Cultural Critique of Fictive Ethnicity and Human Rights Exclusion in Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building

Abstract

The current study postulates cultural critique of fictive ethnicity, politics of representation and violation of human rights propounded by Balibar, Hall and Nayar in Egyptian national literature. The rationale to select Hall’s notion of Cultural Studies and Nayar’s Human Rights discourse is that both the theoretical standpoints complement each other as they have shared perspective on the notion of identity, being fluid not fixed, representation of the others, and cultural mobility. Moreover, cultural studies and human rights discourse share perception regarding politics of representation by the ruling elites which maneuvers the status of the others, mitigate their significance for the society and exclude them from their rightful positions under the notion of fictive ethnicity or univocal and homogenous ethnicity. Etienne Balibar’s notion of fictive ethnicity generates imaginary univocal identity of a nation-state through national narratives based on particular historical events, heroes and purported collective linguistic, ethnic, cultural and religious markers. Therefore, the present study demolishes the myth of monolithic fictive ethnicity as the researchers find its counterpart in Stuart Hall’s standpoint on identity of individuals which is not univocal but is based on the difference with the other. The aftermath of the myth of monolithic ethnicity is the supremacy of the elite at the cost of exclusion and sufferings of the others on which Pramod K. Nayar’s study of human rights is utilised to arise collective consciousness to the ethical dimension of the rights of people. Keeping in view the mechanism of rights, the emotions of empathy, denial and resentment lead to activism to regain dignity, identity and selfhood. With the help of Balibar, Hall and Nayar’s points of reference, an Egyptian author’s Alaa Al Aswany’s fictional work titled The Yacoubian Building is analysed and discussed. The selected text challenges the notion of univocal and monolithic national unity in their nation state and expose cracks in national narrative by highlighting gender-based discrimination, class based economic inequality, exploitation of religious minorities and suppression of regional voices and identities.