Sailing To Araby
By Peter Goodchild
18 August,
2008
Countercurrents.org
All over the Middle East there’s talk about "diversifying" the economy. That sounds like an admission of the problem of peak oil, if only a rather indirect one. Besides that, the passion for learning English has gone well beyond anything in the past, as if Arabs know they have to start talking to people elsewhere. The ratio of population to arable land in the Middle East is terrible, and Arabs will soon be unable to trade oil for food. The lucky ones will manage to emigrate.
I’ve always liked Sheik Rashid’s comment: "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel." An Arab friend in Dubai last year wrote to me that he saw that city as little more than a "museum."
It’s odd that the Arabs are aware that oil is running out, whereas North Americans and Europeans keep up the daily chant that "high oil prices are due to hoarding and price-fixing." We live in our dreams of the past.
My immediate reason for going to the Middle East is that I have to make some money. The job market in Canada is just plain dead, and until the Collapse I’m afraid ordinary cash is one of the necessities of life. The odd thing is that I’m breaking my own rule — I used to tell people to give up money and invest in axes, hoes, and guns, but now I’m doing the opposite. On the positive side, I should be able to buy a fair number of axes, hoes, and guns when I get back. On the negative side, a general loss of confidence in some or all of the world’s currencies (as tends to happen in troubled times) would mean that I had wheelbarrow-loads of worthless cash, but nothing tangible that would sustain life. You can’t shoot a moose with dollar bills. So it’s a toss-up — or a gamble.
It’s worthwhile to do some research on the term "most popular currencies." There are various matters to consider (e.g., future stability, ruling out Chinese money), but in general it seems the Euro is considered the best currency to hang on to. Of course, any currency can become worthless overnight.
There’s a third asset to keep in mind. Material things (tools, land, etc.) are nice. Money is also nice, since it can presumably lead to the future acquisition of material things. But the greatest asset is the knowledge you carry in your head: gardening and food-preservation; hunting and fishing; carpentry and related skills; medicine; economic and political awareness; social issues, such as group dynamics (post-Collapse); and so on. If that’s the case, then I’m hoping that when my wife and I return to Canada, when we finally get our boat hauled up onto the rocks of Newfoundland in the year 2015, we will be able to count on our knowledge, as much as on any other asset. Our seven years here in rural Ontario have, I think, given us the chance to get rid of a great deal of naivete about some of the "knowledge" items on the above list. Books will get you only halfway in acquiring survival skills; if you haven’t actually done something, then you don’t know how to do it.
Another problem with assets in the form of material goods or money is that "ownership" may soon become an out-of-date or even meaningless concept. If I say, for example, that I "own" a house and land, to what extent is that ever true? Only to the extent that there are judges and police officers who will back up my claim. If, in a post-Collapse situation, there are no longer any courts or police, my "ownership" becomes meaningless. A powerful gang could simply tell me that I no longer own the house and the land. "Ownership" is then a question of whether or not I am a member of a good-sized social group that is capable of defending itself.
In a way, middle-aged people such as myself will be lucky, because we will live only long enough to see the beginnings of the Collapse. It’s the people who come after us who will have hell to pay. Over the next few years, the United States, Canada, and the UK will come to resemble what we’ve generally thought of as the poorer countries of the world, those in eastern Europe, most of Latin America, and most of Africa. There will be businesses closing down. The roads will be lined with old houses that will never be properly torn down, and new houses that will never be properly finished. Taxes will be high, but government services will be poor. There will be long waiting lists for everything, there will be long lines of shoppers when food arrives. Everything essential will cost too much. There will be high unemployment, to the extent that the distinction between employed and unemployed will be rather uncertain. Pollution and waste-removal will be far too expensive for governments at any level to deal with. Government positions will be based on bribery and nepotism. Everything will be in a perpetual state of repair — or disrepair. Automobile engines will be banging and clattering, not purring. Education will fall to pieces, so that schools are little more than detention camps for the next batch of proletarians to be thrown into the already-overcrowded streets. Winters will be cold, and anything that will burn will be used as fuel — asphalt will be a good choice. Doctors and hospitals will do what they can, but the sick and the elderly will be overwhelming.
All of this will happen slowly, so slowly that hardly anyone will notice it, or remember that anything was ever any different. There may be vague recollections of some sort of Golden Age, but no one will be quite sure how much of that is genuine memory, and how much is sheer fantasy.
For further information: http://sorrynogas.blogspot.com
Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills
of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press.
His email address is [email protected]
