Traversing Transhistorical Resistance: A Retrospective and Prospective Study of Osama Siddique’s Snuffing Out the Moon

Abstract

Resistance is an attenuated phenomenon of human culture that has contributed to socio-political realities in different epochs. Snuffing Out the Moon draws a viable case of transhistorical resistance, traversing different historical periods; from the Indus Valley Civilization to dystopian future. This paper looks at how struggles against oppression, injustice, and authoritarianism remains a lasting force in human history. Employing theorizations of resistance contended by James C Scott, avoidance and breaking resistance articulated by Stellan Vinthagen, and the conceptual underpinnings of Michel Foucault and Barbara Harlow, this study critically examines how Siddique’s narrative establishes patterns of resistance across six distinct time periods. The novel features various types of resistance against power structures; environmental, political, cultural and ideological demonstrated through various tales in the novel, evoking historical persistence of resistance. Since early civilizations where individuals were resisting the dogma of the religion, or colonial people were resisting an imperial regime, or modern people are resisting violence in the state, Snuffing Out the Moon elucidates universality of human resistance to systemic control. Focusing on the novel as a literary embodiment of the resistance literature, shedding light on contemporary socio-political issues, including authoritarianism, religious extremism, and environmental devastation, the research outlines the cyclicality of resistance by arguing that the resistance of the past informs the present and future resistance. By situating the novel into a broader historical and theoretical context, this study validates that resistance is a transhistorical phenomenon, which cuts across history and affects human destinies around the epochs.

        Keywords: Transhistorical resistance, resistance literature, avoidance and breaking resistance, everyday resistance, and Snuffing Out the Moon