Livin' la vida loca

I'm about to shake the dust of the Canaries off my feet - and with the calima that's been blowing over from the Sahel this last week there's been a deal of that to contend with. But its not just the desert sand that gets up one's nose here, the increasingly frivolous lifestyle is becoming a major irritant too.

When I first came to the Canaries in 2016 the archipelago had started its slow climb-back from the crisis of 2008. Its economy, so heavily dependent on mass tourism, had been dealt a devastating blow by the financial collapse but half-finished building projects were suddenly being completed and new developments begun. Nevertheless, the rural areas remained relatively tranquil and unspoiled, though even this would turn out to be only a temporary respite. 

Three years later the first stirrings of an indigenous environmentalist movement were beginning to make themselves felt, with well-organised protest groups trying to prevent the blitz of hotel, residential, industrial and infrastructure projects threatening unique ecosystems and rare human heritage. Only a year-or-so later the Covid pandemic brought everything to a standstill once again.

Now, after a prolonged pause, the developers have come roaring back with renewed vigour and the protesters, although better prepared and equipped, are in danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer scale and volume of destruction. Despite some notable successes in gaining temporary stop orders on certain key projects, and severely impeding others, the battle appears all but lost. Money talks here, as everywhere, but louder here where it appears corrupt politicians and officials are only too eager to have their ears bent and palms greased.

But there's something else apparent in the zeitgeist now; a tangible, audible, sense of mass hysteria is pervading everyday life. Of course, this may be partly down to an explosion of pent-up Latin energy after having carnivals and fiestas postponed for three consecutive years. Like a shaken champagne bottle society is popping its cork celebrating its newfound freedom and even Semana Santa (Holy Week) is having no discernible calming effect in this nominally Catholic culture.

Everywhere, bars are heaving, parties go on into the early hours and cars and motorbikes fill the streets with noise and air pollution. And this isn't just in coastal holiday resorts but in remote, previously quiet, rural communities too. The rampant hedonism and consumerism, though, is tinged with nihilism; an uneasy underlying sense that society is teetering on the brink of anarchy and imminent collapse - a neurosis possibly compounded by living on a chain of active volanoes. 

Maybe this is what it felt like in the Jazz Age of the 1920s, that outpouring of crazed partying following the sombre years of the First World War and 'Spanish' Flu. In our own times, pandemic has preceded war but the cumulative effect of Covid and Putin's invasion of Ukraine appears to be taking on a similar societal form. The decadent excess of the Weimar Republic, so vividly captured in Christopher Isherwood's novel, Goodbye to Berlin (later to become the musical, Cabaret) and Noël Coward's lyrics, such as 'Poor Little Rich Girl', seems to be revenant. 

Are people once again partying like there's no tomorrow because they're dimly conscious there might not be one? If so, this could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the risk of sounding like a latterday Savonarola, in an age of rampant over-consumption I fear another bonfire of the vanities might follow, only this time an unwilling one. In a nuclear age, tensions could so easily tip over into a global conflagration, wiping out humankind. 

And as if the threat of Putin triggering a nuclear calamity were not scary enough, the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House next year (admittedly less likely following his indictment today) could become the catalyst that finally tips us all into the abyss.

Even if this apocalyptic outcome is avoided (and let's not forget that many evangelical American Christians will vote for Trump precisely in the hope of provoking it) the climate crisis shows no sign of being seriously tackled by the world's policymakers. Never mind God's wrath inflicting Armageddon, anthropocentrically aggravated 'natural' disasters may yet prove our species' undoing. But will we really be complicit in hoisting ourselves with our own petard?

Now might be an opportune moment to reconsider what the 'Roaring Twenties' led to.


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