Some of us are way ahead of the European Commission on this one. The executive branch of the European Union, which looks after the bloc’s day-to-day business, recently told all 448 million people on the continent they should be better prepared for emergencies.
Geopolitical conflicts, cybersecurity threats, natural disasters – you name it, Europeans should be preparing for it, the commission said in late March, as it presented a new “preparedness strategy” for the continent.
“We need a new preparedness mindset so that everyone knows what to do in any emergency, no matter its nature,” commission member Roxana Mînzatu explained.
Part of that involves compiling a 72-hour survival kit containing things like a torch, copies of important documents, cash and food and water for three days.
“Such ‘prepping’ used to be a pastime for libertarian types with cabins deep in the woods, a penchant for conspiracy theories and a shotgun under the pillow,” the UK’s Economist magazine pointed out. “These days, low-grade survivalism is considered a basic civic duty.”
It’s also about changing Europeans’ attitudes. The Economist continues: “In the same way a peace dividend allowed governments to cut defence budgets [post-World War II], the public was able to stop thinking about what war might mean for them. No longer.”
But as I said, I’m way ahead of the European Commission. Blame it on the zombie apocalypse TV series, The Walking Dead, paranoia or control-freakishness, but my cellar is already lined with canned food, as well as a portable solar-charging kit, a gas camping cooker and other urban survivalist accessories. No hazmat suits. Yet.
I almost feel like I shouldn’t be telling any of you this because when the apocalypse comes, you and I may end up wrestling one another for my precious supplies. Then again, you all live a long way away and don’t know the secret underground location of my hoarded cans of vegetarian ravioli. So we’re probably okay.
I’ve joked with friends about whether they’ll be on our “team apocalypse” or not. As in, do they know how to siphon petrol from abandoned cars, skin a rabbit, grow tomatoes from seed? One of my closest friends replied that if there is a zombie apocalypse, she’ll probably just kill herself and be done with it. Unfortunately, with that attitude, and despite her many entertaining qualities, she’s unlikely to make the team.
And that’s the slightly odd thing about preparing for future disaster. It feels like a selfish, solitary pursuit, a hobby motivated by fear, with everyone hoarding their own supplies, filling water buckets in their own bathrooms or building a bunker in their own backyard.
But it’s not all shooting and hoarding. There are also positive aspects to prepping: knowing how to grow said tomatoes, organising within your community, learning first aid to help others.
And there are people like Dutch historian Rutger Bregman who preaches “moral ambition” in the face of adversity and who, in several books, emphasises how, instead of falling apart during disaster, human beings are just as likely to help one another.
The other day in Berlin, an artwork featuring a toy train tried to illustrate exactly that. Local artist Sven Sauer says he based the work on Bregman’s writing. In a darkened room, the toy train chugged through a miniature landscape made of shards of broken glass, collected from around the world. A spotlight on the train beamed through the shards and the refracted light made beautiful rainbows in the gloom.
Let’s hope that if disaster does strike, it turns out more like that so that none of us will have to wrestle for canned ravioli.
Cathrin Schaer is a freelance journalist living in Berlin.
