A Review of World War Z Part 4: Turning The Tide
Part 4: Turning The Tide
Turning The Tide focuses on well... Turning the tide. The world has experienced the great panic, things are bad. Zombies are real. This is all really happening and the human race has to find a way to survive.
Here are the stories of those survival methods and their cost.
We begin in Robben Island, Cape Town Province, The United States of Southern Africa. Already that should be our first indication that things have drastically changed for South Africa.
We're introduced to a character named Xolelwa Azania, he's working on his third novel in regards to the zombie war and he brings a lot of experience and what I would consider heartache to the table.
You see, Xolelwa Azania is about to tell the story of Paul Redeker, the man who saved South Africa.
"Dispassionate. A rather mundane word to describe one of history's most controversial figures. Some revere him as a savior, some revile him as a monster, but if you ever met Paul Redeker, ever discussed his views of the world and the problems, or more importantly, the solutions to the problems that plague the world, probably the one word that would always cling to your impression of the man is dispassionate.
Paul always believed, well, perhaps not always, but at least in his adult life, humanity's one fundamental flaw was emotion. He used to say that the heart should only exist to pump blood to the brain, that anything else was a waste of time and energy. His papers from university, all dealing with alternate "solutions" to historical, societal quandaries were what first brought him to the attention of the apartheid government. Many psychobiographers have tried to label him a racist but in his own words, "racism is a regrettable by-product of irrational emotion." Others have argued that in order for a racist to hate one group, he must at least love another. Redeker believed both love and hate to be irrelevant. To him, they were "impediments of the human condition," and in his words again, "imagine what could be accomplished if the human race would only shed its humanity."
Evil? Most would call it that, while others, particularly that small cadre in the center of Pretoria's power, believed it to be an invaluable source of liberated intellect."
In 1984, the Apartheid government asked Paul Redeker to revise their ultimate doomsday plan of "Plan Orange."
This plan existed if the case ever happened where the indigenous African population rose up against the white minority Afrikaners.
In the revised edition, dubbed "Orange 84" Redeker outlined which Afrikaners would be rescued and which had to be sacrificed.
He included things like IQ, income, location, fertility. It was a brilliant and thorough plan and it made him the most hated man in South Africa.
"The first casualty of conflict must be our own sentimentality." he said in his closing statement for his proposal, "for its survival will mean our destruction."
I won't pretend to have a heart simply to save my skin," he stated publically, adding, "no matter what I do, they will come for me anyway."
And he was right, a few weeks before the great panic a team of people came for Paul Redeker and they asked him what his plan was for the undead.
Here are the fundamental keys to The Redeker Plan:
There's no way to save everyone. The forces were already weakened, the spread already too great. Resources had to be consolidated and withdrawn to a safe zone.
Only a small fraction of civilians could be evacuated to the safe zones.
These civilians were chosen as a part of the needed labor force and to preserve the legitimacy and stability of the government.
Those who were left behind were to be herded into isolated zones and used as human bait to distract the undead from the designated survivors.
These civilians were to be kept alive, safe, and resupplied. Because "every zombie that was besieging them was one less zombie throwing itself at the survivors' defenses."
Paul Redeker is taken to the President and Vice President, he presents his plan and is met with violent hostility.
The apartheid government is gone, Paul Redeker is considered a war criminal.
The President is so upset he's shouting his outrage, demanding to know who called for Redeker?
"The president threw his hands in the air and shouted that he never gave such an order. and then, from somewhere in the room, a faint voice said, "I did."
He had been sitting against the back wall; now he stood, hunched over by age and supported by canes, but with a spirit as strong and as vital as it ever had been. The elder statesman, the father of our new democracy, the man whose birth name had been Rolihlahla, which some have translated simply into, 'troublemaker.' As he stood all others sat. All others except Paul Redeker. The old man locked eyes on him and smiled with that warm squint that was so famous the world over and said, "molo, mhlobo wam." "Greetings person of my region." He walked slowly over to Paul, turned to the governing body of South Africa then lifted the pages from the Afrikaner's hand and said in a sudden loud and youthful voice, "This plan will save our people." Then gesturing to Paul he said, "This man will save our people."
And then came that moment, he embraced Paul Redeker.
Redeker disappeared from that moment forward as his plan was put into place. The interviewee tells our journalist that he steps in from that moment forward and convinces the government that he knows Paul better than anyone else, that he can run the plan.
As the journalist is leaving the residence of his interviewee, he has to sign out and get his picture taken. It is here it's revealed to us that he's leaving a place called 'Robben Island Psychiatric Institute' and the patient he's visiting is none other than Paul Redeker himself.
When I first read this story, I wasn't as familiar with mental health as I am now so I'm really glad I have the added knowledge now of what happened to Paul's mind the moment he was embraced for his plan of sacrifice.
Sometimes when a traumatic event happens, your brain splits off into an altered state of consciousness, this is called 'Dissociative Identity Disorder.'
Paul literally could not handle the reality of what was about to happen but he had to do it because he knew it was the only way to save what little of South Africa that could be saved. So he became a person that could* handle it.
"Redeker was actually a deeply sensitive man, too sensitive in fact, for life in apartheid South Africa. He insists that Redeker's lifelong jihad against emotion was his only way to protect his sanity from the hatred and brutality he witnessed on a daily basis."
So this is the scene that Part 4 is setting right now. The world is in chaos, humanity is desperate. They're more than willing to sacrifice the many for the few.
Which brings up to our second story in part 4, Philip Adler
Philip Adler's story starts in Hamburg, Germany which he describes as being "heavily infested." He describes how they lost their commanding officer days before to a freak accident of a bullet going through a zombie and ending up in his shoulder.
They're low on ammunition and supplies, things aren't good.
He's trying to sequester as many civilians as possible and keep them safe.
Then the orders come in that change everything. They're told to pull out of Hamburg, leave the civilians, tell no one of the departure and just go.
"This isn't happening, I told myself. Funny, eh? I could accept everything else that was happening, the fact that dead bodies were rising to consume the world, but this... following orders that would indirectly cause mass murder.
Now, I am a good soldier, but I am also a West German. You understand the difference? In the East, they were told they were not responsible for the atrocities of the second world war, that as good communists, they were just as much victims of Hilter as anyone else. You understand why the skinheads and proto-fascists were mainly in the east? They did not feel the responsibility of the past, not like we did in the west. We taught since birth the bear the burden of our grandfathers' shame. We were taught that, even if we wore a uniform, that our first sworn duty was to our conscience, no matter the consequences. This is how I was raised. That is how I responded. I told Lang that I could not obey this order, I could not leave these people without protection. At this, he exploded. He told me that I would carry out my instructions or I and more importantly, my men, would be charged with treason and prosecuted with "Russian efficiency." And this is what we've come to, I thought. We'd all heard of what was happening in Russia... the mutinies, the crackdowns, the decimations. I looked around at all these boys, eighteen, nineteen years old, all tired and scared, and fighting for their lives. I couldn't do that to them. I gave the order to withdraw."
They retreat and on the way out they pass soldiers going in. Soldiers that were deemed expendable in Germany's version of the Redeker plan.
As they pass, Adler recognizes one of them as a man who saved his life in Bosnia years ago. They salute and Adler hides his face to hide the fact that he's crying.
Leaving Hamburg, he vows to kill General Lang the moment they meet up.
"Then when he rose to shake my hand, I'd draw my weapon and blow his eastern brains across the map of what used to be our country. Maybe his whole staff would be there, all the other little stooges who were "just following orders." I'd get them all before they took me! It would be perfect. I wasn't going to goosestep my way into Hell like some good little Hitler Jugend. I'd show him and everyone else what it meant to be a real Deutsche Soldat."
But General Lang has other plans.
"As soon as the report can in, he sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain."
Here are the stories of those survival methods and their cost.
We begin in Robben Island, Cape Town Province, The United States of Southern Africa. Already that should be our first indication that things have drastically changed for South Africa.
We're introduced to a character named Xolelwa Azania, he's working on his third novel in regards to the zombie war and he brings a lot of experience and what I would consider heartache to the table.
You see, Xolelwa Azania is about to tell the story of Paul Redeker, the man who saved South Africa.
"Dispassionate. A rather mundane word to describe one of history's most controversial figures. Some revere him as a savior, some revile him as a monster, but if you ever met Paul Redeker, ever discussed his views of the world and the problems, or more importantly, the solutions to the problems that plague the world, probably the one word that would always cling to your impression of the man is dispassionate.
Paul always believed, well, perhaps not always, but at least in his adult life, humanity's one fundamental flaw was emotion. He used to say that the heart should only exist to pump blood to the brain, that anything else was a waste of time and energy. His papers from university, all dealing with alternate "solutions" to historical, societal quandaries were what first brought him to the attention of the apartheid government. Many psychobiographers have tried to label him a racist but in his own words, "racism is a regrettable by-product of irrational emotion." Others have argued that in order for a racist to hate one group, he must at least love another. Redeker believed both love and hate to be irrelevant. To him, they were "impediments of the human condition," and in his words again, "imagine what could be accomplished if the human race would only shed its humanity."
Evil? Most would call it that, while others, particularly that small cadre in the center of Pretoria's power, believed it to be an invaluable source of liberated intellect."
In 1984, the Apartheid government asked Paul Redeker to revise their ultimate doomsday plan of "Plan Orange."
This plan existed if the case ever happened where the indigenous African population rose up against the white minority Afrikaners.
In the revised edition, dubbed "Orange 84" Redeker outlined which Afrikaners would be rescued and which had to be sacrificed.
He included things like IQ, income, location, fertility. It was a brilliant and thorough plan and it made him the most hated man in South Africa.
"The first casualty of conflict must be our own sentimentality." he said in his closing statement for his proposal, "for its survival will mean our destruction."
I won't pretend to have a heart simply to save my skin," he stated publically, adding, "no matter what I do, they will come for me anyway."
And he was right, a few weeks before the great panic a team of people came for Paul Redeker and they asked him what his plan was for the undead.
Here are the fundamental keys to The Redeker Plan:
There's no way to save everyone. The forces were already weakened, the spread already too great. Resources had to be consolidated and withdrawn to a safe zone.
Only a small fraction of civilians could be evacuated to the safe zones.
These civilians were chosen as a part of the needed labor force and to preserve the legitimacy and stability of the government.
Those who were left behind were to be herded into isolated zones and used as human bait to distract the undead from the designated survivors.
These civilians were to be kept alive, safe, and resupplied. Because "every zombie that was besieging them was one less zombie throwing itself at the survivors' defenses."
Paul Redeker is taken to the President and Vice President, he presents his plan and is met with violent hostility.
The apartheid government is gone, Paul Redeker is considered a war criminal.
The President is so upset he's shouting his outrage, demanding to know who called for Redeker?
"The president threw his hands in the air and shouted that he never gave such an order. and then, from somewhere in the room, a faint voice said, "I did."
He had been sitting against the back wall; now he stood, hunched over by age and supported by canes, but with a spirit as strong and as vital as it ever had been. The elder statesman, the father of our new democracy, the man whose birth name had been Rolihlahla, which some have translated simply into, 'troublemaker.' As he stood all others sat. All others except Paul Redeker. The old man locked eyes on him and smiled with that warm squint that was so famous the world over and said, "molo, mhlobo wam." "Greetings person of my region." He walked slowly over to Paul, turned to the governing body of South Africa then lifted the pages from the Afrikaner's hand and said in a sudden loud and youthful voice, "This plan will save our people." Then gesturing to Paul he said, "This man will save our people."
And then came that moment, he embraced Paul Redeker.
Redeker disappeared from that moment forward as his plan was put into place. The interviewee tells our journalist that he steps in from that moment forward and convinces the government that he knows Paul better than anyone else, that he can run the plan.
As the journalist is leaving the residence of his interviewee, he has to sign out and get his picture taken. It is here it's revealed to us that he's leaving a place called 'Robben Island Psychiatric Institute' and the patient he's visiting is none other than Paul Redeker himself.
When I first read this story, I wasn't as familiar with mental health as I am now so I'm really glad I have the added knowledge now of what happened to Paul's mind the moment he was embraced for his plan of sacrifice.
Sometimes when a traumatic event happens, your brain splits off into an altered state of consciousness, this is called 'Dissociative Identity Disorder.'
Paul literally could not handle the reality of what was about to happen but he had to do it because he knew it was the only way to save what little of South Africa that could be saved. So he became a person that could* handle it.
"Redeker was actually a deeply sensitive man, too sensitive in fact, for life in apartheid South Africa. He insists that Redeker's lifelong jihad against emotion was his only way to protect his sanity from the hatred and brutality he witnessed on a daily basis."
So this is the scene that Part 4 is setting right now. The world is in chaos, humanity is desperate. They're more than willing to sacrifice the many for the few.
Which brings up to our second story in part 4, Philip Adler
Philip Adler's story starts in Hamburg, Germany which he describes as being "heavily infested." He describes how they lost their commanding officer days before to a freak accident of a bullet going through a zombie and ending up in his shoulder.
They're low on ammunition and supplies, things aren't good.
He's trying to sequester as many civilians as possible and keep them safe.
Then the orders come in that change everything. They're told to pull out of Hamburg, leave the civilians, tell no one of the departure and just go.
"This isn't happening, I told myself. Funny, eh? I could accept everything else that was happening, the fact that dead bodies were rising to consume the world, but this... following orders that would indirectly cause mass murder.
Now, I am a good soldier, but I am also a West German. You understand the difference? In the East, they were told they were not responsible for the atrocities of the second world war, that as good communists, they were just as much victims of Hilter as anyone else. You understand why the skinheads and proto-fascists were mainly in the east? They did not feel the responsibility of the past, not like we did in the west. We taught since birth the bear the burden of our grandfathers' shame. We were taught that, even if we wore a uniform, that our first sworn duty was to our conscience, no matter the consequences. This is how I was raised. That is how I responded. I told Lang that I could not obey this order, I could not leave these people without protection. At this, he exploded. He told me that I would carry out my instructions or I and more importantly, my men, would be charged with treason and prosecuted with "Russian efficiency." And this is what we've come to, I thought. We'd all heard of what was happening in Russia... the mutinies, the crackdowns, the decimations. I looked around at all these boys, eighteen, nineteen years old, all tired and scared, and fighting for their lives. I couldn't do that to them. I gave the order to withdraw."
They retreat and on the way out they pass soldiers going in. Soldiers that were deemed expendable in Germany's version of the Redeker plan.
As they pass, Adler recognizes one of them as a man who saved his life in Bosnia years ago. They salute and Adler hides his face to hide the fact that he's crying.
Leaving Hamburg, he vows to kill General Lang the moment they meet up.
"Then when he rose to shake my hand, I'd draw my weapon and blow his eastern brains across the map of what used to be our country. Maybe his whole staff would be there, all the other little stooges who were "just following orders." I'd get them all before they took me! It would be perfect. I wasn't going to goosestep my way into Hell like some good little Hitler Jugend. I'd show him and everyone else what it meant to be a real Deutsche Soldat."
But General Lang has other plans.
"As soon as the report can in, he sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain."
Adler explains how this caused him to hate Lang even more.
"Remember what I said about being beholden to your conscience? You can't blame anyone else, not the plan's architect, not your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices. He knew this. That's why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep treacherous mountain road. We'd all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what we'd done behind us. He couldn't do it. He couldn't shoulder the weight."
So here we're seeing three different reactions to what's about to happen. The purposeful sacrifice of human lives to save only a fraction of the world.
Redeker dissociates from reality to cope.
Adler relies on his empathy for the men he has a personal connection with and shifts the blame onto his direct supervisor.
His direct supervisor is unable to face it all together.
The way Brooks brings these characters and ideas together is masterful.
It begins with Redeker and the break of the human conscience and it trickles down to the people who have to carry out these orders.
From Philip Adler in Hamberg, Germany, we find ourselves in a Sanitorium in Odessa Ukraine.
As a war hero, Bohdan Taras Kondratiuk is given a hung sheet as privacy in his room. The sanitorium has very little supplies and no doctors.
Most of the people there have upper respiratory disorders.
Bohdan is detailing what happened at Keiv when he was ordered to evacuate what was originally intended to be a safe zone. It's a smaller story but it still brings with it a whopping punch of emotions which is always appreciated. (I usually like to sob my way through this book).
They were instructed to process the evacuees and not let the infected across the bridge on their escape. The only problem was, they weren't equipped for that and they had moments before a wave of undead was upon them.
Bohdan recalls hearing the undead just as jets circle overhead. At first, he thinks they're here to cover their retreat, to help with the evacuation.
It's only when he sees small parachutes raining to the ground does he realize what's going on. He calls for his men to seal up in their tanks and wait as their own people are bombed with RVX. (A nerve gas developed by Ukraine in the 1950s)
He puts it together that this was his government's plan to make sure the undead didn't make it across the bridge. Kill the civilians, then kill the infected when they got back up.
Bohdan orders his company to withdraw and continue on after gunning down the newly risen infected, he looks back into Keiv as they retreat and his shame is almost palpable.
"So many symbols of our national defense and none more spectacular than the statue of the Rodina Mat (Motherland). She was the tallest building in the city, a more than sixty-meter masterpiece of pure stainless steel. She was the last thing I saw in Kyiv, her shield and sword held high in everlasting triumph, her cold, bright eyes looking down at us as we ran."
So again, here we have another story that shows you just what sort of desperation these people are experiencing. The numerous variations of the Redeker plan are being carried out and the psychological ramifications are devastating.
So maybe Redeker is wrong when he says we have to divorce our humanity to accomplish great things. Because look at the people that actively have to do that. They can't survive, they can't move on. They're broken in one form or another.
It's our humanity that keeps us from breaking.
From Ukraine, we go to Canada and a woman named Jesika Hendriks. Born in Wisconsin she's now a naturalized Canadian citizen and a part of the very important Wilderness Restoration Project.
She begins by saying she doesn't blame the US government for diverting a lot of people north instead of having them follow the Army west of the rookies.
There was a lot of information saying that if you could get above the thaw line, the zombies would be freeze, and people would be safe.
But Jesika explains, there was also a lot of misinformation and false information. Information that she says would have saved countless lives if it had been correct.
"Looking back, I still can't believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All contradicting one another, all trying to seem more "shocking" and "in-depth" than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do. The only thing any of them could agree on was that all private citizens should "go north."
She details how her family was dealing with the great panic. Her father, a previously very gentle man who had never been camping, bought a gun and was talking about how they'd go to Canada and eat moose burger and wild berries and it'd be an extended camping trip.
They wanted to stay in the house where they knew they'd be safe but her dad wouldn't have it. He thought they'd be safer up north.
So we've seen the survival of the militaries around the globe, now this is the survival of the private citizen. The Dick and Janes of the world with their nuclear families and their 30-year mortgages.
Jesika's father has been planning since day one of the panic. He's stocked canned goods and extra gas cans for the trip up north. They're in the first wave to leave. Where most people are stopping, they keep going.
They're going as far north as they can.
They finish half their food on the way up.
They pick up one hitchhiker and then abandon her on the side of the road when they discover she has a bite on her arm. At least, we're lead to believe that they've abandoned her. Jesika isn't too sure and she says she blocked a lot of things out on the trip up north.
Then they reach their destination. It's a nice camp with a few other people. Eve is really friendly, they have cookouts together. People are feeling relief.
But Jesika says that's when they still had trees before the second and third wave shows up to their camp and they lose most if not all of their resources.
The collective, camp vibe goes sour and everyone is tested.
"Every now and then you'd hear a gunshot and somebody crying. One time we heard someone moving outside the makeshift tent we'd draped over the minivan. Mom told me to put my head down and cover my ears. Dad went outside. Through my hands, I heard shouts. Dad's gun went off. Someone screamed. Dad came back in, his face white. I never asked him what happened.
The only time anyone came together was when one of the dead showed up. And then as soon as it was over, we'd all turn on each other again."
Then Jesika addresses the malnutrition issue. She describes a moment in time when her father barters away her radio to the neighbor for stew with meat in it.
Resources have been out for a while, she doesn't know where they got the meat from and she doesn't want to know.
By Christmas, there was plenty of food.
I hope you guys can draw the conclusions without me having to say cannibalism.
But what other choice did they have?
This is supposed to be the turning point but I have to wonder, after reading these four stories, what are we turning into?
The last story in 'Turning The Tide' takes us back to India and to a man named Sardar Khan. He's charged with blowing a narrow mountain pass to stop the dead from getting into the safe zone. Only there's one problem.
The mountain pass is still choked with refugees and if he sets off the explosives, he will be a mass murderer. Khan can't do it. He won't do it. Those are people.
Then we're introduced to one of the many heroes in this book. If the first four stories are outlining how we gave away our humanity to survive, this is the story of how one man gave up his life to save everyone else.
General Raj-Singh is described as a giant man and a living legend, 'the tiger of Dehli.'
He grabs the detonator from Khan and slams his fingers down on the buttons but nothing happens. Something's wrong with the mechanism and he'll have to set the charges off manually.
There's no argument, no discussion, he just takes off.
Khan describes the hysteria of the people as you can hear the approaching dead. He's swept into the mob and trampled, sending him unconscious. When he comes to, the mountain pass has been blown and the general is gone.
Everyone is secure.
And that's when he realizes, they're going to win.
Resources have been out for a while, she doesn't know where they got the meat from and she doesn't want to know.
By Christmas, there was plenty of food.
I hope you guys can draw the conclusions without me having to say cannibalism.
But what other choice did they have?
This is supposed to be the turning point but I have to wonder, after reading these four stories, what are we turning into?
The last story in 'Turning The Tide' takes us back to India and to a man named Sardar Khan. He's charged with blowing a narrow mountain pass to stop the dead from getting into the safe zone. Only there's one problem.
The mountain pass is still choked with refugees and if he sets off the explosives, he will be a mass murderer. Khan can't do it. He won't do it. Those are people.
Then we're introduced to one of the many heroes in this book. If the first four stories are outlining how we gave away our humanity to survive, this is the story of how one man gave up his life to save everyone else.
General Raj-Singh is described as a giant man and a living legend, 'the tiger of Dehli.'
He grabs the detonator from Khan and slams his fingers down on the buttons but nothing happens. Something's wrong with the mechanism and he'll have to set the charges off manually.
There's no argument, no discussion, he just takes off.
Khan describes the hysteria of the people as you can hear the approaching dead. He's swept into the mob and trampled, sending him unconscious. When he comes to, the mountain pass has been blown and the general is gone.
Everyone is secure.
And that's when he realizes, they're going to win.
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