We Are Not a Mirage

Almanac of the Dead and Bedwin Hacker espouse similar manifestos in the sense that both seem to be screaming at the Western world, "There are others out there, we are here, and we demand to be respected."

Indeed in Bedwin Hacker, Kalt makes fools of France and other Western countries with the success and ubiquity of her hacking messages on Western television stations. A Tunisian woman, Kalt exudes an aura of power and control: her hacking skills are unparalleled, as even the French police organization cannot track her down; she is unable to be tricked or double-crossed, as she catches Chams when he attempts to access files on her computer while she is gone; she is in complete sexual control over Chams, and she intimidates him into being submissive and filling the traditionally female gender role. Her friend group in Tunisia is atypical of Tunisians in general, liberationists who smoke and drink and dance together, but we are made quite aware of the presence of people like these in Third World, Muslim countries.

In a world where the Third World has no voice at all, Bedwin Hacker stands up to the First World and proclaims, "In the third millennium there are other epochs, other places, other lives. We are not a mirage."

In a similar manner, Silko writes a novel that defies the traditional style of Western fiction literature. Almanac comes under criticism for being "naive to the point of silliness" in its depiction of class struggle, the oppressed simply being able to rise up and take back what is theirs (Irr 223); these criticisms, however, come from western theorists, who fail to recognize that there are other ways to write a novel. Silko employs a radically different temporal view of the universe and, through this temporal confusion, creates a novel in which the reader is also spatially and socially confused. The disorientation from the traditional social practices and psychology in Almanac is meant to declare to the reader, and perhaps to the Western-dominated world, "we (Native Americans) are here, we are not a mirage." The temporal and social "style" of Alamanac alone, even in the absence of its more explicit themes and moral judgements against western culture, is a statement that the ways of the west do not dominate all - Native Americans, women, slaves, the oppressed all over the world, have a voice and will take back what is theirs.