De-selving and Re-selving the Refugee Identity

The conjunctive relationship between time and space in the representation of a refugee identity is the nucleus of Nadia Hashimi’s When the Moon Is Low. It is this very process of identity renegotiation and reconstruction that Hashimi portrays most prominently through the protagonist and narrator Fereiba Waziri, an Afghan woman refugee. Through the representation of Fereiba’s multiple identities, Hashimi portrays a kaleidoscopic and complex refugee identity shaped and defined across the constructs of time and space - starting in Kabul and ending on the English Channel. Not only do such spatial constructs capture the expansive movement characteristic of refugeeism, but they also span across the time periods of Fereiba’s life, from childhood to adolescence then adulthood, from wifedom to motherhood then widowhood - accounting for the abstract spaces encompassing mental and emotional shifts through which she traverses.

In reading Hashimi’s characterizing of Fereiba, it is important to note that to define the refugee woman identity is to define an identity full of consequences (Hajdukowski-Ahmed 14). This is because such an identity is too multifaceted to be bound by the limitations of a singular definition. One could liken this to the movement that characterizes refugeeism: insofar as refugees journey through diverse terrains, undergo ever-changing emotional spaces, and carry the baggage of their past while moving forward to an uncertain future, so their identities are constantly redefined.

In Not Born a Refugee Woman, wherein Hajdukowski-Ahmed et al. rethink the refugee women identity, the notion of a malleable identity is theorized in the observation that “[i]n the process of their identity transformation, refugee women confront forces of ‘de-selving’ which enter a dialogical relationship with experiences of ‘re-selving’” (37). This seems to be encapsulated in Fereiba’s character in When the Moon Is Low.

The ‘forces’ these women confront are time and space, and the precarious relationship between the two. Time in the novel is not so much about years or moments passing, but rather defining periods of past, present and future anxieties that mould Fereiba’s de- and re-selving. What’s more, ‘space’, in the context of this discussion, should be differentiated from ‘place’. While ‘place’ implies a physical location, ‘space’ entails the mental and emotional rollercoaster Fereiba endures on her journey from Kabul to London. In this discussion I aim to comprehend and canvass the ‘de-selving’ and ‘re-selving’ of Fereiba’s identity as an illegal immigrant fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion, as a widowed mother of three children.

De-Selving and Re-Selving Daughterhood

Readers meet Fereiba as a young girl growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan. This is where most of her childhood and adolescence take place – a traditional, superstitious, and fanatically religious space ruled by the Taliban that readers experience through Fereiba’s precarious relationship with mothers. Refugeeism was forced upon Fereiba’s identity from birth since Fereiba’s “fate was sealed in blood on the day of [her] birth. As [she] struggled to enter this twisted world, [her] mother resigned it, taking with her [Fereiba’s] chances of being a true daughter” (7). This, together with the fact that Fereiba’s father “told [her] himself that it was three days before he could bring himself to hold the daughter who had taken his wife” (7), positions Fereiba as a ‘refugee’ even in her own family and home – unbelonging and motherless. Hajdukowski-Ahmed et al., claim that refugees are “shackled with the ‘de-selving’ dis prefix or less suffix” (38); Fereiba is ‘de-selved’ by entering this world motherless.

When Fereiba’s father remarried KokoGul, a woman who “decided quickly not to live in [Fereiba’s mother’s] shadow” (11), Fereiba’s identity was further de-selved. KokoGul never accepted Fereiba as her daughter. Fereiba instead “lived [her] life as KokoGul’s stepdaughter, aware with each breath that [she] was not [her own child]. [She] was inherited, an outsider in [her] father’s home.” (48). Thus, Fereiba’s childhood is marked by ‘de-selving’ since she admits that “being without a mother is like being stripped naked and thrown into the snow” (12). This imagery paints an image of Fereiba, vulnerable in being ‘stripped naked’ of an identity of true belonging and daughterhood – ‘thrown into the snow’ of motherless-ness and de-selving.

Despite this, insofar as ‘re-selving’ creates a space in which “refugee women reclaim their self and agency” (Hajdukowski-Ahmed et al. 40), Fereiba reclaims her ‘self’ and agency as a daughter when she meets Khanum Zeba who once dreamt of Fereiba as her son’s future wife. In asking KokoGul’s permission for her son to have Fereiba’s hand in marriage, Khanum Zeba expressed Fereiba as “everything [she] want[s] for [her] son…she was meant for [their] family.” (86) Because of this, Fereiba is “emboldened” (86) with a sense of belonging. Consequently, Fereiba pursues studies to become a teacher – a pursuit encouraged by Khanum Zeba (88), as well as marries Mahmood in 1979. What this time and space shows is that, in finding belonging as the daughter-in-law to a woman who was “the first woman to treat [her] like a true daughter” (94), Fereiba’s daughterhood is ‘re-selved’.

De-Selving and Re-Selving Wifedom

Fereiba’s period of ‘re-selving’ is furthered in her marriage with Mahmood. The representation of Fereiba as a wife marks her transition from young girl to woman. This is revealed when Fereiba notices a change in her wardrobe: “[i]n [her] father’s home, [she’d] dressed more like a girl – jeans, calf-length skirts, and collared T-shirts. In [her] new home, [she] dressed more like a woman – pencil skirts, ruffled blouses, buckled pumps, and always a shoulder bag” (90). This serves as a metaphor for her transition from childhood and adolescence to womanhood and wifedom. This can be largely accredited to the freedom and agency she experiences in her marriage and life with Mahmood: Fereiba “had [her] own household and was free to decide how [her] salary would be spent” (90). Despite Fereiba and Mahmood living in a time and a place of “suffer[ing] immeasurable losses in the tug of war between the Soviet Union and the mujahideen, Afghanistan’s freedom fights” (90), the two found themselves in a space of “[having] each other to smile about in those days” (90).

The turmoil and extremism of the place in which Fereiba lives, however, begins seeping into the peaceful space in which Fereiba had created her life – her marriage, and her home. This is marked by the time period 1989 when Soviet troops retreated from Afghanistan, and “things worsened in Kabul” (91). Both Fereiba and Mahmood thus find themselves in an emotional space “desperate for peace to return to Afghanistan” (91): Mahmood became “bitter and taciturn” (94), and Fereiba felt “like [she] was suffocating” (95) each time she thought of the future. When Taliban soldiers assassinate Mahmood, Fereiba’s identity is dramatically ‘de-selved’ from wife to widow. According to Hajdukowski-Ahmed et al., “[f]rom the moment they are forcibly uprooted from their familiar environment, refugee women are situated within a constant process of ‘de-selving’, of deprivation of their agency in various forms” (38). What this implies is that Fereiba is deprived of her agency when her husband is taken from her; the identity of widowhood is forced upon her, and the consequences of such is that she and her children become “a home without a patriarch, the type of creature Kabul’s beasts devoured on sight…[she] realized just how isolated [they] were without a man in the home” (108). This predator-and-prey imagery ultimately forces Fereiba to admit that she “had to get [her] family out of Kabul” (113). This marks Fereiba’s uprooting and her journey as a refugee.

De-Selving and Re-Selving Motherhood

As Fereiba and her children move from Afghanistan to Iran, the feeling of being dislocated, dispossessed, and disoriented, suggest a further process of ‘de-selving’ and identity refugeeism. When Fereiba and her three children begin their refugee journey, she observes that “[t]hough Iran had the same colours and smells of Afghanistan, it felt foreign and strange. [They] were far from home” (125). In fact, “[w]ithin a month, [Fereiba] planned [their] route to Turkey” (127) since “Iran was never in the plan Mahmood and [Fereiba] had devised” (127) – furthering this notion of movement and uprooting.

In grappling with the refugee identity imposed on her by the consequences of her country’s turmoil, Fereiba could not neglect the other facets to her identity – one being the identity of motherhood. Essentially, Fereiba was “leading [her] children into an unknown world, and whatever happened to [them], was [her] responsibility” (128). What this suggests is that, while traversing the landscapes from Kabul, through Iran and into Turkey, the complexity of Fereiba’s identity representations is consequently highlighted: Fereiba is forced to cope with widowhood; she is forced to embrace the responsibilities of motherhood – caring for her three children amidst chaos and uncertainty; refugeeism is forced on her as she flees her home and country. Thus, Fereiba navigates the foreignness of physical places, the rollercoaster of emotional and mental spaces, and the challenge of grappling with the widowhood, motherhood and refugee representations of her identity.

Despite Fereiba’s identity being ‘de-selved’ by widowhood and refugeeism being forced on her, a process of ‘re-selving’ occurs “during the last leg of [her] journey, from Paris to London” (278). Even her separation from her eldest son, Saleem, before their departure to London, proves significant to the plot: the ambiguous ending of not knowing whether or not mother and son will be reunited proves the ongoing changing, malleable and moulding of identity. Insofar as the novel’s ending is ambiguous and open to interpretation, so the representations of Fereiba’s identity are neither determined nor static. This is also largely owing to Fereiba’s embracing of all the representation of identities she has experienced as a refugee – including those that have been forced on her. Readers can deduce this from Fereiba’s observation that: “Maybe this is how it is meant to be. A wife without a husband. Children without a father. Perhaps incomplete is the very definition of a normal family.” (221).

What this passage reveals is that refugee women, like Fereiba, grasp new conditions as a chance for liberation and self-affirmation as they travel across the world. Fereiba grasped conditions of being motherless, escaping a crumbling Kabul, facing widowhood, and of becoming a refugee with three children, as a chance for liberation and self-affirmation as she “dragged [her]…children along with [her] from rail to rail, from country to country” (277) — from Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France to England. Such ‘liberation’ is evident in Fereiba’s hope that “[s]omewhere in the world, there must be place where [they] will be welcomed as a long-lost sister” (223), while such ‘self-affirmation’ is seen in Fereiba’s belief that she deserves “a life that won’t crumble between [her] fingers” (279).

Conclusion

In analysing the ‘de-selving’ and ‘re-selving’ of Fereiba’s experience as a daughter, wife, widow, and mother, it was shown that, because of the variety of settings and severity of conditions it experiences along its trip, the ‘self’ of refugee women is moulded as a multifaceted and multi-layered structure in the making. The representation of Fereiba’s identities – namely, daughterhood, wifedom, widowhood, and refugeeism – were discussed in relation to the emotional spaces she inhabited as she journeyed from a past in Kabul, present moments in Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy and France, to an uncertain future in England. Hashimi hence uses time and space to discuss the kaleidoscopic and complex representation of Fereiba’s identities, to suggest a diverse and ever-changing process of ‘re-selving’ and ‘de-selving’

Hashimi, Nadia. When the Moon is Low. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.

Hajdukowski-Ahmed, Maroussia et al. Not Born a Refugee Woman. Berghahn Books, 2009, pp.1-57.