Naked Lunch

The narrator describes several political parties in Interzone. Liquefactionists wish for the absorption of the entire population into a single protoplasmic blob; Divisionists hope for the infinite replication of themselves until only one individual remains with millions of separate replicas; and Senders make use of one-way telepathic communication to control the population’s thoughts. But the party the narrator mostly fails to mention explicitly is the Nationalist Party, whose presence in Interzone alludes most directly to the historical context within which Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch—namely the International Zone of Tangier. Because of its unique status as an “international zone,” Tangier played a central role in the rise of revolutionary movements in Morocco, as revolutionary leaders frequently congregated in a largely unregulated Tangier to build international support for their independence project. Within the novel, the Nationalist Party Leader represents these revolutionary factions, which Burroughs also appears to satirize. Motivated to rally the native population against invaders and colonialists, specifically the French, the Party Leader stages a riot in Interzone’s market square. Far from a noble figure, the Party Leader is depicted as a self-seeking person, whose shifting loyalties illustrate how what the Party Leader really seeks, more than independence for Interzone’s oppressed citizens, is glory and power for himself.