Rickey Hewitt Jr

Dr. Amit Baishya

ENGL 2283
December 10, 2022
Nineveh: The Reality of the Unloved in the Neoliberal Regime

In the postcolonial and neoliberal world, there are two levels of existence. There is the

neoliberal, or colonizer, world, and there is the world of the wretched of the earth. Frantz Fanon

provides the theoretical aspects of those two worlds in his work and Nineveh realizes that world.

In Nineveh specifically, Henrietta Rose-Innes illustrates the reality of the unloved in such a

reality. Both are under the power of the unloving neoliberalist power. In Nineveh, Rose-Innes

paints the realities of every level of existence beneath the neoliberal regime.

In Nineveh, the bugs represent more than just bugs. They are also creatures that are,

“objectionable only because they’ve wandered from their proper zones, or because they trigger

human shudders” (Rose-Innes 2011). This imagery is explicitly in reference to the populations

that the neoliberalist regime deems as unfit for their created space which, in the book’s case, is

Nineveh. The fact that their “improper zones” are truly their natural space means nothing to

neoliberalism. Also, the level at which the story is being told plays a role in how the reader

perceives the bugs or wretched of the earth. Nineveh shows this in how even though Katya is

aware of different classes of the wretched, upon her realization of the security guard’s refugee

status after which “she imagines in Pascal a rootlessness far more wrenching than her own”

(Rose-Innes). However, we see the levels of their wretchedness are all the same at the highest

level when “Mrs. Brand, gestur[es] tightly up at them. Shakes of the head, shooing gestures.

She’s ashamed of her caterpillar problem” (Rose-Innes). Mrs. Brand shoos them away in the

same manner that she would a bug. Furthermore, the role of bugs is that they seek to invade the

colonizer and neocolonialist space. Though their “invasion” is really a reclamation of what was
rightfully theirs. The image of such a reclamation is also pointing to the nature of the displaced

organisms which calls for the demonization of “the swarm.” The idea of “the swarm” is a

derogatory perception of the colonized born from the colonizer’s point of view.

The colonizer sees swarming as an act of defiance, such as when Brand asks “are they

going to swarm again?” (Rose-Innes). However, Katya’s perception of “the swarm” up close

paints it as an act of nature rather than defiance.

She goes down on her knees, she puts her palms flat on the boards. They run over her

knuckles. Their carapaces glitter purple, green and gold. Thousands of them. She

examines one on the back of her hand. It waves its jointed feelers wildly in her direction,

semaphoring something: insectoid exuberance, the joy of the swarm. (Rose-Innes)

At this moment, Katya sees the individual lives within the swarm along with it being an act of

natural joy rather than intentional defiance. Nonetheless, the swarm is a piece of nature that

disrupts the neoliberal aesthetic and because of that, is subject to ridicule by the oppressor.

Another image of the nature of the swarm in Nineveh is when Tony observes that the bugs did

not swarm when they were relocated from their first job in the novel (Rose-Innes). As Johanna

Bockman’s work, Neocolonialism, states, the state uses neoliberalism to relocate and remove the

poor in a way that they are “allowed to make ‘choices’ in expensive rental markets” (Bockman,

2013). That scene shows how even the most humane “relocation” still disrupts nature.

The act of relocation is the first step of how neoliberalism terraforms the native space

into one that fits the culture and desires of the colonizer. Every space that was for native life was

bulldozed and replaced with the necessities for the western, foreign elite. Williams’ Life Among

Vermin essay supports this in the acknowledgment that “the affluent suburbs whose property

prices were elevated by apartheid-era removals that would later make Cape Town capable of
‘attracting a transnational elite’” (Williams, 2011). Thus, displacement is a natural repercussion

of neoliberalism. However, in Nineveh, the interesting thing about the bugs is their commitment

to what is natural. They are unmoved by bulldozers and construction. They exist in a passive

rebellion at the subterranean level as they only do what is natural to them–survive. When they

enter the city after the storm, they are not actively rebelling as they swarm but they are rather

doing what is natural to them and reclaiming existence on the level that truly belongs to them.

This brings me back to the moment when Toby notes that when they are relocated that they don’t

swarm. That is a testament to the invalidity of the idea that neoliberalism has the capacity to

“humanely” displace people. What the neoliberalist regime fails to acknowledge is that culture is

tied to space and when people are removed from their space, it is a form of murdering their

natural selves. Hence the reason why the bugs do not continue in their natural activities of

swarming when relocated. When members are removed from their native spaces, they are being

severed from the environmental aspect of their existence leaving them culturally crippled. The

colonizer does not believe in such connections in identity so he is ruthless in his disruption of the

ecosystem of the colonized. Furthermore, neoliberalism exaggerates these repercussions in the

sense that not only are native people relocated, but they are also pushed into areas that are less

than livable. To combat this, according to the neoliberalism article, the state provided

government housing; however, under the new neoliberalist regime, those inadequate systems are

eradicated and mass homelessness is left in its wake (Bockman). As most of the removed people,

in the case of South Africa, were black, the “transition from racial to class apartheid” (Williams)

is seamless in its continuation of the oppression of black South Africans as they were poor before

the shift in segregation occurred. Because of this, the state can maintain its aesthetic in spaces for

the elite that is free of black people or, in a broader sense outside of the example of South Africa,
the wretched of the earth. Neoliberalism allows them to do so without being deemed as a racist

state. That is an example of how neoliberalism “embodies local criticisms, desires, and

experiments in distorted form (Bockman). The neoliberal market then builds physical walls

along borders that before, were only maintained by the colonizer's violence, hence Fanon’s claim

that violence is the only means of revolution (Fanon, 1968). Neocolonialism complicates the

plight of the Fanonian revolutionary in the sense that they are no longer being oppressed by guns

and knives but by brick walls built by the market. If they burn down those walls or swarm the

colonizer’s spaces, the market-based ideology of the neocolonialist regime will have an easy

time using force to remove such a swarm as the colonizer will only see them as breaking and

entering what the neoliberalist regime has deemed rightfully theirs through their ability to afford

such luxury. This allows neoliberalism to overlook the fact that the reason that they have such a

luxury that is free of the wretched of the earth is that the preceding colonialist system built itself

on an infrastructure of segregation. Thus, Nineveh is an image of neocolonialism in its true form,

a repainted face of the colonizer only this time, his sword is replaced by dollar bills. Also in

Nineveh, the concrete barriers built by the neoliberalist are what spacially govern people. They

maintain the separation that the colonialist desires yet the colonialist does not take the blame for

such inequality but rather “citizens [that were] forced to become entrepreneurs … within a highly

volatile world … [take] individual responsibility for their failures” (Bockman).

Furthermore, the market does what the colonizer state has always wanted to do, remove

the wretched of the earth. If neoliberalism and its “policies were not meant to eradicate the state,

but rather to have forged a new kind of state” (Bockman), it’s important to see that partnering of

the state and market in light of the fact that the state acts in its own interest. Thus the expansion

of the state in the market will serve the same means only in this case, the state won’t be the
blame for the repercussions per their deceptive means of addressing “local criticisms”

(Bockman). Furthermore, in the neocolonialist society, the market is less inclined and obligated

to listen to the needs of the people and the laissez-faire nature of the government removes the

need for the state’s imposition on a market so long as the market. For example, Nineveh is the

new manifestation of a colonized idealized world. A world in which the wretched of the earth

remain on the outside and the colonizer remains on the inside. The form of apartheid in this

means is illustrated by physical barriers. High walls around Nineveh and even the high walls

around Alma’s neighborhood. Thus, the market has created a home for the colonizer to live in.

This again returns to Fanon’s observation of the spaces of the colonizer and the colonized, only

this time, rather than the state putting up the barbed wire and making the colonizer's homes nicer,

the neoliberal market uses capital. The colonizing state can kick its feet up in the home built by

neoliberalism that it has empowered to do its bidding of relocation and extermination.

A further step for maintaining a neoliberal society, as Bockman points out, is that a

“powerful state [is] necessary to create and sustain a minimal state” (Bockman). That means

when the state makes decisions that protect the interest of the market at the expense of the

people, the state must have the capacity to scare the people from revolution (Bockman). In the

case of Nineveh, we get an example of what would occur if the market did not have a powerful

state to defend it. The bugs or the wretched of the earth would swarm the neoliberal space. In

Nineveh, bugs had been removed from their home and they wanted it back so they took it back

through their natural movements. What Bockman shows is that a truly efficient neoliberalist

regime relies on the state to ensure that such a revolution does not occur. Furthermore, this

shows the need for the state to create levels among the colonized to keep them fighting each

other.
 The colonizer or the state sometimes do not need to be involved because they have

created systems that will ensure that the colonized only devalue each other but never fight

against the true oppressor. Nineveh explores this idea in the different ways that Len and Katya

see the bugs. Katya gets up close to them and sees their “flesh” as beings worth dignity,

protection, and respect. Because of this, her method of relocation relies on humane techniques

because she sees herself in the bugs. She also does not see herself as above the bugs. In fact, she

sees them as equal as they all have life. This is evident in the words that Katya uses to describe

the people in her life and how she uses human words to describe the bugs.

Juxtaposing that with Len, he sees himself as above the bugs and sees no point in

showing them mercy. Nonetheless, the neocolonialist, personified through Brand, sees Len,

Katya, and the bugs as being on the exact same level as seen in the scene where Brand’s wife

shoos them away. Thus, the reality of neocolonialism is that there are two levels– the level of

neoliberal or neocolonialist and the level of wretched of the earth. The reason we see the

difference in level is because of the level at which the story is being told. This brings to mind our

discussion of the three levels of existence in the book. From the birds-eye view, which is where

Brand and the neocolonialist live, everything beneath them is the same – beneath them. That

includes every organism that does not coincide with the neocolonial aesthetic. Through the

middle view which is where Len and Kayta live, the bugs are on a level beneath them. The

difference is that Kayta sees all three levels as being the same, hence her descriptions of each

level include aspects of different levels. However, Len is fighting a meaningless battle in the

desire to have the same agency as the colonizer. He wants the power that he will never have and

the neocolonial regime ensures that. I think Nineveh shows that rather than destroy what is
beneath, every level under the elite must work together to rise above and create the postcolonial

image that we see at the end of the novel.

 Works Cited

Bockman, J. (2013). Neoliberalism. Contexts, 12(3), 14–15.

Fanon, F. (1968). The wretched of the Earth. pref. by Jean-Paul Sartre. Grove Press.

Rose-Innes, H. (2016). Nineveh. Aardvark Bureau.

Williams, D. (2018). Life among the Vermin: Nineveh and Ecological Relocation. Studies in the

Novel 50(3), 419-440.