Letters / Learn to love your neighbour
The situation in Iran, the Gulf States and Israel is a horror to witness from afar, however it will be no time at all before we start to feel the impact directly here at home. We would be well advised to wake up to what likely lies ahead.
Iran always held a trump card – pun intended. The US and Israel believed, as the US and Europe did with Ukraine, that they faced a weakened foe who would not be able to withstand the economic and military pressure the west was able to put them under.
What they did not seem to realise is that not only had these two countries, along with China, built up their defences over the past decade(s) knowing what hostilities awaited them, but they also had a sense of collective unity that appears to have withered in the west. Their strength and resilience appears to have come as a surprise to our “leaders”.
Even if the initiators of this latest conflict are able to polish off their “enemy” within the month, as they initially hoped, Europe, the UK and Shetland are going to face an energy crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the 1970s, when there was such desperation for hydrocarbons that the British government was willing to meet Shetland’s demands for a multi-million pound return on housing Sullom Voe oil terminal, a return that no-one else in Britain enjoyed.
Not only have the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz, the jugular vein of oil exports, Qatar and other Gulf states are shutting down their energy production. Europe’s refusal to find a path to peace with Russia and kowtow to the US, along with the sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline, have left us uniquely vulnerable.
Do not be surprised to see fuel prices explode, travel to become a major challenge, shop shelves to empty and life to resemble the days of Covid lockdowns. This time however the government will not be able to hand out compensation to suffering businesses.
It will be a painful irony for Shetland, sitting on so much energy resource with its major oil and gas terminal and one of Europe’s largest and potentially productive wind farms, to find itself suffering as much – if not more due to our remoteness – as everyone else.
After the affluence of the past 50 years, we may find ourselves realising just how much these isles have become dependent upon the just-in-time, push button global economic system, and how vulnerable that has made us.
Rather than spending our time and energy apportioning blame for this crisis, we would be well served to focus our minds on how we can pull together to ride out a year that may well be one of the toughest we have ever faced and will undoubtedly end with an entirely transformed balance of world power. This is no time for complacency. Choose your friends carefully and learn to love your neighbour.
Pete Bevington
Hillswick
