My Son The Fanatic

My Son The Fanatic by Hanif Kureishi is a story about a father and son who struggle with communication and cannot agree on religion or cultural issues. Parvel, the father, is a taxi driver and avid drinker and gambler. One of his best friends is a prostitute named Bettina. Parvel notices his son, Ali, is acting weird and starts believing the worst in his son, thinking he is doing drugs, going to kill himself, or kill other people until he hears his son praying.

Little does Parvel know, it seems worse now that Ali has found the religion Parvel has escaped from. Ali, the teenaged son, has become a minimalist by "throwing out his belongings," changing his entire life and attitude, and trying to live the Islamic way of life to the strictest enforcement. On the other hand, Parvel gave up this religion since his move to England because of the humiliation and harsh punishment he experienced as a child and has fully embraced the culture of England, enjoying the vices. The issues of religion and culture are the center of their disagreements.

All Parvel wants for his son is for him to "get a good job, marry the right girl, and start a family." He describes his relationship with his son before as "not father and son- we were brothers," making it seem like he wants to be friends with his son more than be his father. Instead of asking his son directly what is happening, he sneaks around, spying, and asks his friends, "Why is he torturing me?," taking it personally.

This story has unique views based on religion and the old country versus the western world, like the ones we have read before like Achebe and Thiong'o. Usually in the stories I have read, it is the parents who try to enforce their strict religious beliefs on the children. In this story, it is the son who has the strong religious faith and is trying to get his dad to believe in it too. It is also the son who fights against the culture of the western world instead of the parent, which is also an unusual perspective.

Ali clearly hates the culture of England, telling his father he is "too implicated in Western Civilization" and "Western education cultivates an anti-religious attitude." He also tells his father the problem with England is that it will "let you do almost anything. . ." Parvez clearly is upset by his son telling him he is "going to hell" and his response is to want to tell Ali "to pick up his prayer mat and get out" of his house.

I believe the father and son are both doing what they think is right in their hearts, based on their experiences with both cultures. I think the Parvez crosses the line when he beats Ali at the end for disrespects him. I also think Ali crosses the line when he is very judgmental of his father's actions as well as the hateful things he says to his father and Bettina, the prostitute. I sympathize with both the father and son at times. I feel bad for the dad trying to get his old son back and how he wants to reconnect with him, and the son won't compromise. I also feel bad for the son when his dad won't accept the new him, calling his son's new behavior an "injustice."

Kureishi's writings connects with Achebe and Thiong'o, because they all deal with peoples' cultures being changed by the western world. They all deal with people who have grew up one way and have either moved to another country or had change in their own country. It is the next step because it is very reminiscent of what we have dealt with in the past nine years after September 11th. In our current world, we have terrorists and religious fanatics who believe in destroying us and the other believers of the religion who aren't such fanatics, trying to clear their bad reputations.