“Once you step inside, history has to be rewritten to include you. A fiction develops a story that weaves you into the social fabric, giving you roots and a local identity. You are assimilated, and in erasing your differences and making you one of their own, the community can maintain belief in its wholeness and purity.”
Lily is a prime example of an individual who does not fully fit anywhere and has to grapple with her identity crisis. As a British white girl raised as an African Muslim in Ethiopia she has to come to terms with being perceived as too white. Due to circumstance, she has to relocate to London where she also does not fit in because they do not know what to make of her because of her culture and beliefs. Therefore the story focuses on how society is incapable of defining individuals with intersectional identities. Communities tend to simplify identity to create a common criterion that each individual fits to maintain ‘wholeness’. However, the changing dynamics and intersectionality subvert the norm that has been set for millennia of integrating everyone.
“Girls are not passive by nature. They are only so because the culture demands they be.”
Lily is assertive by nature which stems from the unique upbringing that allowed her to see the world from both sides of the spectrum. She understands the social struggles of a third world country and the social complexities that come with being a white Muslim. Moreover, she observes the privileges of a first-world nation and consequently the judgment and prejudice against her cultural identity. These offers her the courage to stand for what she believes in overtly without holding back because what is the worst that can happen? Thus, her story becomes a feminist one as she proves the passivity of the female gender is a social construction.
“Believing that all has been ordained by God can lead to fatalism, but fatalism is not the same thing as belief. It's a cheat: an abdication of responsibility.”
In essence, the story is about religion specifically Islam, and how it plays a role in Lily’s upbringing and life choices. Raised by a Sufi sheik, the Muslim faith teaches her how to love, care, and approach her convictions. She is not passive as she employs her faith to help others through her social work. She places the duty to serve the universe by reuniting family members that have been separated from each other. Rather than see the circumstance of being separated from her love as fate she sees it as a calling for community care.
