The West Is The Best

The Maya civilisation of central America is a very small footnote in Spanish history. By the time Columbus and the other early Spanish adventurers encountered the Maya, their great civilisation was long past - by some 600 years - and their population was massively smaller than it had once been; the surviving Maya were their own footnote of succession. Yet the story of the Maya, their rise and fall, has long fascinated historians. And the reasons for the decline of what had been a great civilisation are still debated.

Into all of this comes an article in "The Guardian", which draws comparisons with the Maya's decline and current-day Western civilisation, that of a wavering system of capitalism and the overuse of resources. One needs to be cautious. "The Guardian" is almost an environmental-lobby house magazine. But the thrust of the argument, that it was environmental and population factors which led to the downfall of the Maya, has some clear enough similarities with our own civilisation. There is a rather convenient conclusion to the article - that civilisations last, at most, for 600 years. The glory years of the Maya amounted to a bit more than 600; current Western civilisation, starting with the Renaissance, is reaching its terminal point of decline.

It is a seductive argument, but it could of course be total bollocks. The alternative explanations for the fall of the Maya are based on attacks from other tribes (akin, perhaps, to Rome) and natural disasters. However, the article deserves to be read if only for the characterisation of our own "kings" (Brown and the G8) as being incapable of reading the signs of decline - as the Maya kings were similarly tunnel-visioned.

Ok, leap of imagination time. Mallorca is a footnote in the history of Western civilisation. Indeed it is another footnote in Spanish history. Yet, following the argument of the Maya analogy, it could be seen as one of the last great follies of Western civilisation, a one-time backward but sustainable island propelled suddenly into the world of big money with scant or no regard for its resources.

And so they came to build their temples of tourism and palaces by the sea, and all this was done in a period, a tiny fraction of history, with a speed that choked the island's resources and made them groan under the pressure of this haste. What the "kings" did not know, until very late, was that the island's location made it more susceptible than others to the impact of voracious anti-nature, artificial climate change; one that could mean that the great period of Mallorcan civilisation comes to last a mere 70 years or so.

A neighbour, who lives closer to the sea than do I, asked me the other day why anyone would now want to buy a property right by the sea. It's a fair question, as no one can say with any certainty what might happen to sea levels. We only have the predictions, and they, as also those for extreme temperatures, are far from comforting.

Yet there is one great flaw in the Maya parable, and it concerns - ironically enough - technological innovation. While this may have caused the circumstances of potential decline, it is also the potential saviour. The point about the Maya, which is perhaps being overlooked, is that, despite their great achievements, they seemed to reach a plateau of innovation. The Mexico that the Spanish discovered was a wheel-less society. The tribes, not just the Maya, lacked curiosity. Though they traded, they were not seafarers. When the first Spanish ships appeared off the coasts of the Americas, they were alien things to the Mexican peoples. It could be argued that the great civilisations of the past, such as the Maya, had an in-built and finite time span. The same cannot be said of a technologically innovative and curious Western civilisation. It can be facile to believe that "something will turn up" that prevents its collapse, but the chances of that something turning up are vastly greater than was the case with old civilisations.

The Maya comparison is an interesting one, but it maybe is no more than just that: interesting.

Here is the article from "The Guardian":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/28/climatechange-population


REAL MALLORCA - NOT YET THE END
Well, having myself said that the end had been reached - an end also echoed by the press - it looks as though as everyone is being made to look a chump. The takeover of the club by Paul Davidson was supposed to have been consummated yesterday by the transfer of the 38 million euros agreed price. Then there was an email which asked for an extension of a further ten days, the reasoning being - apparently - "unforeseen circumstances of the global economy" (as quoted in translation from the report in the "Diario" this morning). The extension has been agreed to, but now obviously some doubts are being raised, both by the press and from within the club.

It is all somewhat extraordinary not to say somewhat farcical. And one guesses that, if the payment is indeed made, there are those who will be wondering quite what the delay indicates in terms of the future. The sale price of Real Mallorca is not, when one considers English clubs, that high, but there are also those who will argue it is still too high, especially for a club that does not actually own a key asset - its ground.

Still more to run on this one.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Death Cab For Cutie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBw0IWwO5U). Today's title - a line from a terminal song by one of the great US bands.

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