LEBENSBORN: TOWARDS A PERFECT NATION
I WAS a dapper man, much given to perfection, a tad borderline obsessive compulsive. I had carefully groomed greying hair, neatly trimmed sideburns, an imposing eye-catching beard, and was always immaculately dressed. If it helps, I looked a bit like Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, professorial.
Atop my spruce civilian clothes, when on duty, I always wore a white coat. It gave me an air of authority and the look of a much lettered man, an unquestionable intellectual. It was impeccable psychology.
I hated flaws.
Like your everyday grandfather, I was affable and always wore a smile.
I had no horns.
If you had seen me, you would have immediately thought that I was the handsomest and most friendly person you had ever met, the kind to love and get chummy with. The kind women fall for.
I was in charge of the orphanage. I was the chief of operations.
I presided over the most daring, audacious and ambitious social experiments ever imagined by man. It was right here in Zambia.
Our mission was to create a perfect society, one without prejudice and discrimination. Could any mission have been nobler than that?
The orphanage was aptly named Paradisobound. We called it an orphanage. It was a camouflage. That’s how it was registered.
The facility sat on a wide piece of flat land in between two mountains. A serene stream flowed by.
Sprawling lawns were everywhere spotting manicured lush green grass which would make any golf course owner jealous. It was the kind of beautiful place you only saw on the cover of Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower or Awake publications.
But this wasn’t a drawing, it was real.
Tall healthy trees hemmed the buildings. They formed the perimeter of the facility. Birch, eucalyptus, teak and rosewood. All carefully grown, forming deliberate meaningful geometric patterns.
We had farms, we had sports facilities, we had schools and we had clinics. Everything a healthy society requires was there.
The architecture of the buildings was without equal. It reflected Africanness. We had administration quarters. We had sleeping quarters. We had laboratories. We had all types of quarters that we needed. Even breeding quarters.
On that day, I had visitors. They had requested a guided tour of the facility. We did not decline.
‘What exactly do you do here?’ curious, one of the visitors wanted to know. The question was for the benefit of the whole visiting team.
My voice was strong, clear and slow: ‘We keep people here. We nurture them and facilitate their flourishing in their later lives. We are making our own contribution towards a perfect society, a united and peaceful society where prejudice and discrimination do not exist.’
Another visitor: ‘This facility is called paradisobound. Is there something in your choice of its name?’
‘Yes. Exactly. Paradisobound means heading towards heaven. Towards Eldorado. Our aim is to occasion a semblance of paradise here on earth if not create heaven itself.’
Eyes wide like saucers, again the first one: ‘How do you intend to achieve that?’
We were now walking past a carefully guarded building that felt as silent as a cemetery in the night. High powered refrigerators could be heard doing their work. Near the building the temperature dropped. A pregnant silence hang in the air.
My hand was pointing: ‘These are our banks. We don’t keep money. We keep something of greater value. We keep priceless wealth here. More precious than gold. We keep sperms. All these you see here are our sperm banks.’
Jaw dropping, another visitor: ‘Sperms? Human sperms?’
‘Yes, human sperms. Though physical mating is allowed and can be arranged upon request, our preferred method of achieving fertilization and causing our women to become pregnant is artificial insemination.
The donors are carefully chosen. We pick men with the finest traits. Tall, dark, famous, influential, popular, well-built and good-looking men, men with a high social and economic status, men with wealth. Successful men.
We use these characteristics as proxies for the quality of their genes. We pick only the finest of genes. Every donor is kept anonymous We have doctors, engineers, headmen and be-medalled athletes. Though they prefer physical intercourse, a president or two has also donated. Their sperms are all here. As a rule, we do not have politicians. Because most of them are of questionable genes, they don’t qualify.
We are very proud of our gene pool here. No contamination is allowed. We have the very best human seeds Zambia has to offer.
Deliberately, with matching qualities, we keep sperms of one hundred donors from each of Zambia’s ethnicities. For example, we have Manyengo sperm here, Goa sperm, Tumbuka sperm, Lala sperm, Lunda sperm. All ethnicities are represented.
And to balance the output numbers, we use each donor’s sperm for a specific number of times only.’
They were all speechless, slowly digesting my mouthful. They seemed stunned, as if something unexpected had hit them hard in their innocent faces.
I kept quiet about my own waywardness and mating perversion. I had also donated, planted my seed. Not in keeping with facility rules and guidelines, though I had a bias for Lunda and Tonga women, just for the heck of it, at the facility, I had physically mated with at least one woman from all of Zambia’s ethnicities. Through them, I had secretly but proudly recreated myself, passed on my fine genes to eternity. Wasn’t I the boss? Though my children didn’t know me, I knew all of them. It was my own dirty secret. No one will ever know, I told myself. Mum was the word.
To ease their tension and cause them to relax, pointing at one of them, I said: ‘You there wouldn’t qualify. The quantity of melanin in your body is way below our acceptance levels. You are too fair-skinned. Melanin here is gold.’
They all smiled. Some even forced themselves to laugh. Clearly the things I said weren’t mirthful, they found them awkward.
‘What about the women?’ another asked, a woman herself.
‘Yes, what about the women? What do you want to know?’ That was me, deliberately drawing them out, getting them hooked onto my words.
As if herself seeking recruitment, she said: ‘Do you have them here? And if so, how do you pick them?’
‘The selection process is lengthy, scientific, thorough and meticulous. We also have one hundred women from each one of Zambia’s ethnicities. We have about 7300 of them. Those over there are their living quarters.’ I explained, pointing at line after line of buildings whose length could not be made out by the naked eye. There were many of them, nondescript. They formed lines the way concentration or prison camp quarters do.
I went on: ‘We measure the size of the woman’s head, the symmetry of the face, the distance between the eyes, the height, their melanin content and we also subject them to aptitude tests. We also consider the shape of their pelvises.
For reasons of fertility, we are specific and particular about the waist-to-hip ratio. The wider it is the better. Women with hips, which is a marker for fertility, almost always make the cut.
We also conduct rigorous blood tests to ensure suitability. We especially do genetic screening. All those that have genetic traits of hereditary disease are not recruited.
And upon admission to our program, all the women should be in the reproductive age range. They should be of child-bearing maturity, preferably below the age of twenty. Further, only those that have not been pregnant before qualify.
All the women live here.
They live with us for years, and each woman, over time, under carefully monitored conditions, is expected to bear at least five children. All of the women receive the very best of care. We look after them very, very well.’
A man, a stern look on his face: ‘Is what you do here legal?’
Me, a smile on my face: ‘Let’s just say it is indeed a government project. We are on public land and our facility is fully funded by the State. We are a public institution.’
Queer looks were exchanged. I sensed as if someone seemed to want to ask if parliamentary approval was sought, but that question never arose. We walked on.
I was pointing again: ‘This is where we keep the children. When the children are born they are taken away from their mothers and are looked after by other women.
So, for example, deliberately we get Lozi sperm and inseminate a Ngoni woman with it. Tonga sperm is put in a Bemba woman. Luvale sperm will give us a child from a Tumbuka woman. Just like that.
That’s what we do. We cross-match different ethnicities. The permutations are carefully made with mathematical precision.
These myriad chromosomal pairings would make Mr Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, really proud.
Sperm from one ethnicity is never given to a woman from the same ethnicity as the donor?’
No one said a word. The atmosphere was as if speaking would be an act of sacrilege.
For some reason, some of the visitors were beginning to look afraid.
‘Here is where it gets interesting,’ I was beaming now, my speech becoming fervid, almost as if I was experiencing a mental orgasm.
‘All the children, in equal numbers, are eventually raised with the cultural attributes of only four ethnicities.
With the genetic basis of ethnic diversity totally erased, Zambia eventually will be reduced to only four ethnicities.
This acquisition by the children will not be genetic but only social.
In the end, we will have Tongas who are not Tongas, Bembas who are not Bembas, Lozis who are not Lozis and Chewas who are not Chewa.
So what we do here is that when a child is born from a Lozi and Ngoni match, he or she is taught and raised as Bemba.
A cross-breed born from a Tonga and Bemba is taught and raised as Chewa. And so on and so forth.’
Visibly disturbed, another visitor: ‘What you are doing here doesn’t seem right. Are you not playing God? You seem to be tinkering with nature.’
I remained quiet, pensive, my eyes sightless. I was deep in thought.
‘This sounds like eugenics,’ another one broke my reverie, his voice laden with indictment.
‘Ah! Yes. Eugenics you say. We have done very well so far.
When each child reaches the age of twelve, we release them into the general community. We call them graduates.
So far, since we began this social program, many years ago, we have graduated hundreds of thousands of children. They are all out there, in all of Zambia’s provinces. We secretly monitor them.
They are doing very, very well. The graduates are all over Zambia I must repeat. They are in your midst. You live with them.
These are Bembas without any genetic claim to their ethnicity. Tongas that are not Tongas. All of them Zambians who, you could say, falsely cling on to ethnicities that aren’t really theirs.
These graduates are leading peaceful and prosperous lives. A significant fraction of them are leading exemplary lives.
What we have done here is remarkable. Over the years, we have successfully achieved both genetic and cultural hybridization.
We have done better than Sir Francis Galton, one of the early developers of eugenics, could have ever fathomed.
But then wouldn’t you say nature itself is eugenic?’
Breaking my train of thought, another visitor: ‘So in the end, Zambia will only have four ethnicities? And even then false ones?’
I was authoritative: ‘Isn’t the country already naturally drifting towards that evolution? Aren’t the other ethnicities not only affiliates of the four?
But then what is true ethnicity? What is the basis of ethnicity? Is it nature or nurture?
Just thinking, isn’t it possible to have a white man who is Lunda?’
The words just came out of my mouth. It was as if I was talking to myself, unthinkingly.
I could see that some of the visitors had began look at me askance.
It seemed to me that to some of them I was beginning to sound a tad eccentric, somewhat bonkers, as if I was possessed with and taken over by the diabolical spirit of Josef Mengeles.
Uninterrupted, I continued: ‘We have discovered challenges with the current protocols. We are now revising them. Perfecting them.
In the new facilities that we are building and opening in each of the provinces, after carefully producing the cross-breeds, we will now start to teach all the children one language and one culture. It will be called the Zambian language.
And the culture will be the best in the world. It shall be founded on respect for One Authority, altruistic values, love for one another, the full expression of one’s innate talents, excellence and community collaboration.
It will be a bit like the inspirational ethos of the French Revolution, ègalitè, libertè and fraternitè, only that this one culture will be superior for it will draw not only from France, but from all the world’s other cultures. It will be a careful blend, a fine and deliberate composite of all the best practices from all of the world’s cultures.
This reformation of our operating principles is nearly done. Soon we will implement it.
We are calling it ‘The One Language One Culture’ path to Nirvana, a sure way to Paradise. Indeed, we are firmly paradisobound.
Depending on how this pilot project works out in Zambia, it has the potential to be scaled up to other countries of the world.
After successfully creating a truly one nation in Zambia, we can then create one world one nation.’
The knock on the door was loud. That is what woke me up.
‘It’s time!’
I heard a loud, sleep-ending voice outside my bedroom door.
It had all been a dream.
Diversity is the fabric of not only mankind but all of Earthkind, dear reader The many facets of life that exists in our known Universe are the essence of our being.
Homogeneity of make-up and kind, and the uniformity of culture, people’s ways of life, might at first glance appear desirable and the way to go, but could only constitute the biggest flaw and weakness which would endanger all life and occasion extinction.
Singularity of being might then be the endpoint of all existence. Are we all eventually going to become one or we already are one?
Is the convergence of both form and function the future?
Dear reader, there is immense value in diversity. Yes, one of the natural conditions which stops us from becoming extinct is our diversity.
In pursuit of a common cause, we are stronger when we are different but seamlessly united. Celebrate diversity then.
Afraid that the nightmare might return, I have now developed insomnia. Now sleep just won’t come.
Godspeed!
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