GREETINGS FROM SYLVIA AND ADAM - OUR MISSION STATEMENT

We are English and are beginning to explore what this means to both of us. We come from two very different backgrounds – myself from a very multi-cultural environment in London and my husband from a small West Country town with a transient multi-cultural population but mainly White-British. We have decided to search for our 'Englishness' by accessing our natural environment, trying to experience these islands as our ancestors once did and gaining skills and expertise that relate to a pre-inudstrial / urban existence and experiencing the folk traditions, arts and culinary treasures of this 'Sceptered Isle'. My family tree research has shown that my ancestors on my father's side were Scottish Celts, members of the MacDuff Clan and the 'Earls Of Fife' who fought with William Wallace. On my mother's side, they were Danish Vikings with the family name 'Skild' and they are mentioned in the Viking epic 'Beowulf'. My husband's research has shown that on his father's side, his ancestors are Franco Norman and on his mother's, they were Cornish Celts. We are beginning to connect to and feel pride in our history, culture and land. Rather than becoming insular, this has helped us appreciate the rich variety and similarities of other cultures, environments and geographies.

We are relatively new bushcrafters and semi T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I / W.T.S.H.T.F 'preppers' (for those of you who don't know what these acronyms stand for, they mean as follows 'The End Of The World As We Know It' and 'When The Shit Hits The Fan'). No we do not stockpile vast amounts of firepower and we also do not condone the carrying of concealed weapons except in a T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I environment for personal protection. Perhaps this attitude is informed by being from a society that on the whole does not carry weapons (including law enforcement officials). We are not constantly in a state of readiness or on alert as we believe that for the individuals that are almost desiring T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I, there are significant psychological / cultural issues that need to be addressed. Not all preppers are at the extreme end of the scale and though we understand that any governing body may cause as many problems as provide solutions in a T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I environment, we do not believe that they should be treated as 'The Enemy' as they would just be scared people too.

We find the 'Adam and Eve' or 'Brave New World' mentality adopted by many preppers both fascinating and disturbing and feel it is akin to a religious cult in some respects due to their belief that they alone are destined to survive the coming apocalypse. We feel this comes from a Judaeo-Christian education and echoes the biblical 'rapture' where the worthy will be judged and ascend to heaven whilst the rest of the sinners / undeserving / unprepared will go to hell. This attitude is also reflected in other religions that claim to hold the knowledge or truth of existence. We feel that this sense of pseudo-religious entitlement is a dangerous mentality and will lead to over-confidence and ultimately self-destruction.

We believe that the only way forward in the T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I scenario is in the creation of resilient, multi-skilled, practical, thoughtful and open democratic communities. Going down the isolationist / autocratic route is a short term fix but is unlikely to be viable in the long-term. Isolationist groups cannot be resilient because if one individual is removed from the equation, a massive skill shortfall will occur. If the lost person is a primary operator or leader, the group may not recover due to the lack of numbers or resourceful individuals able to step up and take their place.

We believe that it is also vital to ask the question “Do we deserve to inherit the 'New World' if we were the cause of the Old World's destruction?” We think not. We love humanity and the rich experience it provides however in Deep Time, humanity will inevitably exist in the blink of an eye.
We are happy to live in our current environment and we hope that nothing world-changing actually occurs however if it does, we want to have a fighting chance for our own and our children's survival. We try to tread as lightly as we can on the planet and we have had many discussions about where the fight to survive would be counter-productive and we would only be prolonging suffering. We believe that at some point, an acceptance of the inevitable extinction of the human race is necessary and that we must allow other species a chance to thrive without mankind's interference - especially if we were responsible for the calamity.

In conclusion, we feel that if living conditions became too dire or our ethical and moral beliefs were not able to be translated in to a T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I environment, what would be the point of survival? We would therefore classify ourselves as moderate preppers - learning useful skills, survival techniques, collecting relevant equipment and tools and learning how to feed ourselves from the surrounding environment.