had financed the huge investments to build the atomic power plants necessary to supply electricity to the consumer and to supply the electrolysis plants that produce hydrogen for fuel cell driven vehicles. Few other regions of the world could afford such investments, at least for the quantity of power necessary to replace oil. America no longer needed oil in the vast quantities it had consumed in the past, with its newly found force its business and political legions ringed the globe defending its own specific interests; raw materials, security and the markets of its great multi-national business organisations.
From the moment oil was replaced for almost all sources of transport, heating and local power generation, American interest in the Middle East ceased. Its prime interest was the political stability of the region; the past dangers were no longer felt as life threatening.
The USA had become more introverted following the disasters that had struck the nation at its very heart. First the terrorist attack on Manhattan, the debacle in Iraq, economic crises and more especially the effects of climate change, which had seriously affected the southern states of the country. Desertification had wreaked havoc on California’s agricultural industries, but worse rising sea levels linked with recurring tectonic action had resulted in a slow but continuous encroachment of the ocean on low lying areas of the Pacific coast, causing extensive damage to California’s great cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, forcing Washington to focus its attention on the country’s own urgent needs. The economic effects were far reaching, indirectly delivering a fatal blow to the Chinese economy already severely shaken by badly managed economic crises under its rigid and out of date Peoples Liberation Army style regime.
The enemies of America had taken advantage of an enfeebled giant, plotting terrorist attacks on its major cities and infrastructure, which only confirmed the vulnerability of the nation’s heartland. It was impossible to blame the enemies of the USA for the natural disasters. The search for the perpetrators of the terrorist acts was fruitless, in the sense that the country was in no mood to wage an Iraq style war, which would have served no purpose other than revenge.
The policy of Fortress America came into being, zero immigration and all asylum indefinitely suspended, aid was cut off to all but the most loyal friends, and any individual suspected of anti-American activities was instantly expelled to their countries of origin together with their families.
America in its own interests reserved the right to carry out unilateral surgical attacks wherever it was deemed expedient for the interests of their nation, which nevertheless continued to be the most powerful nation on earth and independent of foreign energy sources.
There was a change of heart towards countries that put the interest of their own historical populations before that of recent arrivals, such as France and Germany. The White House notably refused to criticise France’s internal policies against its populations of Neos.
Multi-national business organisations had become trans-national functioning without any consideration for geographical frontiers or politics. They had either rationalised or robotised all tasks for the production of consumer goods in developed countries or delocalised them to countries of low labour costs and low taxation.
These businesses then remained in a country or region until all the economic advantages had been exhausted by the increase of costs or when the demands of the workers became in their eyes exorbitant, whereupon they moved on to their next victim.
In France, hard jobs or dirty work, which had been reserved for the poorest and lowest members of society and above all Neos, had all but disappeared. The consequence for Europe was massive unemployment amongst the working class and the second and third generations of Neo workers.
France was especially affected with its large population of Neos, which had grown as a result of the political upheavals in North Africa. The massive disappearance of jobs in industry threw the Neo population into the ranks of the new poor and disinherited, with its unemployed youth roaming the fringes of large cities.
The first measures against illegal immigration had been modelled on the Californian laws, which foresaw the withdrawal of all rights to education, health services and socials assistance for all illegals. Up until that point illegals, once they had arrived on the national territory, enjoyed rights often superior to the poor indigenous population.
It was unjust to spend huge sums of money on those who succeeded in their perilous journey from their miserable homeland, when the same sums of money given to a family of new arrivals could have aided dozens of families in their homeland.
All persons were suspected of being illegal infiltrators if they could not produce the papers necessary, justifying their rights to social services such as valid identity cards.
The birth of Algharb was not because France had simply abandoned a part of its territory, but rather it taken the opportunity to get rid of a burden that had become socially, economically and, above all, politically unsupportable.
Algharb was one of those pseudo states with a fiction of independence, a kind of protectorate, awaiting a more acceptable long-term solution.
The departure of Neos and infiltrators to the new state had been to some degree voluntary, but many of those who did not leave with the first wave had been deported after the instauration of new laws of great severity, demanding that all persons of non-European origin should be in possession of a valid work contract.
The decline of the Arab world towards a subservient role, not unlike that of the early twentieth century, was due to the need of the mercantile powers to reduce the countries of the third world, a few countries apart, to suppliers of low priced raw materials and agricultural products with their industrial activities reduced to the role of suppliers of low cost labour.
Massive movements of refugees had transformed Marseille and Toulon, for the second time in living memory, into vast centres of transhumance. Refugees arrived by the hundreds of thousands, not only from Paris and Lyon but also from Wallonia and Brussels.
Belgium as a state no longer existed; the divorce between Flemings and Wallons had been consummated. In a referendum Wallonia had chosen, by an overwhelming majority, given a shared language, culture and common history with France, union in an enlarged Nation de France, with their autonomy and protection guaranteed by the Nation’s Premier Magistrat, Charles d'Albignac le Martel.
Europe was dominated by a new and confident Germany, reinforced through a privileged alliance with Austria, thus forming the heart of the Federation with its thirty states. The centre of gravity had swung towards the north of Europe with Berlin’s sphere of influence reaching to Finland in the north and Bulgaria in the east, and to the south Slovenia and Croatia. The political influence of the Nation of France, in spite of absorbing Wallonia and the support it enjoyed from Spain and Portugal, had declined.
Medina Hurriya
Abdelhamid suggested that they commence by visiting the old town, a quarter that lays just beyond the port. They passed in front of the restaurants and small cafés that lined the pavement; the tables were of no-longer very white moulded plastic, covered with worn chequered plasticized tablecloths. They turned to the right and walked up a narrow stairway under the sombre shadow of the musty buildings, which seemed to lean over them.
The stone steps were worn by centuries of tired feet. To the surprise of Ennis a torn bill pasted, on a pillar, announced a grand procession dedicated to the Holy Virgin for the 15 August,
They then arrived in a small quarter where the streets were lined with small shops and bars that recalled the past. Above one of the shops were the barely visible traces of a sign which announced vollailles et lapins and a little further on a flaking wall lacques et peintures.
The quarter had an abandoned air, though the dilapidated balconies and roofs sprouted a profusion of satellite dishes and aerials. An odour of mint tea had replaced the smell of pastis.
On one of the pavements, between the shops, were a few small dusty cafes and bars, furnished with sad t
ables and chairs, where their few customers passed the time of day sitting before small glasses of café au lait or playing dominoes. An old man in a long and worn djellaba watched the occasional passers-by; rolled under his arm was a small prayer mat. There were also younger men; unemployment guaranteed the cafes and bars of a meagre, but constant supply of regular customers.
In another small restaurant an old French couple sat at a small table, it was covered with a simple white tablecloth. They were the only clients, perhaps it was still too early for lunch, they were both in their mid-seventies, they were inspecting the menu with a certain old fashioned reserve. A sign announced spécialités français traditionnels; the restaurant had an air of sad and impoverished exoticism.
An Arab of about sixty shuffled past, broken by a life of hard work to support his large family with little attention to his own health, the wind provoked a tear from the centre of his left eye, it ran down his cheek. His old age would be short and lonely.
“Here we are in the old town!”
Ennis observed the scene in silence.
“Let’s go a little further.”
They continued up narrow steep streets over the uneven cobbles, which were strewn with debris as rivulets of black water ran down