Dr. Jack Wheeler
July 1, 2005
MORU ROCKS, SERENGETI PLAINS, TANZANIA, AFRICA. It is at night that Africa becomes most alive - especially when there’s a full moon. The most restful night’s sleep one can have, it seems, is when you are lulled by the cackling whine of hyenas, the incessant barking of zebras, the coughing of lions, the grunting of hippos, the bellowing of Cape buffalo, the stomach rumblings of elephants, the flutter of Guinea fowl roosting in the trees, and the soft chirp of the tiny Scopes owl. The Moonlight Symphony of the Serengeti.
I’m writing this on the veranda of my tent overlooking a grassy plain and trees along a nearby stream. Herds of zebra and wildebeest are grazing, a few giraffe are munching on a huge umbrella acacia tree, and two elephants are happily stripping the bark off a yellow fever tree with their tusks for an afternoon snack.
It is a peaceful and restful scene. In the distance is a rock outcropping that’s the home of a pride of 11 lions, a mommy with four cubs, two other females, and two males with gorgeous golden manes. They’re sleeping off last night’s repast of a young wildebeest.
Predators on the Serengeti do not prey on themselves. Two prides of lions, say, may occasionally compete for territory, but they never attempt to survive upon the other, and it would never occur to them to do so. Only man has the capacity to choose to prey on his fellow man.
In our time there have been three great predations upon civilization: Nazism, Communism, and Islamism. The first was defeated entirely, and that by military force. The Soviet version of the second was defeated by a combination of military threat and guile. The Chinese version remains. The struggle continues with the third.
There is a lesson to be learned here in the Serengeti about how to conduct this struggle.
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