Political Fantasy Defined: The Writer and
the World by V.S. Naipaul

October 28, 2006

Naipaul's essay "The Overcrowded Barracoon" is another portrait of place on the margins of what Naipaul will later call the "Universal Civilization." The place this time is Mauritius, an island sitting deep in the Indian Ocean.. but its internal social dynamic, along with its economic dependence on sugar, makes it hard to distinguish from any of the Caribbean islands that Naipaul describes. The essay is notable, however, for the clear fashion in which one of Naipaul's principal themes is sketched: the destructive power of political fantasy.

Naipaul is relentless is pointing out overpopulation as a key problem for the small island.

In 1931 the population was more or less what it had been in 1901, just under 400,000. Then the disaster occurred. In 1949 malaria was finally eradicated. The population jumped. It is now about 820,000. Three Mauritians out of five are under twenty-one. No one knows how many unemployed or idle people there are—estimates vary from 50,000 to 80,000—and the population grows by about 12,000 every year. [107]

This essay was written in 1972, but a little internet research shows that today the population of Mauritius is at about xx.

How do people on such an island survive? What should they do? And we should note that there are no truly indigenous people on this island. The Dutch discovered the island in the 17th century and settled it to produce sugar. It changed hands several times, but always remained a plantation for the production of sugar. Now sugar has little value and the population is growing exponentially. The island is a prison for those who cannot leave.

This is the setting for political fantasy. We should follow Naipaul in his description:

The government recognizes a problem of unemployment. A White Paper says that 130,000 new jobs will have to be created by 1980. The government doesn't recognize a problem of over-population and discourages investigation of its effects. It disapproves of "crude" family planning programmes on TV. Mauritius is a conservative, wife-beating society and the government doesn't want to offend anybody. [111]

So problem #1: people in political power do not want to talk about the primary economic concern for the island. They prefer to coddle the culture and avoid undue conflict. So enter problem #2:

So, by stressing unemployment and by playing down over-population, the government defends itself and seeks to remain the instrument of protest, as in colonial days. Protest against the rich, so often white, whose talents and money are yet needed; protest against the sugar-cane, the slave crop, hateful yet indispensable. [111]

We could define this as protest in place of policy. There must be someone to blame for this worsening situation, and who easier to blame than the rich whites who are on the island? What easier to hate than sugar, symbol of colonialism? This protest has no answers, though. It identifies an enemy, but it fails to confront head on the challenge of globalization, and what this modern situation demands of them.

Naipaul catalogs the creeping depression of life inside this prison, which can look "happy-go-lucky" to visiting travel writers (let us vow to avoid such writers!). He gives us the malaise and fantasy world of powerlessness. There is one place, however, where he spots someone with a ticket to escape. Naipaul cites his response upon being questioned about what he will find in England:

He is absolutely unconcerned about racial problems in England; it will not matter to him what people say to him or about him; and he doesn't care if he never sees Mauritius again. He and his friends have given up local politics. Politics can't help anyone in Mauritius now. The government can't help anyone now. "The MMM is also the same. It is better to depend on yourself." [126]

Those could be the very words of Naipaul as he left Trinidad in 1950 on scholarship. There is not comment given by Naipaul on these words, but the reader senses that this is where victory lies.. an unsentimental willingness to take life's hard knocks and to to what is necessary without complaining. Anything less.. to build up an elaborate protest for past injustice.. to fall prey to slogans of resentment.. anything less than a willingness to create a real life, is to fall into fantasy.