The Nomadic Alternative – Page 89

The obese upper echelons of the city are the nomad's favourite
target and he wills to pull down its hierarchies. Professional
herding encourages him to think that all citizens are mindless
animals, fit for the abattoir, to be milked, corralled and butchered
at all times. The very idea of the nomad chills the blood of the
'good citizen'. The Ancient Egyptian official - then as now -
shuddered as he thought of Palestine. He dreaded the desert and
failed to understand the charm of mountain solitudes: "There are
more lions there than leopards and hyenas, and in every gorge -
tribesmen!" When there was peace the Egyptian bureaucrat imagined
he could patronize the men of the fringe.

The miserable Asiatic, his land is terrible - a waterless
scrubby waste with impassable tracks over the mountains. He
never stays in one place but his feet wander. He never conquers,
even though he cannot be conquered. True he may raid a lonely
settlement, but forget about him! He is only an Asiatic!

For administrative purposes the men of the fringe were outlawed
adventurers, half human at that - "Their name reeks more than the
stink of bird droppings." Among the Asiatics in question were the
Hapiru - almost certainly the Hebrews - a tribe of incorrigible
hijackers, whose name was synonymous with the Egyptian expression
for "runaway dog". But the Hebrews congratulated themselves on
being able to run away so fast. "Every shepherd", they said, "is
an abomination unto the Egyptians." Writing of the 20th Century
penetration of Inner Mongolia, Owen Lattimore observed, "To be a
nomad was a sort of social crime."

The steppe that bordered on the Gobi Desert was a reservoir of
fantastic legends, of shape shifting horrors and imaginary beasts.
For Joinville present-day Mongolia was "the great plain where no
good thing would grow", infested by the legions of Gog and Magog
who would rise up with Antichrist at the end of the world. And in
one tradition Mohammed thought the same. "The Hour of Judgement shall
not come until you have fought the Turk, men of small stature, red
in the face. Their noses are flat and their faces like hide-covered
shields. Those shall be days of horror..." "And what do you mean by