With the end of apartheid, Nadine Gordimer shifts her focus and concern from that of apartheid’s racist and oppressive dogma of white supremacy over blacks to another racial issue presented in a post-apartheid world. Now that South Africa places blacks and whites on an equal footing, there is a new type of “other” with whom prejudices have come to be directed upon: the non-South Africans. The immigrants from neighboring African countries, and in particular the illegal migrant workers, the economic and political refugees, are marginalized and regarded with contempt. This is highlighted by Abdu’s words regarding his position: “I am a drug dealer, a white-slave trader coming to take girls, I’ll be a burden on the state, that’s what they say, I’ll steal someone’s job, I’ll take smaller pay than the local man.” This is further illustrated when Julie and Abdu seek the help of a successful black lawyer, who is one of her father’s friends, in the hopes of attaining a visa for Abdu. The black lawyer seems reluctant to help them and Julie can see that he is saying to her, “he’s not for you.” It becomes plain to her that “the famous lawyer is one of them, her father’s people.”
Furthermore, this prejudice against a marginalized group is not only an outcome of racism but also classism. Abdu represents the social class of people who come from poor regions without any opportunities for success. He is a victim of social and economic unfairness as he is forced to work as a mechanic in South Africa even though he has a degree in economics. Due to his Arab race – which the western world harbors orientalist preconceptions of desert lands, camels, palm trees, and wandering nomadic tribes who live in primitive ways – and due to his background of poverty, Abdu’s character echoes the harsh truth that the old social divisions of the past still prevail even within a post-modern, globalized era. Abdu proves the falsehood of the belief that globalization and post-modernity abolishes class divisions alongside racial divisions, where everyone is now considered equal. He proves that it is evidently only an illusion. Globalization and its fruits are only available to the privileged classes; that is why the wealthy friend of Julie’s father is able to choose to move to Australia and is able to do so without complications, whereas Abdu is not offered this choice – this privilege is not for the likes of him – and so he must only go where “they will let [him].”
In contrast, Julie comes from a background of affluence. She is a representation of her white privilege – her class and race are both extremely beneficial to her and which Abdu obviously envies. Because of her financial and social power, she is the one who does the “picking up.” She picks up Abdu, her “oriental prince” whose background Julie “surely imagines wrongly,” as that of being made up of “palm trees, camels, alleys hung with carpets and brass vessels,” and "dhows" – a strictly orientalist idea derived from fanciful preconceived notions of the Middle East. Besides that, she also picks up new identities as she pleases: first, she chooses the identity of an independent young woman who rejects everything that her father and his kind of people stand for – all of their material wealth and superficial interests, their racism and prejudices – and later she adopts the identity of the English teacher in Abdu’s native country, where she strives to cease being merely the foreigner, and instead, aims to be one of their own.
This advantage of the wealthy to be able to pick up whatever and whomever they please is also reflected in Julie’s mother’s ability to pick up a job for Abdu in America, thereby granting him a visa he had been struggling to attain for so long. The striking contrast between Abdu’s long ordeal at achieving a visa to gain entry into another country and the ease with which those like Julie’s mother and her father’s friend obtain the same thing is a manifestation of the still dominant class and racial divisions in a post-modern, globalized world. While those like Julie are able to adopt the status of a global citizen who is welcome anywhere, those like Abdu are forced to maintain their status of a national citizen and are barred from this freedom of mobility and accessibility.
