6. We get a few clues in the text as to the nature of this new "Africa of words and ideas." The first is when Salim sits in on a lecture given by his friend Indar. Indar is drawn as a socratic philosopher figure: "he tried to get the young men to examine the words they were using" (p. 121). Indar seems wise, yet he also does little but obfuscate questions. It is unclear what "ideas" Indar, the new Africa, and the new president are espousing, but the ambiguity may be the point.
This is illustrated in the party Salim attends, where he meets Raymond and Yvette. Raymond describes the president as very open minded, hungry for ideas. "He feels that all ideas can be made to serve the cause" (p.134). The president's self-made image is both modern and in touch with tribal roots, a soldier and a peace-maker, a man from the bush and one at the highest reaches of society, conservative and revolutionary, in touch with the past and ready to move forward. The president uses whatever ideology is politically or economically viable at the moment; his hunger is constantly in need of new ideas to digest and repurpose.
In constructing the new Africa, the president is establishing a unified national identity. The picture of the president, seemingly hanging in every room of every building, is symbolically "a picture of all Africans" (p. 134). This ignores tribal and religious differences which are highlighted elsewhere in the novel. This nationalism may not be as inclusive as it seems. Would Metty, a person of mixed race and self-proclaimed former "slave," fit into this "picture of all Africans"? The type of ideological rhetoric the new president engages in may too easily devolve into simple lies, like the European colonials who had "both the slaves and the statues" (p. 17).
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