"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 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."
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, unhappily. "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."