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  • Essay / A chance for decolonization in “Waiting for the Barbarians” by JM Coetzee

    Decolonization is more difficult than simply removing the physical presence of the colonizer. Colonialism imprints on a multitude of levels the life of the colonizer and the colonized; the prospect of undoing years of institutionalized and informal colonial control poses a daunting challenge. JM Coetzee's novel Waiting for the Barbarians attempts to approach the issue of decolonization through the mentality of the central colonizing character, the nameless magistrate, exploring the difficulties that arise when poor leadership, uncertain morals and ineffective idealism mingle in a changing colonial context. Waiting for the Barbarians presents complete decolonization as an impossible ideal due to ineffective leadership, focusing on the role of the magistrate as a desperate harbinger of a process with questionable motivations that succumbs to the traps of sympathetic liberal thought. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayAs the leader of the small frontier settlement where most of the novel takes place, the magistrate seems to be, at best, a barely competent leader. . At the beginning of the novel, the Magistrate does not seem to be a likely catalyst for decolonization. He seems to have the most rudimentary level of power, and early in the novel his little authority is crushed by the cruel and tortuous Colonel Joll of the Third Office. Joll is throughout the novel seen by the Magistrate as symbolizing all the cruel and unjust aspects of colonial rule, with torture, deception, and willful blindness being the primary tools Joll uses to promote the interests of the Empire. A conversation between Joll and the magistrate, the two central figures of power in the novel, regarding the process of torture to obtain confessions of guilt reveals the absolute power of colonial rule which is embodied by Joll: "There is a certain tone » said Joll. “A certain tone enters the voice of a man who speaks the truth. Training and experience teach us to recognize this tone. […] First I get lies, you see – that's what happens – first lies, then pressure, then more lies, then more pressure, then the breakup, then again pressure, then the truth. »[1]For Joll, and of colonialism itself, truth is not the desired result of torture, but rather justification. Joll hears what he wants to hear and doesn't care about objective truths. As the magistrate notes: “Pain is truth; everything else is subject to doubt. [Coetzee, pp. 5] The Empire does not need objective truth to continue and expand its colonial rule, but rather it needs falsified confessions of guilt where "pain is truth" to provide the image of righteous motivations. The colonial regime does not need any honestly justified basis to exist. Colonialism exists through cruelty as an error of just governance. Suffering is an integral part of the existence of colonialism, and Joll and the Magistrate, as agents of Empire, recognize this and the Magistrate is conscious, with guilt, that, just like Joll, he himself is a symbol of the Empire's cruel rule. As Jane Poyner notes, the magistrate “realizes that the distance between him and the vile Joll is […] not so great”.[2] The magistrate, although appalled by Joll's barbarity, is powerless to intervene. Instead, he faces the consequences of Joll's tortuous exploits, tending to the bodies of the dead and healing the mangled Joll leaves as best he can. The magistrate has no authority to stop the atrocities ofJoll; his job is not to act as savior but to "collect tithes and taxes, administer communal lands, see that the garrison is provided, supervise junior officers" and similar administrative positions. [Coetzee, pp. 8] Offended by Joll's cruelty towards two prisoners, the magistrate confronts Joll, pleading for their release before noting that "I realize that I am pleading for them, in vain. [Coetzee, pp. 4] The magistrate is powerless to change Joll's opinion of his two prisoners, his powerlessness being underlined by the gentleness insinuated by the "plea". In addition to being powerless to stop Joll and the atrocities of the Empire as a whole, the magistrate is often presented as disinterested in doing more than is expected of him: "I am a country magistrate, a responsible official in the service of the Empire. , spending my days on this lazy frontier, waiting to retire. [Coetzee, pp. 8] There is an apathy to his tone, a vapidity that suggests both a lack of ambition and an apathetic attitude toward his work. Words like "responsible," "service," "lazy," and "wait" create the image of a character without high goals and interest, or, at the very least, one with low aspirations: "When I die, I hope to deserve three lines of small print in the Imperial Gazette. I didn't ask for more than a quiet life in quiet moments. [Coetzee, pp. 8] Within the magistrate is the opposite of greatness, an unextraordinary man who wants nothing more than to be forgotten with his time. He has no intention of standing up to Joll or the Empire, and he does not formalize any solid convictions about the colonial regime. He has neither the power nor the motivation to bring about decolonization. At the beginning of the novel, Coetzee does not envelop the magistrate in the traditions of heroism; he does not make rousing speeches, he does not push for major reforms of the imperial regime, nor does he act altruistically on behalf of those he governs. Instead, Coetzee presents an ordinary colonial man, a Kafkaesque bureaucrat caught in the machine of colonial power, powerless to resist but at the same time unwilling to be able to do so. For decolonization to take place, effective leaders willing to bring about change are needed, and the benefits of dialogue between colonizer and colonized are insurmountable. As Nicholas J. White writes, "it has been argued that [often the removal of] colonial regimes was essentially characterized by 'collaboration' with established local elites"[3]. Within the framework of such a regime, the magistrate is, in theory, an ideal. candidate to help initiate a process of decolonization. However, he is not, at least since our introduction at the beginning of the novel, an ideal candidate. His lack of power and disinterest in making his life something greater than a quiet existence in a provincial town suggests that he accepts colonial rule, and even if he were to verbalize his disapproval or dislike of it respect, he has neither the conviction nor the aspiration to act. Throughout the novel, the Magistrate's lack of aspiration becomes increasingly evident, mixed with an apathetic view of the world. It is debatable whether the magistrate is even dismayed by colonial rule, the most obvious view being that he disagrees with the methods by which the Empire enforces its colonial rule let alone that it enforces colonial rule at all. The magistrate proves capable of compassion, as well as guilt regarding his involvement in the practices of the colonial regime; he ensures that an orphan boy taken prisoner is taken care of and he calls one of the first victims aJoll from "father", a sign of respect within the provincial region he governs. [Coetzee, pp. 3] Furthermore, his "plea" to Joll regarding the fate of two prisoners shows a level of both compassion and guilt. Perhaps the most important evidence of the magistrate's compassion and guilt is his direct, personal, and intimate concern. for an abandoned barbarian girl, victim of Joll's tortures. Left blind and crippled by Joll's torture, the young girl represents a moral weight for the magistrate, proof for him that "the distance between me and his torturers [...] is negligible", that he is truly part of the ruling class colonial. [Coetzee, pp. 29] Moreover, it came to symbolize for him the worst of the colonial regime. As Abdullah F. Al-Badarneh notes in his essay “Waiting for the Barbarians: The Identity of the Magistrate in a Colonial Context”: “For him […] it is a historical document of the injustice of colonization. Such a document has proof of this in the marks and traces of torture on his body, eyes and legs. »[4] The young girl proves both that the only separation between the magistrate and Joll is the title and that colonial domination depends on the notion. that “pain is truth”. Feeling guilty for the treatment she suffered under the colonel, the magistrate takes it upon himself to try to treat her very damaged feet: “I begin to wash her. She raises her feet for me in turn. I knead and massage the loosened toes through the gentle milk soap. Soon, my eyes close, my head lowers. It's a kind of rapture. [Coetzee, pp. 31] This feeling of rapture to which the magistrate succumbs is the manifestation of being freed from a feeling of guilt that he feels with regard to the way in which the young girl was treated by Joll. The nature of his relationship with the girl becomes more confused as he progresses: “I did not enter into her. From the beginning, my desire has not taken this direction, this direction. [Coetzee, pp. 36] His “desire” for her is not sexual, but rather he desires her as a relief from his guilt, a form of catharsis. Her body, and the care it takes, becomes a vehicle of forgiveness, of a decolonized ideal: “I watch her undress, hoping to capture in her movements a hint of a former free state. » [Coetzee, pp. 36]] Although the magistrate's acts of kindness and compassion, his respect, his "pleadings" and his care for the girl could be taken as indicators of his ethical opposition to the cruelty of the Empire, it could also Be has argued that his actions simply constitute opposition to torture or, perhaps on a more personal level, specific opposition to the methods of the despicable Joll. The acceptance of colonialism by the magistrate can be seen in several cases. When the elder of the two prisoners he pleaded for dies, he attempts to extract the objective truth from the remaining prisoner, promising release from Joll's torture as a reward. He notes here: “It has not escaped me that an interrogator can wear two masks, speak with two voices, one harsh, the other seductive. » [Coetzee, pp. 8] The magistrate is the “attractive” of Joll’s “tough”, two sides of the same coin. The fact that he pressured the young boy is further proof, just like the crippled barbarian girl, that he is personally invested in colonialism. This duality that he maintains with Joll symbolizes for the magistrate the cruelty of colonial domination, but also proves to him the extent to which he is involved in it: “I was the lie that the Empire tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that the Empire indicates when violent winds blow. Two faces of imperial domination, neither more norless. [Coetzee, pp. 148] His presence as a sympathizer is as essential to colonial control as Joll's cruelty and he finds little to criticize about his duties, showing an acceptance of his administrative position. In addition, the magistrate often plays the role of colonizer. he sees in Joll, as well as the role expected of the colonized. His relationship with the young woman, his feeling of "rapture" and liberation, is on one level benevolent, but it also has elements that are both aggressive and fetishistic. She is subtly hostile to him, aware of her position of racial inferiority in the colonial discourse by which their relationship exists: "But even the movement with which she pulls the blouse over her head and tosses it aside is grumpy, defensive, hindered. , as if she was afraid of hitting invisible obstacles. His face has the look of something that knows it is being watched. [Coetzee, pp. 36] There is a claustrophobia in her posture, "grumpy, defensive, restrained", as if she is aware that she is in some way his prisoner, a prisoner both politically and as a manifestation of his guilt. The Magistrate orientalizes her by making her both the symbol of his colonial guilt and an object of curiosity, referring to her with the pronoun "himself". The magistrate also does not hesitate to succumb to the demonization of the barbarian prisoners for which he hates Joll: “So, all together, we lose all sympathy for them. The filth, the smell, the noise of their arguments and their coughing become unbearable. [Coetzee, pp. 21] His tone shows a crack in the sympathy he is meant to symbolize, meaning that even within him, an element of Joll's cruelty exists. Constantly dominant in the relationship, the Magistrate comes to embody Edward Said's idea concerning the constant superiority of the Oxidant over the Orient: "Orientalism depends for its strategy on this flexible positional superiority, which places the Western in a whole series of possible relations with the Orient without ever making it lose its relative advantage. »[5]The Magistrate, until his incarceration, constantly relates to the Orient of the young barbarian girl and the prisoners as their superior, incontestable cog in the colonial machine. For decolonization to be a possibility, there must be figures who vehemently oppose colonial rule. The Magistrate, de facto leader of the small province of the Empire that he governs, demonstrates a lack of power, a lack of aspiration for decolonization, but also shows an acceptance of colonial domination. A colonizer himself, he repeatedly shows himself invested in colonial domination. When he shows sympathy or kindness towards the barbarians, it is primarily due to opposition to Joll's cruelty, his means, and not his motives. Without colonialism, the magistrate would have no social status, financial support or influence. His livelihood and his ideal future of “quiet life” depend on the continuation of colonial rule and so his sympathies become mere intellectual indulgences. His sympathy but inaction is representative of the now often caricatured liberal: intellectually curious but reluctant to act. After his incarceration, however, the Magistrate's sympathies begin to develop toward moderate opposition to the Empire, largely due in part to his subjection to torture and humiliation and a deeper understanding of the treatment that suffered by the colonized under the colonial regime. With his changed feelings towards the Empire, his stripping of title and power, and the unofficial withdrawal of Imperial forces from the border region previously under his governance, the Magistrate of the,. 1871