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Summary: Chapter 14

Salim felt glad that the President had disbanded the Youth Guard, but in the wake of the decision, the police and other officials became difficult. They started harassing Salim at his shop in order to procure bribes. Salim sensed that the rule of law had collapsed and the town was reverting to lawlessness. At one point the police took Metty into custody, and Salim had to go to the station to rescue him. There he noticed the usual photograph of the President with his chief’s stick, but this time it had a motto painted on the wall above it: Discipline Avant Tout, meaning “Discipline Above All.”

Salim believed that the President would reestablish authority. But before that happened, former members of the Youth Guard established a Liberation Army. Violence broke out in and around the town, and the Liberation Army issued a leaflet declaring war on all manifestations of imperialism and foreign influence. As killings became more widespread, Salim began to feel exposed and physically vulnerable. Not knowing what action to take, he carried on.

With the rise of the Liberation Army, Raymond at last realized that he would never return to the President’s favor. Salim considered him a defeated man. During this time the affair between Salim and Yvette abated. One evening Yvette showed up at Salim’s house without warning. Although initially delighted by her unannounced appearance, Salim later felt overcome by a suspicion that Yvette thought of him the same way she thought of Raymond. He grew angry and beat her. Afterward she crawled into his bed. He spat on her between her legs, and when she protested, he hit her again. Yvette got out of bed, dressed, called Raymond to say she was on her way home, and left.

Metty tried to convince Salim to take a walk with him outside, but Salim refused. Then the phone rang, and Yvette was on the line. She said she hadn’t wanted to leave and asked if he wanted her to come back. She said she should have given him a Valium to help him calm down and sleep, and he felt that she had never acted more like his wife than at that moment.

Salim stayed awake all night, and as the next day dawned, he had “an illumination.” He realized that people are born and live through various experiences. Such experiences can bring pain or pleasure, but in the end, only the experiences themselves matter—neither the pain nor the pleasure have meaning. After this illumination, Salim went to Mahesh’s Bigburger restaurant to have a coffee. There, Mahesh told Salim that Shoba wanted him to come over for lunch the next day.

Later that morning, Zabeth came to do her shopping. She reported that Ferdinand might become the next local commissioner. She expressed her reservations about the possible appointment since she feared that the position would put him in danger from the rebels as well as the President. The President was a jealous man and feared others taking any attention away from him. To illustrate her point, Zabeth indicated a photograph of the President in the newspaper in which his head and shoulders took up the majority of the frame, leaving the other officials pictured looking tiny in comparison. Zabeth told Salim that she had seen the President in the bush, and he had been accompanied by a white man who had gotten out of the car before it stopped. She explained that anything bad would follow this man and leave the President free and unharmed.

The next day Salim went to Mahesh and Shoba’s place for lunch. After they ate, Shoba indicated a spot on her face and asked Salim if he noticed anything there. He could see a slight discoloration, which Shoba said she got while visiting her family on the coast. She explained her desire to travel to Switzerland to see a skin specialist who could remedy the blotch.

Salim felt glad to get away from Mahesh and Shoba, and, worried that he might end up like them, he decided to travel to London, where Nazruddin had relocated once again after a bad year in Canada. On the plane, he dreamt that Yvette was in the seat next to him then woke up to realize he was alone.

Analysis: Chapter 14

In another example of the cycles of history, the Youth Guard reorganized to form the far more dangerous Liberation Army. Chapter 13 concluded with the President publicly humiliating members of the Youth Guard before banishing them to the bush. But instead of teaching the Youth Guard a lesson about supplication, the President’s vindictive speech merely fed their anger and transformed them into a formidable enemy. They formed a powerful vigilante group called the Liberation Army, which instigated widespread violence and restored the conditions that had plagued the town during two previous rebellions. The Liberation Army also expressed reactionary politics aimed at eliminating all traces of imperialism, including “the multi-nationals and the puppet powers that be, the false gods, the capitalists, the priests, and teachers who give false interpretations.” Ironically, given their conflict with the President, the Liberation Army’s anti-imperialist platform dovetailed with that of the President, whose use of African languages in his public speeches indicated a desire to move away from colonial tongues. Thus, in another twist of history, the Liberation Army unintentionally served the President’s whims.

The increasingly corrosive and violent relationship between Yvette and Salim mirrored the dissolution of the political situation around them. When Salim suddenly grew enraged and started beating Yvette, his anger erupted due to a feeling that she had started treating him like she treated her husband. And since Salim considered Raymond a failure, the association implied that Yvette saw Salim as a failure as well. But this logic represents little more than Salim’s own insecurity. Salim’s violent outburst seems equally unreasonable, and his attempt to degrade Yvette by spitting between her legs is downright despicable. Arguably, then, the violent and degrading turn in Salim and Yvette’s relationship has less to do with their specific interpersonal dynamics and instead reflects the rapid destabilization of the social, economic, and political life around them. Salim originally retreated into his affair with Yvette to avoid feeling left behind after Ferdinand and Indar departed. Here he took his frustrations out on her, avoiding his own sense of vulnerability by asserting control over someone else. Ultimately, Salim’s violent outbursts reflected the instability of his situation, yet did nothing to change them.

The “illumination” that Salim recounts having after his violent outburst with Yvette revealed to him the need to escape his own mindset if he ever wanted to pursue a more satisfying way of life. Thus far in the novel, Salim has been excessively attached to his own pain and dislocation, which has made him desperate to find pleasure and belonging. These emotions oscillate back and forth, not unlike how history cycles constantly between boom and bust. The revelation that came to Salim that morning illuminated how neither pain nor pleasure—neither dislocation nor belonging—has any essential meaning in and of itself. In other words, the meanings he associated with these concepts were nothing more than illusions of his own creation. This revelation broke through the habitual rhythms of Salim’s thinking and offered him a new way of understanding his problem. Whereas previously his self-pity had led him to bemoan his circumstances, he now understood that his main enemy was, in fact, his own mind. By shifting his attitude, he could stop focusing on incidental things like pain and pleasure and instead focus directly on experiencing life.

More and more, the photographs of the President showcase the politician’s hunger for power. Throughout the novel, Salim has made numerous references to the ubiquitous photographs of the President dressed in the garb of a traditional African chief. These photographs suggested that the President was more than just a leader of a modern nation-state; he was also a man of the people, committed to sustaining indigenous traditions. With political tensions rising, however, Salim noticed certain changes in the composition of the photographs. For example, when he went to bail Metty out of jail, Salim noticed that the President’s portrait was accompanied by the phrase “Discipline Above All“—a stark motto calling for strictness and severity. Later, when Zabeth expressed her concerns about the President’s ego and quickness to jealousy, she pointed to the evidence of the photograph of the President printed in a local newspaper. The way the photographer framed the image, the President’s head and torso occupied the majority of the space, leaving only a small amount of room for the other government officials pictured alongside him. This compositional strategy made his figure appear authoritative, suggesting his dominance and his overall hunger for power.

 

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