Even as immediate needs were addressed, the leaders determined to push ahead with plans for industrial development. There was hardly any talk about Utopian schemes or "new world" concepts. The members of the Ulundi Indaba were just as anxious as the Governing Council to work their way back into the twenty-first century as quickly as possible. Rebuilding and technological rehabilitation— these were the implicitly accepted goals of the survivor society.
Several elders among the Zulus urged a low-technology approach. In this they were joined by a few spiritually inclined members of the white community and a small number of Hindus and fundamentalist Muslims. Yet the overwhelming majority of the people were instinctively, vigorously, impatiently hoping to return to the physical environment they had known. And, even more urgently, to the future they had been trying to build before the Event destroyed their world. For fifteen years, since the first democratic elections of 1994, the South African politicians had been promising decent housing, clean water, and electricity for all. This dream— mundane, perhaps, but powerfully compelling—had come through fire and flood unscathed. Disappointing as it might have been to the philosophically inclined, given the opportunity to build a new world, the vast majority of the people, without hesitation, chose to resume building the world to which they had previously aspired.
To move speedily from purpose to action, leaders of the Ulundi Indaba and the Governing Council agreed to form a Coordinating Committee. Inevitably, the first action of the Coordinating Committee was to appoint a Joint Planning Subcommittee to work on specific planning and allocation of resources. Among the engineering group there was some cynical grumbling about "creeping bureaucracy," even in these dire circumstances. But it was clear to most that a modicum of bureaucratic organization was needed.
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Twenty-six days after the Event, ten days after Gustafsson's arrival in Ulundi, the Joint Planning Subcommittee held its first meeting. The date, as recorded in the minutes, was January 20, 2010/Year 1.
The subcommittee, for the sake of efficiency, was limited to thirty members, fifteen from the Queen of Africa and fifteen from the Inlanders. As with the Governing Council, experts were to be invited to specific meetings according to the topics being considered. Suggestions from the "public" were to be handled as candidly as possible in designated open sessions. Since most of the technical authorities were members of the shoreside community, and since the Ulundi people were better equipped to travel than the engineers, the initial meetings were held in Engineering Village.
One of the first structures planned and erected in the new municipality was a large pavilion intended to accommodate group meetings. For this assembly hall the builders made use of materials cannibalized from two lifeboats that had been damaged during the salvage operation. The structural frame consisted of an odd assortment of wooden shapes—oars, spars, masts, and planks—plus a few lengths of bamboo, with a roof made mostly of thatch. Serendipitously, it looked like a work of art, or—depending on one's taste— the product of the freshman class at a second-rate school of architecture.
"Beehive huts may be good for sleeping," said Wilson Hardy, who had ordered the new facility's erection, "and that rickety canvas-covered shanty on the landing beach was okay for early days. But when this select subcommittee holds a meeting, I want it to be in classy digs."
As recording secretary of the Governing Council, Wilson Hardy, Jr., was the logical candidate for the same job with the new group, and sure enough, he was conscripted. He was flattered, but also told his cronies that the Planning Subcommittee was lucky to have him. Since he had studied the history of technology, he knew something of what had been accomplished by past societies, and so felt that he had some sense of what might be rational goals for the new one.
Following Hardy Senior's recommendation, the subcommittee elected as its chairman Alfred Richards, CEO of a giant international construction company. Alf was a casting director's idea of a hard-hat—a large man, with a craggy, florid face under a thatch of white hair. His firm had designed and built manufacturing plants in practically every corner of the globe, and what Alf Richards didn't know about infrastructure, buildings, manufacturing processes, energy systems, and development in general, according to Dr. Hardy, just wasn't worth knowing. This pragmatic doer of great deeds was under no illusions about where he was starting and what he was lacking. Seeing him in action, an observer might have sworn that he took pleasure in the difficulty. In fact, this unspoken satisfaction was shared by many of his colleagues. The less they had to work with, the more notable would be their achievement.
Another key member of the subcommittee was Mildred Fox, a senior official in the Peace Corps, whose specialty was technology transfer and engineering in developing nations. Millie was smart, high-spirited, and as an African American woman, probably fit in with some political agenda of Nordstrom and Hardy's devising. In fact, with the addition of Ichiro Nagasaka of Tokyo and Gordon Chan, born in Beijing and later a superstar at the DuPont Company, this group resembled a miniature United Nations. That the majority of the foreign members of the traveling seminar hailed from Asia was no accident. That continent had been producing more than three hundred thousand new engineers per year, compared to one hundred thousand in Europe and ninety thousand in the United States. In addition, a sizable portion of the American contingent was Asian by heritage, not surprising since Asian Americans make up more than one quarter of the Ph.D. engineers in the U.S. workforce. Most important, Dr. Nagasaka knew more about iron and steel than any other ten people in the profession, while Dr. Chan was one of the world's most eminent chemical engineers.
One evening these two august gentlemen had joined the Focus Group for an informal discussion, and Wil Hardy found them to be unexpectedly witty and good-humored. When Roxy Ford expressed uneasiness about the Chinese—who had comprised one fifth of the people in the world—not being represented proportionally in the surviving population, Dr. Chan told her not to be concerned. "We are very smart and very industrious," he said, "so that even a small number of us will make our mark in the new society. Besides," he continued with a smile, "I have a feeling that somewhere in China there is a community that lived through the catastrophe—perhaps underground or through some other good fortune—and one day these people will emerge to reveal to the world a new and glorious civilization."
"And while they are admiring themselves," Dr. Nagasaka said with a broad grin, "we Japanese, along with the rest of Asia, will honor them, emulate them, and—without further ado—pass them by!"
In their more serious moments, both Chan and Nagasaka evinced a deep serenity that found its roots in the Buddhism to which they had both been exposed in their youth. For all their modern, scientifically based sophistication, the worldwide disaster did not appear to bring out in them the anger, frustration, or despair felt by many of the survivors, even their fellow engineers.
The Ulundi Indaba's representatives on the Planning Subcommittee were led by Stephen Healey, senior surviving employee of the provincial government. "Call me Mr. Bureaucrat," he said to the others with a wry smile. Peter Mavimbela had been head of the National Union of Mine Workers; Eric Steenkamp was an experienced mining engineer from Pretoria. Then there was Harish Kahar, a respected merchant and leader of the Indian community. Other members came from local industry and government and the local farming community. Mavimbela quickly emerged as a key figure, since everyone knew that any plan for technological development would require the cooperation of the indigenous workforce. The most clever ideas of the most brilliant people would be unavailing without the endorsement of the workers among these newly encountered compatriots.
As already noted, the Africans were every bit as anxious as the Westerners to embark on a program of technological redevelopment. And it was obvious that progress would be best served if people performed the work they were most qualified to do, that is, the work they had been doing before the Event. But how could those people who would do most of the phys
ical labor—particularly the miners and factory workers—protect themselves from being exploited? Was the history of the world to be repeated, with a working class in chains?
Mavimbela raised the question and was not impressed by the hearty assurances he received from Alf Richards. Yet, clearly, there was no practical alternative to moving ahead based on a good faith understanding. It would be foolhardy to try to negotiate employment agreements while the survival of the entire populace hung in the balance. The workers would have to perform their tasks with the understanding that they would in due course receive a fair deal, however that might later be defined. Solemnly the group agreed that the situation was to be evaluated—along with the status of all ad hoc committees and other government arrangements—after a year. One circuit of the earth around the sun. A year of good faith.
In the most general terms, the compact ensured that everybody would pitch in to the best of his or her ability. The Joint Planning Subcommittee would do the detailed planning and make specific work assignments. However, there was to be no coercion to accept these assignments, other than family or social pressure. To the extent possible, all groups would attempt to discourage malingering. It was also agreed that food, clothing, and shelter would be shared as equitably as possible. As for personal behavior—coping with the inevitable private conflicts—it was quickly decided that each of the two main communities would be responsible for its own internal order.
"Everyone seems to be avoiding the word 'communism,' " Alf Richards said, "but that's what we've got here."
"Not in the least," was Stephen Healey's response when the question came up. "This is an emergency arrangement among sensible people. We are choosing pragmatic action over suicidal polemics."
Word spread quickly throughout the Ulundi circle, and the concept of cooperative effort—according to a centrally conceived plan— won wide acceptance. There seemed to be no better alternative.
Could the survivors work without a money economy, without feudalism, without tyranny, without legal compulsion? Yes—not without confusion and complaint, and certainly not forever—but for a year, the answer was yes. One might have expected a breakdown of civility, anarchy of the mob run riot, followed perhaps by the rise of a despot. Yet such fears were not realized. Even criminal offenses decreased to the vanishing point. "A miracle," exclaimed Hans Potter, a long-time police officer from Dundee.
The political compact could remain essentially vague; but not so the strategy for technological development. In allocating resources and assigning personnel, specific decisions had to be made. And they were.
At the subcommittee's first meeting, the basic element of a master plan was established so quickly, so arbitrarily, and so unanimously that it seemed preordained. Stephen Healey proposed it, and it came to be known as "the Half and Half Doctrine": half the population were to be counted on as able-bodied workers, and half of these in turn would be committed to agriculture and animal husbandry.
"I don't know about your folks," Healey said, "but among ours I would count on only half the people for our able-bodied workforce. Set aside the very young, the old, the infirm, and the full-time housekeepers, and half is what you're left with. The individuals I call the housekeepers—mostly the mothers of our families—work extremely hard, as we very well know. But we can't send them out into the fields and the factories if we hope to maintain a functioning society. They cook, clean, sew, and launder, and many of them keep small gardens and raise chickens as well. In our present situation; they are also the ones who fetch water, or make sure that this vital activity is attended to. We need them in the home to care for their families and to help put their shattered households back in order. Hopefully, we can engage some of them in cottage industry work—weaving and the like. Eventually, if they choose, they can go out into the so-called working world as do so many—well, as so many young women did. But not right now. As for the kids, I understand that you want them to concentrate on education. And we think that's a good idea."
"Oh yes," said Gordon Chan. "If we lose our foundation in learning, we'll really be back in the Stone Age. Then our descendants will have to spend hundreds of years—maybe thousands— regaining the knowledge that we inherited from our forebears."
"The youngsters will do chores," continued Healey, "especially when crops need harvesting. But they will have to understand that their primary responsibility is to study and to learn. And, Peter," he said, looking intently at Mavimbela, "we want this to be the case with the poorest Zulu child as well as with the most advantaged among the whites."
Not hearing any questions or objections, Healey continued: "I further propose that half the able-bodied workforce—in other words, one quarter of the total population—be assigned to cultivating food and caring for livestock. I know," and here he addressed especially the Engineering Village contingent, "that in the United States, less than two percent of the people are farmers; yet they grow food for everybody else, with lots left over for export. But that means absolutely nothing when you think of our condition here today. We have—or had—large farms and cattle ranches that were run quite efficiently. But the mechanical equipment that was so vital to those operations is gone. So are the fertilizers, the stores of feed, and all the fine facilities that we used to boast about in the province's public relations brochures. Even the small, fairly primitive homesteads are obviously less productive than they were. We're reduced to poking at the earth with sticks, and harvesting such crops as there are with our bare hands. We absolutely must have half of our workers—a quarter of our people—out in the fields making sure that we have enough food to sustain ourselves."
"Without objection, then, the plan is agreed to," the chairman stated. There was no formal vote. The subcommittee began its work in consensus mode.
Millie Fox noted that the twenty-five hundred "Outlanders" did not fall into the same categories as the approximately twenty-five thousand surviving citizens of KwaZulu Natal. Specifically, in Engineering Village there were no full-time housekeepers looking after families. Members of the ship's crew prepared food and drink for the group, and as for miscellaneous domestic chores, it was every man for himself. However, in the initial planning meeting, nobody wanted to get bogged down discussing such minutiae. The population figures were just rough approximations anyhow; and it would be a long while before anybody took the time and effort to work up a detailed census. So the subcommittee applied the Half and Half Doctrine somewhat arbitrarily by establishing the available workforce at fourteen thousand—slightly more than half the estimated total population—with seven thousand assigned to farms and ranches. This left another seven thousand to work on reconstruction and industrial development.
The agricultural operation would be headed by such senior farming and animal husbandry people as had survived, and would have the services of several professors and students from the Department of Horticultural Science of the Pietermaritzburg Campus of the University of Natal. The Engineering Village group also contained a number of prominent agricultural engineers who could be helpful. There were plenty of experienced workers, both from the large plantations and ranches, as well as from small family farms. Reports from the hill country contained good news about the number of fields and orchards that had survived. Also, the calendar was the survivors' friend: it was January, the middle of the summer in South Africa. Crops were ripening, and thousands of cattle and sheep grazed nearby.
Next, the subcommittee agreed that the leaders of the agricultural enterprise should reassign some of their workers, as soon as feasible, from tilling the fields to secondary food-related operations.
The vast field of technology known as "food processing" was taken for granted by many Westerners used to living in a high-tech culture and buying food in a supermarket. But these vital activities include milling grain, salting meat, cooking and canning, brewing and refining, pressing oil from olives or peanuts or soybeans, pickling, cheesemaking, baking, pasteurizing, packaging and storing, obtaining and preparing
salt and spices, and so forth.
Also, at the earliest possible time, some of the agricultural workers were to be assigned to producing and applying fertilizer. This was another job not properly understood or appreciated by city folks, even many engineers. Each new crop takes chemicals from the earth—primarily, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—and these chemicals must be replaced if a healthy soil is to be maintained. Nitrogen is plentiful in the air we breathe and can be captured by combining it with hydrogen to form ammonia. But, pending the development of a primitive chemical industry, the survivors would have to obtain their nitrogen from animal manure, slaughterhouse wastes, or recycled garbage. Phosphorus can be acquired from phosphate rock or bones or as a byproduct from slag when smelting phosphatic iron ore. Potassium is most readily obtained by mining potash deposits. If such deposits are not available, it is possible to burn vegetable wastes, such as palm leaves and banana peels, then boil the ashes in a pot and evaporate the solution. Hence the word "potash." This substance is also useful in the manufacture of soap, lye, glass, and many other products.
As for livestock, the tending, slaughtering, and butchering of animals would have to be supplemented by shearing, tanning of hides, and harvesting of other useful animal products.
Some of the engineers shifted restlessly during this "meat and potatoes" discussion, as one electronic wizard referred to it. But the members of the Joint Planning Subcommittee were agreed that everything begins in the fields. A secure food supply is the sine qua non of a vigorous civilization.
One of the Ulundi delegation observed that a small fishing enterprise had been established, using the Queen of Africa lifeboats, which came equipped with hooks and lines. Several Inlanders had joined members of the Queen's crew in fabricating nets and additional gear and in trying their luck. The subcommittee estimated that about fifty people could usefully be assigned to the task, and endorsed the activity accordingly. The prospective catch, of course, would be dependent upon how much the acid rain fallout had fouled the waters.
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