The
East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest on the planet. On 15 August, a part of it began to slip into
the sea. At a height of 15,000 feet, the
sheet is home to the South Pole. If the entire thing floated, the result would
be a sea level rise of 53 meters world-wide.
Fortunately, this particular August slip was minor. Over the space of a year a mere 6 inches was
added to the height of the world’s oceans.
The effect was not immediately obvious. There was no tsunami effect. The smallest of ripples spread out from Antarctica
to all the continental slopes facing south.
Cape Town reported the sea rise first.
A few blocks of the city were affected.
No similar immediate consequences for Europe or North America were
forecast. The world relaxed.
Bangladesh in south-east Asia hosted a total
population of 185 million, mostly Sunni adherents. The delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra
rivers was home to 85 million of them. Most
of the delta population lived and farmed a few inches above sea level.
World media did not immediately take notice
when twenty hours after the ice slip many delta dwellers were up to their
ankles in water. When the raised water
level did not recede, it became apparent to the east Bengalis that they could
no longer survive in their ancestral delta lands. They would starve if they stayed put. They must move to higher ground.
They had a choice. They could trek north over the Chittagong
Hills and up the Brahmaputra River valley.
This way led to Assam and thence to Bhutan and China. Or, they could march west up the valley of
the Ganges towards Patna.
The ten million minority who chose the first
route up the Brahmaputra River Valley eventually approached Arunachal Pradesh
on the border of China. That was a mistake. China would not accept ten million Sunni Muslims
immigrating into their territory. They
had enough experience of that problem. Urgent
steps were called for.
The thermonuclear bomb destroys life and
property. The neutron bomb by contrast
is harmful to life but does not destroy property. It will kill all life within its reach, but
leaves the landscape untouched. Most
countries have agreed not to develop the neutron bomb. But, it has proven too perfect a weapon to be
abandoned. As the Chinese government saw
it, the need to remove the threat of millions of Bangladeshis invading China
was pressing. And, it must be done
without damaging any of the territory of China.
Three strategically placed neutron bombs soon obliterated the Sunni
threat. China was saved. The Secretary General of the United Nations
fumed against this brutality. The
Chinese said nothing.
The remaining 75 million men, women and
children marched up the valley of the Ganges, heading west to India. The government of India was faced with an
invasion. India too is a nuclear
power. There was the Chinese
example. Four strategically placed neutron
devices ensured that, with a minimum of damage to India’s territory, the
refugees were nudged on their way westwards.
The International Bar Association expressed outrage. The 70 million surviving refugees continued through
Indian Kashmir towards Pakistan.
Pakistan is also a nuclear power. Opening a wide path along the Silk Road gave
the refugees safe passage to the west without having to bomb them. There were one thousand miles to go to reach
Afghanistan. Aid agencies flocked to
help mollify the human tragedy. It took
months of walking, and many died, but the majority made it.
Medicin Sans Frontieres provided clinics
along the way. UNICEF and Save the
Children Fund opened food outlets to feed millions on the march. The air fleets of the United States, France
and the United Kingdom made parachute drops.
A million tons of foodstuffs, water and medicines were delivered. Hundreds of thousands fell by the way, but
the survivors continued through Pakistan towards Afghanistan.
They swarmed the Khyber Pass in late spring. Afghanistan had no nuclear bombs. Villagers tried to protect their lands with a
combination of scimitar and Kalashnikov.
But, the westward flow could not be stemmed. As row upon row of marchers were mowed down,
the now desperate followers stepped over the fallen bodies and continued onwards
to their ultimate destination. The
president of Amnesty International resigned.
Its offices closed as funding dried up.
The border between Iran and Afghanistan was
no barrier to Alexander the Great in 327 BC.
It was no barrier now to the surviving 60 million desperate souls.
Word went out from the Supreme Leader. Let the marchers pass. With help from the Red Crescent, the majority
survived. Bangladesh was a distant bad
memory. The west and the good life beckoned
them onwards.
Turkey was no stranger to millions of refugees arriving from the east. Recent immigrants
had stayed put. The present visitors
wanted no stayover in Turkey. Their aim
was further west. All that was necessary
was for the Turks to open the borders and help usher the crowds westwards,
plying them with food and water and all the transport they could muster.
In Europe, preparations to meet the coming
invasion proceeded apace. Bulgaria,
North Macedonia and Albania, erected machine gun towers every 100 meters along
the borders, marked out by a series of forty-foot fences.
The Prime Minister of Hungary shrugged off
criticism with the explanation, “If they breed like rats, let them die like
rats.” His only question was whether
there were enough bullets in all of Europe to match the numbers of coming
immigrants.
Italy and France positioned armed gunboats every
two hundred and fifty meters the length of the Mediterranean Sea. The only official fear was that gaps in the
line would develop as boats returned to shore to rearm.
The European Union showed signs of collapse. Brussels became a ghost town. In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Commissioner
put a gun to his own head.
Barely nine months after the ice slip
occurred, on 1 May, the wave of would-be immigrants topped the range of Anatolian
hills that, two thousand five hundred years before, had confronted Xenophon’s retreating
army of Ten Thousand Greeks. As the
masses crested the ridge, their ultimate destination was in sight. The front ranks of the survivors looked
down with joy at the banks of the Bosporus.
It was not the old cry of Xenophon’s Greeks that
rang out, “Thalassa, Thalassa, Thalassa.”
Instead, full 50 million cried out in Urdu, “لو ہم آ گئے کوپن ہیگن“
Or, if you prefer English, “Copenhagen, here
we come!”
