en, and as persecuted and oppressed by a country he has never left.
It is both useful and interesting to note how Kureishi frames the various aspects of this. Parvez is immediately introduced to us as a father, but is also identified as a taxi driver, and as one of many Punjabis working at the same cab company. The order in which Kureishi reveals the aspects of Parvez’s life are in order of their significance to the narrative. Parvez the father is the protagonist of the piece, it is his friends in the taxi world that advise him on his course of actions (much of which takes place in the cab itself), and finally it is Parvez’s Punjabi heritage which not only leads Ali to Islam, but also creates the conflict between father and son in Parvez’s failure to strictly adhere to the religion of his homeland. It is worth noting that, until Ali is discovered to be praying, there is no mention of Islam at all – until this point, this story follows a familiar father and son relationship. By leaving any mention of Islam until the audience is introduced with the characters, Kureishi is aiming to establish his characters as familiar and relatable before introducing the less familiar and more alien in Islam.
Although published in 1994, “My Son the Fanatic” provides an interesting analogy when considered in relation to the events of July 7, 2005. Parvez’s violence towards his son at the conclusion of the story is analogous of the violence of the terrorist attacks on the London Underground, and is testimony to the potentially disastrous consequences of society’s failure to understand the beliefs and attitudes of other people.[4] The bombings on the London Underground were orchestrated by four British men of Pakistani parentage (like Ali in the story), all were unknown to intelligence agencies, and were involved in cricket clubs, football clubs, local council and local primary schools. The similarities between these four men and Ali are too great to ignore, and while we do...