the country south of the Gambia River with its agricultural potential. The enclave of the Gambia a forgotten ex-British colony had separated Senegal into two parts. The southern part of the country had been isolated by the Gambia River making the connections with the capital Dakar difficult to Ziguinchor the principal town of Casamance. The north of the country from Saint Louis to Dakar was arid, suffering under the worst droughts that had ravaged the country for decades. Bathurst in Gambia was to be the southern base controlling the south bank of the Gambia River to the Casamance.
The country was ripe for plunder and d’Albignac saw it as the occasion to restore the glory and power of the Nation of France in the Union by enlarging its territory by an overseas colony. He was discretely encouraged by the Union that had observed the Caliphate’s creeping expansion into the neighbouring Sahel countries. Brussels had encouraged le Martel to pre-empt further expansion by his occupation of Senegal and Mali.
The Caliphate had halted the progress of Aids by a draconian application of the Sharia; the result was a continuation of their demographic growth. In order to consolidate Islam in the countries to the south and to gain new fertile lands they had progressively increased their presence and influence in the Sahel countries that bordered the Caliphate.
Germany and England had blamed France for its predicament that was nothing more than result of the poor management of its relations with its ex-colonies in the Maghrib. France had accepted the inevitability of the politicisation of Islam in Algeria with the consequences it would have on its neighbours. With the foundation of the Caliphate the government of France hoped that by a policy of appeasement that things would work out. The French government feared for its own Islamic population whose loyalty hovered in a state of pathological schizophrenia.
The French of Arab origin felt they were Tunisian, Algerian or Moroccan, a sentiment that was mainly due to the fact that they were refused the idea of being considered French.
The USA after its successive wars against the Islamic world that had changed little had great satisfaction seeing France transformed into another Satan and the European Union once more in a state of internal dissent.
England had integrated its Neos in a certain manner, though some said it was the Neos that had integrated England into their communities.
The Caliphate accused the Mourides of blasphemy and called for a rising against the Marabouts to bring Senegal into the Caliphate.
The Holy city of Touba, one hundred and fifty kilometres east of Dakar was the centre of the Mourides that was part of the Sufi Muslim brotherhood. The Mourides valued their independence and their style of worship. They were governed by the Grand Caliph and they practised an Islam more tolerant than that in northern Nigeria. The clerics were called Marabouts.
Smets
Smets, a tall rather slow Fleming, spoke French well though with a pronounced accent, it could even be said that he was Francophile, though he was bitterly anti-clerical and especially opposed to the Legion of Saint Jacques de Compostelle, founded by le Martel, soldiers of Christ fighting a life or death struggle against the infidel.
“I’m always pleased to help people hunted by the perverted Jesuit, le Martel,” he said laughing, as he looked at Ennis through his old fashioned glasses that had become green with age and crass.
“He wants to re-colonise Africa with Christians to stop the Caliphate from doing the same thing with their believers.”
“I’ve heard about that, Dakar or somewhere?”
“It’s not Dakar, it’s to the south, there was a Club Med holiday camp there, closed quite a few years ago, Aids and all that.”
“They’ve transformed it?”
“The accommodation, I don’t know, I shouldn’t think so, too old, if it was in wood then it must have rotted away a long time ago. Though the runway, roads and port I suppose and some of the building in concrete can certainly be used.”
“Why this site?”
“It’s easy, if it was good for a holiday camp then it must be good for a colony. It’s well away from Dakar and its filthy ruins with its beggars and disease. I suppose it would be a new capital.”
“It’s a forced labour camp!”
“It depends how you see it, the Zonards are transmigrants, they will construct new housing, they will have medical care, schools and all that. The only thing they don’t have is the freedom of choice.”
“That’s sure after what I saw in Paris.”
“Maybe it’s not a bad thing?”
“What!”
“In the camps in the Queyras they’ll be rehabilitated, with medical and fattened up, put back into good health and prepared with training courses to prepare them for their new home. After, they’ll be transported down to Africa by boat and a new life.”
“Like the Indonesian did in Borneo.”
“Yes if you like, but it’s more like Australia or the West of America.”
He explained how le Martel had conceived it as part of their plan to re-establish France in West Africa. It would get rid of an unsightly sore on the side of the Nation where the majority of its Gallo-European citizens lived in a prosperity never dreamed of after the loss of Provence.
The good citizens lived in security assured by the RASE, the church surveyed the soul and morality of the Nation and the Department of Ethnic affairs took care of all affairs judged to be non-conformist and a threat to the tranquillity of the Nations honest citizens.
A state of providence reigned; the good citizens were guaranteed certain social rights that included full medical care, a remunerated occupation with adequate pensions protected against disloyal competition from parasites, and free transport.
In return they accepted a government structured on a paternalistic form of totalitarianism. Work was provided by large organisation, both private and state owned, that functioned in the interest of the Nation. Each private or government employee obeyed the rules of the company and followed the orders received without question.
Jobs were allotted based on the principals of a system that guaranteed a share in the national wealth to each and every law-abiding citizen. The most severe sanctions for non-conformity were the withdrawal of employment and social rights. The number of hours worked was limited to twenty-eight hours a week. The accumulation of employment was proscribed for all, heads of business, employees, civil servants or even politicians. A minimum of seven weeks annual holidays was guaranteed to each person in addition to national days and special non-working days decreed at the discretion of the government.
In spite of the work laws exceptional dispensations were made for persons employed in essential tasks such as the police and certain government employees and leaders.
The authoritarian utopia functioned as the result of a docile population that had their needs satisfied by a highly organised system. It was based on a technology that ensured the production of all that was essential, light, heat, food, housing, health, education, transport and entertainment.
The manufacturing industries represented less than ten percent of the national economy concentrated in high added value items in aerospace, defence, high-tech equipment and goods such as fuel cells, biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. The majority of needs in everyday consumer goods were imported from low cost countries.
Farming, food production and transformation had been entirely industrialised providing all national needs and providing a large part of export revenues to the country.
Hidden from this propaganda image was the twilight world of the Special Urban Zones where the Ombres, a precarious labour force that provided lowly services and unskilled labour that allowed the cities and industries function. A vital necessity for the prosperity of the Gallo-Europeans. It included amongst its ranks the Dailies, Specials and Ombres who were paid a pittance for their labour that enjoyed little or no legal status and benefited from no access to social services.
Beyond the frontier with Algharb were banished industries, the unclean and uncompetitive industries that require
d low cost labour. They recycled waste or employed polluting processes unacceptable to the Nation, those that were considered too dangerous were delocalised to Africa and the waste exported via Algharb that acted as a storage and transit area sorting and exporting the toxic waste to those countries.
Algharb assured the services to the Nation with its vast pool of unskilled labour destined to the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. The labour pool consisted of not only of the poor and those at the bottom of the ethnic scale as defined by Bin Ibrani’s administration but also common law and political prisoners.
Le Martel restored pride to the Gallo-Europeans who had been convinced by decades of anti-racist publicity that they were at fault and had become ashamed of their own history and culture, they had even come to believe that they had no culture. Governments had sought to appease the Neo populations by means promoting their cultures whilst denigrating the culture of their host country. Islam was to be admired whilst Cathos were the racist oppressors as they had been throughout their history; the result was the encouragement of the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and the rejection of Christian values.
Smets was a resistance leader; Boublil would have described him as a terrorist. He was one of the few dedicated to the old fashioned idea of human rights. He was one of the few who realised that Europe and especially France