Ekspresi Nasionalisme Religius dalam Novel Layali Turkistan: Analisis Nativisme Hibrida Homi Bhabha

Abstract

This study examines the rhetoric of resistance in Najib al-Kailani`s novel Layali Turkistan, focusing on the speeches of Khaujah Niyaz and the king of Qumul during the Turkistani people’s struggle against Chinese and Russian colonization. Although previous studies have analyzed the novel from various theoretical perspectives such as socio-political, ethical, or psychoanalytic lenses, the rhetorical construction of this hybrid identity has received little scholarly attention. Using Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial concepts of nativism, hybridity, and mimicry combined with a discourse-historical reading of resistance rhetoric, this qualitative-descriptive study analyzes speech and dialogue units in the novel. The findings show that the resistance rhetoric constructs a dual identity appeal “Muslim” and “Turkistani” rather than representating a return to a pure pre- colonial identity, these discourses produce what this study concptualizes as hybrid nativism: a strategically fused religious-national identity mobilized to unify a fragmented population against a shared colonial threat, operating through three strategies: religious unification, genealogical glorification, and reverse mimicry against colonially sanctioned elite identity. The study offers a discourse-level, identity-formation reading that complements the socio-political, ethical, and psychoanalytic readings offered by prior studies. Ultimately, by introducing hybrid nativism, this study expands Bhabha’s framework to internal cultural dynamics, proving that religious nationalism in Arabic postcolonial literature serves as an adaptive and subversive strategy of liberation.