Impérialismes Alternatifs: Le cosmopolitisme dans Kamal Jann (2012) de Dominique Eddé

Abstract

Through the contemporary story of two Syrian brothers, whose tragic destinies lead one to death and the other to a mental institution, Edde’s 2012 novel is not only prophetic in foreseeing the decomposition of the Syrian regime, but it is also a compelling reflection on what cosmopolitanism means for Middle Easterners today. This article examines how the Jann brothers can be interpreted as the two flips of the same coin, called capitalist imperialism: a brilliant lawyer working in Manhattan, Kamal, the older one, is the perfect cosmopolitan, in the modern European sense of the term, while his brother, Mourad, has become a jihadist fundamentalist who is about to commit a terrorist attack in Paris. The novel deconstructs the modern ideal of cosmopolitanism, based on Kant’s philosophy, and fleshed out through postmodern and postcolonial discourses, while suggesting that globalization has, in fact, not produced a new cosmos but rather that it renews colonial divisions in new ways: on the one hand, there are ‘recyclable men’ (like Kamal, the useful – or, in the capitalist rhetoric, ‘successful’ – Arab), and on the other hand, there are ‘disposable men’ (like Mourad, who wants to destroy his life himself), who, after having been exploited and then rejected by the system become ‘perishable’ tools for the advance of a competing cosmopolitanism (as another form of imperialism), grounded in the Islamic fundamentalist ideology and made possible by global capitalism.