The series of interviews highlighted in this passage are extremely revealing of the hierarchy of power intrinsic to the Middle Eastern society of Balgat. The different roles represented by the relationship between the interviewer and interviewees reminds me of Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” narrative: while the members of the village exist in their society, obedient to their laws, the outsider in this scenario has power because he is not a member of their society. At the same time, however, because the outsider exists within the physical confines of the village, his power is limited by the same laws that affect the villagers. It is by this token that the Chief makes the original interviewer, Tosun, nervous, while Tosun makes the grocer nervous at the same time.
Ultimately, change occurs in this isolated village, suggesting an upheaval in this power dynamic to a certain extent. In no small part, as Lerner points out, was this due to the ideas of the Grocer, which provides questions as to where the motivation for change came from, and how such a power dynamic is altered by the ideas of outsiders and its inhabitants.
Part of the ambiguity over whether and when the chief’s individual material power or the grocer’s representation of shifting demographic power is more significant than the other is also enhanced by the different perspectives each take in answering the same questions. The chief is very much cognizant of his role as a representative of a power structure and frames his responses in a professionalized manner to reflect that, while the grocer is able to speak off the cuff and fully commit to his own individual beliefs and interests, which may nevertheless be representative of a larger class interest that is coming into power. The gradual, big-picture cultural and political shifts that both the chief and grocer experience cannot be separated from their real-time reactions to those shifts, and the way they perform their social roles in response to inquisitive outsiders highlights the stake each has in the game, as well as their awareness for where that game is heading.