The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Changez seems to be, at the beginning of his tale, a normal young man with a story that is not so different from that of many other young men who have immigrated to America. He came to America from a less fortunate country with fewer opportunities based on his studies and went to a great school on a scholarship. He graduated with top grades and got himself a very good job, and he even fell in love with an American woman. It seemed pretty clear that Changez was loving the American way of life, finding assimilation into this new culture to be fairly easy to do. One would be hard pressed to find any reason to think that he didn’t like America. Then he dropped the bombshell, so to speak.
“I was the product of an American university; I was earning a lucrative American salary; I was infatuated with an American woman. So why did part of me desire to see America harmed?“
Changez was in fact referring to the attacks of 9/11 and his reaction to them. He confides in the American stranger by telling him that when he learned of the attacks, he simply smiled. This reaction infuriates the stranger, and only confuses Changez. He can not seem to understand fully why he would be happy about this occurrence despite his best efforts to fit in and become part of this American culture. He seems to thoroughly enjoy his experiences and encounters in America up to the attacks of September 11th yet he finds some sort of sick satisfaction in a tragic attack on it. He goes on to say he was not happy about the people dieing in the attacks but rather that he got to see America brought to its knees for once. I began to think about all the wars America had fought in and came to a pretty simple realization. America has fought all it’s wars, almost exclusively, on the soil of other countries. It is very rare, with the exceptions of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, that American blood is spilled in America during war. Perhaps this lends to America’s air of invincibility and also accounted for Changez reaction to these attacks. I find it possible that Changez was not happy that America was attacked, but moreso happy that its result was to reveal that as a country America is not invincible, just like the rest.
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