human
Has it occurred to any of you that what we're doing here in North Africa is committing genocide?
gpt
I beg your pardon?
human
Genocide, Crawford said bitterly.
gpt
We're doing here much what the white men did when they cleared the Amerinds from the plains, the mountains and forests of North America.
human
Man, you just don't make sense. And, among other things, there're more Indians in the United States than there was when Columbus landed.
gpt
No. They're a different people. Those cultures that inhabited the United States when the first white men came, are gone. He shook his head as though soured by his thoughts.
human
Take the Sioux. They had a way of life based on the buffalo. So the whites deliberately exterminated the buffalo. It made the plains Indians' culture impossible. A culture based on buffalo herds cannot exist if there are no buffalo.
gpt
I keep telling you, man, there's more Sioux now than there were then.
human
But they're a different people, a different race, a different culture. A mere fraction, say ten per cent, of the original Sioux, might have adapted to the new life. The others beat their heads out against the new ways. They fought--the Sitting Bull wars took place after the buffalo were already gone--they drank themselves to death on the white man's firewater, they committed suicide; in a dozen different ways they called it quits. Those that survived, the ten per cent, were the exceptions. They were able to adapt. They had a built-in genetically-conferred self discipline enough to face the new problems. Possibly eighty per cent of their children couldn't face the new problems either and they in turn went under. But by now, a hundred years later, the majority of the Sioux nation have probably adapted. But, you see, the point I'm trying to make? They're not the _real_ Sioux, the original Sioux; they're a new breed. The plains living, buffalo based culture, Sioux are all dead. The white men killed them.
gpt
I get your point, but what has it to do with our work here in North Africa?
human
We're doing the same thing to the Tuareg, the Teda and the Chaambra, and most of the others in the area in which we operate. The type of human psychology that's based on the nomad life can't endure settled community living. Wipe out the nomad way of life and these human beings must die.
gpt
I see what you mean, man. _Fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly_--and nomad gotta roam. He flips if he doesn't.
human
Sure, there'll be Tuareg afterward ... but all descended from the fraction of deviant Tuareg who were so abnormal--speaking from the Tuareg viewpoint--that they liked settled community life. He rubbed a hand along his jawbone, unhappily.
gpt
Put it this way. Think of them as a tribe of genetic claustrophobes. No matter what a claustrophobe promises, he can't work in a mine. He has no choice but to break his promise and escape ... or kill himself trying.
human
What you say, is disturbing, Homer. I didn't come to Africa to destroy a people.
gpt
None of us did.
human
If you believe what you're saying, how do you justify being here yourself?
gpt
I don't know, Crawford said unhappily.
human
I don't know what started me on this kick, but I seem to have been doing more inner searching this past week or so than I have in the past couple of decades. And I don't seem to come up with much in the way of answers.
gpt
Well, man, Abe said.
human
If you find any, let us know.
gpt
Look Homer, don't beat yourself about this. What you say figures, but you've got to take it from this angle. The plains Indians had to go. The world is developing too fast for a few thousand people to tie up millions of acres of some of the most fertile farm land anywhere, because they needed it for their game--the buffalo--to run on.
human
Um-m-m,
gpt
Maybe it's unfortunate the _way_ it was done. The story of the American's dealing with the Amerind isn't a pretty one, and usually comfortably ignored when we pat ourselves on the back these days and tell ourselves what a noble, honest, generous and peace loving people we are. But it did have to be done, and the job we're doing in North Africa has to be done, too.
human
And sometimes it isn't very pretty either.