The Nomadic Alternative – Page 66

Colonial enterprises invite a reflux movement, and the most

successful civilizations allow it to happen. If not, the campfires
first flicker, then blaze round the base of the Pyramid as the
foreigners hit back. They have been uprooted, deported, enslaved
and educated in the interests of progress, their traditional paths
of migration blocked, the ancient customs considered anti-social.

They have forgotten the skills of their ancestors. Their time-
honoured medical practices are denounced by health authorities. And
they gravitate towards those glittering places that give the illusion
of plenty. They long to get in. The city people scream to get out.

The first symptom of the collapse is the abandonment of the city
by the classes "protected from any sort of labour", an exodus the
Emperor Julian the Apostate denounced as the "impious retreat to
the country". Without abandoning the comfort or the privileges to
which they are accustomed, they indulge themselves in distractions.

Bloated figures call for exercise. They fence off patches of wilder-
ness, guarded by dogs, and try to recapture an artificial fragment
of the pre-civilized past. The Fête Champêtre replaces Trimalchio's
Banquet, barbecues the congealed pyramids of aspic and confectionary.

But the aimless mob in shanty towns or urban ghettoes are coiled
springs of wound-up resentment. Their fevered rage alarms the
military minded, who take active steps to defuse and contain their
revolt. Horembeb was the military governor of the Delta Province
of Egypt and on the reliefs of his tomb at Memphis he had carved
repulsive caricatures of the human cattle who threatened the estab-
lished order. Before the coup d'etat, which he staged against the
pacifist Pharaoh, Akhenaten, he wrote to his master for military
aid, "Certain of the foreigners who know not how they may live have
come ... their countries are starving, and they live like wild
animals of the desert. The Great of Strength will send his mighty
sword before, destroying them and desolating their settlements with
fire."

The great goddess Inanna had founded the Mesopotamian city of
Agade. Its inhabitants ate dependable food, and drank dependable