Something to be Proud Of

Chapter 6: Animal Rights

Darwinian man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.

-- W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida

Genetic engineers had now created over 20 new species and restored 100 others from extinction. After 200 years of educational and political campaigns, Creationism was on the wane. Over 90% of the world now “believed” in The Theory of Evolution. Everyone gave themselves a self-congratulatory hug. On the other hand, over half the world still “believed” in Astrology. No one had yet explained why it mattered what people believed - one way or the other. However, with the continual recession of racism, a vacuum of hate and self-righteousness needed to be filled. Racism was passé. People were now hated for what they believed, did, or thought. This was considered progress.

The remaining Creationists were hunted, driven from their jobs as Neanderthals. Meanwhile, the unthinkable experiment had been performed successfully – a new species had been created half-way between man and ape.

Taking a page out of George Patton’s book, Colonel Brunswick had paraded the entire population of a neighbouring village through the camp, to shame them. The plan backfired. Collectively, Koreans lost face. They could not bring themselves to look at them out of collective shame. The man-apes were duly relocated to an isolated farm near Kaesong, nicknamed Monkey Ghetto.

Human in appearance and facial expression, the man apes seemed more animal in behaviour and temperament. They could not talk, nor did they seem to take much interest in communicating with the soldiers. Their working vocabulary amongst themselves consisted of about 48 gestures – mostly related to food and mating. The first thing most of them did, when freed, was strip off their clothing.

Lance (now Sergeant) Bingham had been transferred as a U.S. Advisory attachment to the Ghetto. He had made something of a pet of his first prisoner of war, Zeke. He even managed to teach the creature to play checkers. Lance and Zeke were inseparable, like A Boy and His Dog. His apparent love for the sub-human, Zeke, impressed the Korean women deeply. He was well aware of the smuggler trade of man-apes. As docile as they were, they were easily led onto ships for parts unknown to do God Knows What. Under the Chaebol, a slave trade had blossomed, to everyone’s horror but the man-apes, who all too willingly “worked for peanuts.” Lance put in for adoption, but the man-apes had no legal status. He settled for a dog-license.

In all, there were about 10,000 man-apes. The sheer volume of homeless and wounded in Korea had overwhelmed and contingency planning. Humans were suffering. The man-apes were an embarrassment to mankind. The visiting US president Feldham, surveying the pitiless mass, was moved to tears and offered to accept the whole lot as refugees. It was a proud, near perfect moment, only slightly marred by the fact that, upon seeing them for the first time, the First Lady vomited.