About this episode
Despite being over 50 years old, The Camp of the Saints reads as if it was written only yesterday. It’s basically the story of the West since the end of World War II, condensed into a roughly two-month farce, set in the Spring of 1973. It’s not a novel in the traditional sense; it’s more like a collection of sketches and vignettes depicting the reactions (and non-reactions) of various people throughout the West to an impending catastrophe. There are a few recurring characters, but none are really developed or undergo any meaningful changes. The main characters really aren’t any of the individual people depicted in the story, but rather the zeitgeists of two competing cultures: that of the ravenous, locust-like Global South, and that of the decadent and suicidal West.The overarching story is simple. An armada filled with migrants sets sail from India, bound for Western Europe, a land overflowing with milk and honey. The Western countries do nothing but dither and discuss possible responses. What little they do, the Western leaders do half-heartedly, either with a spirit of dour resignation or with the zeal of naive liberal lunacy. The West is like a termite-infested tree, where the termites are either the practitioners of a suicidally “compassionate” churchianity, or the adherents of a suicidally malignant Marxcissism. As soon as the migrants crash like a tidal wave of raw sewage onto the southern coast of France, the termite-infested tree collapses. Then, upon seeing that the West is unwilling to defend herself, innumerable more migrant armadas set sail from the Global South, their hearts set on pillaging the fresh carcass of Western Europe. Soon, a provisional government is established, comprised of murderous migrants and suicidally co-dependent Europeans, and the new government uses the military equipment and the misguided loyalties of remaining troops (who have been conditioned to obey any order from those wearing the emblems of authority) to wage war against the remaining “racist” holdouts. Of course, in The Camp of the Saints, as in our world, the word “racist” means nothing more than a white person who prefers to live amongst those with whom he shares a common culture. Eventually, all the “racists” retreat to Switzerland, the final holdout, but international pressure and internal sabotage from Marxcissists combine to break the country. The novel ends as Switzerland agrees to open her borders.The Camp of the Saints raises some interesting questions. Who organized so many hundreds of boats and made them all available for the migrants to use? Who put the migrants up to it? Who coordinates the conspiracy of silence,
