you're sooooo good!

I find it slightly disturbing that from Chapter 1 to 18 of Burmese Days, all the Natives I have come across are fawning over the Europeans. Dr Veraswami came out tops in his disillusionment of the greatness of Europeans:

And consider how noble a type iss the English gentleman! Their glorious loyalty to one another! The public school spirit! Even those of them whose manner iss unfortunate – some Englishmen are arrogant, I concede – have great, sterling qualities that we Orientals lack. Beneath their rough exterior, their hearts are of gold.

The Doctor’s disillusionment is so ludicrous that I begin to suspect if he is truly sincere with all this talk. Apparently, he is: “Dr. Veraswami had a passionate admiration for the English, which a thousand snubs from Englishmen had not shaken”.

However, while LOL (at least I did) at Veraswami’s highly misguided admiration, it also exposes how (a) this image of the almighty European is an empty illusion, (b) how there are natives who are as brainwashed as Dr Veraswami in worshiping the Europeans and/or the idea of an European.

While Dr Veraswami is certainly sincere in his remarks, I am rather sure that the narrator does not share the same view. I think the narrator is taking a jibe at Europeans indirectly, and who else does it better other than a misguided Native. Everything that praises the Europeans is presented in a comic and ironic fashion. There is a reversal of roles here: we have Flory (a white), who openly criticizes the hypocrisy of Colonizers, and we have Dr Veraswami (a native), defending the Europeans and their greatness. It is Dr Veraswami’s “positive eagerness that he, as an Indian, belonged to an inferior and degenerated race” that makes bitter irony in his defense of the Europeans.

The punchline:

“The weakness of your argument, my dear friend,” he said, beaming at his own irony, “the weakness appears to be, that you are not thieves.” (mine in bold)