"Bombs that went off all at once, the whole world over. On the banks of the Amur. On the banks of the Limpopo. In Paris, New York, London. The Amur has turned yellow. Floating on its surface, thousands of corpses, swept along by the current toward the Soviet bunkers, standing deserted. The Russians have withdrawn. Orders of the Kremlin. With France the Enlightened glad to grovel on her knees, no government now will dare sign its name to the genocidal deed. One bullet and one only. Shot into the belly of a little Chinese child, by a Soviet general loaded to the gills with vodka …
"At Central Park the black tide is rising. Twenty-three floors in a single hour. 'Black is beautiful, and all the maggots are white.' Not a sound, in the words of that Harlem poet, 'but the blade sinking into the oppressor’s marrow.' On the twenty-sixth floor, Dr. Norman Haller measures the march of time. Only two floors now between the past and the future. Over the phone, the mayor of New York sounds calm, almost resigned: 'I’m really pretty lucky, Norman. Mine are three families from Harlem. The kids are little dolls. They didn’t even spit at me. I’ve got one on my lap right now. He’s playing with my gun. Unloaded, of course … What else could I do, Norman? We had no choice …'
"At No. 10 Downing Street, negotiation are in progress. The Non-European Commonwealth Committee has taken over London, politely as you please. Simple question of statistics. They compare the figures and draw their conclusions. Really, how stupid! We never imagined there could be so many! The Queen receives the leaders of the 'Paks,' stands aghast at one of their non-negotiable demands. Namely, that her younger son marry a Pakistani. To destroy a symbol or to make it their own? We could argue forever …
"As for South Africa, nobody gave her a thought. Even the loathing she inspired on all sides served no further useful purpose. Like a beach submerged in the onrushing tide surging over the Limpopo, she vanished from the map as a sovereign white state. With just one consolation: the fact that all her colleagues, who had so long disowned her, fell apart at the seams at the very same moment… In the Philippines, in all the stifling Third World ports—Jakarta, Karachi, Conakry, and again in Calcutta—other huge armadas were ready to weigh anchor, bound for Australia, New Zealand, Europe. Carpetlike, the great migration was beginning to unroll. Not the first time, either, if we pore over history. Many a civilization, victim of the selfsame fate, sits tucked in our museums, under glass, neatly labeled. But man seldom profits from the lessons of his past …"
"At Central Park the black tide is rising. Twenty-three floors in a single hour. 'Black is beautiful, and all the maggots are white.' Not a sound, in the words of that Harlem poet, 'but the blade sinking into the oppressor’s marrow.' On the twenty-sixth floor, Dr. Norman Haller measures the march of time. Only two floors now between the past and the future. Over the phone, the mayor of New York sounds calm, almost resigned: 'I’m really pretty lucky, Norman. Mine are three families from Harlem. The kids are little dolls. They didn’t even spit at me. I’ve got one on my lap right now. He’s playing with my gun. Unloaded, of course … What else could I do, Norman? We had no choice …'
"At No. 10 Downing Street, negotiation are in progress. The Non-European Commonwealth Committee has taken over London, politely as you please. Simple question of statistics. They compare the figures and draw their conclusions. Really, how stupid! We never imagined there could be so many! The Queen receives the leaders of the 'Paks,' stands aghast at one of their non-negotiable demands. Namely, that her younger son marry a Pakistani. To destroy a symbol or to make it their own? We could argue forever …
"As for South Africa, nobody gave her a thought. Even the loathing she inspired on all sides served no further useful purpose. Like a beach submerged in the onrushing tide surging over the Limpopo, she vanished from the map as a sovereign white state. With just one consolation: the fact that all her colleagues, who had so long disowned her, fell apart at the seams at the very same moment… In the Philippines, in all the stifling Third World ports—Jakarta, Karachi, Conakry, and again in Calcutta—other huge armadas were ready to weigh anchor, bound for Australia, New Zealand, Europe. Carpetlike, the great migration was beginning to unroll. Not the first time, either, if we pore over history. Many a civilization, victim of the selfsame fate, sits tucked in our museums, under glass, neatly labeled. But man seldom profits from the lessons of his past …"
Chapter 47, The Camp of the Saints
No one will benefit from a Brown Tide. Unlike a Red Tide, a Brown Tide is the final curtain. Let those who want the final curtain eat a bullet. We will never be so kind to them as that...
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