We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw

Host: The wind moved with a kind of resentful calm across the African plain, dragging dust over dry earth and forgotten bones. The sky was wide — immense, cruelly beautiful, the color of burnt copper. Below it, a fire crackled, throwing orange light against two faces that couldn’t have been more different and yet were bound by the same unspoken grief — Jack and Jeeny.

They sat on the edge of the world, or what Jack liked to call it — an abandoned colonial outpost, half-ruined, the flagpole still standing, bare, like a memory refusing to die. Behind them, the ghosts of empire lingered — the walls, names, maps drawn in greed instead of ink.

The firelight flickered across their faces — Jack’s, carved from shadow and cynicism; Jeeny’s, lit by anger, her eyes burning with something both holy and hurt.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Cecil Rhodes once said, ‘We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.’”

Jack: (grimly) “Ah yes — the poetry of progress. Empire dressed as enterprise.”

Jeeny: (her voice trembling) “Do you hear what that sounds like, Jack? It’s not just words. It’s a blueprint for suffering — an instruction manual for turning humans into profit.”

Jack: “It’s honesty. Brutal, unfiltered honesty. He said out loud what most men in his position only whispered.”

Jeeny: “And that makes it worse. Evil without shame is the most dangerous kind.”

Host: The fire popped, a spark leaping upward, then dying midair. Jeeny turned her gaze toward the dark horizon, where the fields once grew, where children once played, where now only silence remained — the silence of a land that had been used up and renamed.

Jeeny: “You defend the truth of his words, but do you defend the truth of his heart?”

Jack: “No. I defend the clarity of his corruption. He didn’t pretend to be moral. He understood what civilization was built on — theft, hierarchy, appetite. Rhodes wasn’t unique; he was just honest enough to say the quiet part out loud.”

Jeeny: “That’s not honesty, Jack. That’s infection. Words like his justified centuries of blood. They didn’t just describe greed — they taught it to march.”

Jack: (coldly) “You think greed needed a teacher? It’s written into our DNA. Every society expands until it hits a wall — then calls the wall a border. Every empire feeds on something weaker and names it destiny.”

Jeeny: “Then what does that make us — progress or parasites?”

Jack: (smiling without warmth) “Both. Evolution doesn’t pick sides; it just rewards hunger.”

Host: The fire’s glow shifted, stretching shadows across their faces. Jeeny’s eyes glimmered with pain, but her voice grew stronger, like a song rising out of ash.

Jeeny: “That’s the difference between survival and morality, Jack. Survival takes; morality remembers. Men like Rhodes wanted the world to forget that every empire leaves graves in its foundation.”

Jack: “And yet, we still build them. We still draw lines on maps, still talk about opportunity like it’s birthright. You think your phone, your clothes, your comforts — they’re made of virtue? No, Jeeny. They’re made of Rhodes’ dream — modernized, digitized, sanitized.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Then maybe the only moral act left is to look at it and not look away.”

Jack: “And what good does looking do? Guilt doesn’t feed the hungry.”

Jeeny: “No, but it stops you from pretending the meal was clean.”

Host: The flames flared, illuminating the ruined post, its walls cracked, its signs faded, still bearing names like Victoria and Empire. The wind shifted, carrying dust, memories, and the whisper of languages that had been silenced.

Jack: (after a pause) “You think the world can exist without exploitation?”

Jeeny: “No. But it can remember who paid the price.”

Jack: “Remembrance is a luxury for the free. The oppressed don’t have time for philosophy.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what men like Rhodes wanted us to believe — that reflection was weakness, that compassion was inefficient. But you know what’s inefficient, Jack? Cruelty. It always collapses. Always.”

Jack: (smirking) “You sound like a priest praying over an oil field.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I am. Someone has to bless the dirt after men like him have poisoned it.”

Host: The air trembled with tension. Jack looked away, his jaw tight, his hand tapping the bottle beside him. The flame reflected in his eyes, like the ghost of something he wanted to deny but couldn’t.

Jack: (lowly) “Do you think he knew? The suffering, the consequences — do you think Rhodes ever thought about what he’d done?”

Jeeny: “No. Men like him don’t think — they calculate. They confuse dominion with destiny. And then they die surrounded by statues.”

Jack: “And we tear the statues down — thinking that erases the echo.”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t. But it silences the lie that he was a savior.”

Jack: (softly) “And what are we then — the inheritors of guilt or the witnesses of truth?”

Jeeny: “Both. Always both. We live in the empire’s aftermath — half-beneficiaries, half-grievers.”

Host: The fire began to die, the shadows thickening. The air was heavy now, saturated with the scent of smoke, wet soil, and the faint iron tang of something older than history — the memory of blood.

Jack: “You think forgiveness is possible?”

Jeeny: “No. Not yet. Maybe never. But acknowledgment — that’s the beginning of anything human.”

Jack: “You sound like you still believe in humanity.”

Jeeny: (with quiet resolve) “I believe in memory. And maybe that’s close enough.”

Host: The flames shrank, curling inward, as if listening. The sky above them was a deep blue wound, the stars distant, indifferent, but watching.

Jack: (murmuring) “Cioran said comfort was found among murderers. Maybe Rhodes felt the same way.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the only difference between them is awareness. Cioran saw the abyss. Rhodes built a throne in it.”

Host: The fire collapsed, ashes rising in small, glowing ghosts. Jeeny reached for a stick, stirring what remained, her face half-lit, half-shadowed.

Jack: (softly) “So what now? What do we do with what’s left?”

Jeeny: (looking into the embers) “We build something that doesn’t need blood to stand.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “You think that’s possible?”

Jeeny: “No. But it’s necessary.”

Host: The wind shifted again, carrying their words out into the darkness, across the scarred land, where the bones of empire still waited, still listening.

Above them, the moon rose — cold, white, and merciless — but for the first time that night, it shone not on conquerors, but on the witnesses.

And for a moment, beneath the dying fire, Jack and Jeeny sat in quiet understanding — two souls in a world still haunted by its own hands, trying to speak softly in the language of the conquered, where even forgiveness was a kind of resistance.