of: deliberate flight; chance movements from Zanzibar, or characters engaging in journeys that were risky and uncertain in order to save their lives. For these Zanzibari Arabs, diaspora has been established through trade, displacement and adventure. Through the sufferings, hopes, nostalgia and desires of this dispersed community, their diasporic situation is presented as ambivalent and paradoxical because, they suffer a sentimental attachment to Zanzibar that is manifold: many have a kinship bond; others are defined by peculiar accounts of arrival and return that may be physical or psychological, while others encounter and confront cultural shock(s) that results in cultural inwardness and/or ‘un-adaptability’ manifested as trauma. The texts under discussion only manage to capture an appreciable degree of the individual and collective ambivalent experiences of the protagonists by embodying them in narrative forms and by elucidating them using various allegorical devices that can give a semblance of tangible meanings to these experiences as evoked through memory. The strategies that these diasporic persons have developed as a way of cushioning themselves against these unsatisfactory conditions.