“That was then,” said Puddeck and sniffed dismissively. He exchanged a quick glance with Aratta. “By the 1950s, Liberia’s government strayed outside the parameters of a Western republican rule and took its first bold steps toward a banana republic: presidency for life, making sure some candidates cannot be listed on the ballot, and assassination attempts. In the sixties and seventies, things were taken to the next level with the establishment of secret police, a network of informants, arbitrary arrests, detention and torture of students and of civil servants.” Puddeck glanced down and brushed his sleeve. “Commencing tomorrow, Liberia will transition from a corrupt country to a fully-fledged shithole. When it comes to the West Point area, this is quite literally the case, by the way.”
The commissioner frowned with disapproval.
Puddeck continued, “In 1990, the inhabitants of New Zealand enjoyed a Sunday afternoon sailing in the Bay of Islands or strolling along the waterfront for miles on end. About that time, Liberia was undergoing two decades of turmoil, and their afternoons were spent traveling through checkpoints as three warlords vied for control. In 1990, when adolescent boys in New Zealand schools were offered a camping experience with rock climbing, rappelling, and white water rafting on the Tongariro River, the adolescents in Liberia were offered to partake in executions, torture, and rape. As members of the militia force, the young people were routinely juiced up with alcohol, speed, and the potent sugar cane juice mixed with gunpowder. Unlike in New Zealand, juju is a thing in Liberia. Hence, the soldiers of General Butt Naked would drain the blood from a child and drink it before a battle. And adolescents smoked heroin, cross-dressed, and engaged in ritualistic cannibalism to emerge reborn as warriors.”
The small party of people started to walk toward the beach, which they spotted at the end of the street they were in.
Galecki decided he was going to be honest. More honest than he has been before. But the stakes could not have been any higher. “Your Grace,” he called out.
Chapter 37
The commissioner stopped his conversation with Aratta and glanced at Galecki, somewhat taken aback by being addressed by one of the Earth people. “Your Grace. Look,…I don’t care about the precious environment. I don’t. But dammit, Western people are not your best chance; they are your only chance.” Mr. Galecki took a deep ragged breath, desperation and a vague sense of urgency warred within him. “Your Grace, stop the migration of third-world populations into the West.”
“Hasn’t the train left the station on that one?” inquired Puddeck.
“Yes, but not in critical numbers. Yet.”
The commissioner stopped walking, bringing the little procession to a halt. “Please tell me,” he said, “what in your eyes is the significance of this? Why do you fancy this demographic change matters?”
Galecki wet his lips nervously. “Well, sir, here is the truth of it. We, the people of the West, are members of the culture responsible for the modern world. From the ubiquitous indoor plumbing to the air conditioner to the light bulb. From Cubism art to films. From cardiac surgeries to penicillin. From radio to telephone. From quantum physics to satellites. From airplanes to submarines to passenger trains. And from the protection of speech to the presumption of innocence to the notion of individual sovereignty and the concept of inalienable fundamental human rights. More to the point, our culture is the ecosystem from which those things could have emerged.” His voice was low and strained.
Puddeck waved his hands dismissively. “You speak of a bygone era of mettle and outward-bound spirit. Your fathers reached for the moon. However, since then, your gaze has turned inward, toward the virtual and the make-believe. Your forefathers trailblazed new forms of art and political philosophy; you have done a little more than tweak or repackage those. Tellingly, along with the broader pop culture, your big-budget movies largely recycle older, existing material. The blaze of yesterday’s torch is now more of a soft glow from a LED light bulb.”
Galecki’s eyes never left the commissioner’s face. “Your Grace, if you drive down the streets of Yokohama, Addis Ababa, Tehran, Bangkok, Riyadh, and Chongqing, you won’t fail to notice the similarities. The academia, the court proceedings, the TV programming, the type of music, and the clothes people are wearing—they all have been culturally appropriated from the West.”
He drew in a long breath. “To the point at hand, the source of most altruistic, humanistic, and environmental initiatives is the modern-day Western culture, the only culture that came to view slavery as evil and immoral—when none other did. I tell you, you won’t find any meaningful groundswell of charity or environmental sentiments coming out of Southeast Asia or the Middle East.”
“Culture is just about everything,” said Aratta. “Is your actual point that only certain people can carry on a given culture?” He gave Galecki an appraising glance. “Do you not think it is an open-source software and no copyrights? Working off what you said, can’t anyone adopt the culture of the West as their own and henceforth advance humanity in likewise manner?”
Galecki wondered if the Romans held a debate around this question in 376 as vast crowds of Goths arrived at the Empire’s borders demanding asylum. “I don’t know,” he finally said, then berated himself. What did any of this have to do with him? His life was almost over, and his wife was snatched away from him. Why should he care? But he did and couldn’t help it.
“Here is what I can say, Your Grace. Our United Nations organization projects that Africa is most likely to contain 4,300 million people by the end of this century. This is more than the present-day populations of China, India, and Europe—combined. Fully half of all babies born in the world by that time will be Africans. Just the relatively small territory of Tanzania will have considerably more people than entire Western Europe, not counting possible migrants.”
Somber, Galecki flashed a tight smile. “I imagine it is but a matter of a few generations, when a small portion of this future African population—say, tens or hundreds of millions of people—will flee political upheavals, poverty, or advancing desertification. And assert their presence on the other side of the Mediterranean, in Europe.
“I believe the Western culture will be subsumed in the coming generations by a great many African, Middle Eastern, and Pakistani migrants: the scramble for Europe. The rate and volume will simply be too high to permit true assimilation, even if the majority of immigrants would desire to do so, which may or may not prove to be the case.
“If existing patterns hold, the migrants will be mostly younger males.” Galecki added. “This may translate to a lot of disgruntled and sexually-frustrated males. If existing patterns hold, a sizable number of migrants will be unemployed, subsisting on taxpayers’ money. This is likely to tank the European economy in the long run.”
The older man surveyed the surrounding faces. “At this point in time, the people of the West hold the key. Who is to say how mass migration on that scale and nature will pan out? There is too much to lose, too much at stake.”
Puddeck closed one eye and regarded Galecki. “You are brutally honest,” he stated.
“Yes, I am.” Now that he had said it, he felt calm.
“Let me then be equally honest with you,” told him Puddeck. “Last I checked, Western people were not in such hot shape. There is a shortage of vertebrae amid your men. The brightest bulbs among you are too career-driven and self-absorbed to have kids at replacement level and pass on greatness genes. Your people are increasingly atomized.”
“All the same, I stand by what I said,” Galecki replied. “And as a bonus, if you carry out this suggestion, you drastically lower the environmental impact to come. You prevent in the long run tens or hundreds of millions of people with a low ecological footprint from becoming citizens of First-World nations, with far larger consumption of resources and related carbon emissions.”
“Master Galecki,” said the commissioner, “the
issues you raise are not trivial. However, we are here to determine if we are satisfied, on the whole, with the prospect of Earth. Know that it is not our intent to assume a regulatory charge here.”
Galecki made a shallow bow, stiff with anger. The little party watched him stride off toward the beach, kicking some aluminum cans along the way.
“That reminded me; it is time for me to get going,” said Puddeck brightly. “I bid you good day.” He bowed toward the commissioner and vanished.
“He transported himself to another reflection,” explained Aratta. “He told me he wanted to witness certain historical events before the three of us are to depart Earth for good.”
Susan observed the figure of Galecki retreating in the distance then turned her attention back to the three men next to her. Everything about the last few days had a surreal quality to it. Principles and basic tenets that yesterday were a firm ground were now shifting with uncertainty under her, under all of them.
Aratta peered at the retreated figure of Galecki. “With your leave,” he said to the commissioner. He bowed and made to follow Galecki.
“May I join you?”
Galecki glanced up and managed a nod.
Aratta squatted next to him, and they both studied the distant waves. A warm breeze was blowing their way.
“You know,” Galecki said, “I once analyzed the recipients of Nobel Prizes. Excluding the Peace category, I took the Nobel Prize as a proxy for outstanding accomplishments of individuals in the realm of ideas and for the drive to enhance the quality of life.” He looked at Aratta before returning to gaze at the surf. “Imagine the world as a village comprised of 10,000 inhabitants. Imagine that the combined total number of Nobel Prize recipients equates 10,000 points. This way, it is possible to put the number of people in the world and the number of Nobel laureates on the same footing.”
“And?” asked Aratta. He could have calculated all the nations of the world along that matrix faster than it took him to ask, but through the centuries, he had become more mindful and tactful in his dealings with humans. He waited for Galecki to tell him.
“Well, 536 members of the global village are people in Arab countries, and together they have accounted for about 10 Nobel-laureate points. There are 166 people in the planetary village from Japan, and they have contributed 300 points. That is to say, the Japanese Nobel laureate pool is overrepresented by about twice the number of Japanese in the general world population. Then there are 14 Ashkenazi Jews in the world village, and they have accounted for 2,300 points. Almost a quarter of all Nobel Prize recipients are Ashkenazi Jews.” He looked at Aratta. “Human capital is radically different in various cultures.”
Aratta was silent for a moment. “Cultural differences are significant, although Nobel laureates—being the brightest flames—magnify manifolds these differences.”
“Tell me I am wrong then,” persisted Galecki. “Don’t immigrant Indians make up far less than one percent of Uganda’s population—and contribute 65 percent of its tax revenues?”
“Wrong? No,” Aratta said. “Not exactly.” He cleared some fallen twigs and made himself comfortable on the sand. “You make it sound like there is something called human capital. Some cultures give rise to more of it, others to less of it. A single axis. Simplistic, yes?”
“When you put it this way,” Galecki allowed.
“A culture is more akin to an intricate network of highways and secondary roads on which people traverse,” Aratta told him. “Hardware and firmware aside, when it comes to software, a person is the cultural pathways that he takes. Much as the proverbial snowflake, every person’s outlook and values are unique. All the same, people are bound by the options and possibilities of the culture; cross-country travel and true trailblazing by individuals is all but impossible.”
He continued, “If to push the metaphor a bit further, a cultural road not used for a long time falls into disrepair, it is reclaimed by weeds, and it fades away. Conversely, some roads are well-traveled, their bed deepens, and they become major highways.
“Yet the metaphor of discrete road networks, of discrete cultures, can only take us so far. In truth, a person is part of multiple subcultures. One person may be Chinese-American and a navy man who is middle-aged and a member of the upper class and the gay subculture and more.” Aratta glanced at Galecki, who gave him a grudging nod.
“A culture can also be discussed in terms of the hues through which one looks at the world. Members of dissimilar cultures can sit side by side see the same things, discuss the same things—and all the while not be aware that the lenses through which they view the world are different. There’s nothing in their communication that may hint at the underlying difference.
“You can also think of culture as the assemblage of stories a group tells itself. These stories communicate the relationship of the group to the land and to the broader natural world. They include certain views on determinism versus free will, overall outlook of life, a sense of what’s possible, man’s role or destiny in the universe. They voice a stand on self-criticism and on novel ideas. They incorporate the regard in which innovative spirit, pluck, and entrepreneurship are held. They express a view on individualism and of firsthand thinking. They assert the value placed on intelligence and wisdom, punctuality and diligence, perseverance and grit, reliability and sense of personal accountability. They manifest a certain attitude toward saving and sacrifice, delayed gratification and impulse control. They articulate beliefs about gender roles, material aspirations, group loyalty, community orientation, family values, civic duty, regulations, and social order.”
The two of them got up and started strolling along the surf.
“Just fancy the complex, unique patterns that emerge from a given cultural ecosystem,” said Aratta. “It is no wonder that groups traversing different cultural grids have, overall, different expressions in various domains. It would have been most astonishing had different cultures given rise to comparable outcomes—on any social, economic, and technological matrix.”
His expression grew thoughtful. “The disparities among groups are greater than what I suggested yet,” Aratta said. “Each cultural group interacts with and is influenced by the local climate, vegetation, wildlife, terrain, and neighboring cultures. Furthermore, each cultural group interacts with and is influenced by the natural resources, geopolitical, and technological landscapes distinct to its group and locale, which continuously morph through the decades and centuries.
“Try to put it all together in your head, Mr. Galecki. Myriad cultural factors forming countless distinct permutations that are continually changing as they interact with each other, with other cultures, with an evolving geopolitical landscape, body of knowledge, and array of technologies. And it is more complex yet. The entire global mosaic of cultures flares up with memes, which like viruses, infect and take hold. Some abate or are repelled by the cultural immune system, some impregnate the cultural DNA and mutate it.
“Not surprisingly, a rearview mirror of what ‘was’ is a poor indicator of what’s to come. Cultural groups that shone brightly on some matrices at a certain period have all but stagnated in some ways centuries later, the ancient Athenians being case in point.
“Cultures that give rise to traits and skill sets allowing one group to prosper under one milieu may be of nil value or counter-productive in another. Traits and skill sets serving well nomadic tribes are not those that serve well an agrarian society and those, in turn, do not serve well society in a hyper-networked modern world. What are effectual cultural traits for clans with one hundred members may be counterproductive in a world where tens of millions of people cohabit dense, vast urban sprawls.
“Some groups made trade a cornerstone, but later the global hubs of trade moved elsewhere. Some groups invented pushcarts with a single massive wheel—minimizing the need for beasts of burden. Others chose to domesticate camels and horses—and use th
em for locomotion and labor. And some chose to hunt and eat them—till they were all gone.
“Some groups have sat on vast oil deposits, as the people of Nigeria, or uranium deposits, as the people in Australia. This did little good until the technology was developed to harness, extract, and use these natural resources. For some, having access to wealth of natural resources has been a launching pad. For others, it has cultivated a distasteful attitude toward doing manual labor, as happened to Spaniards in the New World. Some have been most receptive to new technologies; others were most resistant, as the Arabs of Zanzibar. In short, there is no better or worse culture in any axis or matrix divorced of the broader technological, geopolitical, economic, and demographic scape they operate within. Okay?”
“Okay,” repeated Galecki.
“So, why don’t you hand me the pocket pistol you have been holding onto since we started strolling and let’s walk out of here together.”
“It only has one bullet,” Galecki told him in a conspiratorial tone. “I’ve come to think of it as ‘my silver bullet.’” His voice was now low and, oddly, more animated. “I’ve been carrying this pistol ever since Linda died—ever since I realized the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I want no part of what’s to come or stay alive long enough to be a member of a despised minority.” He stopped walking and looked suspiciously at Aratta. “Also, I don’t believe you people. Regardless of what you say, you are not here to help us. I can feel things will take a far worse turn very soon.” He whipped out the pistol, sticking it in his mouth.
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