Content warning 71/
At once, the switch in Ahmed's character is a twofer: First, it's a callback to his 'foreign' persona in Ankh-Morpork (he knows the city as well as any student of the Assassin's Guild should).
Content warning 72/
This satirises how some folks view others through a blend of ignorance and hubris, armchair anthropologists who see foreigners as though they're some art exhibit to be studied.
Content warning 73/
Second, Vimes' reaction to realising he's been well and truly had satirises those of us who have liberal fingers on our pulse - to see others right, no matter who they are, or where they come from.
Content warning 74/
The Watch became a diverse force in Men at Arms (1993), and while Vimes grew to trust those different to himself, he didn't fall off the other end of the spectrum with zeal. He sees colour/size/silicon/clay/vital signs 𝘱𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, to the point where his entire beat is a free eye test.
Content warning 75/
Vimes might suspect the City's character, but this, in its own way, still accepts the proverbial terms of debate that his fellow Morporkians establish: that the fault lies squarely in the character of a foreign country and its people.
Content warning 76/
The real lesson, however, is that neither Ankh-Morpork nor Klatch trust their own citizens; in the first place, for states to justify fighting each other over stupid shit, they have to persuade Us that Them can't be trusted.
Content warning 77/
Vimes reflects on this well before he confronts Ahmed, but it takes Ahmed for the penny to drop:
> It was because he wanted there to be conspirators...
Content warning 78/
> ..It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact...
Content warning 79/
> ...that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.
> It was so much easier to blame it on Them.
Content warning 80/
> It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them.
Content warning 81/
> No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.
It's a far greater commentary on racism and xenophobia than Witches Abroad could ever be.
