2. Excerpt from The New Empire Within Britain

1. Salman Rushdie's Female Characters

In both The Moor's Last Sigh and Shame, Rushdie depicts prominent female characters (Epifania da Gama and Bariamma Ryder) as the matriarchs of their families. Although this may seem odd in such a male-dominated society, in southern India matriarchy is actually a common family organization, and women even own property jointly with men (Visram 11). Historical records dating back to early south Indian people frequently include metronyms, perhaps signifying"a lingering influence of the old Dravidian mother right in an otherwise patrilineal ordering of society" (Singh 226).

As Mothers

Due to Hinduism's strong influence in Indian society, a woman's foremost role in life is becoming a mother; moreover, her value depends upon her ability to give birth to sons (Contursi 48). Any power she wields comes from her ability to procreate, not from her dominance over men (Contursi 49). An example of this attitude is evidenced in Shame when Bilqu?s Hyder laments over her inability to produce a male child: "He wanted a hero of a son; I gave him an idiot female instead . . . I must accept it: she is my shame" (Rushdie 101).

Rushdie also toys with the nature of mother-son relationships in Indian and Pakistani society, emphasizing the perversion of their closeness. In Shame, for example, the three Shakil mothers dote over their only son Omar, keeping him"excluded from human society by [their] strange resolve" (Rushdie 29). Furthermore, the stereotypical mother resents her son's new wife for monopolizing his affection and tries to disrupt any opportunities for intimacy in the new marriage (Adler 135). Both Bariamma's nocturnal segregation of the married couples in Shame (Rushdie 71) and Flory Zogoiby's demand for Abraham's firstborn son in The Moor (Rushdie 111) exemplify this unusual attachment.

As Wives

According to J.P. Singh in her book The Indian Woman: Myth and Reality, one of the most notable developments of recent times has been"finding refuge in the age-old Indian wisdom: for the most part ignore your husband. Live your life as if he were not there" (305). Arranged marriages necessitated such sentiment, especially in order to withstand a husband's physical abuse, cruelty, or apathy. Carmen da Gama, in The Moor, privately deals with her husband's secret homosexual liaisons, as does Rani Harappa in the face of Iskander's long absences and sexual disinterest.

Indian and Pakistani wives also become part of their husband's family when they marry; in this arrangement, wives must obey the older women in the family and comply with all their demands (Adler 135). Living under the matriarchal rule of Bariamma Ryder, Rushdie writes that Bilqu?s Ryder"was given more than her fair share of household duties and also slightly more than her fair share of the rough edge of Bariamma's tongue" (Moor 73).

As National Figures

Politicians and Painters

As noted in the book Women and Politics in Islam, which covers the trial of Benazir Bhutto, the Quranic stand on women leaders is in staunch opposition: "'A nation that appoints a woman as its ruler shall never prosper'" says the Bukhari commentary on the Quran (Zakaria 97). Yet a number of women have attained high political positions in both Pakistan and India. Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, is the model for the character Arjumand "the Virgin Ironpants" Harappa in Shame. Although Rushdie portrays her as a woman resentful of her female body-- "it brings a person nothing but babies, pinches, and shame" (107), Bhutto herself told Donna Foote of Newsweek it is "'the people who resent me [that] do so because I am a woman'"(Zakaria 7).

By following her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto into political leadership, Benazir and her literary counterpart "the Virgin Ironpants" highlight an interesting trend in South Asia politics: the family connection. According to Rozina Visram in her book Women in India and Pakistan, the reason women have been able to overcome social obstacles and reach high political offices may be family relationships(54). Both the prime minister of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (Sirimavo Bandaranayake and Khaleda Zia, respectively) came to power after the murders of their husbands, for instance(Visram 55). In The Moor, Rushdie mentions another woman who followed in the footsteps of her father: Indira Gandhi, who was prime minister of India from 1966-77 and 1980-84 before she was assassinated.

The central female character in The Moor's Last Sigh is Aurora Zogoiby, a talented painter who depicts complexity and history of India in her art. She has been linked to the artist Amrita Sher-Gil, who created"a vital, living India 'of dark-bodied, sad-faced, inevitably thin men and women', silent, silhouette-like, with an indefinable pathos" (Rao 36). Like Aurora, Sher-Gil was often misunderstood and unappreciated in her time, although her work was of huge significance to modern Indian painting. (The Painting above is titled "Three Young Girls." For an additional example of her art, visit the Indian stamps web site at http://www.cerc.wvu.edu/ ~rahul/stampsPaintings.html).

Works Cited

Adler, Leonore Loeb, ed. International Handbook on Gender Roles. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1993.

Feldhaus, Anne. Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Rao, Ramachandra. Modern Indian Painting. Madras: Associated Printers, Ltd., 1953.

Rushdie, Salman. The Moor's Last Sigh. New York: Pantheon, 1995.

---. Shame. New York: Holt, 1983.

Singh, J.P. The Indian Woman: Myth and Reality. New Delhi: Gyan, 1996.

Zakaria, Rafiq. Women and Politics in Islam: The Trial of Benazir Bhutto. New York: New Horizons Press, 1990.

Author: Laura Moyer, Fall 1997

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2. Excerpt from The New Empire Within Britain

original site

by Salman Rushdie

"A language reveals the attitiudes of the people who use and shape it. And a whole declension of patronizing terminology can be found in the language in which inner-racial relations have been decribed inside Britain. At first, we were told, the goal was 'integration'. Now this word rapidly came to mean 'assimilation': a black man could only become integrated when he started behaving like a white one. After 'integration' came the concept of 'racial harmony'. Now once again, this sounded virtuous and desirable, but what it meant in practice was that blacks should be persuaded to live peaceably with whites, in spite of all the injustices done to them every day. The call for 'racial harmony' was simply an invitation to shut up and smile while nothing was done about our grievances. And now, there's a new catchword: 'multiculturalism'. In our schools, this means little more than teaching the kids a few bongo rhythms, how to tie a sari and so forth. In the police training programme, it means telling cadets that black people are so 'culturally different' that they can't help making trouble. Multiculturalism is the latest token gestures towards Britain's blacks, and it ought to be exposed, like 'integration' and 'racial harmony', for the sham it is."

"It sometimes seems as British authorities, no longer capable of exporting governments, have chosen instead to import a new Empire, a new community of subject peoples of whom they think, and with whom they can deal, in very much the same way as their predecessors thought of and dealt with 'the fluttered folk and the wild', the 'new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child', who made up, for Rudyard Kipling, the White Man's Burden. In short, if we want to understand British racism - and without understanding no improvement is possible - it's impossible even to begin to grasp the nature of the beast unless we accept its historical roots."

Rushdie is referring to the time when Britain opened its "doors" to the rest of the world, in particular, to the blacks. It promised a land of plenty where anyone would be able to progress their standard of living while living in a free society. Needless to say, this invitation was widely accepted and soon Britain began to see its population change into one of more diversity and, at the same time, one with more differences. These differences are the side-effect of an open immigration policy.

To the rest of the world, Britain appeared to be shedding its black veil of oppression when in actuality it was masking a serious problem, internal racism.

To a large extint, this was covered up by the "white-only" press, namely the BBC. The same was done with the troubles in Ireland. The main way that the voices of the oppressed could be heard by the outside world was through the literature of the immigrants facing the racism head on. One of these people was Linton Kwesi Johnson. Through his poem Five Nights of Bleeding , British racism is brought to the foreground in a depiction of the Brixton riots of 1981 and their consequences.

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Here, Rushdie is making a claim that a people's society and culture can be linked to their language.
Language is vital part of a society because it is the main source of communication between people,
however, the problem arises when people speak different languages in the same place. Consequently, this
leads to a barrier in the communication. Rushdie confronts this issue because it plays a big role in the
reason why immigrants, as well black britons were discriminated against. With white britons dominance
over social, economic, and political life, it was very hard for anyone else to partake in their way of life
because of their superiority. In language, the white britons believed that the proper way to speak was
through Queen's English, and as a result, anyone who did not or could not speak this language was not
included in their way of life, in addition to being discriminated against. Rushdie says that a people's
"language reveals the attitudes of the people who use and shape it." This is an important point becuase
when black britons and immigrants were discriminated against because of the way they spoke, they were
regarded and labeled as criminals and beggars. The white britons believed that the "other" language
showed the attitude of being inferior as well as only suitable for the lower class. This issue ties into the
poem Listen Mr Oxford Don.  

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"The New Empire Within Britain" scores British society for never having "de-imperialized" itself in the
way, for example, that German authors at least attempted linguistic de-Nazification. The historical models
for subduing unruly colonials therefore became internalized as institutional racism, ways of marginalizing
immigrant and second generation minorities. "We have, in Britain today', writes rushdie with sarcasm
scorn, "judges like McKinnon who can say in court that the word 'nigger' cannot be considered an epithet
of racial abuse because he was nichnamed 'Nigger' at his public school.

Rushdie has a remarkable capacity to enter into the minds and hearts of diverse writers, who live in
different realities and cultures address themselves to different issues, in a variety of styles. For instance,
in John Agard's, "Listen Mr Oxford Don", is the coming power of language. Integrationcan means a
variety of definitions pending who is doing the inquiring. In America, indians were asked to integrate into
a whie society eventhough they were the ones who first found the land, that was eventually taken from
them. When reading the poem by Agard, it clearly points the short-comings of black immigrants.  

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"Britain has been harshly criticized by a UN race relations committee over 'racial harmony' towards
ethnic minorities. The police force in Britain especially has been taking most of the brunt due to the fact
that a disproportionate number of people who die in police custody are from minority groups, non-whites
are a target of police brutality, and allegations of harrassment seem to be inadequately investigated in
many of police claims. There is a deep concern over the state of race relations in Britain, so much that
there have been a few poets that have expressed their anger as well as understanding to the causes that
lead to such brutality. In Linton Kwesi Johnson's, Five Nights of Bleeding , talks about the way riots can
break out due to racial inequality."

What He is trying to explain is that in societies, there are many different cultures that have their own
values and beliefs, but just because one does not believe in that certain culture does not necessarily need
to impose violence just because of different attitudes towards it. Racial harmony must exist throughout
the world, if not, people will suffer. Governments must not be allowed to ignore the injustices families
face after a death in custody.  

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