So much has been written on diasporas identity, hyphenation, displacement, in-betweenness, and so on.

However, one very sensitive issue has been largely neglected: that of diasporas loyalties. That neglect has in part been due to the social and political sensitivity of the issue, as well as to difficulties in obtaining detailed information and data. Politicians have neither encouraged examination of issues nor provided the information that would be needed for such an examination. However, the rapid increase in immigration over the past 30 years has caused some scholars and leaders to questions both political loyalty and political adaptability of these new immigrants. Many writers, whether creative or intellectual, started to explore the subject and instead of using the term directly, these writers use euphemisms such as pluralism or multiculturalism which have been seen to breed double consciousness loyalty to more than one country. The multicultural/assimilation literature is often about the problem of dual loyalty. Before going further in this exploration, it is better to start with the definitions of the terms loyalty and dual. The Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition defines loyalty as allegiance to the sovereign or established government of ones country and also personal devotion and reverence to the sovereign and royal family (80). It traces the word loyalty to the 15th century, noting that then it primarily referred to fidelity in service, in love, or to an oath that one has made. Shklar sees loyalty to be an attachment to a social group (184). Josiah Royce in his 1908 book The Philosophy of Loyalty presented another definition of the concept. According to Royce, loyalty is the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause (51). The cause mentioned in the definition may encompass principles, ideas, ideals, religions, ideologies, nations, governments, parties, leaders, families, friends, regions, racial groups, and indeed, to quote The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, anyone or anything to which ones heart can become attached or devoted (108). Stephen Nathanson states that loyalty can be either single or multiple (107). People may have a single loyalty to just one person, group, or thing, or multiple loyalties to multiple objects. Multiple loyalties can constitute a disloyalty to an object if one of those loyalties is exclusionary, excluding one of the others. However, Nathanson observes, this is a special case. In the general case, the existence of multiple loyalties does not cause a disloyalty. One can, for example, be loyal to ones friends, or ones family, and still, without contradiction, be loyal to ones religion, or profession. Nathansons notion of multiple loyalties can be further explained with reference to immigrants who find themselves divided between two identities, two countries and two loyalties. In other words, the identities of diaspora individuals and communities can neither be placed only in relation to some homeland to which they all long to return nor to that country alone where they settle down in. They, by all means, face the crisis of hybrid or dual identity, which makes their existence all the more difficult. Immigrants dual loyalties have given birth to hyphenated identities. In fact, dual loyalty can be used to refer to the common emotional experience of being pulled in two different directions (Baron 1025). It, therefore, involves simultaneous obligations, express or implied, to two parties. A person with such an experience is said to have justifiable yet opposing political commitments or allegiances (Baron 1030). Any person or group could face competing loyalties that will cross class, religious, ethnic, familial, political and gender lines. The underlying

experience of holding competing and potentially contradictory loyalties is an experience many people have in their personal and professional lives and has a history that goes beyond the modern invention of immigration and citizenship. In medieval political thought dual loyalty was a problem, but it was also accepted as a basic feature of the body/soul duality that characterizes human life. The Christian injunction render unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is Gods is an early indication of the variations of the dual loyalty problem. However, as a modern political problem dual loyalty is not about the body/soul or Caesar/God division but about potential challenges to state authority and it is this aspect that the paper is primarily concerned with exploring. In this sense immigrants dual loyalties can be defined as competing or conflicting political allegiances between two states (Baron 1025). Throughout the first half of the twentieth century and well in the 1960s, there continued to be a widely held opinion that dual loyalty was an undesirable phenomenon detrimental to both the friendly relations between nations and the wellbeing of the individuals concerned. Not surprisingly, then, this period saw a number of attempts to root out the occurrence of dual loyalties by means of multilateral codification of the law on the subject. Yet this resistance has undergone considerable change in the later years of the twentieth century and the move into the twenty-first century. In todays world, dual citizenship/loyalty is increasingly common, despite a global legal order nominally hostile to such a status. The reality of the dual citizenship and by extension dual loyalties is the result of many factors, but it is most commonly understood as a result of globalization. This historical outline shows that while loyalty and allegiance were central to legal understanding of the citizenship, the development in international law of nationality has been from more rigid to more flexible forms; and this development has occurred in response to the changing structure of the international political economy. Generally speaking, diasporas demonstrate ambiguous, dual, or divided loyalties to their host countries and homelands. Of the three, the most common is dual loyalty that consists in a collective state of mind such that diasporans feel they owe allegiance to both host country and homeland (Sheffer 226). They do not see a substantial contradiction between their two loyalties. Thus, they accept and comply with the general social, political and economic norms and regulations of their host countries. At the same time, they feel affinity for and maintain contacts with their families and other groups in their homelands and are willing to promote their homelands interests in host countries and elsewhere. Although in their host countries they may face disparagement, false accusations, discrimination, and persecution, core activists in such diaspora communities are prepared to cope with these attitudes. As long as relations between their homelands and host countries are friendly, or at least cordial, most diasporans will not face major difficulties in determining the balance between their loyalties and maintaining the patterns of loyalties they have forged. That will not be the case, however, if disagreements arise between host countries and homelands. The present paper is an attempt to examine the impact of hyphenated identity on promoting dual or divided loyalties as well as the relationship between hyphen and loyalty. The significance of this study comes from two facts: first it adds new dimensions to Arab American literary body and second, dual loyalty is a concept that 2

emerges in a variety of literatures, including those dealing with diasporas, multiculturalism, immigration, political obligation and foreign policy, and finally, the concept of dual loyalty is itself significant since it directly relates to the political foundations of the modern state and citizenship, and to the way in which identity is often understood to function both inside and between states. As such, this exploration may bring insight into the normative assumptions that exist in relevant identity politics. Above all, it casts the light on an outstanding rubric in the body of the contemporary Arab American identity as typically represented in Dallals novel Scattered Like Seeds. Dallal in his debut novel attempts to give the reader a true portrayal of the Arabs living in America where they are perceived as terrorists and enemies. They are always accused of loyalty to their natives and of raising money for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. He shows how Arabs often struggle with loyalties that are divided between their adopted country and native land. On the one hand, they feel the need to defend their cultures, nations of origin, and religion from hostile media and political affronts in the United States. And, on the other, they are committed to their new home of which they feel part and parcel and therefore worthy of their allegiance and protection. The novel tells the story of Thafer, an Arab American, who has been uprooted by Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948. The story opens in 1967. Thafer and his American wife, Mary Pat, are discussing the full-scale war in the Middle East. The war forces him to remember his own history as a victim of Israeli aggression. It triggers flashbacks of his boyhood in Jerusalem during 1938, when the British troops search his family home. Why do they want to search our house, Mama? he asks. They want to give our country to the Jews, (4) she answers. It is also through these flashbacks that Thafers early life is revealed. Thafer Allam was born in Jerusalem. He is the son of a celebrated Palestinian resistance fighter who fought the British occupation of Palestine during the period between 1936 and 1939. In 1949, when he was 14, Thafer leaves the war-torn Jerusalem for the safety of Kuwait. Two years later, with the help of an American priest, he moves to the U.S. and attends Cornell University at Ithaca. Before graduation, he marries Mary Pat, an Irish-American woman with a baby daughter. During their marriage they have three children Andrew, Katherine and Seanin addition to Colleen, Thafers stepdaughter. In 1967, the year in which the novel opens, he is a successful lawyer with a degree in nuclear physics. In America, Thafer, as Salaita says, is introverted about his familys past, and, like nearly all Arab immigrants of the fifties and sixties, works to make sure his family has a life free of conflict in the United States by downplaying revolutionary attitudes and assimilating into American life (Salaita). With the outbreak of the 1967 war, Thafer undergoes a catharsis (Salaita). He becomes aware to the realities taking place in the Middle East. In other words, Thafer has been able to suppress his attachment to Palestine for twenty years. Now, surely because of the war, his allegiance to the other side of the hyphen surfaces and therefore, he starts contemplating going back to his motherland. In fact, Dallals choice of 1967 war to highlight Thafers awareness is salient. This is the year generally cited by historians as the point when Arab Americans abandoned their assimilationist attitudes and took various forms of political action. Thafer, like many Arab Americans, starts contemplating going back. Mary Pats death

and the Arab defeat bring past lossesloss of homeland, loss of family and loss of identity which are undercurrent themes in the novel to the surface. Following the death of his American wife, he is offered a position in Kuwait as chief counsel to the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC). He accepts the offered job hoping to light a few fires of hope for his people (37). Feeling guilty for leaving to America, he now wants to do something that might compensate to his guilty feelings. I want to give something of myself to the Arab people. I guess its to compensate for the feeling of guilt Ive had, rightly or wrongly, for leaving (Scattered 72). Such feeling of guilt is not exclusive to Thafer only. The LebaneseFrench writer, Amin Maalouf state in his book On Identity that people leave their countries because there are things they have rejectedrepression, insecurity, poverty, lack of opportunity. But this rejection is often accompanied by a sense of guilt (voices). This sense of guilt shows Thafers loyalty to his homeland. When Thafer arrived in the United States in 1951, he was a young man. He was confused about the kind of person he wanted to be. He was ashamed of his own people, who were defeated badly by the Israelis. After his marriage to Mary Pat, he began to have a burning desire to be an American (277). Despite these feelings, he also continued to feel guilty about having them (277). Thafer at his arrival internalizes the feeling of inferiority and sees his own people as unworthy of affiliating himself with. This yearning for being American is the main reason behind his disappearance for twenty years in the American society. Despite being part and parcel of the American society in which he has vanished for two decades and despite being impressed and engaged with his new life in America, he is still emotionally tied and misses the familiar sights and sounds of his Palestinian past. As an immigrant he is unable to uproot himself entirely from his origin and, therefore, he is caught by divided loyalties to his present home in America, and his former home in the Middle East. Thafer himself is astonished by his own feelings: Im also surprised and alarmed by my own feelings. I just hadnt realized that after living so many years in the United States, married to you and with four Yankee children, I would still have these passionate feelings about my homeland and my people (11). Thafers loyalty to his motherland was dormant. Indeed, the war rekindles those feelings inside him. This highlights one of the important facts that in time of war and competition between nations, demands for allegiance are heightened and suspicion of betrayal by those with lesser allegiance grows. This has been stated by Shain and Wittes as they state that among disaporic peoples divided loyalties can be sharp when the interests of the homeland they have lost conflict with those of their host state (Shain & Wittes, 2002). Thafers attachment to his motherland is seen in many places in the novel. During the six-day war of 1967, Thafer does not go to work. Instead, he confines himself to his home. He stays up nights listening to the news, hoping to hear something reassuring, but to no avail. Privately, he hopes and prays for an Arab victory (6). However, it is clear that Israel has the upper hand. The Arabs have suffered a stunningly quick defeat. Bitterly disappointed and emotionally exhausted, he watches the evening news on television the day after Israels victory while thousands of Jews stamp and swirl the hora on street corners in New York and in Washington. For Thafer, news of war brings first and foremost heartfelt worries for 4

his Arab people. He thinks of his mother and wonders where she is. He imagines her walking helplessly between the hills of his war-torn native country, thirsty and hungry under the blazing June sun. He imagines her drained and exhausted, clutching a few belongings in a sack or suitcase, trudging aimlessly with nowhere to go. This feeling grows as he is shocked by reports of Israel atrocities. Thafers allegiance to his motherland culminates in his decision to go back home. He sees the job offered by OAPEC as a chance to reattach with his origin. He understands that his journey back is not because of the job but of his desire to reattach with the land where his heart and soul belong (31-2). However, something inside him keeps telling him not to go back. He himself does not know why he wants to return. Why do I want to go to the Middle East? Its an almost irresistible impulse. Something keeps making me want to go. Something within me urges me to return to the Middle East not to visit, but to live there (34). He starts thinking of his career and children in America. He is torn between the two impulses. Harcourt in his foreword to the novel writes Shaw seems always to have been straddling two worlds, two worlds in an uneasy, perhaps irreconcilable, tension. His novel crackles with these two tensions. Writing it was not only a catharsis, but also a struggle to understand the fullest implications of his own lifes underlying contradictions; each revision gained in understanding of the human concerns that transcend partisan loyalties (xii-xiii). Thafers feelings represent the confusion that many Arab Americans experience when evaluating whether they should stay in America or return to their origin. This ambivalent nature of Arabs experience in America remains a constant preoccupation throughout Dallals novel. Thafer in the beginning of the novel can be pictured reflecting on his life in America, when suddenly, involuntarily, his thoughts shift back to past experience in Palestine. This is the phenomenon of here and there that Dallal regards as an inescapable part of the subject of his writing an almost Jungian predilection for thoughts and ideas welling up from one's racial or cultural subconscious and mixing freely with ones current thoughts. In Middle East, the novels tone, writes Salaita, changes considerably. The largely provincial scenes to which readers were first introduced are replaced by liberationist political discourse disclosed in lengthy dialogues (Salaita Scattered 48). There Thafer sees, to his astonishment, how Arabs, weather ordinary people or those in high governmental ranks, are obsessed with the idea of obtaining the nuclear bomb. Arabs, due to the massive aggression of Israel, think that only by obtaining the nuclear weapon they can get back their land and dignity. He also discovers the miserable life that his fellow Palestinians are leading in the refugee camps. Thafers tour in the refugee camps is the greatest shock of his journey. He is haunted by the sight of the blackened buildings, by the faces of the Palestinian women behind their thin veils as they walk with their children through the silent narrow streets littered with garbage. The stench makes him queasy. He starts reproaching himself for being so indurate. Its good for me, he tells himself. Ive lived in an affluent suburb in central New York. Ive become a callous American. Ive forgotten my roots. Now I know how my people live (49). He is uncomfortable with himself. He feels badly about seeming insensitive (49). Thafers journey, therefore, can be considered as a journey to the self in which he rediscovers himself. He starts to understand the depth of the suffering inflicted on his fellow Palestinians. This understanding turns him another man, a changed man. His journey reinforces his love and allegiance to his people and land. 5

However, his allegiance to his adopted country is not shaken. Thafer, in spite of his understanding that America is the sole enemy of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular, remains faithful to the oath he once took. Despite his understanding of Americas foreign policy in the Middle East, its support for Israel, its racist attitude towards Arabs, its hatred for and xenophobia of Arabs, his feelings of attachment and loyalty to it do not change. This fact has been noticed by his relatives in Beirut. Adnan, who just spent only one day with him, realizes that Thafer will never live in the Arab world. He tells Thafer youll never settle in the Middle East. Youre too attached to the United States (55). Thafer attempts to downplay his feeling telling that he is attached to both, to the land of my birth and of my ancestors, and to the United States, the land where my children were born (55). However, this declaration seems hollow to Adnan as well as to Thafer himself. Here, Thafer is expressing the unique position that diasporic subjects find themselves in. he is not fully American, nor fully Arab. He is a marginal subject that still enjoys the privileges of living in two cultures.

Another example that reveals Thafers allegiance to his adopted country is seen when two Arab countries offer him citizenship. After he is fired from his job in OAPEC under the pretext that his position should be reserved to people who are citizens of the members of OAPEC, two countries offer him citizenship but he refuses saying: I am also an American. Except for these past few months, I've spent all my adult life in the United States. My children are all native Americans. Because of my national origin, I may be unhappy about the policies of the United States in the Middle East, but I am a U.S. citizen. I took an oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States of America, which I have no intention of breaking. I am grateful for the generous offer made by these two states, but I cannot accept it. I would not want to pledge allegiance to a flag other than the U.S. flag now. Perhaps one day I'll be allowed to hold dual citizenship. That other allegiance will have to be to the land of my ancestors, my native Palestine. (284) This makes it clear that whatever policy America may practice in the Arab world, his faithfulness and allegiance will never shake. This does not suggest that he aligns more with America. Though he has assimilated enough to accept and to be proud of his Americanness, his attachments and loyalties are double, as he asserts his Palestinianness. It also reveals his understanding that the more citizenships he has, the more his loyalties will be shattered. This in turn will create a kind of conflict for him. It also points out that people may have many loyalties during the course of their lives but these will most likely come into conflict at various points during their lives. He feels grateful for the offer but does not want to bring more trouble for himself. You have no idea how grateful I am. I am honored and heartened by the gesture of the two states, but I shouldnt put myself in a situation that will create conflicts of allegiance for me. I am, of course, proud of my Arab heritage. I will always be emotionally attached to it. Yet I feel that I must be careful (284).

Thafer attempts to reconcile both sides of the hyphen but he fails. Instead of winning the two sides, he loses them. Being in the Middle East, Thafer thinks of visiting his mother who still lives in occupied Palestine. When he reaches the Allenby Bridge, he stands on the queue preserved for foreign nationalities. But he is singled out and ordered to stand on the Palestinian queue. Then recognizing his father name, he is striped naked by the Israeli soldiers. Feeling himself nude in the dark room, he murmurs, Look at me.Naked came I out of my mothers womb (132). Thafer feels humiliation as the Israeli soldier points his light at his private parts. After the tough experience, Thafer is denied entry for security matters. The episode shows that Thafer, despite his American passport/nationality, is not seen as an American. His faithfulness to America does not help him to pass as an American. Indeed, Thafer does not experience an overt rejection in America like most Arabs for two reasons: comfortable economic circumstances may have eased his acceptance in the mainstream and his white complexion. However, he is not looked at as an American. The act of stripping him naked by the Israelis is a metaphorical act of boiling him down to his Arab raw material. No matter how his heart feels loyal, whatever is added to Arabness is too vulnerable to stand the Israeli measures that divide the world into two camps.

Thafer is also rejected by his own people for his tolerate feeling regarding America. This is seen in many places in the novel. Adnan accuses him of siding with America and, therefore, diminishes him: If all Palestinian youth were to do what you did, then Palestine would lose its best-educated people at a time when it needs them most. There are thousands like you in the United States. It doesnt need you. We dont have anyone like you, and we need you (55). It can be seen also when his fellow countrymen reject his ideology of nonviolent struggle for independence. Thafers high education has convinced him that violence never brings freedom, and, therefore, attempts to persuade his people that the best way to retain their country is through peaceful methods. They refuse his suggestion under the pretext that he proposes American solutions to Arab problems which will never do. In OAPEC, moreover, he is suspected of being working for CIA. Another example is when his two daughters are dressed up in Palestinian dresses. Uncle Muneer asks them Are you Americans or Palestinians? Kathleen answers without hesitation Both. Cant be, replies Uncle Muneer (272). The examples cited here have only one explanation: immigrants, especially during wars, have to take side. This has been stated by Zev Chafets in an article entitled Its war now: divided loyalties aren't acceptable published in Daily News in September 16, 2001 in which he writes that Arab should choose between siding with terrorists or Americans and if they choose the latter they have to stop supporting Hamas, Hezallah and Ben Laden and also stops their anti-American preaching in the American mosques. This brings to forth one of the toughest experience immigrants encounter as a result of their fragmented identities and loyaltiestheir rejection by both countries. Meanwhile, Thafers dual identity has left him torn between the two countries. Each side of the hyphen pulls him in one direction. His wife, Mary Pat, tells him to forget his roots because now after twenty years he has become an American. When he announces that he wants to go back to the Middle East, she questions him, What are you saying, Thafer? What about your family here? What about your career, your practice, your teaching, your life? Youre emotional and upset now, dear. We need

you here. Stop thinking like that. Youre an American now. I mean a real American. This is your home, your town, and your country (11). When he reaches the Middle East, his relatives try to pull him towards them. Adnan informs him that The land of your birth is calling you. It needs you. It needs you more than the United States. You should give a part of yourself to it and to your people (56). Elsewhere in the novel, Suhaila tells him: Everyone, rightly or wrongly, expects something of you because of your father. They feel that because of your fathers history, you belong to the homeland that youre its property and that the homeland has a right to claim you. Youre therefore expected to respond to its call (177). All this shows Thafers dilemma. His love for the two sides of the hyphen has left him torn. He wants to help his people liberate their homeland but he does want to dismiss his American side. He does not want to side with his people on the expense of America and at the same time he does not want to side with America at the expense of his people. This left him inbetween. Thafers divided identity and loyalty make him uncomfortable with himself because he feels that he is unable to fulfill the expectations of either side. The situation troubles me. It makes me uneasy. I'm also annoyed with myself for the discomfort I'm feeling (176). Thafers divided loyalty is reflected in his children. Thafer arranges for his children to visit him in Kuwait. His aim of bringing them to the Middle East is to find the Arab side of their family and to see the miserable life their relatives are leading so that one day they may help them go back home. He wants them to see hungry people, miserable people, people who are victims of man's inhumanity (50). However, he doesnt want his children to be warriors. He wants them to be messengers of peaceto carry the torchto bring justice and equality to their people, who still live under occupation and in refugee camps. Their grandfather carried it on a sword and a shield, but he wants them to carry it on a wreath of olive branches (225). At the end of the novel two of his children go back to America but the other two, Kathleen and Sean decides to stay in the Middle East. Kathleen wants to be a freedom fighter and Sean wants to join PLO in Egypt. The division among his children is nothing more than a reflection of Thafers inner division. Suggestively, the inner divided loyalty of Thafer gets externally embodied by the equal division of his children between two identities and two types of ideals. When all his attempts of reconciling both sides of the hyphen reach an impasse, Thafers case develops into a split with one part departing and the other staying. Thafers dilemma grows as the novel progresses. He becomes unable to understand the situation properly. Despite Thafers unhappy attitude towards his people regarding violent resistance, he could not dismiss them entirely. After all they are still his people, who love him (108). His dilemma arises from his desire to satisfy his people. These people expect something from me that I will be unable to give. They want me to be as crazy as they are. They want me to share their passions without hesitation or reservation. And they want me to stop being an American Im already as crazy as they are, he assures himself. I do share their passions without hesitation or reservation. And theyll like the American in me.

He hesitates. Maybe Im as crazy as they are, maybe I share their passions without hesitation or reservation, but theyll resent the American in me. (61-2) This shows Thafers desire to maintain both sides of the hyphen. He is not ready to embrace one and reject the other and, therefore, he undergoes a struggle, an inner war. He seems to be frustrated as he attempts to reconcile his loyalties. Thafer is an ArabAmerican hybrid and his divided loyalties between the two cultures leave him psychologically destroyed. This scene demonstrates the ambiguity Dallal develops concerning Thafers cultural loyalties. The scene mirrors the mental suffering he is enduring. Eventually the internal struggle Thafer experiences causes him to have a mental breakdown. Thafers breakdown demonstrates that he needs to find internal acceptance of his hybridity rather than external validation. Caught in-between the binary, he suffers psychologically. The issue is not between love of ones country of origin hatred, but rather the multiple loyalties that appear to be part of many immigrants psychology. Thafers dual loyalties provide him with the critical powers to assess each of the two countries from a detached, more objective vantage point. He criticizes America for its biased policies in the Middle East and its constant support for Israel. He also criticizes Americas permission for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons in the region. He exposes Americas intensions behind such policy. America wants Arab to live in constant fear so that America will be able to sell its weapons to Arabs and milk them to the last penny. He also criticizes Arab treason toward the Palestinian cause as well as the tyrannical regimes of the Arab leaders. He also criticizes Arab for not uniting in making their voice heard by the world who only knows one side of the story. In short, it can be said that far from being torn apart by divided loyalties or competing passions, Thafer appears to mediate between America and Palestine, and the result is one of detached deep look through which he becomes able to assess each one of them. Finally, Dallals novel is repudiation for both statism and cosmopolitanism. Statism demands loyalty to a single sovereign. The statist theory disfavours the recognition of any community that does not order its affairs according to state borders. It claims that allowing people dual citizenship would encroach upon the strict territorial ideal, as the dual citizen would be subject to the commands of two sovereigns and would experience feelings of dual loyalty. In other words, the statist model favours a singular loyalty. It also favours assimilation. Though the statist approach respects the freedom of movement of the diaspora, it disfavours the use of this freedom to maintain loyalties to foreign lands. An alternative approach to statism is cosmopolitanism that denies any commitment to one country or two countries. One could say instead to be, to use Kants words, Weltbrger, (Munzel 36) a citizen of the world. The legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron has described the cosmopolitan person as one who essentially rejects borders altogether, one who refuses to think of himself as defined by his location or his ancestry or his citizenship or his language (Qtd in Beiner 172). As an opposite of statists, cosmopolitans deny that the state is a crucial component of identity. Moreover, cosmopolitans favour individual moral commitments that transcend national borders. Dallal seems to reject both theories on the basis that immigrants can never uproot themselves entirely from their past. They also can never commit themselves to the cosmopolitan nation as that may dissolve

their identity entirely. Instead, it proposes a diaspora model, which accepts the dual loyalties of diasporas and even allows them some level of autonomy. Under the diaspora model, the hermetic sovereignty of nation-states is replaced by overlapping sovereignties dispersed among states and diasporas. Hence, the novel proposes an alternative to the established statist and cosmopolitan models of citizenship, an alternative that reconciles globalization with peoples desire for a sense of rootedness. To conclude, it can be said that as long as the hyphen remains, the dual loyalties persist. In fact, dual loyalties can be usual in terms of their occurrence as a diasporic phenomenon, but they are unusual and maladic in terms of their effects on the psychology and the social position of the people afflicted. Thafers journey begins with a hope that the hyphen will allow him to be committed to two cultures he loves and ends with a failure assuming physical as well as psychological split. A man who thinks he can serves two masters ends up like Derek Walcott not knowing to which one he is supposed to turn: Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? (page). Like Walcott, Thafer reaches a point where he simultaneously belongs to both and to none. Unable to entirely side with one, Thafer is not accepted by either. In America he is an Arab whereas in Arab region an American. He, therefore, becomes the hyphen itself, a position that enables him to impartially see the deformities of each culture.

In fact, dual loyalties per se are neither unusual nor improper. In an increasingly interrelated world of states, double attachments should be recognized as a necessary requisite of the time. Since people travel extensively they are kaleidoscopic in their ever-changing loyalties, both to the family related place and to the place of education or professional fulfillment. Though double attachments can be held successfully by immigrants, they can also be destructive especially when they begin to clash. Dallal does not show that dual citizens might be treasonous because of their mixed loyalties in wartime. He is more concerned with personal rather than with the communal. Nathanson, Stephen. Patriotism, Morality, and Peace. Maryland, US, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1993. Munzel, G. Felicitas. Kant's Conception of Moral Character: The Critical Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment. Chicago, Uiversity of Chicago Press, 1999

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