The Nomadic Alternative – Page 62

exposure. The leader of an Egyptian expedition to the turquoise mines in the desert had written on his tomb, "The land was hot, the highland was in summer, and the mountain scorched an already blistering skin."

The mining settlement is perhaps the most disagreeable of all human communities. "They are bound to their place of work", writes Regis Debray of the mine workers in Bolivia, "together with the women and children; exposed to all kinds of reprisals ... without the material possibility of turning themselves into a mobile force (my italics) they are simply condemned to slaughter."

Gold, the incorruptible, loved of dictators, inevitably presages human suffering. The extent of apartheid in Southern Africa directly depends on inert matter below the ground. The riches of a nation are measured in terms of ingots; and it was a pathological symptom of the High Command that President Nixon justified his invasion of Cambodia on the grounds that the "richest nation in[illegible] world" could not allow itself the humiliation of retreat. The metal gilders, who embellished the Court of France with ormolu, died pitifully young of mercurial poisoning. The Kings of Merce in the Sudan so enthused over the hard cutting edge of iron, that they founded their capital over an iron mine and allowed the slag heaps to abut the sacred precinct of the Temple. But it is not surprising to learn that the nomadic Moors imagine the ores of copper, gold and iron to be the property of El-Hadad, the Devil. Chains of iron and steel replace thongs of rope and hide and, being inorganic, extend the duration of prison sentences. The metal workers belong to the line of Cain.

"Now let us assume that we lost Indo-China... the tin and tungsten that we value greatly from that area would cease coming." Thus in 1953 President Eisenhower justified American support for the French colonial regime in Indo-China. Alienated Arabs now flock round desert oil-rigs, their traditional ways of life shattered. Dishonest commentators shouldered the blame for the Biafran war on resurgent African tribalism. The more honest said, "Everywhere there is the