On the Fringes in Djibouti and Soweto
by CHARLES R. LARSON
Weekend Edition Jun 30-Jul 01, 2012
In <
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0857420216/counterpunchmaga>
Passage of Tears, twenty-nine-year-old Djibril (or “Djib” in the shortened
version), returns to Djibouti, the country of his birth, for the first time
in many years. He’s been living in Canada but has agreed to return to
Djibouti for a research intelligence company in order to feel out “the
temperature on the ground, making sure the country is secure, the situation
stable and the terrorists under control,” a rather unlikely situation just
about anywhere in the Horn of Africa. Presumably, because of his past, he’s
the right man for the job, though clearly there are risks involved—not only
the ones he can foresee. His report, once it is finished, will help a
Western corporation determine whether Djibouti’s uranium is a promising
investment. As he identifies himself, “I have no desire to attract
attention. I earned my spurs in a specific sector of the world of
international business. I am part of that new elite with no permanent ties,
at home everywhere, and foreign everywhere.”
Djib is a little like Changez in Mohsin Hamid’s
<
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156034026/counterpunchmaga> The
Reluctant Fundamentalist, returning home to Pakistan, after becoming
disillusioned with the United States; or Malik, the journalist, in Nuruddin
Farah’s recent novel, Crossbones, also making a pilgrimage to his homeland:
Somalia. Both of these novels and Passage of Tears are concerned with
Islamic fundamentalism in troubled countries. All three present tense
situations for the prodigal son and/or Westerners who venture into such
trouble spots in the world today, which is only to say that their immediacy
is chillingly close to what we read in our newspapers, watch on TV or in
movies, as exaggerated and distorted as those situations may be. Thus, it
isn’t long before Djib is being watched—his every move, in fact.
Waberi’s forté is his daringly innovative way of narrating his story.
First, there are the sections where Djib relates his own adventures, not
only the difficulty he has collecting the information he’s been sent to
acquire but also flashbacks to his life in Canada and the Canadian woman
with whom he lives. He phones her every evening. Then there are passages
related by a mysterious figure from a prison cell, who somehow knows about
Djib’s every move, both inside and outside of his hotel room. Thirdly, that
second narrator (obviously an intellectual) interweaves into his own
observations the events in Walter Benjamin’s last days, when Benjamin was
being pursued by the Gestapo during World War II—real life events that
culminate with the German intellectual’s suicide after he realized that he
could not escape the Nazis. Are these three narratives convincing?
Disturbingly so, as Djib begins to realize that he is a marked man, pursued
by fanatics, and that he’s no longer regarded by his people as Djibouti, but
Western.
Hamid, Farah, and Waberi all attack Capitalism and its virulent overseas
form: corporatism. But, unlike Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, who
comes to question his job at Underwood Samson (US), raiding companies and
skimming off their assets, Djib does not question his work that is only
designed to benefit Western corporations as non-Western companies are being
destroyed. Djib glibly remarks, “I have been trained to disorganize these
states and weaken them still more, so as to benefit multinational companies
and their stockholders. It is lucrative work but it has its dangers.”
Somewhat later, he also observes, “As business never stops, neither do armed
conflicts. There are always new markets to explore, new partners to
consult, new logos to design, new directions to take and new masters to
advise. I am a link in that chain of transnational command. A foot soldier
of the shadows.”
The story slowly twists on family dynamics, on scars from childhood wounds,
rivalries and jealousies, and religious fundamentalism. Waberi conjures up
Djibouti’s barrenness, its poverty, and political factions—wrapped around
the American Combined Joint Task Force for the Horn of Africa, Camp
Lemonier: “a fortified base, protected by a double surrounding wall
bristling with watchtowers, infrared cameras and concrete barriers, as well
as several rows of barbed wire.” And the country itself? “Due to its
geographical position and stability, my little country has charmed the high
strategists of the Pentagon and the Businessmen of the Persian Gulf, Dubai
first and foremost.”
Waberi is a gifted writer and the translation by David and Nicole Ball
serves him well. His chilling narrative of America’s repeated blunders in
international intervention is enough to make one quake.
Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University
in Washington, D.C.
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Received on Sat Jun 30 2012 - 08:52:20 EDT
