The Earth Hearing

by Daniel Plonix

  This is as it should be, thought Wang Lei. The Party had been quite clever about the mass detentions. Returning students inquiring about their missing family members were told their families had been “infected by unhealthy thoughts.” Their release was only possible when the “virus in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health.” And naturally, the students’ conduct could either shorten or prolong the detention of their relatives.

  Wang Lei was secretly gratified that the destruction of mosques and the razing of old Muslim burial grounds continued apace in China. They fought to bring those backward people into the light of modernity and…conformity. One people, one China. Thousands of Muslim religious sites had already been demolished, some converted to parking lots. Yet, in his heart of hearts, he felt a pang of pity that the centuries-old, colossal Kargilik Grand Mosque was bulldozed. Why, it was but a year prior that he’d seen the beautiful minarets of the Grand Mosque in Usu and those of Reste Mosque in Aksu. When he next visited, these magnificent mosques were gone—along with the golden domes atop the Hotan Grand Bazaar gate.

  On a brighter note, the days any county or organization dared to question China’s policies were coming to an end. Just the other day, the NBA issued a full-throated apology for the tweet “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” that had been posted earlier by the general manager of the Houston Rockets. The American Blizzard Entertainment had suspended players for expressing support for Hong Kong during a video game competition. Christian Dior formally apologized for using in the course of a business presentation a map of China that didn’t include Taiwan. Mercedes-Benz was forced to grovel for quoting the Dalai Lama. This company knew which side of the bread was buttered—and so did universities and NGOs and corporations that relied in an ever-growing measure on Chinese money and on the vast Chinese market.

  Galecki was not done. “Oh yes, and let us not forget China’s various social-credit score schemes coupled with close digital monitoring of one’s choices and activities.” He thought nothing was more worrisome than a totalitarian regime wielding machine learning coupled with electronic mass-surveillance and facial-recognition technology. Big data meeting Big Brother. The totalitarian fascist vision was one in which “everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” It didn’t pan out; it could not pan out. But that new technology stood to change this.

  Wang Lei pinched the bridge of his nose. The Americans’ tendency for hyperbole was tiresome. He looked up. “Social credit scores and the blacklist have resulted in less petty crime and more community spirit: less people jaywalk and litter, more people donate and drive with consideration.” He shrugged. “At any rate, haven’t this already started in some American universities with the surveillance of students—using their cell phones and Bluetooth beacons, and feeding tardiness and attendance to a point system?”

  “Debatable,” said Galecki, “but let’s put this aside. With you, it’s not just the encouragement of civic-mindedness through nudging. Forbidden political views may and will be used against you.”

  Wang Lei grimaced. “Your social media is just as much a ubiquitous surveillance system, one that records every transaction, stray thought, compromising photo, and post of your residents. You have an army of people­—both paid monitors and volunteer busybodies—who walk the beat. Pick your poison: our government blacklisting with a possible visit by the police, or your permanent online record that may hound your dating and employment prospects indefinitely. Either way, this directly affects only the problematic few. The rest conform.”

  Galecki silently studied the Chinese businessman, his eyes hard and filled with dislike. “Over ten thousand Chinese-owned firms are operating in Africa,” he spat. “Your grubby fingers are in every resource and bounty. By far, China is the biggest global consumer of tropical timber. You people have funded roads in Africa and Amazonia to that end. Rosewood is cut at a ferocious pace in Nigeria and Ghana then shipped to China.”

  “Indeed,” said Wang Lei, examining his nails. “Not to mention the forests of Indochina and Madagascar.”

  “‘Indeed’?”

  Wang Lei put down the file. “The word ‘China,’” he clarified, “is short for ‘one-fifth of humanity who intend on joining the middle class.’ You in the West are all set with fine cabinets and dining tables. Now it is our turn.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “This translates to a lot of forests.” The Zambian were cutting the slow-growing mukula tree and shipping it to China. It was now all but gone from Zambia, which was a testimony to the rigor in which people located and felled the tall trees. Wang Lei was lucky to get his hand on some of the lumber. And on some boards from the giant mara tree, felled wholesale and hauled out of Madidi national park, Bolivia.

  Galecki frowned with irritation. “What about the controlling interest you have in Zambia’s copper mines?”

  “We need copper, too.” Wang Lei smiled savagely. “And oil. We now control much of the Sudanese oil industry.” Not to mention most of the fish off the west coast of Africa, he reflected wryly.

  In a hidden room in a remote location in the building, Lee felt as if she was neck deep in a murky swamp. She could feel the blood pumping in her temples.

  “With you,” Galecki was saying, “it’s all all about power, resources, and grabbing what you can while you can. But you know what? You’ll never be as innovative as we are!”

  Wang Lei burst out laughing. “What difference does that make? Integrated-circuit manufacturing, pressurized-water reactors, genetically-modified organisms, Earth-observation technology, high-end machine tools…what we don’t get from you through trade, mergers, and acquisitions, we take from you in other ways.

  “We have been infiltrating information systems of American firms, devaluing and then acquiring the companies at yard sale prices. We have been hacking and then stealing your intellectual properties, trade secrets, and business processes. We’ve been forcing the transfer of your technologies and intellectual properties in exchange for access to the Chinese market. We’ve recruited thousands of your first-tier researchers and technology experts. We’ve been gaining controlling stake in many of your startups in the fields of artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality, robotics, and blockchain technology. We’ve been reverse-engineering your technologies. We’ve institutions that employ hordes of people who comb through your doctoral theses, government reports, and conference proceedings—transferring their yields to our industry and research institutes. We’ve hundreds of thousands of people in your universities, national laboratories, innovation centers, incubators, and think tanks.

  “You’ve been our innovation farm,” cried out Wang Lei triumphantly, “much as Africa is becoming our raw-materials farm.”

  Galecki closed his eyes. Finally he said, “Yet, when it’s all said and done, your companies can’t outcompete American companies.”

  “You don’t comprehend what they’re up against. In vital sectors, any given company of yours compete with one of our national champions, which is not a standalone entity but a tentacle of a fourteen-trillion-­dollar interlocking directorate of institutions and government agencies with global, decades-long geopolitical objectives. Without overarching state apparatus, bottomless resources, and a long-term interlocking vision, you’re just people out to make a buck. You will lose every time.”

  “However—”

  “And now, look at you! You have lost much of your manufacturing base capabilities. You depend on us for much of your medicines, your electronics, your prefab buildings, your machinery—”

  Lee flicked the switch off. She could bear it no more.

  She was done with them, with all of them. Lee did not want to hear of al-Jabouri’s plans for a global caliphate, the tally of atrocities of the Americans, the resource takeover by the Chinese fascist regime. They were all busy at work, engineering wonderful new worlds.

  She stoo
d up briskly and left.

  The door closing behind her, one last time.

  Chapter 33

  Undisclosed Location, Off-World, the Commission Building

  “Iraq conquered the oil-rich, small country of Kuwait,” Puddeck told the commission. “The international reaction was heartwarming and overwhelming: from the United Kingdom to France, from Canada to Italy, many rose up, united by brotherhood and oil. Led by America, perhaps one million troops from multiple countries piled in to rescue the Kuwaitis. Merely moving all the personnel and equipment of the coalition forces to the various staging areas required seventeen-thousand airborne sorties. Shit, there were so many sorties, they had to issue each day instructions hundreds of pages long that established their order. Everyone jostled for flight time, anxious and chomping at the bit to do their share to drive the Iraqis out.” Puddeck paced about the hexagonal bamboo floor, the area designated to those providing testimony.

  This was the first session to discuss wars on Earth. It kicked off a few minutes earlier and was taking place in one of the larger deliberation chambers. The hall was circular with pale lime-green carpet. The walls and the ceiling were covered with hand-carved oak paneling with a luster finish. Behind a raised desk were seven pedestals of polished wood. At that moment, four of them were occupied by commissioners, as they were listening to the man in a violet robe, Puddeck, who resumed his place at the lectern.

  “It was but three years later,” he said, “when word reached the same governments that an extermination campaign was gearing up in Rwanda. This time, the response was a deafening silence. Experts assessed that less than ten thousand well-armed, determined soldiers would prevent the genocide and dismantle its apparatus before it got underway. Yet, evidently, no military could make the time—busy calendar and what not.” He flashed a toothy smile.

  “When the mass killing of the Tutsi civilian population did commence in Rwanda, France argued for a humanitarian mission. The United States reasoned the UN council should send a delegation that would provide some symbolism. And the United Kingdom cautioned the United Nations not to use terms like ‘forceful action.’

  “Money must have been awfully tight,” confided Puddeck. “The Amer­icans were loath to even allocate funding to jam the radio station that was a major source of incitement to murder. Later, when African troops were ready, willing, and able to engage Rwanda, neither the United States nor the United Kingdom was prepared to provide airlift or contribute equipment.”

  “Has this reaction been…typical?” queried one of the commissioners.

  “Yes,” responded Puddeck. “The public back home, be it in Australia or in Colombia, has not given a monkey’s ass about extermination campaigns that were happening to ‘other’ people—not when two million Cambodians were slaughtered, not when six million Jews were exterminated, not when hundreds of thousands of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians were killed. The decision makers had been just as indifferent.”

  He continued, “The killing season went on for months on end. Eventually, in July, within a five-day period, 850,000 people fled Rwanda and crossed the border into Zaire.”

  Puddeck gesticulated, and a holographic video projection sprung up all around them. The people in the chamber viewed a ripple of the past, the long, silent march of endless people. “That was the fastest and largest movement of people in recorded history,” Puddeck said. “This is when the international community sprang into action. Thousands of aid personnel were airlifted and rushed into the area. Planes landed in the border town around-the-clock, bringing with them tent components, food, medical supplies in what may have been the largest humanitarian deployment of the twentieth century. From Save the Children to Doctors Without Borders, representatives of over four hundred humanitarian aid organizations arrived. It was like a goddamn do-gooder convention.”

  The man in violet fell silent as the people in the room regarded the never ending column of marching people. “It is certainly not every day you see a mass parade of serial killers,” he observed.

  The chair reared back on his seat cushion. “What did you say?”

  Puddeck motioned and the camera zoomed in close enough to make out the faces of the people. “I did fail to mention that, didn’t I?” He grinned from ear to ear. “Those are not the Tutsi fleeing the genocide. Those are the aggressors, the accomplices, the killers, the genociders; those are the Hutus.” A scandalous buzz greeted his words. He had to raise his voice. “And mind you, we are not talking about small-time axe murderers, who may hack and murder five or ten individuals. We are talking here about people having a hearty breakfast, then with a machete in hand and song in their heart, spend hours on end hunting and butchering Tutsi families. Then wake up the day after and do it all over again. Seven days a week; week in, week out; month in, month out. That is, until word reached them that a Tutsi-led army was advancing from the north, and the lot of them fled.

  “The aid agencies might as well have stood there with a sign ‘refugees and genocidaires welcome!’”

  “Did they not realize who were they feeding and sheltering?”

  “Your Grace, the humanitarians smarten up after a short while,” replied Puddeck. “But what were they going to say to the people back home? ‘We’ve used your donation money to feed murderers and their accomplices who plan to regroup and continue their extermination campaign’? Look, they’d been given the dough to feed hungry people of dark skin, and that’s what they were doing. Why quibble over the details? And besides, one man’s axe murderer is another man’s freedom fighter. Or something like this,” Puddeck added. He was enjoying himself.

  “They had to replenish dwindling bank accounts. At that point, there was no other recourse; they had to double down and work the crowd and the press. After all, bills needed to be paid and salaries had to be taken care of. All the charities vied for a maximum exposure in the media with the hope the publicity will attract wealthy donors. The make­up may have been flaking, but the show had to go on.”

  Puddeck continued, “The Hutu honchos organized the camps, structuring them much along the lines of the state they’d left behind—with the same community groupings and hierarchical structure.” The camera panned in on the entrance to a camp, where a luxury car was parked, doors propped open, and men in suits and sunglasses were handing out thick wads of cash to various men.

  “The Hutu leaders let the Western dum-dums feed and house their people and generate some income, while they themselves got down to the serious work of regrouping, smuggling weapons, and rebuilding their forces to resume the genocide campaign,” said Puddeck. “With the money they had hauled with them from Rwanda and the money they were skimming from the Western do-gooders, the Hutu leaders procured AK-47 rifles, vests with magazines, mortars, and rocket launchers.

  “They conducted military training exercises as they broadcast their intent to return to Rwanda and ‘wage a war that will be long and full of dead people until the minority Tutsi are finished and completely out of the country.’ At the same time, the Hutu leadership launched a propaganda and intimidation campaign to deter anyone in the camps from going back to Rwanda on their own.”

  Puddeck threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “But in the end, it amounted to little; most of their killing days were behind them. Eventually, the Hutus were forced back into Rwanda where many were to stand trials and be meted punishment by the newly formed government.”

  He gave a short bow and took a seat.

  The Chief Examiner strode to the hexagonal floor area and laid his notes on the lectern. “May it please the commission, I will proceed with the presentation on the war in Iraq.”

  One of them motioned to him to continue.

  “There is no real beginning or end,” Master Rafirre opened. “All the same, here is an abridged, cursory rundown of what was, or at least some strands we wish to bring to the attention of the commission.


  “During the 1970s, Iraq was a brutal police state, where even minor gestures of dissent or timid expressions of political heresies may trigger arrests, imprisonments, deportations, torture, and disappearances. In those years, Iraq was a nation of informers, a country where one had to exercise great care.

  “Much as Benito Mussolini or Mao Zedong before him, Saddam Hussein embodied the state in his personhood and formed a larger than life public image of himself. One could have received life imprisonment just for disrespecting any of the giant murals or ubiquitous posters of the Great Leader.

  “Iraq was also a state that raked in billions upon billions of dollars from its nationalized oil enterprise—and funneled most of it to infra­structure and public services. Consequently, Iraq in those years boasted a modern network of highways, irrigation systems, and a universal health care. The government set up free schooling for all, colleges included, and led a successful campaign to eradicate illiteracy.

  “During this era, the standard of living was rising markedly, the ranks of the middle class ballooned, villages were electrified, and peasant huts sported refrigerators and television antennas. With the help of state-paid day-care and convenient public transportation, Iraqi women held jobs in all sectors of the economy. They dressed as they pleased, had a presence in the parliament, and made up over half of all the students in Iraq’s largest university.

  “In the late 1970s, Iraqi society reached the highest standard of living it’d ever had. Then things started to spiral downward.

  “In 1979, fundamentalist Shias assumed control over Iran, next door. Subsequently, the new, religious government of Iran egged on the Shia population of Iraq to do likewise and overthrow the secular Iraqi gover­nment. In response, Iraqi tanks crossed over into Iran. And an eight-year attrition war got underway, with some characteristics of the devastating trench and chemical warfare of World War I.

  “Worried that the hostile Iranian government may seize control of the Gulf states—or more to the point, their oil operations—the United States quietly supported Iraq in its war campaign. It provided the Iraqis with intel. It also gave the green light to US companies to sell raw materials for the making of chemical and biological weapons by the Iraqis, anthrax included. The Iraqis did put some of the supplies to good use and engaged in chemical warfare against Iran and against its own rebellious Kurdish population.