The 2084 Precept (29 page)

"Are you trying to tell me that this is a
major activity?" Jeremy asked.

"It is either a major activity or
the
major activity, Jeremy, take your pick. Let me give you some
statistics. I'll start with the mass killings, for which we use the
various terms international war, civil war, genocide, ethnic
cleansing, terrorist war, drugs war, gang war and religious war.
The first recorded war ever, as far as we can determine, was
between Lagas and Umma (the latter, coincidentally, being part of
today's Iraq) and it took place in the year 2550 B.C. Since then,
there have been about 14,400 more wars resulting in the deaths of
3.5 billion human beings at the hands of other human beings. And of
course it's ongoing. These numbers are increasing. A roller-coaster
of death if you will. The most murderous war in fact occurred in
our very most recent century. World War II we call it. In that war
alone 65 million humans were killed."

Jeremy leaned forward on the table. "Did you
say 65 million?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered. "And this war also
enabled us to demonstrate some of our newly acquired skills. Such
as how to create and operate death factories. In the death
factories, an estimated 7.6 million innocent non-combatants were
gassed to death. Except for a few who were murdered in other ways,
including brutal mistreatment, forced starvation or simply being
shot. Lots of men, lots of women, and lots of children. Mainly
those belonging to the Jewish religion but also many, many others,
including people of 'inferior race’, gypsies, homosexuals—also
those merely suspected of being homosexual—and the physically and
mentally handicapped."

"Most were gassed?"

"Indeed they were, Jeremy. We have always
been interested in gassing other humans to death. During the most
recent century, we had massive gas usage in World War I, we had
Italy using it to kill Abyssinians (now Ethiopians), the Japanese
using it to kill the Chinese, Egypt using it in its war against
Yemen, Saddam Hussein's Iraq using it in its war against Iran—and
also, just by the way, to kill thousands of civilians in Halabja in
1988—and it is still ongoing. Syria has recently used gas to
massacre thousands of its own civilians."

"But Hitler and his friends were the ones
who
really
liked gas."

"No, Jeremy, as a matter of fact Hitler did
not
like gas. He came into contact with gas himself during
World War I and that is why he prohibited its use against the
enemy. But he was happy for it to be used for killing
sub-humans."

"Sub-humans?"

"Yes, the millions of innocent
non-combatants I have just mentioned. He classified them as
sub-humans."

"I must say that I have never heard of a
life-form like that," said Jeremy. "It sounds to me as if some of
the content of my thesis could become horrific enough to result in
the generation of widespread interest. And in that case I, as the
researcher, would be much in demand to elaborate upon it all."

He wasn't getting emotional about it. He
just sat there looking at me with a mournful expression on his
face, kind of sorrowful. And as for his destiny as a researcher,
well, he was welcome to add that to the list of accessories
required for his fantasy world, be my guest.

"So," he continued, "things have
deteriorated all along and, given the events in your most recent
century, the deterioration appears to be continuing, in fact
accelerating. Is that correct?"

"Yes," I said, "although not everyone would
agree with that. Many people call it an improvement, they say
things are improving. We have had people like that all through our
history. They are our optimists."

"Your optimists? Improving?"

"Yes, I met one of them in a pub in Passau
once. He said that the slaughters of the twentieth century were
only due to the fact that we had invented better weapons and better
methods with which to kill ourselves. He completely rejected my
point that we would have done it with bows and arrows if necessary,
and that we would have used swords instead of gas in our death
factories."

"And on what basis did he justify his
view?"

"He didn't. These people don't trouble
themselves to support their views with facts. They simply ignore
the facts. Which, as you already know, doesn't disturb me in the
slightest. I just listen to them and continue to observe them from
my seat in the theater."

"Yes, I had registered that."

"Now, of course," I continued, "now we have
bigger and better things. We have made other cutting-edge
discoveries. We learned how to split an atom. We then learned how
to construct atom bombs and then more advanced thermonuclear
weapons. Lots of them."

"And the purpose or purposes of these
weapons, may I ask?"

"There is only one purpose, Jeremy. It is to
be able to slaughter ourselves in even vaster quantities than was
ever possible before."

"And you are saying that that is the only
reason you invented them?"

"Yes."

"But why would you people want to do
that?"

"A good question, Jeremy, and it has a
simple answer. It's just the way we are. It's the way we always
were and it's the way we will always be."

"But doesn't anyone try to do anything about
it?"

"Oh yes—but to little effect. Having
deployed a couple of these nuclear weapons in Japan at the end of
World War II, we then began to manufacture vast arsenals of the
things. This was followed by years and years of arguing—our species
argues about everything and never stops—following which there was a
decision to destroy some of the bombs. There are now only around
20,000 of these bombs, which means that the capacity for us to
eliminate our entire species has been reduced from many times over
down to only several times. Not that we couldn't quickly
manufacture more if we want to."

"Pretty asinine, Peter, I must admit. But at
least it was a step in the right direction, albeit a small
one."

"Not really, Jeremy. It's not only the major
powers which possess nuclear weapons now. Several other countries
have been adding themselves to that list: Israel, Pakistan, India,
for example. And still more countries are developing even more
nuclear bombs: North Korea, Iran and who knows who is next. And
many of these bombs are being trundled non-stop around the world's
oceans in submarines. And others are being flown around in planes;
we have nuclear bombs permanently in the air."

"Difficult to understand indeed."

“Indeed is the word, Jeremy. The stupidity,
the sheer senseless, asinine lunacy of creating and deploying such
weapons exceeds all potential boundaries of rational comprehension.
Not even mice could be so unbalanced. Could you imagine mice doing
something as congenitally stupid and absurd as inventing
mousetraps?”

“I take your point, Peter. Your species
suffers from a serious mental illness. Your stupidity just makes
you want to murder each other…among other things.

"Indeed. And as I pointed out at the
beginning, killing is our major activity. Even in the matter of
mass slaughter - war - the stupidity of our species is interesting
to observe. Would you believe that we are actually interested in
how
we kill ourselves? Well, Jeremy, we are indeed, we are
indeed. There are thousands of examples but I'll mention just a
single specimen for your consideration: a relatively recent
agreement between over 100 countries stating that cluster bombs
should be eliminated. There are, however, two problems with this.
First of all, not all of the countries have complied with the
agreement. And secondly, certain major powers including the USA,
China and Russia—in other words, those whose arsenals of cluster
bombs are larger than anyone else's—did not even sign the
agreement."

"Fascinating. Or fascinatingly stupid, I
should say."

"Yes, Jeremy. And then the question arises
as to why we don't ban the use of 'normal' bombs, mines, automatic
weapons, missiles and all other lethal weapons such as the machete
which, by the way, was the weapon of choice for slaughtering
hundreds of thousands of human beings in Rwanda. Or chemical
weapons such as Agent Orange, used by the British in Malaysia and
by the Americans in Vietnam. The birdbrains lied about this by the
way—what's new—and they said, flap, flap, that it was a harmless
defoliant, not a weapon. But it killed or maimed 400,000 Vietnamese
and caused a further 500,000 to be born with horrific birth
defects. Not to mention the many victims among those performing the
deployment of this so-called 'herbicide'.

"The question you raise is obviously a valid
one, Peter. But I assume the reason for the attempt to eliminate
cluster bombs was a well-intentioned one, because these particular
weapons can kill extremely large numbers of civilians as well as
combatants?"

"Possibly, Jeremy. But they continue to be
used. Massively in fact in the current Syria conflict. And in any
case, banning anything is a fairly pointless exercise when you
continue to have nuclear bombs, wouldn't you agree? And listen to
this. A century ago, during World War I, civilian deaths amounted
to approximately 5% of total war deaths. Today, civilian deaths
amount to close to 75% of the total. Interesting, don't you
think?"

"I suppose one could use the term
'interesting' to describe it. But possibly the higher number of
non-combatant deaths is due to the fact that many of your wars
nowadays are civil wars, or so I have read. And as regards civil
wars, I assume that among the major reasons for these are
differences in ideological conviction?"

"Sometimes. But racial, ethnic and religious
animosities are more frequent causes. This has certainly been the
case for the twenty civil wars in Africa during the past fifty
years. And the strength of the hatred involved in these animosities
is unbelievable. I won't even attempt to describe some of the
horrendous atrocities perpetrated as a result."

"Hmm…and so just how many wars are taking
place at the moment?"

"Well…last year there were 30 active wars.
That was an improvement over the prior year which had 34 active
wars and produced some euphoric scribbling in the tabloid press. We
as a species are quite proud of this reduction, even if many of our
current wars are major wars, rather than minor ones."

"Major ones?"

"Oh yes. We find that our major activity—the
hobby of slaughtering each other—is so interesting that, among
other things, we categorize our wars. This allows us to study
various statistics, a fascinating pursuit, and to separate those
dying in 'minor wars' from those dying in 'major' wars. This can of
course be confusing, as a major war could have been a minor one
last year, or a minor one could become a major one next year. But
we employ bureaucrats to ensure that these statistics comply with
the regulations."

"So what is a major war?"

"The United Nations," I continued, "defines
a major war as a conflict inflicting a minimum of 1,000 human
battlefield deaths per year, excluding, in other words, civilian
deaths. Civilian deaths and non-human deaths are mere collateral
damage and would simply distort the statistical measurements, you
understand. I mean…you wouldn't want your statistics being messed
up with, for example, the 140,000 civilian deaths in Iraq,
including the 8,000 last year—or the 80,000 civilian deaths in
Syria so far, including the 9,000 dead children but excluding the
4,000 children arrested and tortured in Syrian prisons, but not yet
killed (as far as we know). Would you?"

"If you say so," said Jeremy.

I went over to the table in the corner and
poured myself some coffee. I needed it. These meetings may be an
easy way to earn money, but I can't pretend I am enjoying them.
Even so, I am playing the game properly. I am treating him as if he
were a real alien and I am giving him what few facts I have at my
disposal on the subjects he has chosen. For this kind of money, I
have no problem in toeing the line. No problem at all.

"O.K., that's enough on wars," said Jeremy,
"let's switch to murders, if we may. These are presumably not very
many. I don't see very many humans killing other humans as I walk
around London."

"It depends on what you mean by not very
many, Jeremy. United Nations statistics show that there are around
500,000 murders on this planet, give or take a few, each and every
year. That is an average of about one murder per minute, near
enough. Plus the ones we don't know about of course."

He looked at me. He was still perfectly calm
and collected, but the chapel hat pegs were on show. I suppose that
some of these statistics
could
be a bit mind-boggling if you
were hearing them for the first time.

"You mentioned killing unborn fetuses," he
continued, obviously having decided not to pursue the murder per
minute subject either. "These are hopefully fewer in number than
the murders."

"Well, I regret that I have to dash your
hopes with a sledgehammer, Jeremy. In fact, with a very large and
very heavy sledgehammer. There happen to be over 40 million
abortions every year on this planet. Using the same calculation as
for the murders, that represents an average of over 80 abortions
per minute."

"Per minute? Over 80 abortions per minute?"
he repeated.

"Yes. There's no way around it I'm afraid.
Official statistics."

He definitely looked sad, I think today's
information is finally, slowly, starting to overwhelm him a bit.
And, come to think of it, it
is
sad. Not that I personally
lose any sleep over it of course. There is really no point. It's
the human race, isn't it? It's just the way we are. But it
is
sad
. Sad is the word.

He thought for a while and decided not to
pursue this item either.