First of all, I am glad that my recent articles in La Voz de Lanzarote have aroused so many opinions and comments. After all, that is the sole objective of my column, to make people think and debate, even if I sometimes have to present ideas in a way that attracts attention and awakens the public from the drowsiness caused by the haze.
All my attempts to make people debate and awaken neurons from this lectern have to do with my strategic vision for Lanzarote. Long-term strategic vision - you can tell I'm not a politician - whose sole purpose is to defend and protect the lifestyle and prosperity of the conejeros and, by extension, the Canarians. I have to admit that this feeling does not arise because I have the soul of a saint or a special love for my neighbor, but out of pure selfishness and survival instinct. My personal economy is almost totally isolated from the "Lanzarote risk", but it would be very sad if I was doing well and when I went out on the street I only saw poverty. I want my neighbors to do very well so that I can enjoy the benefits of our climate and nature with them.
Lanzarote, and I am referring here to its society, is an extremely fragile island. We are in the navel of the navel of the world. That is, on the periphery of the periphery of Europe, part of a country as badly managed as Spain and next to a demographic bomb like Africa. All our well-being today is a mirage that can evaporate in a matter of hours. Yes, hours. It is enough to lose specific confidence in Lanzarote - for example, a jihadist attack occurs in our land - or that global confidence declines persistently due to a systemic event. We already saw an example of the latter "briefly" with the pandemic. But I am talking about a more prolonged and profound event, which cannot be patched by pulling on the public deficit, an event like a world war.
According to the legendary American investor Ray Dalio, founder and owner of Bridgewater, a company that manages the largest hedge fund on the planet and who has studied long-term economic-political cycles in depth, the United States has currently begun to decline as a hegemonic power, gradually giving way to the Chinese dictatorship. Obviously, this change process does not happen overnight, but takes decades. But all indications, according to Dalio, point to this process having already begun.
I am not going to go into the details of that change process, for which the reader can consult Dalio's books and publications, but I will get to the point by saying that typically the substitution of one power for another crystallizes through a war. And since we are talking about the United States and China, of course, I am referring to a world war in which almost the entire planet is involved. If the calendar is fulfilled, this is something that will happen in this century, possibly sooner than we think.
In fact, it is very possible that a first low-intensity phase has already begun in this global war between the two powers, with Ukraine being the first battlefront between the United States and its liberal allies against China and its illiberal allies. Or the free world against the axis of evil, these being China, Russia, Iran and other countries where no one with two brain cells wants to live.
And the second front of this global war opened this very month of October, when Hamas terrorists violated Israeli democracy through the most unspeakable of barbarities. These two events or fronts are completely related, where the axis of evil has sought to detract resources and attention from the West from Slavic lands, a place where Russian troops suffer humiliation after humiliation and where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have already died serving as cannon fodder to defend the petro-dictatorship of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
With the new front opened in the Holy Land, the axis of evil is trying to fine-tune, knowing that there are legions of fifth columnists within the West who are capable of defending Hamas, Hezbollah and even the fundamentalist religious dictatorship of Iran, in order to practice a little more of that irrational anti-Semitism that the most radical of the political spectrum enjoy so much (Más Madrid could well be called Hamas Madrid).
In short, the world is getting worse, the pax americana under which Lanzarote has prospered is fading and things can get really ugly when the two powers fight directly for global hegemony (let's remember that Taiwan is a ticking time bomb).
And in this probable scenario of world war, what is the strategic vision of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands? Absolutely none. We are at the mercy of events. The first concern we should have in Lanzarote and the Canary Islands is not about the next road to be built, about the quality of tourism, or about other details that, while absolutely relevant, are not existential.
The first thing we should ask ourselves is how do we survive if the worst happens in the world? Where are we going to get the energy if no one sends us oil or it becomes sky high? What are we going to eat when no one cares about an island in the middle of nowhere when there is hunger in the world?
We are a society that lives in the present and does not think about anything for when times are tough, like a fool who when he earns money does not save anything in case problems arise. What's more, instead of saving, we squander from the credit card. We are totally imbeciles and it pisses me off that there is no plan for this.
Let us remember that cycles have existed since time immemorial and that this time will be no different. Therefore, Lanzarote must bet on being totally self-sufficient in terms of energy. Not for ecology, which too, but first of all for mere strategic subsistence.
Lanzarote must bet on transforming its population and economy so that we do not live exclusively from tourism, which can evaporate, totally or partially, in the event of a world war. In a quick example, we should be the paradise of European teleworkers. We have the climate, we have the infrastructure, let's bet more on it. Just as Dubai has diversified its economy so as not to depend only on oil, in Lanzarote we should already be diversifying our economy so as not to depend only on tourism. It sounds unimaginable today, but it can be done. It is a matter of will and an obligation for monoculture economies like ours.
And, thirdly, we must bet on greater food self-sufficiency in the Canary Islands, so that at least we do not starve to death in the event of a global conflict. Otherwise, in the event of a global conflict we will become a ship adrift in the middle of the ocean with two and a half million starving people.
I hope this column is not a prophecy, but it is scary to think that there is no strategic plan for the Canary Islands and that we live as if the mirage of tourism will last forever and will never be interrupted.
