Mack Reynolds: Blackman' Burden

“Mopti?” Jake Armstrong said, surprised. “Our team was working there just a couple of months ago. I thought everything was going fine in Mopti.”

“They’re going fine, all right,” Crawford growled. “So well that the local populace wants to speed up even faster.”

They were all looking their puzzlement at him.

“The demonstrations are in favor of El Hassan.”

Their faces turned blank.

Crawford’s eyes swept his teammates. “Our instructions are to get down there and do what we can to restore order. Come on, let’s go. I’m going to have to see if I can arrange some transportation. It’d take us two days to get there in our outfits.”

Jake Armstrong said, “Wait a minute, Homer. My team was heading back for Dakar for a rest and new assignments. We’d be passing Mopti anyway. How many of you are there, five? If you don’t haul too much luggage with you, we could give you a lift.”

“Great,” Homer told him. “We’ll take you up on that. Abe, Elmer, let’s get going. We’ll have to repack. Bey, Kenny, see about finding some place we can leave the lorries until we come back. This job shouldn’t take more than a few days at most.”

“Huh,” Abe said. “I hope you got plans, man. How do you go about stopping demonstrations in favor of a legend you created yourself?”

Mopti, also on the Niger, lies approximately three hundred kilometers to the south and slightly west of Timbuktu, as the bird flies. However, one does not travel as the bird flies in the Niger bend, not even when one goes by aircraft. A forced landing in the endless swamps, bogs, shallow lakes and river tributaries which make up the Niger at this point would be suicidal. The whole area is more like the Florida Everglades than a river, and a rescue team would be hard put to find your wreckage. There are no roads, no railroads. Traffic follows the well-marked navigational route of the main channel.

Homer Crawford had been sitting quietly next to Cliff Jackson who was piloting. Isobel and Jake Armstrong were immediately behind them and Abe and the rest of Crawford’s team took up the remainder of the aircraft’s eight seats. Abe was regaling the others with his customary chaff.

Out of a clear sky, Crawford said bitterly, “Has it occurred to any of you that what we’re doing here in North Africa is committing genocide?”

The others stared at him, taken aback. Isobel said, “I beg your pardon?”

“Genocide,” Crawford said bitterly. “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.”

Isobel, Cliff and Jake frowned their puzzlement. Abe said, “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.”

Crawford shook his head. “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. “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.”

“I keep telling you, man, there’s more Sioux now than there were then.”

Crawford still shook his head. “But they’re a different people, a different race, a different culture. A mere fraction, say ten percent, 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 percent, 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 percent 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.”

Jake Armstrong was scowling. “I get your point, but what has it to do with our work here in North Africa?”

“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.”

Abe said, unusually thoughtful, “I see what you mean, man. Fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly— and nomad gotta roam. He flips if he doesn’t.”

Homer Crawford pursued it. “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. “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.”

Isobel was staring at him. “What you say is disturbing, Homer. I didn’t come to Africa to destroy a people.” He looked back at her, oddly. “None of us did.” Cliff said from behind the aircraft’s controls, “If you believe what you’re saying, how do you justify being here yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Crawford said unhappily. “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.”

“Well, man,” Abe said. “If you find any, let us know.” Jake said, his voice warm, “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.”

“Um-m-m,” Homer said, his voice lacking conviction.

“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.”

Crawford said softly, “And sometimes it isn’t very pretty either.”

Mopti as a town had grown Once a small riverport city of about five thousand population, it had been a river and caravan crossroads somewhat similar to Timbuktu, and noted in particular for its spice market and its Great Mosque, probably the largest building of worship ever made of mud. Plastered newly at least twice a year with fresh adobe, at a distance of only a few hundred feet the Great Mosque, in the middle of the day and in the glare of the Sudanese sun, looks as though it were made of gold. From the air it is more attractive than the grandest Gothic cathedrals of Europe.

Isobel pointed. “There, the Great Mosque.”

Elmer Allen said, “Yes, and there. See those mobs?” He looked at Homer Crawford and said sourly, “Let’s try and remember who it was who first thought of the El Hassan idea. Then we can blame it on him.”