Critique of Imperialism in Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee

Abstract

This research looks into the text, Waiting for the Barbarians from the point of view of post-colonialism. In Waiting for the Barbarians, the colonel acts aggressively. He acts as though the native inhabitants in an anonymous island are subhuman beings. He holds the view that natives should be conquered and controlled for the sake of the flowering of colonialism and British imperialism. He is fired by a magistrate's gesture of compassion. To achieve the higher status of moral agency he has to fall from the standard of civilized and established level of manners and loyalty. Only after he falls from the standard of empire, he becomes capable of reaching the bottom line of misery. Through the creation of such myths, the Empire not only justifies its incursion into another’s territory and the brutal acts of violence on the “Other” by means of this myth. Even at its best, imperial capitalism is oppressive and, as might be expected, introduces no better society than the class-tormented civilizations it springs from in Europe. The easy massacre of an unsuspecting enemy evoked no feelings but those of gladness, pride, and admiration. Primitive men were more faithless than their descendants of to-day.