Introduction
Despite the fact that formally speaking, Robert Sheckley’s short story “The Native Problem” belongs to the genre of science fiction, its clearly defined satirical overtones, associated with the notion of “White men’s burden”, point out to the fact that story’s motifs correspond more to a past then to a future. In it, author strived to provide readers with the insight on psychological anxieties, experienced by European (White) explorers and colonists, during the so-called Era of Exploration, when they were spreading the light of civilization all over the world.
Main body
When ships filled with White adventurers began sailing around the world in search for new lands that could be colonized, these people started to realize that it was namely their culture and civilization that represented an objective value, simply because native populations, encountered by Europeans in New World, consisted of primitive savages that were not even able to evolve beyond the Stone Age, over the course of millennia. Given the fact that back then, White people were not being instilled with the complex of historical guilt yet, as it is the case now, they would treat Natives as what they really were – an inferior beings, who could hardly be referred to as humans, in full sense of this word. The leader of Hutterite People Simeon had expressed his plans for colonization of “New Tahiti” in clear and straightforward manner: “There are an aboriginal people here, naked and savage, undoubtedly cunning, ruthless and amoral, as aboriginals always are… We will live in peace with them if they let us.
We will bring them the fruits of civilization, flowers of culture…But always remember this friends: we cannot trust them, we must be forever on guard!” (Sheckley). Therefore, we can say that, even though Sheckley’s story does make fun of Hutterite People’s (White colonists) suspiciousness and of their unmotivated hostility towards those, they considered savages, it would be wrong to think of this story as promoting anti-colonial message, but rather as such that was simply meant to entertain the descendants of White colonists by assessing the deeds of their forefathers through the lenses of satire. Moreover, “The Native Problem” actually provides us with the insight onto the fact that the concept of “White men’s burden” does not derive out of White racially prejudicious mentality, but out of the common sense – as history shows, the aboriginal people in Third World countries (former European colonies) can only advance culturally and economically for as long as they maintain close social contacts with Whites.
Once these contacts are being cut off (due to “national-liberation” movements), people’s existential status quo in such countries becomes instantly re-established: they turn into what they have always used to be, before the arrival of European explorers – savages who live in primitive huts, made out of dirt, who eat cockroaches for breakfast and who drink out of rain paddles. This is the reason why today’s so-called “developing” countries are not really developing – they are rapidly descending into the state of primeval savagery. The example of Haiti, which used to be the most prosperous European colony in the whole world, while under the French rule, and which is now nothing short of a hell on Earth, substantiates the validity of this statement better then anything else. Thus, it would be utterly inappropriate to suggest that “The Native Problem” criticizes the very concept of White colonialism – Robert Sheckley is the last science fiction author to be associated with the notions of political correctness. If anything, this short story ridicules the so-called philosophy of “New Age”, which glorifies the notions of “spirituality”, “closeness to earth” and “environmental friendliness”, as opposed to “euro-centric” notions of hard science, and which became especially popular among decadent White people, during the course of recent decades.