History, empire, and the individual are all in a fraught relationship. The Empire works by organizing, structuring, categorizing, and separating its people into different disciplines of the empire for the purposes of efficiency. This creates problems for individuals under the Empire, individuals become cogs in a system like this. What effects does an empire have on the individuals who inhabit it? Even after the dissolution of an empire, what effects remain in the empire's historical wake? It is the empire's categorization and definition of people that creates a cruel pathology in the empire's bureaucracy to shun its people. As Coetzee writes in Waiting for the Barbarians, “The Empire does not require that its servants love each other, but simply that they do their duty” (6). The Empire not only affects the individuals who support the Empire, but the people whom the Empire takes by force for the purpose of the Empire, fall to a similar and more devastating fate: slaves and their future relatives meet this fate in America. Empire classifies and defines what is needed to manage it easily and create a more efficient system, this allows people to be defined in one way. In war, this happens. The enemy is defined in one way: in Coetzee's hypothetical world the enemy of the empire is marked as “barbarian”. This is also represented in Baldwin's “The Stranger in the Village”: the strangeness of Baldwin's existence in a remote Swiss village brings to light the definitions that the ghost of the Empire's past has placed on him, he will always be seen as a “neger” (Baldwin 165) by children and adults. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The history that an empire leaves behind involves the actions of individuals who perpetuated the empire's agenda. In the American case, modes of slavery were intended to provide economic prosperity to a white minority, but at a deadly humanitarian cost. In Coetzee's hypothetical world, the history of empire is “the jagged time of rise and fall” (Coetzee 133). The history the empire creates for itself is self-destructive, at some point the individuals of the empire will be hurt enough by the empire's detached agenda and start fighting for themselves. Coetzee tells the story of the Magistrate. At first, the magistrate faces the cold shoulder of the Empire when he is introduced to Colonel Joll. Joll's dark glasses and uncompassionate speech about torturing the empire's enemies to extract the truth demonstrate the empire's cruelty: "Looking at him I wonder how he felt the first time: whether, invited as an apprentice, to twist the pincers or turn the screw or whatever?” are they the ones who shudder even just a little in knowing that in that moment he was bordering on the forbidden? I also find myself wondering if he has a private purification ritual, performed behind closed doors, to allow him to return and break bread with other men” (Coetzee 12). This is the problem of empire with its individuals. The Empire doesn't care if people like each other or if people hate each other because of their race, culture, or anything else. The Empire only cares if the work is done to perpetuate the Empire. This can have disastrous effects on individuals within an empire. The tension created when individuals hate each other can be a war. Baldwin discusses this in "Stranger in the Village" when Baldwin mentions the catalyst behind America's Civil War. Baldwin says that “the question of his humanity, and therefore his rights as a human being, became a burning one for several generations of Americans” (174); those “Americans” are whites and blacks fightingtogether for the response of the black man's humanity. The lines blurred; whites fought for the humane solution while others fought for the inhumane one. This fight for an answer has torn a nation apart and united it – for the first time. However, history rebels, the new fabric of American society is still fragile enough today to be torn apart by the same question, "its effects are so often disastrous and always so unpredictable, that it refuses to this day to be completely resolved" ( 174). The American heart still murmurs about the hatred of the past, which at times throbs, threatening a heart attack. Justice, as described by Coetzee, is just a memory of what once was. Justice is no longer an achievable thing, justice has now become a goal that cannot be achieved. The Empire may be the cause of this, preventing justice for the people and impending tragedy. Coetzee says: “We are fallen creatures. All we can do is respect the laws, all of us, without letting the memory of justice fade” (Coetzee 139). How does this affect individuals in the Empire? When the magistrate uttered this quote, he was addressing a prisoner who was not afforded a fair trial or any sense of justice. The individual under the Empire does not have a fair hand. Coetzee describes the barbarians as arrested and treated unjustly, the empire defines the barbarians as savages who kill and must be detained in order for the empire to expand. This can also be seen in American history, black Americans are defined as inferior people according to historical dogma. The definitions that the American “empire” has given to its people have an effect on the present. Baldwin demonstrates how the history of oppression has coalesced within the contemporary black American, Baldwin states: “History as a tool of influence is intrinsically ingrained in the person from birth, but how does that history influence them today? Baldwin says, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them” (167); for the black person, what is the story that is trapped inside them? The story is that of Jim Crow laws and the stigma that the American past has imposed on black Americans. When the empire brands a people as its enemy, the branding endures along with the empire's stereotypes and prejudices. The definitions and labels that the empire places on its people are long-lasting and have devastating effects. When the empire finds enemies, it finds "justifications" in killing its enemies. The empire does not always create an enemy to perpetuate the empire's agenda, sometimes it is enough to create an underclass of people; this can be seen again in the American scene. The tribesmen in Waiting for the Barbarians are labeled "barbarians" by the empire, this word itself also carries rumors of violence, hatred, bloodlust and savagery. Coetzee writes: "All night, it is said, the barbarians go about killing and robbing" (122), Coetzee describes the fears that the empire has towards its enemies, a fear that is created because the empire he doesn't know who the tribe member are and what their motivations are because they are so contrary to the motivations of an empire. The men of the tribe have no desire or need to grow and perpetuate themselves on other peoples. Tribe members are nomads with no fixed location, unlike the empire which creates permanent structures. The moment the empire discovers discrimination between itself and others is when lasting stereotypes of others are created. Stereotypes that can range from "these people are lazy and unmotivated" to "these people are savages who kill without mercy". The tribe members are imprisoned by the empire's army and beaten; as Coetzee writes,, 2010.