Voices of the Other: Postcolonial Identity in Daud’s Response to Camus

Abstract

Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation acts as an intertextual response to Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe by exploring the colonial structures shaping identity and perpetuating the marginalization of “The Other.” This essay examines how Daoud’s use of identity illustrates the consequences of colonial violence and serves as a postcolonial critique. Despite Daoud’s insistence that he is not a postcolonial writer, the novel’s interrogation of colonial legacies and justice contributes to important discourse in postcolonial literature. This discourse extends into contemporary global politics and emphasizes the lasting impact of colonialism, including in contexts such as the Israel-Palestine conflict. This essay questions the extent to which an author controls the meaning of their work and whether postcolonial authors can break free from the influence of colonial narratives.

 

Introduction

The identity of ‘The Other’, as conceptualized by Edward Said, is formed by the false dichotomy of the East and the West, in which the West is in a position that enforces the value of its identity and perceived superiority through the control of the Other’s identity (Hadejia).  Without the East or the Other to provide contrast, there can be no perception of superiority of the West, thus the value of Western identity is intrinsically tied to the Other. 

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Kamel Daoud, the author of The Meursault Investigation, discussed in a lecture at Yale University in 2015 that literature has taught us that we can approach the Other by killing and burying them, as with Abel and his brother; we can convert them, as in Robinson Crusoe; or we can kill and erase them, like in The Stranger (Yale Lecture 3:44). Fascinated by this concept, Daoud’s original intention for The Meursault Investigation was to act as an intertext to Camus’ The Stranger and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to illustrate the different ways society approaches the Other. Daoud intended for the doubles and oppositions in his novel to act as agents in the intertext for The Stranger and Robinson Crusoe, however, there are many dualisms within the text that speak to the effects colonial structures have on identity, such as ideology and liberation and the legalities of murder.

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Daoud’s novel analyzes identity politics and the cyclical nature of violence towards the Other as a consequence of colonial society. He uses themes of identity in life and death to illustrate the cycles of oppression and liberation from colonial influence. It is crucial to understand the consequences of these cycles as the politics of modern colonialism are being played out in the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

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Identity in Life and Death

The effects of colonialism on identity are seen in the main character Harun’s perception of his own identity when his brother Musa is murdered by the Frenchman Meursault and only known as “the Arab”. The anonymity of Musa’s death causes Harun’s own identity to be eclipsed in an effort to keep his brother’s identity alive. Although Musa would be considered a martyr amongst his people, his body was not recovered and his name was not linked with his murder’s crime, preventing his death from being recognized and his identity from being honored.

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Withholding the identity and body of the deceased is not an uncommon practice of the West as an effort to stem the consequences of creating a martyr and calls to memory the Algerian protest in Paris in 1961. On October 17th in 1961, French police massacred more than 100 Algerian protestors, with historians estimating the total dead to be somewhere between 200-300. The total count is not able to be determined due to the police throwing the bodies or the injured and dying into the river Seine. Daoud mirrors this identity violence in the novel with Musa’s body, which is believed to be lost to the sea. Harun, in his frustration, claims “Nothing was left of Musa, not even a corpse!” (Daoud 13) and the absence of Musa’s body symbolizing countless lives of Others lost to colonial forces that obscure their deaths to gain control. 

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Harun considers Musa a martyr who has been robbed of his martyrdom and his quest for justice leads him to sacrifice his own identity in the process, with the duality of identity in death and obscurity in life leaving the reader to question whether true justice is possible for either brother. Musa’s identity is threatened with obscurity, just as his brother’s is, because the colonial society they exist in is not built to value their identity over the identity of their colonizers. 

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Daoud discussed his thoughts on names and identity in an interview with The Los Angeles Review of Books interview, stating “Ever since the Middle Ages, the white man has had the habit of naming Africa and Asia’s mountains and insects, all the while denying the names of the human beings they encounter. By removing their names, they render banal murder and crimes. By claiming your own name, you are also making a claim of your humanity and thus the right to justice.” (Zaretsky) Daoud’s understanding of the effects of naming subjugation is frequently reflected in Harun’s diatribe to the Interlocutor, stating early in the novel “My brother’s name was Musa. He had a name. But he’ll remain ‘’the Arab’’ forever, the last on the list, excluded from the inventory that Crusoe or yours made. Strange, isn’t it? For centuries, the settler increases his fortune, giving names to whatever he appropriates and taking them away from whatever makes him feel uncomfortable. If he calls my brother ‘’the Arab’’, it’s so he can kill him the way one kills time” (Daoud 13). Here we can see intertextual elements coming through for Robinson Crusoe, but in this case, it is not possible to convert the identity of the Other. 

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Daoud controls the narrative of The Meursault Investigation through pointed consideration of names and when they are used, with the meaning behind the character’s names playing a large part in the character’s identities. For example, in the Quran, Musa is the name of a prophet, and Harun is Musa’s brother, also known as Moses and Aaron in the Bible. Harun alludes to the story of Musa/Moses early in the novel, claiming that the river carried Musa to the sea “which he had to cross on foot, alone, without his people, without a magic staff.” (Daoud 4) In both religious texts, Musa/Moses stutters and Harun/Aaron must speak for him (Sánchez). Similarly, in the Meursault Investigation we see Harun speaking for Musa, but after his death as a way to prevent his identity from slipping into the obscurity of the Other murdered by colonial occupation. 

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Without Harun to speak for him, Musa’s identity would be lost. As a result, Harun is always more insistent in naming Musa than himself, which reflects the internal hierarchy he places on their respective identities. In contrast with the rambling, cynical, almost flippant way he addresses the interlocutor in other dialogue, Harun demands for Musa’s name to be heard, stating “Musa, Musa, Musa … I like to repeat his name from time to time so it doesn't disappear. I insist on that, and I want you to write it in big letters.” (Daoud 13) And in fact he does repeat his name from time to time: Musa’s name is used 146 times in The Meursault Investigation, while brother is used 90 times and ‘myself’ is only used 52 times. Daoud use of word counts is another way to illustrate the loss of Harun’s identity in an effort to claim justice for his brother’s murder. Daoud has Harun claim that he counted how many times ‘Arab’ showed up in The Stranger (Daoud 130). This point in the text lets us know that Daoud is cognizant of the power of naming frequency.

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To understand the weight of Musa’s identity it’s important to consider that Harun does not even name himself until the tenth chapter when he claims Musa’s corpse is no longer at his back after murdering a Frenchman named Joseph (Daoud 105). This moment shows his liberation from his brother’s identity and his ability to regain autonomy over his own identity, claiming his own name. It also illustrates the cyclical violence that occurs in colonized societies, where it is nearly impossible to attain self-identity without violence or death. 

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In the novel, Harun’s tone when discussing Musa’s name is always in earnest because he understands that colonial violence takes more than life, it takes identity. His brother’s murder took more than one life by failing to name him because without Musa’s body or identity his family cannot be compensated for his death. Harun and his mother set aside their lives to pursue justice for Musa while his mother imposes Musa’s identity onto Harun, causing Harun’s metaphorical death. His mother imposes Musa’s identity in many ways through what Harun calls his “duty of reincarnation” such as wearing Musa’s clothing, refraining from risky activities and never venturing far from his mother (Daoud 41). Although Harun understands that his mother’s investigation is her way of coping with grief, it does not change his own grief in having a “ghost’s childhood” (Daoud 46). Without a person to hold accountable for Musa’s death, Harun’s mother also instills a fear of the ocean into him, teaching him to fear the slightest pull of the water even as an adult walking down the beach (Daoud 41).

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Harun recalls following his mother during her investigation, culminating in a trip to confront the only known witness of Musa’s murder, the sea: "I stood behind her, a child facing the immensity of both the crime and the horizon.” (Daoud 45). The word choice of ‘horizon’ invokes a sense of endless possibilities in Harun’s unknown future, contrasted by the sea, “the thief of Arabs” which acts to obscure the truth of Musa’s death (Daoud 45). The duality of horizon/sea and future/murder is representative of the hegemony between the East and West, as well as the West’s power to obscure identity. This passage marks when Harun becomes embroiled in his brother’s, the Other’s, death instead of moving forward into the future. 

 

Ouroboros and The Other

Harun employs the symbol of Ouroboros, the eternal circular snake, as a representation of the Other liberated from colonizers but not from their oppression. When discussing Algerians following their liberation, Harun observes “These people need something bigger as a counterweight to the abyss. My mother used to call that ‘the endless serpent,’ and I think it’ll lead us all to premature death, or to someplace on the edges of the earth where we can topple over into the void.” (Daoud 98) Ouroboros has more than one cultural interpretation but is most commonly used to symbolize the cycle of death, life and rebirth. As readers we must consider the implications of Daoud using this symbology in this particular moment, even if Harun is using it negatively. Harun speaks of his countrymen “devouring the incredible country given back to them” but he does not see that with the Ouroboros to experience rebirth, there must first be death. The Ouroboros, the Other, the Algerians are consuming relics of their colonization as part of this cycle, but the influence of their colonizers runs so deep that they must consume themselves and become reborn to be truly liberated.

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Ouroboros is also an apt metaphor for the structure of the book’s narration. Although the non-linear story can appear to be chaotic, Harun is working the reader into a cyclical argument where concepts and motifs are revisited throughout the novel, with each revisit revealing more information. As the reader consumes more of the narrative, more is revealed to them, creating new meaning within the text and as intertextuality with The Stranger and Robinson Crouseo, circling back to the main theme of the novel. 

The cyclical narration is done with the main story arc, Musa’s murder and his mother’s investigation that followed, with each revisit revealing more about their mother in the aftermath of the crime instead of more about the actual crime. Using this technique illustrates the pervasive nature of colonial violence on identity and how it falls on the Other to hold their oppressors accountable for actions done against them, often with no resolution or justice. Harun’s relationship with his mother is framed in a way to act in opposition to Camus’ character Meursault and his mother, but we also see that her framing as a living martyr has a large impact on Harun’s identity by her imposing Musa’s identity on Harun with every revisit. 

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The setting of the novel is in Oran, a major coastal city in Algiers, and the sea is another recurring motif that is frequently used to symbolize colonizing forces. In the first chapter, Harun anthropomorphizes the city of Oran as a prostitute with her legs spread to the ocean, ready to be inseminated by the French General Letang, in 1847 (Daoud 13). Later, in Chapter 2 he says one of the reasons he likes Oran is that the sea is “down there, far away, crushed underfoot by the harbor. It won’t take anyone away from me and can never reach me.” (Daoud 22). Here Harun is hinting at a concept of the sea as a thief, something he further develops in Chapter 4. In Chapter 4, as discussed previously, Harun sees the sea as a player in Musa’s death and uses the sea and horizon to illustrate the dichotomy of East and West. 

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The circular narration is also used with Meriem, the only woman Harun has ever been able to love. Harun loves Meriem because of what she represents as she acts as a guide on his own hero’s journey to rid himself of the burden of his brother’s identity. She is initially introduced in Chapter 7 as his only relationship, then not mentioned again until after Harun gets to the point in his story that he has murdered Joseph. During his conversations with the Interlocutor, Harun reveals that Meriem had a great amount of influence in his life through love and language. 

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As with Harun and Musa, Meriem’s name also has biblical origins: Miriam is Moses and Aaron’s sister and not only acts to save Moses but also helps to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Similar to her biblical counterpart, Meriem aids Harun in his investigation of Musa’s murder, which is symbolic of acting to save his identity. Harun explains that “she helped more than anyone to perfect my knowledge of your hero’s tongue, and she was the cause of my discovering and reading and rereading the book you carry around… The two of us used language like a magnifying glass as we went over the scene of the crime together” (Daoud 89) The narration of their time together shows that Meriem is also closely tied to Harun’s use of the French language. 

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The conflicting forces of language are another recurring theme in the novel, evident from the first page of the text. In the beginning, Harun claims that he needed to learn French so he could speak in place of his dead brother but would never produce a story as well written as The Stranger because Camus had the privilege of writing in his own language (Daoud 1). Harun’s struggle reflects the struggle of many post-colonial authors needing to write in their colonizer’s language in order to be seen. 

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Harun compares the duality of language and identity in colonial society to being an alcoholic he's trying to show as you try to master language it ends up owning you: “You drink a language, you speak a language and one day it owns you.” (Daoud) Here we see Harun’s acknowledgment of the colonial structures that are obscuring Musa’s identity through something as fundamental as language and how it is used. This additional consideration of linguistic ownership creates an awareness in the reader to first consider the structures imposed on the identity that was taken before considering the bullet that took it.

 

Justice and Murder

The duality of justice and murder is arguably the foundation of the novel and the murders in The Meursault Investigation and The Stranger together are representative of the cycles of violence caused by colonial oppression. In The Meursault Investigation, Harun claims he is seeking “The justice that comes when the scales are balanced, not the justice in court” (Daoud 6). Here Daoud illustrates the separation between the East and the West by calling out the imbalance of power and addressing the constraints of justice for the East within Western power structures. The imbalance comes full circle when Harun murders Joseph and is not persecuted for the act of killing, simply the circumstances in which he killed. By mirroring the murder in The Stranger, Daoud shows that it is the governing power that has the ability to determine which deaths are legal but not which are just.

 

Harun views Joseph's death as both a crime and liberation; it's an act that both condemns him and sets him free of his brother’s identity. He grapples with his lack of punishment and even finds a sense of peace within his cell, with the passage in the text symbolizing the liminal space between crime and justice (Daoud 106). 

 

Conclusion

Despite being widely well received, there is much academic discourse on the strength of Daoud’s postcolonial critique of Camus’ The Stranger in his debut novel The Meursault Investigation, particularly by Algerian and Middle-eastern scholars (Brozgal) (Lekert) (Raza) (Tegaoua). According to Daoud, he is not a post-colonial writer, and he only intended for the novel to continue a conversation Camus and Defoe had begun. Daoud’s intentions could possibly account for the perceived shortcomings of The Meursault Investigation; however, I believe that whether Daoud truly intended for the novel to be a post-colonial criticism, his use of symbols of duality within the text illustrate the internal and external cycles of violence inflicted on “others” in colonial societies. 

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Daoud has also received criticism and threats in response to his novel, in part due to the anti-islamism sentiment expressed by the main character Harun. Daoud’s journalism career has made it known that this is a sentiment Daoud shares, although he maintains the distinction between Islam and Islamism ideology. In a book tour interview on French talk show “On n’est pas Couché”, Daoud upheld his belief that “that religious orthodoxy had become an obstacle to progress in the Muslim world.” (Shatz) Although the interview was aired in France, Daoud’s beliefs caused considerable trouble for him back in his home country. Abdelfattah Hamadache, a radical Islamist preacher and politician, took to Facebook to name Daoud an apostate and Zionized criminal, appealing to the state for his public execution (Shatz). The incident became known as Hamadache’s “Facebook fatwa”, provoking public outcry for which the Algerian state at large declined to respond (Shatz). 

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Despite Daoud’s lack of intention for The Meursault Investigation to be a post-colonial criticism of the stranger, its exploration of the cycles of oppression and liberation from colonial influence through identity politics show that it is indeed postcolonial literature. The novel’s reception raises the question to what extent does the writer have control over the meaning of the text, especially within a genre like postcolonial criticism that has expectations and political implications. The author’s autonomy and intention for their writing certainly counts for something, but in the case of post-colonial societies is it possible to create works that are not characterized by colonial structures? As readers it is our responsibility to look at what autonomy the author is afforded in the meaning of a text but also how colonial structures leave imprints long after liberation.

 

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