9 May 2013
This book shows the ideas behind colonialism and the social and economic consequences it can have on a healthy society. Maurice Gee sets up a scene where a once happy civilisation has been crushed by a dominating force called "Company". The book then goes on to show the horrors of the new leadership which has destroyed the previous civilisation.
Hari, the main character to shows the social and economic differences between those who are colonised and those who colonise. Hari a is poor boy who watches the houses where the rich "white people" live. The author shows the this is when Hari "watched them sipping drinks from tiny glasses and eating food from huge plates laid before them by serving men who must have had their tongues cut out as they never spoke".
This quote accurately shows the social and economic differences between Hari and the rich white colonisers.
The social difference is shown by Hari misunderstanding why the servants never spoke. He can't imagine why the servants wouldn't speak to the rich. Hari wouldn't understand this concept as he was born and raised in the "blood burrow" where he had to find food and fight for himself. He does not grasp the concept of respect and assumes that because they never speak they must have no tongues when in realist they just have . The author has done this to show the divide between the colonisers and the colonised.
The second difference between them is the economic divide. The authors use of tiny glasses and huge plates shows them as rich as they have a lot of money to spend on food. This is in direct contrast to Hari who "hunted the rubbish bins for scraps of food." in the following sentence.
This direct contrast, as well as the concept of servants, shows the divide between classes that has developed on this land. Hari has become a symbol of anyone who has been colonised. The contrast the author has created suggests that he believes colonisers and inhabitants cannot live peacefully together as there will always be divide. The author is also suggesting that colonisation is never good for the occupants of the land and is instead a means by which people can get rich.
This made me think about how New Zealand was a colony of Britain and how similar circumstances could have occurred in my own home country. This was interesting to me also because I believe in New Zealand that Maori and Pakeha as well as other cultures integrate quite well compared to places like Europe where there are many people who hold strong Racist and anti-Semitic views. This made me appreciate the culture we live in despite the fact that racism is still present. This phase also allowed me to appreciate the more evenly spread economic circumstances in New Zealand. In New Zealand the spread of wealth seams to be far more even than that in Hari's country. I also appreciate this because I know even today there are corrupt countries where a few people hold a lot of the money which causes a wide gap between social and economic status of the rich and the poor.
Another idea portrayed is the idea of inequality. The author shows this in the often repeated phrase. "Company Cares". This is said almost as men were being sent to forced labour camps and when they were handing out tiny rations of food to civilians. Maurice Gee has made the phase as cold and disconnected as possible. He does this by removing other words and articles that would otherwise go in the sentence like that would lighten it up such "does" and "your". She has also made the sentence very untargeted and impersonal by using no personal pronouns. This phrase is being used almost ironically in this book and this is similar to how colonisers go into countries pretending to have good intensions but actually go in for personal gain.
These bad intensions in words is a metaphor for what happens in real life. I see this disconnection is shown in the real world, in places such as Syria where the leader is meant to be caring and compassionate, but in reality he is the opposite. Instead the leader uses the country for their personal gain.
This idea of using a country for personal gain gave me insight into events from history and in the present where colonialism has been used for gain such as when Belgium came in and colonised the Congo. They committed mass genocide while trying to colonise and also exploited the country for gold for their own gain. From my brief research and from what Gee appears to be saying, it seems as if colonialism in not usually good for the original occupants of the place.
I found this book really thought provoking and it made me really think about ideas that made me look back in history and consider actions that were made in this book what could have affected my life in the real world.
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