Of Violence and Friendship

Fanon states that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world” in which the colonists and colonized are fundamentally divided by race. The colonists impose their superiority through violence and intimidation in the form of the police or through education which instills acceptance of their subjugation. However, the compartmentalization of a country does not seem to be simply about race. In Passage, India is presented as fragmented and unknowable even within the natives. The Hindu-Moslem divide as seen in Aziz’s reference to “Slack Hindus . . . Nothing Sanitary” (p 63); the subtle but distinct caste divide when Aziz shares a game with “a stray subaltern”. Aziz’s comment that “nothing embraces the whole of India. . . that was Akbar’s mistake”, suggests India’s disunity even before the colonists arrived. The difference here is that Indians are united in their shared experience of a common oppressor and all other religious and caste differences are pushed beneath the surface of this overpowering tyrant.

If we see colonization as the rape of a country, and the country that emerges in the aftermath of colonialism as the ‘bastard-child’ of the offence/crime, this ‘child’ signifies a new life - a beginning. I’m not suggesting that it is possible to start anew on a clean slate, no, that is impossible. The ‘child’ carries with it the legacy of violence and trauma of the ‘rape’ but nevertheless, there is a future that awaits negotiating between absolute rejection of its colonial past and etching out a future that benefits the ‘child’ best. Which is the better life? The “primitive” pre-colonial days or the industrially/educationally more advanced post-colonial future, we do not know, but what we do know, is that we can never return to the ‘untainted’ pre-colonial days of the past. The dream of meeting the oppressors on a level playing field seems rather pessimistic seen from the perspective of Passage.

Aziz appears to think that violence is necessary towards achieving an even field in which the English and Indians can co-exist in peace. This supports Fanon view’s that violence is the only possible solution towards decolonization and the rehabilitation of the oppressed man.

“. . . we shall rid of you, yes, we shall drive every blasted Englishman into the sea, and then . . . you and I shall be friends” (p306)

Fielding and Aziz, the only hope in bridging the gap between the colonists and colonized, inevitably part and in fact become increasingly incompatible. They can never achieve true friendship as the imbalance between colonists and colonized is too great. The humiliation from the violence of colonization is too deeply ingrained to be eased by two individual’s affections for each other.

“. . .socially they had no meeting-place. He had thrown in his lot with Anglo-India by marrying a country-woman, and he was acquiring some of its limitations, and already felt surprise at his own past heroism. . . . Aziz was a memento, a trophy, they were proud of each other, yet they must inevitably part.” (p303)

To the question if Aziz and Fielding can ever be friends. . .

“No, not yet”
“No, not there”

No, not ever? . . .