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Summary: Chapter 6

With the rebellion quashed, the town experienced a resurgence and once again developed into an important regional trading center. Salim benefited from this boom, and many others in town also experienced a rapid reversal of fortune as money poured into the town’s economy. As his own financial prospects bloomed, Salim’s paranoia about the rebellion gradually fell away.

Yet despite the boom, Salim retained some of his most persistent anxieties. For one thing, he continued to feel separate from the other people in town. He imagined himself as someone merely passing through, though he didn’t have any sense where he might go next. Salim also feared the new army men stationed in the town, who were young, self-important, and prone get drunk on their own power.

During this time, Salim corresponded with Nazruddin, who had set up a cotton-ginning business in Uganda. At the time, Uganda was experiencing a political upheaval, and though nothing serious came of it, Nazruddin’s situation reminded Salim that instability is cyclical and hence bound to return to the town at the bend in the river. Despite his anxiety, Salim decided there was nothing to do but carry on.

In contrast to Salim’s anxious and conservative response to the post-rebellion boom, his friend Mahesh became an energetic entrepreneur, actively seeking out new avenues for financial success. After a couple of unpromising ventures, Mahesh started smuggling ivory and gold. Salim disapproved, but Mahesh justified his engagement in the illegal activity by claiming that there was “no right” to be found in the town’s situation.

Eventually Mahesh stopped smuggling and found legal success when he opened a branch of the Bigburger franchise in town and installed his houseboy, Ildephonse, as the unofficial “manager.” Salim notes that Ildephonse always appeared eager to please whenever Mahesh was around, but as soon as he was left alone, he became emotionally vacant.

In the midst of the town’s boom, the President took over a large area of nearby bush, decreed it the Domain of the State, and ordered its rapid development. Contractors erected buildings quickly, and though the President issued no statement to clarify the purpose of the Domain, Salim imagined the politician to be “creating modern Africa.” Though the concrete-and-glass buildings appeared sleekly modern, certain parts of the development languished in various states of incompletion. A planned farm, for instance, never materialized, leaving a handful of tractors to sit and rust. Eventually, the Domain developed into a university town and research center with an international pool of lecturers and professors.

Salim learned that Ferdinand would attend the polytechnic institute at the new Domain on a government scholarship. He grew jealous, partly because Ferdinand would receive a more impressive education than he himself had gotten, and partly because the new possibilities opening in Ferdinand’s life contrasted with his own drab existence.

As Ferdinand began at the Domain, Salim learned that Metty had gotten a young local African woman pregnant. This news shocked Salim, who felt disgusted by the idea of “a little African child running about.” Salim also felt betrayed, as if he’d lost Metty’s companionship for good. Lonelier than ever, Salim wondered whether he might spend the rest of his life waiting for something he couldn’t identify with no place to really call home.

Analysis: Chapter 6

The President’s newly established Domain symbolizes the contradictions involved in the modern African development mentality. The President wanted the Domain to serve as a microcosm of his vision of a new Africa. He would make this model Africa appear sleek through the construction of European-style buildings made from concrete and glass. He would also make it into an international center for intellectual exchange by turning the Domain into a polytechnic institute. This institute would give birth to “the new African,” a person at once well educated and prepared to aid in the development of the new nation. And yet in spite of these ambitions, the Domain actually stood as a world apart, isolated from the town and not fully belonging to its location in the bush. Cut off from the local reality, the Domain presented a vision of Africa that, in fact, bypassed Africa entirely and looked outside of the continent for inspiration. Salim predicted the inevitable failure of the President’s utopian vision when he noticed a set of six tractors already rusting from disuse in the Domain’s agricultural area. Despite the President’s ambitious attempt to create a developed and modern Africa, as a material reality, the Domain contradicted the politician’s aspirations.

When Mahesh asserted that “there is no right,” he expressed a dangerous and self-serving philosophy of moral relativism. Mahesh, who survived the first rebellion that occurred in the town following the country’s political independence, took from that experience the following lesson: in times of trouble, life must “carry on.” The phrase “carry on” implies a submission to circumstances otherwise outside of one’s control. Mahesh’s claim that there is no morally “right” way to respond to a given situation implies an addition to his personal philosophy of “carrying on.” If external circumstances guide a person’s actions, then that person need not take direct responsibility for those actions. From this perspective, Mahesh’s involvement in the illegal trading of gold and ivory didn’t reflect negatively on his own moral character since his circumstances left him little choice. Put differently, no other choice would have had a superior moral “rightness.” Mahesh’s refusal to see his actions as part of a moral hierarchy primarily serves his own interests since it prevents him from having to justify or grapple with his illegal actions. But this philosophy has dangerous implications. If he doesn’t need to take responsibility for his actions, then no one else does either, a logic that could lead to social and political chaos.

Salim’s longstanding sense of being an outsider returned with new intensity as both Ferdinand and Metty’s lives changed while Salim’s circumstances remained the same. When Salim learned that Ferdinand would continue his studies at the Domain’s polytechnic institute, he felt jealous that the boy’s future held so much possibility and promise. Later, when he found out that Metty had gotten a local woman pregnant, he expressed disgust at the idea that his assistant would start a life with an African. Despite the apparent difference between these two reactions, they both stemmed from a deeper sense of anger and betrayal. Salim had few people in the town with whom he could relate, yet he found satisfaction in looking after both Ferdinand and Metty. As he sensed both of these young men moving on to new life experiences, Salim at once felt abandoned and without hope for his own future. More alone in the world than ever, Salim reacted with petty cruelty and self-pity.

 

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