Short Rant on Naipaul's Africa

One of the most disturbing aspects of V.S. Naipaul's high esteem is the likelihood of casual readers interpreting his travel writing or fiction on Africa as possessing the necessary depth to explain the problems facing postcolonial Africa. Since Naipaul has traveled to and Africa since the 1960s, and traveled throughout the continent, I cannot dispute his experiences, but his Conradian image of Africa is arguably worse than Conrad. Conrad’s famous novella, at least, could possibly be read as an anti-imperialist text. Instead, Naipaul, as Walcott once said, writes what the Western powers want to read in true postcolonial mandarin fashion. This is not to say that postcolonial Africa (or anywhere else, really) did not face several internal contradictions or problems not entirely reducible to imperialism, but Naipaul’s fiction and nonfiction often rearranges complex historical and political developments in such a way to fit his rather dismal, fundamentally undemocratic view of the world, best seen in A Bend In the River.

As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illustrates in “Americanah” some Americans and Europeans who read Naipaul's writings set in Africa may interpret Naipaul's ahistorical reduction of ethnic and political conflict in African countries like Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo as legitimate explanations for modern developments and conflicts. In short, under colonial rule, the endless warfare of the 'warrior tribes' against the weak were abated, but as soon as colonial rule ended, warfare resumed. This kind of ahistorical reading of Africa, which appears in Naipaul's "In a Free State" and inspired by travels to East Africa and the Congo, is pervasive in Naipaul’s fear of the ubiquitous bush and its African villagers, who, despite being rendered as beyond the pale of history, at least know who they are. In his own characteristically way, Naipaul will criticize white colonials and their fantasy of Africa, but the “real” Africa is nothing more than bush gradually reconquering the colonial towns, African tribes against other tribes. While some may interpret his Africa fiction as positing an even more dystopic worldview than only rehashing the “benighted Dark Continent” trope, a disturbing and seemingly casual racism also makes it hard to take him seriously. 

For anyone really interested in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, or, especially, the Congo, the setting of Naipaul’s most famous work, Mahmood Mamdani does a much better job explaining what really transpired in, Rwanda, for example, which led to the genocide. The very role of colonialism itself in structuring and restructuring ethnic difference is not present in Naipaul’s fiction, save his last two novels, which are based on Mozambique. There, I’ve said my piece and established, I hope, some reasons why Naipaul’s Africa is so “problematic.” 

In a Free State

"He will never in a hundred years understand how ordinary the world was for me, with nothing good in it, nothing to see except sugarcane and the pitch road, and how from small I know I had no life."

V.S. Naipaul's In a Free State won the Booker in 1971, and consists of 5 different stories, the longest being a novella. Bringing together the metropole (London, Washington) with recently decolonized countries (India, Egypt, Trinidad, Uganda), the prize-winning book explores the contours of freedom, in both a personal sense as an immigrant, a settler in Africa, and a traveler who sounds suspiciously like Naipaul himself in the prologue and epilogue, both centered on Egypt. All stories share movement as a theme, whether occurring through planes, automobiles, cruisers, trains, or ships in the Mediterranean, Egyptian desert, London, 

The most interesting of the stories was the first, a short story about Santosh, a domestic from Bombay, who accompanies his boss to Washington and enters into his own 'free state' as he moves away from tradition forms surprising relationships with a hubshi woman, an African-American woman. Despite the stereotypes and low opinion Indians held of blacks, even those of the servant class who were comfortable sleeping in the pavement of Bombay's streets, Santosh, in his own way, experiences his rupture from his Bombay roots through parallel developments with African-Americans in the US capital. Like the other tales in the book, Naipaul includes shrewd social commentary on the absence of real or authentic experiences, how everybody lies. For its fascinating take on Indian class and the Indians uprooted, so to speak, this stands out as one of the more interesting short stories penned by Naipaul. One wonders if this tale possibly influenced Aravind Adiga's White Tiger, which shares a similar interest or influence from African-American literature.

The other fascinating story was "Tell Me Who to Kill," which is recounted in first person by an unnamed brother. Born in poverty in an island that sounds just like Naipaul's Trinidad, the narrator places his hopes into helping his younger brother, Dayo, pursue an education and become more than what their island represents, in London. In a surprising twist for Naipaul, this narrative actually alludes to racial discrimination and the harshness of life for West Indian immigrants in the 'Mother Country.' Written in a kind of dialect, one almost feels as if this story was written by a Samuel Selvon rather than Naipaul. However, like the rest of this book, the brother deceives himself and the free state of escape from the West Indies does not work out well for him, as he becomes reliant on his only friend, a white Frank, whose liberal impulse to protect the narrator carries the stench of condescension. 

The novella, "In a Free State," is also an intriguing read, but too similar to A Bend in the River. The novella, however, is centered on an English homosexual administrative official in a country that sounds eerily similar to Uganda, which is in a state of political unrest due to timeless "tribal" conflict. Told through a third person narrator, "In a Free State" moves chronologically and physically from the 'English-Indian' capital to the Collectorate in the South, across valleys, along rivers, and the dark forests. Much like A Bend in the River, a Conradian image of Africa is pervasive, as well as the old mimicry of England or European ways in the former English colony (English hairstyles, resorts, towns, and buildings that resemble England). 

Depending on how one reads Conrad, Heart of Darkness can be either a pro-colonialist or anti-imperialist text, and much like his literary forebear, Naipaul falls somewhere in between, as someone who highlights the casual racism of the Europeans while never truly including an African character who is not more than stereotypes. Naipaul also hints at the protagonist character in A Bend in the River by attributing much of the cities and maintenance of businesses to the Indian community, a community in danger of deportations. Like the other stories, again one finds characters who are in a 'free state' of deception and fabrication, the Europeans lying to themselves about why they are in Africa in the first place and their role. Lots of postcolonial theory here, for those interested in Naipaul's take.

As for the prologue and epilogue, they are tied in thematically with the rest of the text. The prologue shares with "In a Free State" a similar critique of deportations, from Egypt sending the Greeks of Alexandria packing to Uganda expelling Indians. The future failure of Egyptian soldiers, of peasant origins, in the Sinai against Israel, also pertains to the Israeli military men training African soldiers in the novella. In both cases, the Africans (Ugandans, Egyptians) were hopeless when it came to matching the Israelis military, and one can see how the foreigners in both stories (Italians, Lebanese, Germans, Chinese) come to Africa with their own interests, economic or political. The Chinese 'circus,' impressing Egyptians in a hut, with their 'Red' dogma or the Lebanese merchants plotting how to enrich themselves in Egypt, for example, depict a postcolonial world in which deception is truly international. The 'desert children' outside the rest-house in Luxor are another 'circus,' performers for the Italian tourists who enjoy watching the 'sand animals.'

Overall, an interesting story suite here, but lacking the humor of his strictly Caribbean fiction or depth of A Bend in the River. Naipaul's masque of Africa is better illustrated in that subsequent work than what we have here, although he manages to impressively weave together the lives of so many distinct groups of people, across borders. For all fans of his fiction after A House for Mr. Biswas, this is essential reading.