Saviors
by Paul Eggers
Reviewed by Betsy Ross
I find myself waking up these days to a kind of hazy depression attributable to some extent to mid-life crisis, I suppose, but to a greater extent I am probably no different than many who harbor what seems to be a lingering dis-ease with the world around them. From the very local to the world-wide scene, I feel oppressed by leaders who are not "leaders," by the elevation of differences over commonalities, and by the pure, unadulterated hubris exhibited by those in power.
What does that have to do with Saviors, a novel set in the immediately post Vietnam era, about former Peace Corps volunteers working in a Vietnamese resettlement camp on the island of Bidong in Malaysia? Nothing and everything. Saviors is a novel that asks the question, "What are our deepest motivations?" and "Why do motivations matter?"
The "saviors" (a tongue-in-cheek appellation) in the novel are a cauldron of personalities and motivations. Referred to by the locals as "white bastards," they exhibit self-righteousness and condescension, yet there is undeniably sincerity flailing about in the mix. We question whether their motivations are to improve the condition of life for refugees; whether their motivations are the guise for imposing upon others their self-righteous viewpoints; or, indeed, whether their motivations are simply an excuse for the self-affirming exercise of wielding power.
Why do these motivations matter? They raise the issue of whether the human condition improves when one acts out of power or self-righteousness. Eggers suggests, in the following excerpt, that it takes moving beyond what I would call the fearful motivations: power and certainty (i.e. self-righteousness)- motivations that separate us from others - to be an effective force of good, or perhaps simply, to be authentic. One of the workers, while examining what she was doing in Bidong, reflects:
"When you are new to a place, what could you do but accept its surprises? You knew nothing. What could you do but keep looking and wait for the day when you would just be sitting in a chair or waving to someone, and all of a sudden your spirit would whisper into your ear: You are in this place. You are here.
Every morning, she woke early and sat up in her bunk, just listening, hoping her spirit would whisper into her ear."
This is more than just physically being there. Eggers was talking about being there in toto; "being there" as in being there in all authenticity, being in the same state of mind and heart with the object of your actions. It is at once very spatial and not spatial: it is the absence of space between desires and actions. And absence of space results in the elevation of similarities over differences - a key to overcoming personal and political dissonance.
Motivations matter because, ultimately, sincerity and authenticity matter. When what we say we want to do for others is bound up in undisclosed self-interest, we are simply inauthentic, and inauthenticity is a recipe for failure in the execution of our actions. It takes only asking a simple question to illustrate this point: Will my actions in bringing relief to refugees - or my efforts to bring democracy to a foreign land - be embraced if what I am really trying to do is bolster my ego by asserting my own superiority?
Motivations matter.