Colonization: The Spirit of the Age in Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love

Abstract

This article is a textual reading of Ahdaf Soueif's novel The Map of Love (1999) highlighting Egypt's history in the last 100 years, through mirroring intercultural love stories. It explores how she analyzes the Egyptian past, then compares it simultaneously to the status quo of Egypt in 1997. Souif re-examines the British colonization of Egypt and juxtaposes it with the modern prevailing force of neo-colonization in the post-emancipation period. The aim is to question the inevitability of West colonization over Egypt which has led to implementing hierarchal structure between the wise civilized West; self, and the illiterate uncivilized East; other. This article focuses more on the British colonization than on the Ottoman one, since the former had the upper hand over Egypt. The novel underlines how the colonial/neocolonial hegemony was, and is still, maintained by using the same tactics, namely, by imposing force, the theory of efficiency, perpetuating sectarianism, and controlling education in Egypt. Hence, as the novel explicates, Egyptians suffer in the present from the same problems encountered under British mandate. Moreover, Egyptians struggle with the American domination which intends to control Egypt's natural resources and support and secure “Israel”. Nonetheless, Soueif introduces a third hybrid globalized space created by the respect and understanding of the intercultural meeting between the West and the East.

The love stories between the main characters are not a mere romance, but a means of achieving a unity of conscience; this unity breaks the inevitability of colonization and deconstructs the binary oppositions and stereotypes of West and East. Mezzaterra reconciles the similarities and differences between the past and present Egyptian society, i.e. differance. Consequently, a mezzaterra state of understanding is created connecting the past and present at the backdrop of historical events. Soueif's mezzaterra aims at paving the way for a hope of living in a common ground for all humanity.