Reality Check 101:

Experiencing J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians

by Chris Switzer

         Cellular phones, mud-splattered SUV’s, Cocoa Puffs, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Pentium IV PC’s, DVD players; these are the luxury items of wealthy, satisfied countries, most notably the spoiled United States. In the U.S., the primary concern of the people is whether or not they will be able to acquire a Playstation 2 for their child’s birthday; the most traumatic experience is being in a minor fender bender or having to put one’s dog or cat to sleep. We have evolved as a culture to the point of moral complacency; risking one’s physical safety or financial security to stand up for one’s principles will never be an issue for most middle-class Americans
          For this reason, it is refreshingly disturbing to read J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. It’s the story of a magistrate of a (presumably) South African frontier settlement who witnesses the unspeakable acts of cruelty of visiting Colonel Joll, a man determined to find enemies of the Empire in the desolate lands that surround them. The Magistrate looks the other way while Colonel Joll interrogates the prisoners, assuming that the acts of the Empire, while excessive in force, are necessary for the security of the people. When the Colonel fills the settlement compound with vagrants as prisoners, the Magistrate finds it increasingly difficult to hold his tongue. He unwittingly reveals his true feelings to the Colonel. However, it is not this subtle insubordination that leads to his political demise, but his sincere relationship with a barbarian girl that causes him to become the new object of the Empire’s suspicion.
          After the prisoners are released, a barbarian girl is left behind, begging in the streets, temporarily blinded and crippled from the torture inflicted upon her. The Magistrate befriends her and eventually invites her to sleep in his room. The relationship, however, is not on based on sexuality but one of a deeper physic, emotional need. They both partake in a strangely relaxing cleansing ritual where the Magistrate washes the girl’s body, perhaps as a symbolic way of washing his hands of the terrible deeds of Colonel Joll. After the girl’s eyesight returns and she regains some use of her feet, the Magistrate decides to return the girl to her people. Following a grueling journey that takes several weeks to complete, the reception the Magistrate receives when he returns to the settlement is not what he expected. Charged with treason by Colonel Joll, the Magistrate is thrown into prison.
          It’s stories like this that make one wonder if some acts of courage and heroism are not necessarily by choice. The scenes of devilishly devised “interrogations” that occur to the prisoners and eventually to the Magistrate himself are described with a strange mixture of detail and detachment, enough to cause the reader to cringe. What occurs later in the novel, however, is what truly exposes the horror of the Empire, and brings one to the unpleasant realization that there are things far worse than physical torture.